Martech Mishaps: Why Martech Implementations Often Fail
I did everything right. What went wrong?
The pressure for Marketers to demonstrate agility in digital marketing is intense. The Board, the C-Suite, clients and business partners expect every firm to manage Marketing in a modern, digital-first way. That include Asset Management firms. It doesn’t matter that you’re not selling t-shirts – a world-class digital ecosystem has to be setup, supported, and evolved with the latest evolution in technology. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the latest of many innovations that Marketing “must” adapt to.
So what is a marketer to do? Layout a modern martech roadmap, license all the requisite solutions from the well-known vendors, and launch. Stand up a headless Content Management System (CMS). Get your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution. Add in a social media management console, a marketing automation platform or Email Service Provider (ESP), and sprinkle in a workflow manager and a digital content management application and you’re done. Right?
Start with: What am I trying to achieve?
It sounds simple, but the biggest mistake marketers make is not knowing first what they are trying to accomplish. What are the business and marketing goals? Are you trying to constrain costs? Drive leads? Build brand awareness? Move faster? All of the above? Knowing what you’re trying to accomplish is the first step. But next, step back and look at your organization. Not knowing your goals sets you up for failure from the get-go.
Culture and Workflow Matter
No two firms are the same. How you get your work done is as important as what you do. For some firms, the nature of the culture is fairly siloed. In others, it’s highly collaborative. Marketing may be more of a “sales support function” or it may be a key driver in growth. Just because your competitor operates in particular way, doesn’t mean that way will fly in your firm, given your remit and culture. Some asset management firms – and they are often highly profitable and growing – do not see great value in a digital ecosystem that enables online purchase or lead generation. The funds are on the client platforms already, so the real work is getting wholesalers and specialists to the home office to promote the offering. Marketing focuses on getting support materials to the home offices for distribution to the advisor network. This example illustrates why martech solutions like ecommerce engines can be unsuccessful within the wrong firm.
But I chose a martech solution that Sales wanted. And no one is using it!
You talked to the Head of Distribution and they wanted a new gizmo. The gizmo aligned with your martech roadmap (and let’s be honest – no one really challenged your roadmap in part because they didn’t understand it), so you did an RFP and licensed a new solution for $500k for the first year. All good, right?
Well a couple of issues came up almost immediately. Your data hygiene is poor, and the solution doesn’t work as sold. Fixing the data issues will take years, and senior management is not going to give you additional funds (didn’t you just spend half a million dollars?!) Second, while you are now able to serve up content (for example) to advisors, it is in the form of a link to a Digital Content Platform (DCP) and advisors like PDFs that they can print out to read later. Third, the workflow of your firm doesn’t lend itself – without major changes – to updating, approving, and disseminating content using the new martech platform. And so, no one is using the new solution and Marketing has egg on its face.
What to do now? What to do next time?
Two different questions but with similar answers. Here’s what you do:
1) Start with defining goals, objectives, KPIs and ultimately ROI for the solution. If any of these are murky, perhaps you don’t really need the solution – or an existing solution may be able to support the need without an additional new license and implementation cost.
2) Assess your data needs. Data is the fuel for the martech engine. You don’t need every possible data point updated real-time – just figure out what the minimum requirement is and work to get a copy/extract regularly if necessary in order to run your engine.
3) Engage with your business partners! Hold discovery sessions to understand how the users perform their work now, and how current workflow could be amended to support use of the new solution. Take the time to do this properly! Skipping this critical step will ensure ultimate failure.
4) Be practical. Asset Managers are not online consumer retailers. You don’t have to be Amazon – you have to be delivering value to your clients and partners in ways that they expect and appreciate.
5) Don’t be hoodwinked. Just because your firm doesn’t use a (name your martech solution) doesn’t mean you’re behind, antiquated or missing the boat. Vendors are in business to make money. You don’t need to buy everything out there.
Conclusion
Martech mishaps happen. The technology is evolving quickly and there is pressure from above to be up-to-date and demonstrate digital savviness. But before you pull out your checkbook, focus on what you are trying to achieve, how your business partners work, assess your data hygiene and needs, and understand your firm culture. Do these correctly and you won’t have the proverbial Edsel in your driveway.
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