Do more with less.
The Problem
Global Corporations are wasting billions of dollars a year buying overly complicated marketing technology stacks, then deploying them (or attempting to), then figuring out everything is too complicated to produce much value, then tearing them down, then buying new software to solve all the problems they created, then repeating.
And in the process, the gap between the investment in digital analytics professionals and investment made in technology grows every year. Is there much of a question about why Executives, Managers, and Analytics Teams feel frustrated, tired, and defeated? Is there any wonder about why the length of employment for these professionals averages less than two years?
It’s time that we demand that businesses invest less in technology and invest more in people.
It’s time that we demand sustainable software solutions. If the solution can not be maintained, do not buy it.
It’s time that we demand that businesses focus on results over appearances of busyness.
This focus on technology, data, and things over people has resulted in businesses having more data than ever. MarTech vendors selling a magical tag that collects all the data, because why not have all the data, makes this problem much, much more dire.
When it comes to data, we are wealthy beyond measure yet when it comes to business insights we are impoverished. Burdened by years of technical debt, complex implementations that can not be maintained, and mountains of dirty data, we push the boulder up the hill until we can go on no longer, leaving the task to the next eager employee to fix.
It’s time for simplicity. It’s time for less, yet more valuable data. Less complicated MarTech stacks.
When thinking about sustainability, when buying the highest quality, LESS IS MORE.
Demand sustainability.
It all begins with the technologies we choose to buy. Demand more of technology vendors to produce better, more elegant products not just new features that provide their armies of sales teams opportunities to up-sell you more products you simply don’t need. Demand vendors show you a proven path to ROI, not just a deck filled with meaningless jargon.
It continues with the people you choose to hire. Hire experts, hire employees who are committed to building sustainable frameworks and solutions that will be used for years to come. Avoid hiring employees that want to hoard knowledge, avoid hiring employees that want to over-engineer. Your marketing technologies are only as good as the people you hire.
Be clear with the agencies you work with that you are building with a smaller marketing technology footprint in mind. Avoid agencies that are looking to sell you more products and overly complicated services, not because it’s what is best for you but because it’s what is best for them. Ask your agencies if they have financial benefits tied to the advice they give, if they say ‘yes’, walk away.
You have the power.
Simplify.
Evaluate your existing spend on marketing technologies. Ask yourself, are all of these software solutions needed? Do we even have employees to use them? Simplify your stack and invest in doing more with less. Do we really need all of this data?
Build it.
Evaluate the marketing technology teams you have in place. Ask yourself, have we made the investment in hiring the right people? Did we hire people to just do a job or people that will help us reach our potential?
Grow it.
Invest in hiring experts to guide you in growing the return on your marketing technology investments. Ask yourself, is my current agency making me smarter, happier, are they changing the way I feel about analytics and my future?