Marketing Technology

Insights

Blog

Capturing Insights from a Disjointed Tech Stack

Bob McKinnon October 27, 2016
  • Only 32 percent of marketing organizations in financial services can access a BI tool
  • Conducting an inventory of data existing across the platform yields new insights
  • Aligning and prioritizing measurement goals with sales helps to focus efforts and limit requirements
Blog

Looking for Gaps in Your Tech Stack

Jeff Clark October 26, 2016
  • Marketing organizations must understand the interdependence of processes, competencies and technologies
  • Marketing operations and technology leaders must engage stakeholders who require tech solutions to define objectives and desired future capabilities
  • Addressing process and competency gaps will ensure the success of new technology solutions
Blog

Courage in the Time of Technology

Forrester October 25, 2016
  • Transitioning people and organizations through technology adoption requires strong leadership skills
  • Effective technology adoption is a psychological and skills-based process that requires good planning and execution
  • As the rate of technology adoption increases, a good adoption process becomes more critical
Blog

Balancing the Tech Stack: Austin Users’ Insights

Jen Horton October 24, 2016
  • SiriusDecisions facilitated a user group discussion with demand creation and marketing operations professionals
  • Participants talked about which technologies are in their tech stack and why
  • Hot topics among the group were keeping up with vendors, predictive, IT involvement in purchase decisions and the expense of failure
Blog

Enabling B2B Remote Teams

Carrie Rediker October 20, 2016
  • Join SiriusDecisions in Austin this November for the second annual Technology Exchange
  • Learn how remote teams can collaborate on projects, planning, workflows and approvals
  • Discover capabilities to facilitate distributed communication and collaboration
Blog

Technology Audit: The Stakeholder Interview Guide

Jacques Begin August 30, 2016
  • Stakeholder interviews provide first-hand knowledge of systems and processes that inform a technology audit and gap analysis
  • Structured stakeholder interview guides prevent scope creep during these audits
  • Interview guides are a valuable resource for supporting conclusions and decisionmaking
Blog

Marketing Ops Can Help Avoid Technology Overload

Jeff Clark August 18, 2016
  • The complexity of managing today’s marketing technology environment requires a disciplined approach to technology management
  • Marketing operations plays a significant role in technology management to ensure a return is delivered to the organization
  • Marketing operations must collaborate with key stakeholders to audit and enable users, and build the roadmap for the evolution of the organization’s
Blog

Maximize Your MRM Implementation

Marcia Trask June 15, 2016
  • Successful MRM implementations address pre- and post-implementation workstreams in addition to technology selection
  • Workstreams include requirements gathering, relationship building, implementation prep, training, user adoption and system support
  • Leverage cross-functional working teams and a proactive communications plan to ensure project success
Blog

Where B2B CMOs Are Placing Technology Bets

Jennifer Ross May 3, 2016
  • SiriusDecisions annual CMO study reports that 83 percent of B2B CMOs will increase their marketing budget in 2016
  • Systems and tools will be the second largest area of investment
  • Business intelligence and customer intelligence management top the list of technology investment priorities for CMOs
Blog

How to Pick the Right MRM Solution

Marcia Trask April 21, 2016
  • The explosion of new marketing resource management (MRM) solution offerings gives marketers many choices – and a need for structured decisionmaking
  • First define requirements in the four areas of MRM functionality: planning/budgeting, project management, asset management and communications
  • Evaluate build vs. buy and suite vs. pure-play considerations to develop a focused list of MRM solutions to meet requirements
Blog

Four Benefits of a One-Step Marketing Tech Plan

Jacques Begin April 1, 2016
  • B2B marketers overthink technology selection and make their lives way too hard
  • Accelerate technology selection by throwing all standards, protocols and formal vetting processes out the window
  • Seventy-nine percent of B2B organizations reported a 40 percent uptick in technology after procuring 10 percent more solutions monthly
Blog

Marketing Tech – Don’t Get Trapped in Your Silo

Jeff Clark March 28, 2016
  • Technology often requires alignment across several functions to be successful, from product to marketing to sales
  • Many B2B marketers purchase new technology to make their lives easier without thinking about how it fits into their ecosystem
  • Buying new technology needs to start with a view of aligning processes, data strategy and enablement
Blog

How Marketing Ops Can Drive Better Tech Decisions

Jessica Lillian March 17, 2016
  • Many B2B organizations are plagued by “shiny new car syndrome” and purchase new technologies that they don’t have the resources to manage
  • Buying new technology is only the beginning – organizations need a sound strategy for implementation
  • Marketing operations can take the lead on driving the tech roadmap, helping the organization understand its needs and make decisions appropriately
Blog

Technology Audit: Tips to Build Consensus

Jacques Begin March 10, 2016
  • Technology decisions need buy-in from stakeholders in sales, marketing and product
  • Build alliances and political capital to convince others that technology alignment is a good idea
  • Use research, case studies and real examples of successful technology implementations as evidence of the benefits of alignment
Blog

Three Tech Steering Committee Potholes to Avoid

Jacques Begin March 8, 2016
  • Technology steering committees drive infrastructure alignment between sales, marketing and product
  • Steering committees often run into problems in three areas: authority, meetings and membership, and project insight and support
  • Best-in-class steering committees promote better technology procurement and vision by avoiding these costly mistakes
Blog

Why You Need a Technology Audit Steering Committee

Jacques Begin February 16, 2016
  • A technology first, strategy later mentality leads to siloed technology procurement and misalignment
  • Steering committees help ensure that cross-functional business needs are represented in technology procurement
  • Don’t boil the ocean; scope audits to address targeted business needs
Blog

Alignment: The Cure for Your Technology Hangover

Jacques Begin February 1, 2016
  • Siloed technology procurement creates misalignment and duplication and lowers ROI
  • Focus alignment efforts on capabilities or processes that are shared among sales, marketing and/or product organizations
  • Data, cost and criticality help determine which technologies should be aligned
Blog

How to Avoid Cooking Up an RFP Disaster

Cheri Keith December 22, 2015
  • Creating, issuing and reviewing RFPs is a time-consuming process
  • Oftentimes, companies rush through this process and create more work in the long run
  • In order to streamline the process, use these best practices for your RFPs
Blog

Five Areas to Assess Your Marketing Technology Spend

Forrester December 21, 2015
  • B2B organizations are increasingly keeping an eye on marketing technology spend, which makes evaluating the spend more important
  • A straightforward comparison of the level of spend to the industry is only part of evaluating the value and potential of marketing technology
  • Evaluating marketing technology spend systematically can allow organizations to take corrective action when there are shortcomings
Blog

Questions to Ask Your Service Providers for 2016

Cheri Keith December 21, 2015
  • The new year provides an opportunity to regroup with service provider and agency partners
  • In your planning meetings, it’s important to take a step back and evaluate new approaches
  • Use these questions to make sure you start the new year off on the right foot