A series of lessons learned.

Part 1 of ‘no one knows how many just yet’

For the better part of the past 15 years I’ve been in the mix of leading an industrial icon, a 90-year-old manufacturing company, transition and evolve into the digital marketing space. Now I won’t name that company, but let’s just say it is the world’s leader in making really big, powerful yellow equipment (and you can find out on my LinkedIn profile too!). This journey has had ups and downs, successes and failures, but definitely has had more progress than not.

Over the coming few weeks I intend to share some of that journey with you. For some, especially in the large consumer brand space, this journey may feel somewhat simple. Fair.

For others, and those these articles are truly meant for, you may find your company in a similar position or with decisions to make that sound familiar.

Maybe you’re struggling on where to allocate resources when so many needs abound? Technology or people first?
Maybe you’re still faced with the classic issue, especially in the B2B space, of measuring success?
Do you have lots of data, but haven’t really leveraged it? Too much? Not enough?
Does the organization expect technology and platforms to solve all marketing problems?
Is investment justification a painful and long process internally?

If so, I’ll share some of ‘our’ experiences and lessons learned on these and several other related topics.

If you see your organization in some of these questions, do not despair. Despite these challenges, I’ve been continually reminded over the years while talking to technology and marketing partners, speaking at industry events, or being on the giving and receiving end of benchmark conversations, there are still way more companies struggling with the digital transition than there are Googles, Apples and Amazons. To outsiders, these companies seem to have it all figured out. And maybe they have. But there are many more like you than not. So the moral of this on-going story is you’re not alone and maybe you’re not as far behind as you might think.

So if you’re a senior executive or marketing leader of, or even a marketing partner to, a company looking to learn from a long and still in-progress journey of a global brand, watch for future articles.

For easy notifications on future article, please follow me on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-lucas-b20b14a/

In addition, please feel free to leave a comment below sharing what your current challenges might be, so I can in turn share ‘our’ experiences in future articles.

Of course if you are looking for help in navigating some of these issues, you can always contact me directly through LinkedIn or at davidlucas@lucaspartnering.com.

Thanks. More to come.

Dave Lucas spent 20+ years in marketing at Caterpillar Inc., many as the Global Digital Marketing Manager, and 10+ years in leadership positions at various marketing agencies. He is now the owner of Lucas Partnering, which focuses on companies looking to leverage his experience to advance their marketing efforts to the next level. He can be reached at davidlucas@lucaspartnering.com.

#1: The Digital Marketing Journey of an Industrial Giant.