Martech is designed to help marketing teams simplify tasks, integrate operations, make better decisions and achieve measurable results. Platforms are at the heart of enabling campaigns and always-on activities – providing the coherent data, a single view of the customer, analysis and reporting that influences vision, strategy and tactics. Great marketers create excellent customer journeys and experiences. To do this, they need the skills and training to fully utilise the platforms at their disposal and provide valuable insight and ROI back to the business.
A thorough audit of your team's martech capabilities will help you identify the maturity of adoption, utilisation and value delivered by each platform, providing clear visibility about what is and isn't working right now. Doing this will highlight gaps in your internal skillset, where your martech can work harder for you if you up-skill your team, or whether you should consider outsourcing specific platform expertise to a consultancy partner.
Investing in people
The current recessionary pressures are giving marketing leaders pause to reflect and focus on prioritising martech adoption, utilisation and integration above acquisition. It's never been more important to ensure your martech is having the impact it should - driving marketing performance and being delivered by skilled and enabled teams.
Despite a challenging economic environment, digital marketing budgets continue to increase as spend is shifted from traditional marketing. However, investment in skills - through hiring, upskilling or outsourcing remains imperative to unlocking martech ROI from technology investments.
Bold marketers will focus on their people and skills despite the prevailing economic climate.
Perhaps now is the time to explore how current budget pressures can be a catalyst for change - a time to look at your operating models and think about how shifting your insource/outsource focus, centralising skills and templating delivery, could help to make your budget go further and deliver more value.
"More is not always better. Better is better."
Chris Hutchinson, Ripple: A Field Manual for Leadership that Works
Technology sustainability is the key to efficient, profitable marketing. Sustainable martech is achieved through simplicity and maximising the use and impact of the platforms you have before looking to invest in more. According to chiefmartec.com, the average number of martech apps that organisations have is 90 - in our State of Martech 2022 Report, 44% of marketers said they had marketing technology platforms which have largely gone unused. The case for investing in martech training is compelling - to ensure your platform users are suitably equipped to take advantage of all they offer.
Simplicity and better utilisation also comes from using a straightforward Martech Spine© mindset rather than an incoherent stack. A spine increases adoption of useful technology, promotes integration and drives more useful insight. It also allows marketers to report against the organisation’s key metrics, showing the wider C-suite the impact of marketing approaches and campaigns.
The Martech Spine©:
We get it
At Clevertouch, we work with ambitious organisations to help them understand the current state of their marketing technology environment, highlighting the good, the bad, and the areas requiring significant improvement.
Auditing your existing Marketing Automation or Marketing Cloud platform skills and capabilities becomes essential when:
- You're aware that there are issues with your current marketing technology but not sure why
- There is confusion on how your platforms can be used and properly integrated
- Team members struggle to keep up with platform and feature updates
- You're looking to optimise your Martech Spine©
Learn more about martech training and enablement, or get in touch to speak to a consultant about an audit of your marketing technology skills and capabilities.
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