“Bringing Together Marketing & Technology”

A strategic leader with 17+ years of remote and on-location operations management and marketing experience, Kamyar Shah, a Remote Chief Marketing Officer, credits two specific trades to have an outsized impact on his profession: continuous learning and experimentation.

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“A student mindset goes a long way in keeping up industry evolution but equally stimulating curiosity,” says Kamyar. “I have discovered that it encourages me to integrate plenty of new techniques and thoughts by profiting from both scholastics and practitioners' points of view. That leads directly into the experimentation. The magnificence of experimentation would be the learning opportunity regardless of whether the analysis didn't accomplish the ideal outcomes."

Talking about Martech— the blending of marketing and technology—Kamyar says it is not static because deployment and optimization of the technology are consistently evolving, which leads to the need for consistent evaluation of efficiency and effectiveness. “That is how I view, deploy, and evaluate it. Granted that it is tricky to differentiate between solid tech/approaches vs. fads: qualitative/quantitative analytics and artificial intelligence are most certainly not fads but second-tier technologies and approaches that are fundamentally flawed in their base/working assumptions need to be carefully kept out of Martech,” he adds. “At the end of the day, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’; a seasoned CMO will have to evaluate many factors before implementing particular stacks.”

Interestingly enough, Kamyar doesn’t see himself as an innovator; but rather the opposite. Describing the statement, he says, “I see myself as a ‘process and system’ professional. In my mind, the term ‘innovator’ has been used too loosely, and the term has lost real meaning. To me, systems and processes that are time tested are substantially more preferable, than the best practices misusing Martech, continuously being evaluated based on data is far more superior both in implementation and result,” explains Kamyar. “In my opinion, when it comes to the marketing technology lifecycle management process, the biggest shortcomings are in niche industry standards that are industry-specific and benchmarks that would allow for more uniformity.” He states that such standardization is needed to eliminate uncertainty and create industry-specific improvements and allow for cumulative knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer.

Kamyar has customers around the world. However, when it comes to advertising customers, the one specific strategy that has had a consistent track record of success for him is the building of systems and processes specifically designed for the particular customer. Customization of operation and system to match the stakeholder’s requirements while using best practices in the context of automation and data-driven decision-making creates a robust Martech, that is flexible and highly adaptive.

Sharing his experience in the industry, Kamyar advises all the future CMO’s to refine their ability to be adaptable. The speed of technological progress combined with evolving consumer psychology/behavior requires a high degree of adaptability that is not common to many other fields. This particular trade is the baseline that leads to continuous education and experimentation needed to be a successful CMO. Sharing his single most common challenge with the future leaders, he says it is expectation management. “Interestingly enough, I have found that communication about planning, methodology, time frame and KPI’s is exceptionally helpful in creating a positive and conducive relationship that can outlast the unanticipated fluctuations in project execution and management.”

For the road ahead, Kamyar has already started collaborating with numerous peers on VR projects to help customers acquire eCommerce stores. This particular project integrates cutting edge technology that includes usage of artificial intelligence for both data analysis as well as life interactions with shoppers. “I hope to transform the future with the industry-leading services and take all the customers to new heights,” adds Kamyar.IE