Use What You Have
For many businesses considering change in their marketing, the first reaction is to cancel underutilized platforms and services. The issue however is rarely the platforms themselves, but a lack of an understanding on how to make use of them fully. Marketers within the tiniest companies to the largest organizations have software solutions that appear to be failing them, but instead are simply used incorrectly.
Frequent weak points of marketing services and software are:
Inadequate training and onboarding
Often, products are purchased without proper training, especially in the onboarding phase. Whether the result of an enthusiastic manager lacking an implementation plan, or a business owner hoping that software will solve problems on its own, inadequate onboarding results in poor execution, frustrated users and a lack of institutional faith in the product. Most providers worth their salt provide onboarding as part of the purchase, but it is essential that the business come to the table with expectations, goals and most importantly, insight into how the platform will not only be used at the onset, but how it will be built upon, grown and developed as part of the company’s ongoing marketing plans. Even huge platforms such as Salesforce, a company with over 20,000 employees and a market capitalization over $200B, with installations at over 150,000 businesses, frequently fails due to a lack of planning both during onboarding and on an ongoing basis.
Lack of cooperation between marketing and IT
Businesses often view marketing software solutions in a silo. But if you are fortunate enough to have an IT team, buy-in and cooperation with this department is essential. A competent IT department will be able to strategically integrate any quality marketing platform with the company’s information infrastructure, and will be available to help troubleshoot problems as they arise. IT must be involved from the beginning, in the planning and onboarding phase, for this to be effective. In this way, what is often viewed as a cost center becomes a means of delivering quality marketing, leads and ultimately, sales.
Missing ownership and institutional knowledge
When bringing a marketing platform on board, someone must not only be responsible for it, championing its deployment and ongoing use, but properly documentation must be created to support the solution through changes in employees, integrations and processes. Marketing platforms fail on a surprisingly frequent rate due to nothing else than losing an individual who was responsible for that platform. Having someone to champion and be responsible for the solution, while maintaining documented processes at the same time, will ensure that the company’s investment pays returns for years to come.
Failing to audit externally
Just as independent auditors are necessary to ensure accurate accounting, so too should companies employ a consultant to make sure that marketing platforms and their associated processes are achieving what they are designed to do. It’s simply too easy to fall into a place where internally-focused employees lose the ability to see things from a customer’s perspective, and platforms evolve to support the needs of vocal internal stakeholders. This leads to a deterioration in the solution’s ability to deliver customer-centric results, and the KPIs associated with the platform’s performance decline for what appears to be no apparent reason. Employ an independent consultant to audit, council and assist with this and the results will be ongoing satisfaction with marketing software solutions.
The point at the end of the day is that sticking with what you have is often the best solution. More often than not, it is the implementation of the platform that has gone wrong, not the solution itself. An independent audit from a neutral party who understands marketing from a more holistic perspective will provide actionable results to ensure not just satisfaction with the many powerful marketing platforms, but essential guidance on integration into how it supports the business itself.
Reach out to Liftphase if you are ready to make better use of your investments today!
