Delivering more effective marketing through the right technology

IMPLEMENTING YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY THROUGH A WELL-DESIGNED TECHNOLOGY STACK

DELIVERING MORE EFFECTIVE MARKETING THROUGH THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY

WHITEPAPER adma.com.au

INTRODUCTION First published in 2009, self-described venture capitalist Fred Wilson introduced the concept of a golden triangle of megatrends in the technology sector that are reshaping business today.

MOBILE DEVICES Hand held technology that empowers individuals

SOCIAL MEDIA Enabling new connections and communications

REAL TIME Live dialogue between people in different locations

At the heart of this golden triangle lies the nexus of disruption. This space is open for businesses to grow and develop deeper relationships with existing and potential customers.

In this paper we discuss the technology stack, which is the set of solutions businesses are using to get inside the golden triangle, and maximise their opportunities there.

2 ADMA | Delivering more effective marketing through the right technology

REAL TIME

TECHNOLOGY STACK

Nexus of disruption creates

opportunities for business

SOCIAL MOBILE GOLDEN TRIANGLE OF OPPORTUNITY

ADMA | Delivering more effective marketing through the right technology 3

In this paper we examine:

What comprises the technology stack

How to define the stack for your organisation

How planning ahead can help drive successful implementation

Choosing the best way of implementing your technology stack Future developments in products and providers Addressing the skills gap Conclusions for marketers


However, today, for marketers, the technology stack is the combination of technologies an organisation uses to automate its marketing function and provide quantitative information that is used for making business decisions.

As businesses and technology has become more complex, the technology stack has grown to extend beyond an organisation. Tools like social media, exist beyond the walls of any one business, however their influence and value within the business can be considerable.

There is now a wide range of different solutions available to marketers, to help aggregate, analyse and interact with customers and their data. The challenge lies in selecting and implementing the right combination of technologies to keep pace with growing customer expectations. Those who succeed will benefit most from the disruptive change mobile devices; social media; and real-time technologies are creating.

DEFINING THE TECHNOLOGY STACK TRADITIONALLY, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY HAS DEFINED THE TECHNOLOGY STACK AS THE LAYERS OF COMPONENTS OR SERVICES THAT ARE USED TO PROVIDE A SOFTWARE SOLUTION OR APPLICATION.



DEFINING THE TECHNOLOGY STACK THAT WILL WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESS

THE KEY TO ACHIEVING OPTIMAL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES IS TO MAKE IT A PRIORITY, AND BUILD OR RESHAPE YOUR BUSINESS AROUND THIS GOAL.

Begin with business strategy Defining your technology stack begins with your overall business strategy. Before you begin to look at solutions, you need to have a clear understanding of the goals you are trying to achieve as an organisation.

The most important role of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) in implementing a technology stack is to ensure there is complete alignment between the marketing technology strategy and the organisation-wide business strategy.

Marketing strategy alignment It is useful to revisit your marketing strategy, to remind yourself of what your team is responsible for delivering to support the overall business goals. Your marketing strategy can guide you in the next phase, where you examine how you are going to use technology to achieve your deliverables.

Your technology stack is a combination of tools only. Although it will support your marketing and business strategies, it will not be able to provide you with all the answers.

How to define your technology stack 1.Revisit overall business strategy: what do you want to

achieve? 2.Identify how the marketing strategy will support overall

business goals 3.Define the technology strategy that will deliver marketing

strategy 4.Engage Board and C-Suite 5.Evaluate where your capabilities lie: vendor or in-house 6.Select technology providers 7.Implement technology stack 8.Measure outcomes.

Defining your technology strategy The process of defining your technology strategy is one of constant refinement.

For each solution in your technology stack, you need to ask the following questions:

The flow chart can help you identify solutions that cross technology streams. You can then begin prioritising the different solutions in order of effectiveness, and begin looking into trials.

MOBILE MARKETING STRATEGY SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY DATA STRATEGY


What do we have in place to make use of this medium/information/channel?

How are these technologies being used by our customers, potential customers,

former customers and our ourganisaiton?

Are there any significant new technologies we need to be aware of or start to use that we are

not using?

What's working and what's not?

Which technologies can we retire?

Where are the gaps that need to be filled

Engagement and implementation The CMO has an important role in advocating and facilitating understanding of the technology stack across the organisation. The Board and C-Suite need to understand how your technology stack drives bottom line results. Although they do not need to necessarily understand the technical detail behind each technology, or how your organisation might implement it, they will need to see a clear connection between the technology stack and business outcomes.

The other key area the CMO needs to focus on is in collaborating with IT. By working closely together, the CMO can engender support from IT by collaborating on trials and sharing experiences from both successes and failures.

