MarTech or Marketing Technology has come a long way over the past few years. Today’s, businesses can choose from more the 6500 options when looking to add to their technology stack. But the real questions is, do you really need every tool you have? While technology has advanced, many of us get stuck thinking it will do the work for us. In this video, I’ll share some insights on what to look for when choosing a tool and how to cut the fat in your current MarTech Stack.
Stats from the video can be found in the great article: https://www.chiefmarketer.com/too-much-martech-how-many-tools-do-you-really-need/
Video Transcript:
Hey. Thanks for checking out this video. If this is your first time watching, or maybe you’ve been watching a while and you haven’t yet hit subscribe, please do so now. We would love to have you join our community. Don’t forget to turn on alerts. That way you know each and every time we publish new content. So, we’re going to be talking about MarTech and specifically how we find the right tools. How do we leverage the right tools? How do we know if we have the right tools? And then really what our expectations should be for technology.
Marketing is about communications, about transferring information from one person to another, moving them into position and maybe brand awareness or buying. It’s really that conversation that we have with another person. Now, marketing can have a number of different goals. It could be brand amplification. It could be sales leads. It could be communicating with your customers or driving awareness for a product or service. But the reality is it really comes down to person-to-person or one-to-many communication. We’re talking and engaging with people. There is no way in all of creation that we can just set it and forget it and hope that it’s going to do a good job.
MarTech tools cannot market for you. They are tools, and that’s exactly what they’re designed to do. They’re designed to help make our jobs easier, maybe help us execute better, but if we don’t work the tools, we can’t expect them to work for us. I see this happen all the time. Maybe somebody tried HubSpot, or maybe they tried MOZ, or maybe they tried SEM Rush, and say, “Oh, these tools don’t work.” Well, the tools work. We just need to make sure that we’re using them the right way and also make sure that we have the right expectations for them.
So, one thing I’m looking at is here’s two tools. I’ve got a flat head screwdriver and I’ve got a hammer. These each have very specific purposes and they each can be extremely useful when used correctly. Theoretically, I could use this to hammer in a nail. I could put a nail down and I could turn my screwdriver over and bang at it, and it would get the job done. I would have to hammer a lot harder, and honestly it would be really frustrating. But this was designed to screw in something with a flathead. It’s not even going to be very effective for something like a Phillips-head or a hex head. It’s designed for a specific purpose, and I need to use it for that purpose in order to get the ROI from it. The same regards is this hammer. I could theoretically get a screw into a piece of wood or into a wall with this hammer, but that’s not what the hammer was designed for. I’m going to have much more success using the hammer to hammer in a nail.
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In the same regard, we have these MarTech tools. We have inbound marketing tools, SEO tools, social media marketing tools, you name it. The list goes on and on. We can’t expect them to just do something, one, they weren’t designed to do, and also completely automate the process, so we don’t ever have to communicate to people.
Marketing is a personal field, and the people who succeed in marketing are the ones that take those one-to-one, one-to-many personal actions and try to build relationships with people. So, that’s really one of the problems I see most of the time in choosing a tool is that they’re just tools. They’re not going to do your job for. You need to know what your outcome is, and then you don’t need every tool in the book.
I’ve tried a lot of tools. I’m really bad at this. I like to try new tools, buy tools. I find myself having all of this access to software I’m not using and I’m not utilizing to its full potential.
The average organization can have up to 91 different MarTech tools. That’s ridiculous. I mean, think about trying to manage 91 different tools. That’s almost impossible to get the level of detail and the ROI out of it if you’re a one person show. Now, if you have a big organization, still 91 different tools is a lot of different tools. So, the problem is even with that, most people aren’t getting the value out of it.
So, data, that’s a big thing. I’m a big data guy. I think using data and leveraging it to help make intelligent decisions is powerful. We have to take our data and infuse it with what we know from a personal level that will help us really get the most out of it. Data has to be accessible from a person-to-person relationship, but only 13% of marketers right now are actually confident that they’re able to make the most of the data they’re getting from those tools. It’s hard to integrate two or three tools together, let alone 91. So, when you’re looking at a tool, you need to know what do I need this to for, what is it suppose to accomplish, and am I going to get ROI for this tool? Am I going to be able to get something back from putting this in? If you’re not making something from the tool, if it’s not giving you that value back, you probably need to cut it. It’s going to save you time. It’s going to save you money. It’s going to save you a headache.
Then condense it down. Don’t buy an all-in-one tool just because it’s all-in-one. You know, there’s times where I’ve gotten in some tools thinking it’s all-in-one and realized that doesn’t do half of what I need it to do, and I need three or four different things to do that. So, when you’re choosing your tool, when you’re choosing your stack, don’t rely on it automating your life for you. That’s just not going to happen. Don’t think technology can solve all your problems. It’s just technology. They are just tools. We have to use these tools in the right way if we’re going to get the best results for ourselves and for our business and honestly to make sure that we’re having authentic connections with our customers. If you’re letting a robot do it or a chat bot do it, you’re not going to build those long term relationships that are going to lead to success for your business.
So, I really want to know, what types of tools are you using? How many tools do you have in your stack? What are some ways that you can shift how you’re using your tools in order to get more out of them? Please comment below. I would love to continue a conversation with you, and until next time, Happy Marketing.
