Marketing and IT often have different objectives. Typically the Marketing group cares about getting more leads, more customers and growing revenue. The IT group is measured on whether they’ve implemented the right technologies, kept costs down and served the business. To be successful, there must be a high level commitment to the vision of what project will accomplish. This includes transcending the metrics the teams are measured on. In order to do this properly, roles and areas of responsibility for all members of the project team must be clearly defined.

Defining Relationship Roles and Responsibilities

The RACI model helps organizations define roles & responsibilities during a change process. The ‘A” stands for who is ultimately accountable for the success of the task, at a high level. The Marketing department should be responsible for defining the problem. They should also determine the vision for the business process. The IT department should be responsible for providing guidance on technologies. Implementation and ongoing support is IT’s responsibility. It is not enough to just define high level ownership, as the devil is always in the details – accountability for each step must be clearly defined.

What are the steps to implementing a new technology and who does what?

1. Defining the problem – This is typically the first step. Marketing needs to clearly define and communicate what the current challenge or opportunity is that they are trying to solve.
2. Defining desired outcomes – Next, Marketing must create a proposal to explain the problem or opportunity and get internal teams to buy in to try and solve it. For large enough projects it is important to have sponsors, preferably the CMO and the CIO to ensure alignment from the top down.
3. Defining the requirements – This stage of the project is an interesting one as either Marketing or IT could be accountable for this step. Keep in mind, whoever is writing the detailed requirements should have an understanding of the Marketing goals and a good idea of what can be achieved with technology.
4. Offering up technologies – The first decision that needs to be made is whether to build or buy. If the decision is to buy, or at least start by looking at what technologies are out there, this is usually a joint effort between the Marketing and IT teams. Though IT is ultimately accountable, it is critical to get buy in from the Marketing business folks as they will the the users of this technology.
5. Choosing a vendor – The next step is to choose a vendor and this is one where truly IT and Marketing have equal footing. Sometimes the owner of the budget has a little more say in the end decision, but at the end of the day the chosen solution must solve the business need and also meet IT standards.
6. Building and integrating the solution – This is where the handoff to IT begins. Depending on the decision that has been made, they build the solution or buy one and integrate it into the existing technology stack.
7. Project management – For any large project to be successful, you need a strong project manager. Since IT leads the implementation process, it makes sense for the IT team to be ultimately responsible for ensuring timeliness and quality.
8. Testing – Initial testing is usually owned by the IT team. Once they have determined the system is stable, they will hand over testing to the Marketing team. The Marketing team then validates that the requested functionality meets their need as defined in the requirements.
9. Launch – Once the new technology is ready, it should be treated like a product launch. The Marketing team needs to position the benefits of this new technology, train users and ensure adoption. Celebrating successes together is also important once the project has launched.
10. Ongoing maintenance – At the end of the day, the IT team is the team that supports all technical issues for the Marketing team. It is important for IT to have a good handle on what has been built, have resources to support it and also a relationship with the vendor to escalate issues if necessary.

Eliminating Breakups

Relationships are never easy, they take an immense amount of effort to maintain. To that end, if the relationship with your ‘work spouse’ is on rocky terrain, here is some wise counsel to encourage you to get back on the right track.

• The first, of course, is to follow a similar process to the one above. Lack of clarity around roles, areas of ownership and goals can cause a rift between Marketing and IT.
• Don’t go it alone. When the Marketing and IT leadership is not aligned, it sometimes results in either group managing to secure the budget and purchasing a rogue tool that may or may not meet Marketing’s needs or IT’s requirements. This serves no one well, ultimately making it a business management nightmare.
• Make critical decisions with the end in mind. When technology decisions are made for the sake of implementing shiny new technologies v.s. to enable a business need. If the technology does not solve a business problem, chances are adoption will be low and cause turmoil between the two teams.

Like a marriage, the relationship between IT and Marketing must be one of accountability, compromise and teamwork. Aligning these teams will ensure successful implementation of the technologies that solve business problems. And as you all work toward the success of your company, don’t forget to enjoy the ride!