CHAMPION WITHIN MARKETING TEAM

CMO LEADING TECHNOLOGICAL

CHANGE

Align objectives with business objectives

Support entrepreneurial culture

Encourage fast learning

Allocate budget for testing new technologies

CHAMPION ACROSS BROADER ORGANISATION

Demonstrate alignment of business objectives with technological change at Board level

Facilitate learning gaps at C-suite and Board level

Retain visibility for projects across organisation


Capabilities evaluation Once you have identified the areas of the technology stack to be explored, you need to decide where your capabilities lie. Should you develop technologies in-house, or look for off-the-shelf solutions? And once you have the technologies up and running, will you have the intellectual capital in-house to make use of the technologies, or will you rely on outsider vendors for day-to-day management and upkeep? Knowing how to use your technology to its fullest, to generate meaningful business insights, is just as important as the technology itself.

A real challenge lies here for marketing agencies. Agencies need to have the people and skills ready and tested before clients come to them for advice. To stay ahead of the game, they need to investigate and understand how new technological solutions work and can be implemented.

The decision whether to develop in-house or to use off the shelf solutions is discussed later in this paper, where we explore the pros and cons of point solutions and single-vendor solutions.

Measuring success It is important to regularly review your technology stack, and quantify its outcomes. Return on investment is a standard tool used to measure effectiveness, however, it does not capture the total value generated by implementing your technology stack. Many outcomes can be more difficult to attach a dollar figure, such as the goodwill generated through improved customer engagement.

Following is a checklist of things you should consider when evaluating the performance of your technology stack:

Which technologies are customers using regularly?

Does your technology stack match the tools your customers prefer to use?

How are technologies reducing workload from other parts of the business, such as your call centre?

What are your feedback channels telling you about the customer experience with your technology stack?

Should you consider surveying your audience?

Your technology stack is part of your business infrastructure, and must be invested in, as other parts of your business are.

You will need to evaluate whether to: develop the solution in-house; or

find a reliable vendor solution that can be integrated with your systems.


Technology challenges Your IT team is going to be your most useful source of help when it comes to overcoming the key IT challenges:

how to find an infrastructure partner

how to put together multiple solutions

where to spend your money, in-house or external providers

- In-house solutions can have a low level of sophistication, but might work easily with existing infrastructure

- External solutions can be more mature, offering more tools and features.

Many vendors now go directly to marketing to sell their solutions, bypassing IT altogether. This can undermine the IT function, generating distrust within the organisation. It is therefore vital to maintain open dialogue with IT, so they have the opportunity to get involved where and when appropriate, and ensure they are able to keep up-to-speed with the technical aspects of new technologies being tested.

Information technology

Human resources, or those responsible for your organisational culture

Operations.

Although the CMO is responsible for leading the implementation, everyone in the marketing team plays an important role in promoting the technology stack, and facilitating productive relationships with internal stakeholders.

SMOOTH IMPLEMENTATION TAKES PLANNING

THERE ARE THREE MAIN AREAS OF THE BUSINESS TO CONSIDER WHEN IMPLEMENTING YOUR TECHNOLOGY STACK. KEEPING OPEN LINES OF COMMUNICATION, AND INVOLVING EACH IN YOUR PLANNING CAN MAKE A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE TO HOW SMOOTHLY YOUR IMPLEMENTATION GOES. YOU SHOULD AIM AT COLLABORATING WITH:


People challenges There are a number of different challenges that come with organisational change. The particular challenges you are likely to encounter when implementing your technology stack include:

The Board being divorced from digital operations

- SME can be more agile, as those making the decisions have the advantage of both a satellite view of their business as well as hands on, front line experience.

Legacy systems and politics that can make change slow and costly

Managing the leadership role with IT. The CMO should initiate and lead the overall project while the CIO needs to:

- work out how to pull different technologies together

- balance in-house and external spend/ownership/ technology

Speed of execution and change management. When change takes too long to implement, momentum breaks down.

Engendering the entrepreneurial spirit so change agents can develop within an organisation. The CMO needs to enable a degree of risk to be taken by business units to try new technologies and make changes

Skills gap: finding an analyst who has marketing skills as well as technical skills to implement solutions.

Operational challenges Bringing new technologies into a business becomes challenging when you move from theory into practice. Practical consideration and planning needs to be given to:

Balancing risk and reward

Funding innovation: budget needs to be made available for small trials, so organisations can fail and learn quickly. This is difficult for public/listed companies who need to show a ROI within 12 months

Mapping business/outputs against technology requirements (technology is required to meet some goals).

RISKS SOLUTIONS

Is there a safe bet anymore?

Is it possible to future proof your solution?

Churn to new technology is costly

Create a pool of money for testing

Fire bullets before cannonballs, that is, test incrementally using a speculation fund.


