When properly assessed and utilized, new technologies can empower your marketing department in dynamic ways. Using better tools, increasing efficiency, and opening the doors to new strategies can be wildly beneficial for your marketing department.
So how exactly do the best marketers handle new technologies?
Leadership
Great companies have great leaders in place to evaluate new technologies and make decisions for the entire organization. Ideally, you’ll have a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or a marketing director in place to periodically review new tools, assess current tools, and make modifications to your tech stack so your company is positioned competitively.
But what if you don’t have such a leader in place? One solution is to hire a fractional CMO. With a fractional CMO, you can get access to all the knowledge and experience of a traditional CMO, but you’ll be able to pay much less for the privilege, and work out a much more flexible, dynamic arrangement. You can hire a temporary, fractional CMO to evaluate your current approach to marketing technologies and to make recommendations for how you can change for the better.
Discovery
Good marketing departments are on the lookout for new tools on a nearly constant basis. They are poised for discovery, looking for any new resources or platforms that can help them better achieve their marketing goals. When they identify a prospective new tool, they flag it, evaluate it, and consider whether it’s a good investment.
Openness
These marketers are also very open to new technologies. They’re willing to embrace the fact that technology is constantly advancing, and that it’s only a matter of time before newer, better tools emerge. Most modern marketers are open to the idea of experimenting with novel technologies or new approaches to marketing and advertising. It’s also important to remain open to the idea that your existing tools aren’t as effective as you think they are. You must remain open to all new possibilities if you want to maximize what your marketing department can generate.
General Analysis
When examining new tools, successful marketers typically look at the following:
- Benefits. Collectively, you should determine the benefits of using a piece of software or a new technology tool before purchasing it. How exactly is this going to benefit your organization? How much new revenue do you plan on generating? How much time do you plan on saving? What other systematic problems could you eliminate, and how much value would that have?
- Costs. Also, consider the costs. You’re going to pay for this technology up front, but it may also be associated with less visible back-end costs, like requiring you to educate and train your employees. What could marketers consider all costs as part of their analysis? Together, the total benefits and costs form a picture of return on investment (ROI). How much value will this add, compared to what you’re paying for it?
- Fit. Does this new technology fit your organization? Is it going to help you in a way that’s completely aligned with your marketing goals and your long-term vision? Is it compatible with other technologies you’re dependent on? Is it easy for your employees to use?
- Future. It’s also important to look at the future of this technology. Are the developers of this technology constantly working on new features, bug fixes, and general improvements? Is this technology highly scalable, capable of supporting your organization as it grows?
Qualities
They also look for qualities in the following categories:
- Features. Obviously, you’ll need to consider the features of whatever technology you’re thinking of integrating. What are the core functional elements of this product and how are they going to help your organization? Are they redundant or are they truly novel? Are they superior to other tools on the market?
- Usability. You also need to consider usability. This may seem like a superficial quality, but it could have a massive impact on your team’s productivity and morale. The more usable a tool is, the more productive your employees will be while using it, and the less susceptible they will be to error.
- Integrations. How easy is it to integrate with this technology? Is this compatible with other tools and technologies your organization uses? Would it be difficult to customize this tool or use it in a different way in the future?
- Support. How much support is available for this product? Will you have a point person who can help you if something goes wrong? Do the developers issue frequent patches? Is there a road map for more features in the future?
In an environment with constant innovations, it’s critically important to remain flexible and dynamic. The best marketers are able to do this, remaining open to new technologies and exercising cautious due diligence at the same time.
