Introduction Growth Marketing Technology Stack
The image below is my desktop. These are the tools in my Growth Marketing Technology Stack. I don’t use ALL these tools for ALL of my projects. However, Growth Hakka’s clients all have entirely different marketing technology landscapes in their organisations. Which means I/we work with an ever-growing list of technology and SAAS vendors when we run campaigns for clients. This has to lead to us collecting a wealth of knowledge on marketing technology platforms.
This is my desktop. Share yours in the comments. Don’t be shy! Click for Full Size version
And gosh there are thousands of software vendors, and new ones every day. The guys at chiefmartec.com have done an admirable job of trying to keep up with all the new incumbents. The version below is from 2017, so we can’t wait to see what 2018 looks like.
Click for Full size version
Fit for Purpose
Regardless of if you are a large corporation or a startup, it’s highly likely that your tech stack has some variation of tools. I’ll wager your toolkit has elements from my desktop and the Martech 5000. When working with larger clients, I noticed their tech arrays were more similar to each other than compared with startups. They had contracts with the significant Gartner “Magic Quadrant” enterprise vendors. The Adobes and IBMs and Googles of the world. There is even commonality with lesser known but still enterprise-level vendors. Startups, however, have extreme variations in their solutions. Discovery of new software solutions is natural but random. From search to sales emails to approaches on LinkedIn, we are all learning of fresh, shiny new tech solutions every day.
Irrespective of the depth and scale of a company, all have one common frustration. Every client I have worked with always feels they are not getting the most out of the Growth Marketing Technology Stack they are sometimes paying hefty fees for. Either they don’t have a big enough team to use the solution correctly. Or they don’t have the experience, knowledge and training to use it. And if you are not using the tools to maximum capability well then there is an element of money wasted.
A workaround to getting more out of technology is to Automate repeatable tasks. Many of the software solutions in the images above have built-in automation functionality. Many features can be activated with a few clicks and others need a little more config. Then there are innovative new approaches to content marketing, social media marketing, marketing analytics. A lot of which involve automation or what chiefmartec.com call “citizen solutions”. Or what others call “self-service”. “Citizen Solutions” is technology that empowers non-technical users to create campaigns that before required experts and agencies.
The question may have arisen at your organisation of whether or not your Growth Marketing Technology Stack is fit for purpose. Now may be a time to validate and justify whether your toolkit is delivering your goals and objectives. To rationalise your tools is to get more out of your best marketing technology kit. Then dispense with technology that you’re no longer using or that have duplicate functionality.
Questions to Consider
- Re-visit automation capabilities of your equipment. What can be automated?
- What would be good if automated that isn’t already ?
- Can you achieve that automation with what you have?
- By automating how will it affect your end customer’s experience.
- How easy is it for your team to use the technology?
- Can they self-service or is it call the agency to do it for you?
- Always keep your customer at the centre of your vision.
- We spend time and money on operating these technologies to provide an exceptional experience for our clients. Right?
- How easy is it to integrate other SAAS? The best platforms allow multiple integrations. See Segment.io image below, they have 100s!
- How simple is it to customise features, look and feel if relevant? Again, multiple customisations are the order of the day
Segment.io SAAS integrations
Solutions for Everything
With the rapid advances in technology and even faster for Growth Marketing Technology Stack, there is a good chance; there is a solution out there that will help you launch campaign types you are not currently using. There are plenty of other emerging technologies to keep an eye on. Virtual reality, blockchain, “mixed reality” blending physical and digital experiences, etc. Did you know there is SAAS for VR and AR? For Public Relations? How about mid-air 3D visuals with Holographic effect? . There is even SAAS for high quality Branded Online Games that can be created in minutes.
Evaluation process
So, what should you do to assess your current capabilities? Well, start off with visualising your stack. Here is some inspiration.
Then,
1. Analyse As-Is State of Marketing Technology and Tech Stack
2. Analyse As-Is State of processes
3. Analyse As-Is State of skills of team
4. Capture business requirements and functions of current teams via interviews. Capture needs and priorities. Visualise them too.
Requirements visualisation. Click for Full Size version
5. Prioritise tech platform capabilities especially against goals and conditions by way of meetings/questionnaires. I use a very detailed and in-depth survey, see examples below.
Questionnaire Example. Click for Full Size version
6. Score current platforms
7. Conduct Gap Analysis
Questionnaire Example. Click for Full Size version
8. Define To Be State
9. Define new methodology
10. Define new org and operating model
Of course, you may feel you don’t need all the steps above or as many questions as I have in my templates. The point is that at this stage has your tech stack kept up with all the latest innovations and in line with your goals.
Your goals can be you need to automate more because you don’t have the team or skills. Or empower your team to self-serve more or innovate and steal a march on your competition. Perhaps, you want to easily integrate other SAAS. Maybe you want to customise and personalise the tool. Here at Growth Hakka, for example, many content processes are automated and executed by bots, and we implement the same for our clients.
Example of how Growth Hakka uses automation for content marketing for a media client
Before I go here is a tip to see what Growth Marketing Technology Stack your competition is using. Go to Built With and pop in an URL for the competition. Hey, Presto instant report on technology they are using. Say you are a media site and want to utilise more ad tech and networks of which there are 100s to choose. A quick glance at what the compo are using may give you some ideas. See example below.
Advertising tech for a media publisher
More information
We are of course here to help should you need support to evaluate your tech stack. If you need more details on how we can help please have a look in marketing technology platform selection consulting support section.
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