Why IT is the new marketing

Perhaps you've come across the phrase "software is eating the world" — it originates from a 2011 Wall Street Journal article by Marc Andreessen, and the basic idea behind it is that code, programs and apps are now the most important currency for businesses. Look at Facebook, Amazon and Netflix, for example, three hugely successful modern-day companies with barely a hardware device between them (though Amazon has a handful).

Another aspect of software's voracious ascent is this: IT teams are finding they have influence over parts of a business that were previously somebody else's domain. One example is in marketing departments, where computer systems and the data they capture are revolutionising the way companies make decisions and operate on a daily basis — that gives software influence in an area it would previously have had nothing to do with.

A new breed of data-driven marketers is emerging. Everything they do is measured, and they take a fundamentally analytical approach to finding customers. These people — now core to a business' operation — are often referred to as growth hackers: whether they come from a sales or an engineering background, they know how to use analytics and testing to reach targets and attract customers.

Lots of different ingredients go together to make an effective growth hacker. The ability to know the right metrics to focus on at any one time, an openness to different ways of thinking (there are lots of approaches to growth hacking), a good grasp of the power of language and the ability to see the wood for the trees are all useful qualities to have. Discipline, creativity and an analytical mind are also important.

For marketers who don't code but want to be effective growth hackers, there are plenty of resources to pick from, though the right tools will depend on the job at hand. Take Colibr.io, for example, which shows you where on the Web your customers are hanging out, or Qualaroo, which gives you valuable, actionable information about the visitors hitting your website every day. Zapier, which connects apps together and automates tasks, is an example of an accessible tool doing a job that would previously have required a developer.

If you're an IT director, you might be wondering how you can start to build bridges with the marketing team and show them what's possible in this brave new world of growth hacking. Our advice is to start small and build: create a dashboard (we recommend Geckoboard), then have a chat internally about what numbers matter to marketing. Is it reach? Engagement? Conversion? Customer retention? Revenue per customer?

Whatever the metrics, build a fake dashboard via a manually created Google Spreadsheet and show people what's possible — with that done you can get approval to automatically collect some real numbers. If one of Geckoboard's built-in tools works then great, or you can get someone else to write the necessary code for you (if you're in need of experienced data experts to do the job for you, we're available).

As your marketers experiment, keep a close eye on the dashboard you've built: what works and what doesn't? As the data comes in, you can make decisions and iterative improvements from it, and use the potential of growth hacking to grow your own business.