How marketing automation will change the future of the digital professions

Digital innovation is a clear driving force behind the fourth Industrial Revolution, driving economic growth through increased productivity, performance and profitability.
We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. There is a modestly positive outlook for employment across most industries, with jobs growth expected in several sectors. However, it is also clear that this need for more talent in certain job categories is accompanied by high skills instability across all job categories.
Marketing has never been more interesting than now. The Internet and other new digital technologies are not only transforming the practice of marketing but also the way we think about it.

If you’re a marketer, you’ve probably heard of marketing automation. But if you aren’t, you’ve maybe heard but you have no clue what the term means. Marketing automation is the use of software to automate marketing processes such as customer segmentation, customer data integration, and campaign management. They increasingly use programmatic to test audience segments and targeting parameters to figure out the best way to reach their ideal consumer.
More media than ever can be transacted thanks to automation, which means there could actually be a net increase in the media business.
Creatives have the opportunity to embrace programmatic as well. Rather than having to manually adjust every single ad unit across the multitude of formats and sizes, creative can use automation to refactor changes across their ads. Every time media adjusts its programmatic strategy, creative can now adjust their work through automation.
While marketing automation will lead to some difficult changes in the nature and work of the function, it offers much potential for value. This gradual rise of automation in traditional manufacturing processes does not necessarily mean that current employees will become obsolete. It does mean that certain adaptations will need to be made to evolve with the moving technologies. Employees will need to be educated to specialise in mechatronics —a broad multidisciplinary field of engineering—and information technology. It represents a change in types of training rather than the coming of an era of robotic employees.

Three areas of marketing which have been transformed by digital are the speed, relevance and reach of campaigns. Marketers need to update their skills in order to make the most of these fast-moving, and highly relevant campaigns through digital. They need to work closely with data specialists, web developers and social media professionals.
The modern-day marketing department needs to combine the creative side of the discipline, using powerful narratives to tap into people’s wishes and aspirations, with the technical side of data, digital engineering and analytics. The two areas do not always sit easily together. Getting creative marketers to work alongside technical staff can be a huge challenge. For this reasons not everyone in marketing needs to be a technologist or needs to be a creative. Today’s marketers need to have one foot in the IT camp and one in the business camp.
Every marketing department will need new positions. For example Marketing Data Analytics would decide when, why and how marketing data should be tracked, considers all marketing efforts across all channels. The secret is to show the future of marketing through the most highly-desired skills and emerging job titles.
A robot is not likely to take your job soon. People who work in the marketing industry are creative, generally, and they are not in the white collar catchment that is likely to be hit earliest by the second machine age.
Technological innovation and globalization are combining to produce big and rapid change, which is starting to transform every aspect of how economies and the businesses within them work. Nowhere is this change likely to be experienced more acutely than in the workplace. New skills will be needed, and some existing skills will become less important.In this golden age of marketing technology, application or software is the primary means of engaging clients and generating leads. The marketing and advertising team’s choice of application and how to set up and function it; now marketers across the country are reviewing plans, teams, campaigns and activities.
Not only is the technology evolving, so too are the creative approaches to using it. Automation is not about replacing specialists. Instead, it helps us achieve so much more.
Large enterprises have long found value in the technology, but marketing automation isn’t just for big companies.
Constant professional development and learning, will be a survival strategy, and the propensity to learn and develop new skills will become the most sought after work skills.