MarTech Shiny Objects: When to Avoid, Love and Leave Them
By Rena Lewis
As of this month, the marketing technology (MarTech) landscape, monitored by Scott Brinker, Editor of chiefmartec.com includes over 8,000 vendors. Back in 2011, this same list totaled only 200 vendors.
With the vast array of cool and innovative new marketing technology, tools and techniques constantly being created for our profession, it’s tough not to be dazzled by the latest and greatest gadgets, software and offerings with promises to solve all of our problems. I succumbed to this lure earlier in my career, and the results were less than satisfying.
Start with Strategic Intent
I learned and am now much more intentional about starting with clearly defined strategic objectives and performance measurements. This is where innovation should primarily be occurring. Then determine the best tools that will help achieve them. Tools are the enablers of a strategy, a means to an end, not a place to start.
Imagine the Possibilities
A great way to make sure you’re staying in tune with the MarTech arena is by keeping a cumulative list of intriguing vendor solicitations that you and your team have received or come across. Schedule a full day, or dedicated time over a couple of days, for half-hour video conference presentations from specific vendors with solutions that you all want to learn more about. I set a goal to do this at least twice a year with my team to imagine/reimagine the possibilities beyond the reality of what we’re currently doing, and it’s always an enlightening experience.
After you’ve heard from all the vendors, get together with your team to talk through what could help take your customer-centric marketing efforts to the next level. If you’ve picked your vendors carefully, the time will be well spent. Should you find that what you’re doing is better than what you’ve heard, then you can all feel fantastic knowing that you’re bringing the best modern solutions and practices to your company in alignment with strategic business imperatives. If something sounds like it might be a terrific fit, give it a test run to see how it performs against your objectives.
Here is the “Avoid, Love and Leave” lens I use to cut through all the noise when sourcing, assessing and implementing the plethora of software and technology tools available to help plan, execute and measure integrated (traditional, digital and social) multichannel demand generation programs.
Avoid Them
Don’t even consider bringing on a MarTech tool that won’t enable your strategic objectives or one that doesn’t fit within your current MarTech stack. Sometimes you may not need to completely reinvent your marketing wheel. Understand what’s working, what’s not and why. Then replace the underperforming spokes with the best tools to get you back on the road to peak performance.
Also avoid tools that can’t integrate well with your current workflows, processes and technologies. Be mindful of interdependent relationships within your company that require technological compatibility including Sales, Customer Success and IT teams.
Love Them
When you find a MarTech tech tool that enables you to do what you need to do better, faster and smarter than your current performance levels, with the flexibility to evolve with your team, your customers and your company, embrace it for all that it’s worth.
If it allows you to take what’s working and automate, optimize and accelerate your processes more effectively while keeping the pipeline running like a well-oiled machine, it’s a winner.
You may need to audit and transform your complete MarTech stack to better streamline your marketing automation, content management, digital asset management and data collection, analytics and visualization integration. If this is the case, let your strategic objectives and success metrics inform the choices you make.
Leave Them
If a MarTech tool can no longer scale to meet the growing needs of your team and company, it’s a problem, not a solution. Or, if you find yourself spending a considerable amount of time retrofitting your efforts to the tool rather than leveraging its ability to evolve smoothly along with you, it’s time to say goodbye.
And like any good relationship that has run its course: be grateful for the value it added, reflect on all the lessons learned – and then bid it a fond farewell.
It’s an Iterative Journey
It can be either exciting or overwhelming to keep your finger on the pulse of all the MarTech tools out there. The process of assessing your MarTech stack to determine what you do well, what you can do better and what you should be doing is an iterative journey. Intentionally knowing when to avoid, love and leave the MarTech tools you meet along the way will keep you on the right path.
