Over the course of 6 million years, humans have evolved into the brainy if crazy, bipedal apes that inhabit Planet Earth today. I believe it was Linnaeus who christened us with our biological name Homo Sapiens (which incidentally means “wise man”). And maybe we are wise with our language, our art, our technology and our ability to dream.

In much the same way that we evolved from our less brainy ape ancestors, modern marketers have evolved over the past few decades. Business schools have held that there have been five distinct eras in which this occurred: the simple trade era, the production era, the sales era, the marketing department era and the marketing company era. The trade era was when things were harvested by hand. The production era ushered in by the Industrial revolution increases supply of goods. The sales erahappened as a result of supply saturation and commoditization. The marketing era (think Don Draper) emerged post World War 2 due to societal affluence. The marketing company era emerged as the concept of marketing was firmly entrenched and the “customer” became the reason for businesses to exist. In my view, the next era to emerge will the “marketing technology” era – it has already started, but the proliferation of the marketing technologists will continue to happen.

We all know that marketing has gone digital very rapidly in the last few years. And the media has been abuzz with predictions that 2015 will be the year when marketers will boldly adopt new approaches to marketing by leveraging new technologies — 2015 will be the year of the marketing technologists. The CMO mandate in 2015 will change to adopt a cross-device, cross-channel strategy. Marketers will have to unlock customer insights in real-time. Enter the marketing technologist.

It is exciting that marketers have morphed from Don Draper to the modern-day marketing technology savant. Why is this so exciting to me? I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering and work in high-tech marketing. I love solving problems. The fact that I am a marketer that loves technology is one of the primary reasons I live in Silicon Valley. It is so heartening to note that marketing is becoming as much a science as an art.

So how do you succeed as a marketer in this new world?

5 Ways to Embrace this Change (even if you are a Don Draper):

1. Build the right assets: The buyer’s journey has drastically changed and buyers have done their research before they look at your assets. Forrester Research says that on average buyers are 90% of the way through their buying journey before they ever talk to sales. That has major implications for marketers. Make your assets smart. Make them work for you.
2. Be flexible:Look at the new world and adopt new ways to solve the problem. Think mobile. Think real-time insights. Think local.
3. Try, try, try again:Iterate till you have your campaign produce the right result
4. Measure to manage:In the words of Peter Drucker, “What gets measured gets managed
5. Be a geek: Technology is going to be critical for marketing. So be curious and try to understand how it all comes together: people, data, devices and insights.