How many times have marketers been pushed down the IT priority list when they need to have something done to your website? Maybe they need a new paid search landing page, or site speed has slipped causing your company to lose valuable spots in the organic listings, or maybe they’re launching a test. At the end of the day, the IT team is supporting a lot within your organization, so is it really fair for them to be expected to support the inbound marketing team’s needs as well?
As the focus within today’s businesses has turned to digital marketing (yeah, this stuff isn’t going away!), developers who are on-staff to support the marketing team are critical to success. Marketers need to create pages, develop better conversion processes and integrate the ever moving target of SEO into their traffic acquisition strategy.
Development tasks as needed from the marketing team are only going to increase, and the need for cross-functional departments and teams will be ever more demanding. Having a resource dedicated to Marketing helps get these projects accomplished the same way having a designer assists in creating top quality sell-sheets, brochures and magazine ads. Paid search, SEO and site optimization efforts all need a technical resource, so if your organization is short on developers, these are likely to be slowed to a crawl, or never reach their potential.
For marketers to succeed into the future, a developer needs to be a permanent part of their teams. At the end of the day, Marketers are not developers and vice versa. Cross-functional teams are vital to the success of your website and ultimately, your business. When you are planning for staffing needs, put a head count in your budget for a marketing developer as well. They will be busier than you ever imagined. Just don’t forget to include your new found champion in the party you’re able to have after a successful year!