Welcome to the first post of the CTO Series!
Kaitlyn Kirkaldy and I work at Jebbit, a marketing technology company. She’s our Content Marketing Manager and I’m a Software Engineer. We’re reaching out to top CTOs to share their thought leadership on the tech space, the relationship between engineering and marketing, and the relationship between clients and companies. Our goal is to create an engaged audience of tech professionals and marketers, as the two fields become increasingly intertwined.
The tech space continues to rapidly evolve, requiring that we constantly learn new skills and wear multiple hats. At EmberConf 2016 in Portland, Oregon, I noticed a need for engineers to learn how to design applications and for designers to learn how to code. A gap between teams not only will cause miscommunication but also hinder productivity. The same happens between Engineering and Marketing. Marketers are in front of our future clients. They have the opportunity to learn about the client’s goals, to teach them more about the space, and to show them how we can help them. Engineers understand exactly how the product works and what it takes to continually improve it. Without collaboration, neither department will be as successful as they could be.
The relationship between Marketing and Engineering affects the internal workings of a company, but also how prospects and clients view the company and product. Clients in general have decision fatigue. Many times they don’t know what they want/need or they can’t choose when given options. Therefore, we need to build a trusting relationship with clients and be honest with them. Give them the knowledge that is missing, tell them the times and places where they would benefit and not benefit from you. In today’s times, it’s all about building trusting relationships — and the right combination of Marketing and Engineering can foster them.
With all of this knowledge being transferred directly to Engineering, we can focus on building features that clients want and actually need. We cannot assume what clients want, but actually we need to hear from them. It does us no good if we build a complex application with several advanced features, but clients don’t need them. We could lose a lot of time and money building something that doesn’t need to be built. Therefore, being an engineer and marketer means more than what we thought, specially if you work in a startup!
Stay tuned for upcoming posts featuring leading CTOs!