SINGLE VENDOR

POINT SOLUTION

Look for a primary system, and then everything needs to plug and play with that system

Select one system and then fill the gaps with point solutions

>

IMPLEMENTING YOUR TECHNOLOGY STACK WITH A POINT SOLUTION OR SINGLE VENDOR THERE ARE TWO WAYS YOU CAN IMPLEMENT YOUR TECHNOLOGY STACK: EITHER WITH A SINGLE VENDOR WHO PROVIDES ALL THE TOOLS AND SYSTEMS YOU NEED; OR A POINT SOLUTION, WHERE YOU BUY IN INDIVIDUAL TOOLS TO ADDRESS INDIVIDUAL PROBLEMS.

It makes sense to consider how flexible your business architecture is when you’re deciding between single vendor solutions and point solutions. The benefits of each option are described in the table.

>

The steps you take in implementing your technology stack depend on which solution you use:


POINT SOLUTION V SINGLE VENDOR

Point solution (Solving one particular problem without regard to related issues)

Single vendor

UPSIDES

Point solutions are widely used to fix a problem or implement a new service quickly.

Easy, low cost, low disruption to overall architecture to change if not working.

Quick and easy integration

Data can be empowered across the business

DOWNSIDES Point solutions can be costly to integrate

Can silo data in one area

How good is your single vendor at integrating point solutions?

Costly and disruptive to change if not working

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT FUTURE PRODUCTS AND PROVIDERS

THERE IS NO DOUBT ABOUT WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS: THE COMPANIES THAT MATCH CUSTOMER NEEDS WITH THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION WILL WIN.

The skills gap between IT and marketing is widening. Marketers need to become more active in the technology space. They need to know more about technology and the solutions it can provide to help automate marketing, and provide information for decision making.

IT also needs to catch up. Where in the past IT projects drove business change, the shoe is now on the other foot. Lines of business are coming to IT with specific

needs, or solutions that need to be integrated into existing business systems. IT is being asked to develop a deeper understanding of how technology can support business. In addition, business is demanding a technical expertise in a wider range of specific tools and technology solutions than ever before.

There are a number of other, more specific changes we see ahead, as further democratisation of technology continues. These are described in the table below.


WHAT WE KNOW WHAT WE DON’T KNOW

Existing technologies are not yet being fully utilised.

Marketers can still make better use of the technology they already have available to them.

Existing technologies may have new applications, but we don’t know what those applications are.

Technology will more directly affect ROI and business success in general.

Which technologies will generate the greatest returns.

New technologies will be developed. While we can see what is possible, it’s not clear how people will use the new technologies.

Those who embrace change will succeed

As new technologies are rolled out, skills gaps emerge.

Education and cross training between technical skills and marketing skills is needed to make full use of the new technologies available.

Institutions, as well as technology providers will need to support training and skills development of those using new technology.

The challenge for agencies is to have the people and skills ready and tested before clients demand. Agencies need to be ahead of the game.

Greater computing power will enable a break down of customer behaviour to generate understandings.

Big data computation will enable more informed decision-making, in real time.

When marketers know more about customers and their behaviours, how will customers respond?

Compounding the problem is the fact that every new technology that becomes available creates a new skills gap to be bridged.

Business leaders need to decide how they are going to fill the knowledge gaps. There is a need to balance the amount of skills required to use a new technology against the capability that technology brings to your organisation.

The following chart describes the balancing act required to maintain the right level of skills to meet the demands of the technology you use. As technologies become more complex and specific, so too does the pressure mount on generalists to combine ideas to create value. Generalists need to become experts quickly, so they are competent enough to maximise the benefits new technologies bring.

People solutions Owning the skills needed to operate your technology in-house is not always the right answer to addressing the skills gap. Having control over those with the skills is what is needed. Following are some common solutions to this universal challenge:

Federate your technology – operate a central IT function that services all your different business functions

Outsource specific services as and when required

Use virtual global teams to provide business-specific solutions to complex problems

Apply just-in-time purchasing to technical skills through a flexible workforce (e.g. Uber). You can decrease the number of full-time employees, and buy in skills as needed.

Embed associates (e.g. Facebook and Adobe)

- Partnering with technology providers to provide skills along with technology solutions

- Employ a corporate intern: skilled professionals who can rotate through a business, providing practical training to others.

WAYS TO ADDRESS THE SKILLS GAP

A KNOWLEDGE GAP EXISTS BETWEEN THE VARIOUS AREAS OF DIGITAL MARKETING AND TECHNOLOGY. THE DIVERGENCE BETWEEN THOSE IMPLEMENTING SEO/SEM AND THE TOOLS THAT RUN THEM, FOR EXAMPLE, IS INCREASING AS THE TECHNOLOGY BECOMES MORE SOPHISTICATED.


WAYS TO ADDRESS THE SKILLS GAP

Organisational culture solutions

Organisational culture can be a powerful tool to help stretch the skills in your business to meet your needs.

Encourage agility – a technical aptitude required for a dynamic environment

Strong leadership – sales and leadership skills are needed to promote technological change internally

Effective project management skills are needed to keep an organisational change program on track.

