Is your marketing content attracting, engaging, and converting new and existing customers? Do you know what channels your customers are most active on? Do you have the tools in place to be responsive to consumer feedback? These are just a few of the things that developing a strong marketing technology stack will address.
A marketing technology stack is an important part of marketing for any company. It is the mix of the digital technologies that your company uses to attract and nurture potential customers in the buyer’s journey. But how do the systems blend and meld together? Where do you even start with building your stack? It can be difficult and complicated but it’s important to build it based on the goals of your company.
Your martech stack should follow the story of how your customer engages with your brand and ultimately, what guides them to the purchase decision. The buyer’s journey can differ from company to company, so make sure to look at your own company processes before making decisions. A typical journey consists of the following phases:
Start by evaluating the phases of the buyer’s journey for your customers. Map out each stage based on your desired customer to understand the flow, what actions potential customers take, and what they look for in each stage. Assess the channels in the different stages and identify any weaknesses or inefficiencies that a digital solution could solve.
The tools in a marketing technology stack are widespread and there are many different tools that can fit into different categories based on the desired result. That’s why it’s important to identify your buyer’s journey so you know the areas that could realize the most value out of digitizing your marketing process. Value means it will provide the biggest impact to the goals of your team.
Once you have mapped out the phases, list out the types of tools your team could use to address the customer needs within each stage. Keep in mind that some marketing technology solutions will address needs in multiple phases and some tools will have pre-existing configurations with other tools you may be considering.
| Awareness | Consideration | Purchase | Loyalty |
|---|---|---|---|
|
• Content Creation • Content Management • Marketing Planning |
• Content Creation • Lead/Inbound Management • Content Distribution |
• Data Management • Supply Chain Management • Ecommerce |
• Marketing Automation • Reporting • Customer Satisfaction |
| Ex: MRM, DAM, DRM, CRM | Ex: SEO, SEM, CMS, CMP | Ex: ERP, PIM, CRM | Ex: ELP, PMP, MAP, ESP |
When planning out your digital marketing landscape, make sure to keep the other departments in mind, like finance, packaging, HR, etc. so that your digital systems become connected across entire departments, rather than remaining siloed. You will want to understand how each department fits into the consumer experience because they are all influenced based on how other departments in your company operate.
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So once you have it all mapped out, how do you proceed? You can either move forward using internal resources or external resources.
If you have an excellent internal team who understands information systems and how they can work together, you could move forward with that team. Some of the benefits of developing a martech stack in-house is that the team has a good understanding of your company from their experience and they are likely to keep the company priorities top of mind throughout the whole process. A challenge with doing this internally is that it can be a long process and internal teams are not contracted to stick around until the project ends, so there is risk of people with large amounts of knowledge leaving the project. If you use an internal team, make sure to involve them from the very beginning as you walk through the customer phases so they understand the point and purpose of the solutions that will be implemented, removed, or combined.
You can also work with external resources like consultants or vendors. A benefit of doing this is that they typically have expert knowledge in the systems you are considering so they have a deeper understanding of the capabilities presented with each option. Another advantage is that they have a contract with you so they are bound to complete the project and can’t bail out in the middle without extreme consequences. However, these services can be expensive so it’s best to go into a project prepared with all the information you need to make a good decision worth your investment.
Once you have your processes mapped, your team in place, and your desired digital marketing landscape, it’s time to move forward and start the implementation. You’ll need to develop a good change management plan to get your entire team on board. The biggest problem with initiating a new technology or system is that people are unwilling to use it or don’t know how. Make sure to have a plan in place to create buy-in from your stakeholders to make your marketing technology stack worth the investment.
To learn more about assessing and digitizing your marketing processes, download the digital maturity model for marketing processes e-book from MediaBeacon.
The digital maturity model is a powerful tool to benchmark your current marketing capabilities. Download it to better see where your organization is currently positioned and how it can continue to grow in its pursuit of improvement.
