"Marketeers need to combat three things: impatience, openness to anything new, platform diversity"

MK Has digitalization made modern marketing more complex?BODMAR KIPP Using mobile as an example, this can be explained as follows: in the first phase, the new device created uncertainty and technical challenges, i.e. complexity increased. In the second phase, software companies such as HubSpot developed solutions that helped to improve the user experience and thus also reduced complexity. This statement can be applied analogously to the digital domains of social or analytics.MK Where do you see the greatest performance potential in digital marketing?KIPP I see two areas in particular that represent considerable potential. One is the shift from traditional email to messenger solutions like Facebook and others. The shift towards real-time is partly explained by the fact that too many emails now go unanswered or are answered too late. The second area is content, where there is a massive shift from text to video - a medium that is very popular thanks to youtube.MK Where do you see the two biggest challenges in digital marketing?KIPP Marketing reporting is a major challenge. Today, the most important metrics have to be painstakingly compiled, as the data sources are dispersed due to the diversity of platforms (software proliferation). The second challenge I see is in the area of recruitment: marketing and engineering talent is scarce.MK And finally, your key message for the marketing community?KIPP Marketeers have to fight three things: impatience, openness to everything new, platform diversity. A little more patience helps to take a medium-term perspective and not subordinate everything to quick success. Focusing on a few relevant trends helps get things off the ground, and unifying platforms helps regain speed and improve the customer experience.Great cinema from the two HubSpot founders Brian Halligan, CEO, and Dharmesh Shah, CTO, used the development of HubSpot over the last ten years as an example to show which mistakes should be avoided and which insights are important for the healthy development of a company. Many statements are directly related to the changed understanding of marketing and sales. I particularly liked Dharmesh's statement that financial indicators are a suitable companion for quantitative growth - but qualitative growth is increasingly in demand, i.e. "from grow bigger to grow better". Tomorrow's conference day will again feature exciting presentations, and of course we are all looking forward to the appearance of former First Lady Michelle Obama.Inbound 2017 BostonOur correspondent Christoph Oggenfuss writes daily this week from the Inbound 2017 marketing conference in Boston. With 21,300 participants from around 100 countries and almost 300 speakers, Inbound is probably the largest marketing conference in the world.