How to manage today’s complex marketing technologies

The first step in terms of managing today’s complex marketing technologies is to categorize them. These categories were developed by Scott Brinker, @chiefmartec:

• Marketing Experiences — ‘Front office’ specialized technologies that directly affect consumers across their lifecycle, such as advertising, email, SEO, social media, content, A/B testing and marketing apps.
• Marketing Operations — the tools and data for managing marketing’s “back-office”. For example,  analytics, MRM and DAM.
• Marketing Middleware such as DMPs, CDPs, tag management, cloud connectors, user management, and API services.
• Marketing Backbone Platforms e.g CRM, content management, marketing automation and e-commerce engines.
• Internet services, including Google, Facebook and Twitter
• Infrastructure services e.g databases, big data management, cloud computing, and software development tools.

Once you have categorized the technologies, how do you select them?

• Define a process for a solid business case and review approach that avoids duplication and prioritises the technologies that offer the biggest returns.
• Create a technology roadmap.
• Use all-in-one solutions to reduce complexity.
• Open source options can give significant savings but may lack support.
• Don’t just implement the technology, get value from it.
• Customisation and education are vital.