Although flowers and chocolates won’t be enough to embrace customer experience (CX), prioritizing CX has never been more important in order to advance your firm’s marketing maturity. This is just one of the many important insights from the Forrester Analytics Global Business Technographics® Marketing Survey, 2019 — and one you can find in our new “The State Of Marketing Innovation Maturity, 2020” report.

Marketers, your teams are not nearly as mature as they think they are. In fact, while 73% of global marketers believe their innovation activities are mature, a mere 7% of firms actually achieved an advanced score on our marketing innovation maturity assessment. This whopping discrepancy calls for immediate action.

What You Need To Know

Advanced firms exhibited five characteristics that will enhance a brand’s success. They:

  1. Grow faster.
  2. Spend more in marketing.
  3. Prioritize enterprise collaboration and ROI initiatives.
  4. Define and align their visions for CX and employee experience (EX) with marketing.
  5. Enjoy strong relationships between IT and marketing.

Makes sense, right? So take the assessment and check out the report for more info. Get started this Valentine’s Day. Pull your head out of the clouds and tell that special someone (your customer) that you care by partnering with your CX team, then propel your organization toward advanced maturity.

(This blog was coauthored by Cole Walsh.)