What the skills gap means for experienced marketing professionals

Bridging the skills gap has important implications for all marketing professionals. Marketers will need to increase the range of skills they bring to work each day, as the emphasis changes. Marketing competencies are changing.

Technology is becoming part of the next generation’s skills

Marketers need the ability to turn strategy into an execution plan

Technical competency, at least at a theoretical level, will be required for key initiatives

Marketers must develop an understanding of the key areas required for successful delivery: business stakeholders, technology, vendor etc.

Leadership will be needed to attract and retain the right staff with the right skills

In summary, experienced marketers will need to expand their generalist business skills, while at the same time tapping into the specialist skills and technical ability of less experienced marketers.

What the skills gap means to business managers

At a broader business level, the skills gap poses challenges for managing organisations as a whole:

More skills are needed to deliver value to customers

Wages are spiralling: it can cost a lot to hire the talent you need as it is rare

Baseline skills can be hard to verify: it’s hard to identify what skills a person has, and what specific skills are needed to implement a technology

Training and development costs are increasing: there is a constant need to upgrade skills. People need to be training for their next job. This makes it more difficult to evaluate the cost effectiveness of training. Vendors need to collaborate to help businesses bridge the gap in training required to operate new technologies.

Growth of data makes it more difficult to analyse and interpret: businesses need staff with hybrid skills.

There is a disconnect that requires communication and analytical skills combined to turn data into information that can be used to make informed business decisions


DATA ≠ INSIGHT ≠ ACTION

CONCLUSIONS This investigation into the technology stack has highlighted a number of changes that have important implications for marketers and the changing direction of the marketing function in organisations:

Technology has allowed large amounts of data to be analysed quickly, providing useful insights and information for marketers, enabling marketing to move from a reactive to pro-active function.

Although marketing has recently undergone an industrialisation, it will continue to be transformed by technology.

Technological solutions that address marketing problems are many and varied. In order to select the right solution, decision makers need an in-depth, practical understanding of the marketing problem you are trying to address.

CMOs need to drive all aspects of the technology stack:

- Most IT departments are sufficiently removed from the detail of marketing that they are not able to pro-actively suggest new technologies as they become available.

- Because technology plays such a significant role in marketing today, CMOs need to drive the strategy and implementation of the technology stack.

Single vendors can provide general tools to support marketing, however gaps can persist for point solutions to fill. Deciding on the mix of technologies, and balance between in-house and external providers is best done in partnership with IT.

New technologies are generating skill gaps between those with technical knowledge and those with broader marketing and business experience. Although training can go some way to address the mismatch, CMOs need to think of creative ways to bridge the gap through partnering skills and experience together within the organisation at times and bringing in experts when needed at others.

Although the technology stack presents many challenges for marketers, it is the future direction businesses will be taking. Those who harness the opportunity it offers businesses to get closer to their customers will ultimately win the battle for hearts and minds.


CONCLUSIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS THIS WHITE PAPER IS A RESULT OF THE EXPERIENCE, IDEAS AND THOUGHT LEADERSHIP GENERATED BY THE ADMA CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE EXPERT GROUP FROM THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE THINK TANK.

These invitation-only facilitated workshops explore topics related to one of our content pillars; Customer Experience, Data, Content, Creativity, Technology. With thanks to the members of the ADMA Customer Experience Expert Group and Teradata for their sponsorship.

Kym Boyle Senior Director, Technology and Systems Marketing, Oracle Corporation

Simon O’Day Head of Partnerships Program, Emma Inc

Matt McGrath Board Member and Chief Brand Officer, Network Ten

Richard Harris Director, ADMA

Brad Bennet Head of Technology, The Hallway

Hugh Bradlow Chief Scientist, Telstra

Jon-Paul Stift Client Partner, Atlas | a Facebook company

Shaden Mohamed Executive GM - Online Marketing & Business Intelligence, Wotif group

Jeffrey Evans Vice President Agency, Asia Pacific, Epsilon

Rachelle Kerr Marketing Technology Director, McCorkell


WRITER AND RESEARCHER:

Charlotte Spencer-Roy Copywriter

Mike Vasavada Director - Mobility Solutions, mobiDdiction

Jeff Clark Managing Partner, Engage Digital

Stuart Waite General Manager, Head of Consumer Products & Technology, News Corp

Theo Noel Regional Director AU/NZ, Return Path

Daniel Aunvig Head of Customer Intelligence, SAS

Midu Chandra Director of Strategy & Innovation, mobiDdiction

Katherine Milesi Partner, Deloitte Consulting – Australia

Ray Kloss Head of Marketing, SAP

Steve Brennen Senior Director of Marketing & Advertising Sales, Ebay Australia

Tim Knight Group Head of Digital, True Allianz

SPONSOR:

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