As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. In fact, it is still being erected today, more than 122 years after construction started. The time required to create this work of art continues to be influenced by many items. The level of complexity of this building is beyond the imagination of many of us and it is covering its expenses based on donations from the community and visitors. Therefore, my intention is not to judge the swiftness of the project, but rather marvel in it as a human accomplishment for analogous purposes.
Marketing Technology is similar in at least one respect. Not in the years required to implement it, but in how it benefits from a sound plan. The typical business starts its marketing planning cycle with marketing concepts and small investments in technology. The Marketing techniques mature, the engaged audiences increase and the technology needs grow with the success of the business. However, Sagrada Familia was designed as a whole rather than as an individual room and then another. A complete blueprint of the design was drafted, reworked and finally perfected into an architecture schematic. While additions to the plan are often necessary, designing a baseline enables an organization to define its goals and future. When the effort to build the concept was actualized, issues arose and were circumvented along the way as architects, engineers, construction crews, city officials and city planners turn idea into possibility and eventual reality.
Formulating a MarTech plan as part of an annual marketing plan is a necessity and requires a similar amount of knowledge and possibly fortitude, along with quarterly updates. Why?
- Marketers are implementing more marketing techniques
- Many technologies are now available in the cloud and
- MarTech is changing rapidly
The result is that each day clever new marketing techniques are uncovered due to creativity, our collective understanding of how marketing influences people and how technology solutions provide automation, consistency and efficiency. As an organization’s marketing skills mature and generate improved results, the resources required to make it happen must also evolve and advance.
There are many components to consider, but keep in mind that each could be implemented with the simplicity of a spreadsheet and time or the automation of an individual or multiple technology solutions depending upon the sophistication and budget of a given business, among other factors. Creating a foundation of people, money, data sources, marketing technologies and marketing services that will allow a business to expand, will enable a marketing team to respond to market needs accordingly. While this adaptability may not be in place at the outset, diligent planning will improve marketing results today and enable heightened success in the future.
What’s required to achieve this well-tuned, optimized marketing performance engine? For starters:
- An understanding of what’s possible across the landscape of potential marketing techniques
- Coverage of numerous marketing technologies for each marketing objective
- A marketing plan with defined objectives and goals
The above information in totality is no small task for the typical marketing team to handle in today’s world. Having resources for businesses to get up to speed regarding marketing technologies applicable to specific objectives is crucial to generating results and meeting performance goals.