You Need to Friend & Follow!

The other thing we notice is that when the technology is the hottest trend everyone wants to be a part. This leads to some of the craziest use-cases you will see. Let me give you an example: I noticed recently that the chain gas station down the road from my house has a giant sign asking me to like their Facebook page and to follow them on twitter. I think this perfectly typifies this technology-colored glasses. Why would I need to friend a gas station franchise on Facebook or follow their tweets? Now perhaps they have a very good reason for creating this social media presence and there is a real target audience they have created a marketing strategy around capturing. But my first thought is they have simply latched on to something they see as “trendy” tech and wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Ironically so I think since Facebook is over a decade old now and Twitter also is no longer the latest and greatest. But the pervasive nature of attempting to be fashionable in tech is clearly evident.

The Need For Marketing Automation

What does any of this have to do with marketing automation? While the previous two paragraphs may feel a bit like two separate issues or topics what you will soon come to realize is how each plays a critical role in the current state of marketing automation and what I consider to be the technology trap.

Marketing automation at one point around 10 years ago was the hot new software technology. It had features and abilities that went far beyond anything else available at the time. Everything from email campaigns (sending emails over a specific time period), to lead nurturing and lead profiling were features found in this new and exciting area of technology. And customers jumped at the opportunity to try and implement this software in their business. Many were admittedly enamored by new and shiny technology and willing to suffer through the occasional bug or struggle with a hard-to-use lackluster UI. Fast-forward 10 years and you now see the overwhelming interest in marketing automation by all companies and organizations. Everyone sees marketing automation as technology they need. This is how marketing automation touches on both of the introductory two paragraphs. But what does this mean? Where does the problem lie and how does this lead to a marketing automation trap?

The Marketing Automation Trap

In the first paragraph we discussed the trendiness of the software and how forgiving we were of new techology. But there’s a key word in that sentence. New. When software is new and when the company providing the software is active, listening and fixing issues then we are content to continue to use the software. The minute that progress fails to continue or the bugs in the software become persistent rather than fixable we begin to lose interest and become disgruntled users. Marketing automation has begun to reach that point. The existing software is now old, overwhelmed with bolt-on features and generally slow. Bugs exist for months without being fixed and users are becoming less and less tolerant of issues. This is the first marketing automation tech trap.

The Marketing Automation Magic Tool?

The second side of the trap relates to market saturation and a belief which tends to surround technology in marketing automation. Marketing automation technology can appear to be a glamorous and quick solution to increasing leads and sales. The idea that this software can be a magic bullet for increased revenue is overwhelmingly compelling. Every company at every size wants this technology to instantly turnaround their sales. But here is the trap. Many believe marketing automation is a fantastic technology that solves all their problems. The truth is much different. Marketing automation is a powerful tool to be used by skilled marketing experts. Please let me repeat that sentiment: Marketing automation is technology and a tool to be used by a business to accomplish a goal.

The Mechanics of A Hammer

Here’s a simple analogy: think of marketing automation as a hammer. You wouldn’t buy a hammer and then expect a house to magically be built. You would expect to pick up the hammer and use the tool to accomplish your goal of building a house. But you would have to understand the mechanics of the hammer (duh, that’s easy!) as well as how to use the hammer most effectively to build a house.

Marketing automation is a tool to be used. If the technology struggles or falters than an alternate solution will be created and the market will shift to the new and the shiny new thing, in this case, that new thing is Mautic, a revolutionary marketing automation platform built on open source technology, powered by a global community, and available for everyone to use at no cost. Bugs are fixed quickly, improvements are constantly being made and the open source community means a democratized approach to new features and quick, successful, iterations.

Secondly this Mautic community is actively working to build an ecosystem of learning and education around the best practices for using marketing automation. You can use this community to quickly become knowledgable about how to use the marketing automation “hammer” and build your business. Never forget, software and great technology is only a tool to be used to accomplish your goals. Don’t fall into the marketing automation tech trap.