There are a lot of questions you can ask about the future of your business, but there is one thing for sure: you'll deal with more data, more people, more processes, and more complex problems as you grow.
Yet how do you deal with that in your marketing team? That’s where marketing technology, or MarTech, comes in. It allows for automating tasks and removing obstacles from your team’s workflows, empowering your team to waste less time on routine tasks, and allowing your business to grow more efficiently and effectively.
Your marketing technology stack is the collection of tools, software and technology used by your marketing team to attract and retain customers. It can include everything from email marketing software to social media management platforms to web analytics tools. These tools are time-saving, as they typically streamline and automate processes. They also help marketers analyse the performance of their efforts.
What is a MarTech stack?
A marketing technology stack is the catalogue of tools that marketers use to execute elements of their marketing tasks, from lead generation to email marketing, from social media management to search engine optimisation to data management. There are thousands of different tools to choose from when creating your marketing tech stack.
Are you looking to design a new or audit your current MarTech stack?
There is no out-of-the-box method for building your Martech stack. Every company is unique, and your perfect marketing stack is not going to look like anyone else's.
This is the time for choosing the right tools for your team and setting them up in a way that your future team can use and understand. At Brand Anthology we’ve implemented and activated several Martech solutions over the years, and developed the following steps to ensure a well-designed solution:
Understand your needs: Outline your primary marketing strategies. What are your marketing goals? What are your current marketing challenges? If you already have an established marketing team, take a look at the strategies that are currently in place. This will help you gauge, from the get-go, the types of tools you need. Once you understand your needs, you can start to identify the tools that will help you to achieve your goals and overcome your challenges.
Survey your team: Next, sit down with your team and find out the challenges they encounter when trying to execute their day-to-day duties. What adds more time to their workflow? What makes their job harder? While the conversation should be open-ended, try to connect their challenges to your marketing goals. Jot these challenges down in the same document you’ve already started. Keep it simple, a sentence or a few bullet points will suffice.
Establish your budget: Marketing technology tools can range in price from free to thousands of dollars per month. Choosing a monthly budget is the best choice for small businesses without a dedicated finance team. Most tools are available on a monthly subscription basis, which makes it easier to drop one if it doesn’t work for the team. You can also choose a budget per strategy. For instance, you can decide you’ll invest $100 a month in social tools. Be sure to take into account the amount of seats you’ll need for the tool, or ensure the team is open to sharing one subscription. Most times, sharing a single subscription will work without a problem, and you can save a significant amount of money.
Do your research: There are a lot of marketing technology tools on the market, it’s important to do your research and compare different tools before you make a decision. It’s helpful to look at product curation posts to get a general idea of the offerings that are out there. For the keyword research challenges in your team, for example, you can look at a list of keyword research tools. If you’re looking for a new content management tool, you should look at a list of the best CMS systems. From there, you can investigate pricing, product reviews, and general fit for your team. Make a list of the tech tools in a spreadsheet and include pricing and a general description of the product. From there, refine the list until you’ve decided on the tools you want to try out and be sure to specify whether the tool needs a monthly or yearly subscription.
Think about integration: Make sure the tools you choose are compatible with each other. This will make it easier to manage your marketing projects, tasks and track your results.
Organise your data: Before you purchase any tool, consider the data you will be transferring between legacy and new systems plus the time and resources required to transfer the data. This can be lead lists in Excel or Word documents you’d like to import into Google Drive for collaborative editing. Compile all of them in folders. Assign a type of data to each team member. For instance, one team member can compile the contacts from trade events. Another team member can compile the current templates you use for your social media posts. Another can compile all of the copy from the website for the website redesign. It’s a good idea to allocate tasks based on the role within the team. When it’s time to sign up for the tools and adopt them, you can transfer these files and data and more easily pick up where you left off.
Plan internal resources: New tools come with new systems, workflows and processes, which often means people changing the way they’ve been doing things. Change management may seem like a big term, but managing your team resources through any change program is crucial in both realising the strategic benefits of the tools, user acceptance and adoption, and risk mitigation - your end goal is for the entire team to be champions of the tools. Take your time and don’t rush the process.
Assess success and feedback: Talk to other marketers and ask for their recommendations. They may be able to give you some insights that you wouldn't have considered on your own. You don’t want to end up with an unused martech stack. Always audit your tools for their success — whether they effectively streamline workflows, automate tasks, and help your team do their work in a better way.
A well-designed marketing technology stack can help you to:
Automate tasks: By automating tasks, you can free up time to focus on other aspects of your marketing.
Improve efficiency: A well-designed marketing technology stack can help you to streamline your marketing processes and improve efficiency.
Measure results: By using the right tools, you can track the results of your marketing campaigns and make necessary adjustments.
However, a poorly designed marketing technology stack can actually do more harm than good. If you have too many tools or if the tools you have aren't compatible, it can be difficult to manage your marketing campaigns and track your results.
Here are six quick tips from the Brand Anthology team:
Strategy first, technology second
Keep it simple
Seek medium-term solutions
Document everything
Select single solution providers
Don’t settle for less than what you need
The challenge with today's marketing automation tools is that many offer either enterprise-grade power or user-grade ease of use, but rarely both. As a result, many still go with the safe bet — overpriced, overly complicated, and under-utilised tools, which translates to spending more time on systems than on your customers.
The team at Brand Anthology have over twenty years of MarTech transformation experience. If you would like any help in designing your MarTech stack, or support with reviewing current infrastructure call Stephen on +61 (0) 402 399 211 or sd@brandanthology.com.au
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