Navigating the Martech Landscape: A Strategic Overview

Ron Ause, Co-Founder of Workamajig

For over three decades, I have had the privilege of intimately knowing the workings of some of the best marketing agencies in the country. Most of these interactions have come during a journey of improving their marketer operational efficiency through the Workamajig platform. Many agency owners and marketers are faced with an interesting dilemma – how can they strategically approach Martech purchases in 2024.

Do not get me wrong, AI is important, and Workamajig is supporting the advancement of future marketing leaders, but there is more to effectively managing a marketing agency or a large in-house marketing department than one product.

AI is like a two-edged sword for our industry, it has the potential promise to transform the way marketing is performed in a positive manner. However, it has the potential to make marketers lazy, less aware of customer needs or creative opportunities, and potentially less mentally sharp due to automation. How does an agency or in-house marketing team have a proper lens on marketing technology in 2024?

Building a True Foundation

My first recommendation is for leaders to evaluate their business needs and opportunities first and not technology first. Executives should ask themselves some of the following questions:

• How am I monitoring and measuring project or account team efficiency?

• Do I understand who my top performers are, and do I appropriately recognize them in a timely manner?

• Do I really understand why my business had a profit or loss last year?

• What gaps does my marketing team have from a collaboration, productivity, or project management perspective that could hinder our accomplishment of the annual business goals that I set for our agency or in-house perspective?
  
  
• Am I leading my business to chase technology trends, or I am building a customer-centric business augmented by technology?

These types of questions are the bedrock of where executives should be focusing their energy to start having a strategic perspective on how they look at Martech purchases. There is no one-size-fits-all model for marketing technology, and there is not even one vendor that is best for every marketer. Yes, there are some platforms that do more than others and offer more value, but each senior marketing leader or agency owner must do the due diligence as to how their business operates coupled with the customer (internal and external) feedback they receive to shape their purchases. Once that foundation is built, then they can move to the next step.

Understanding the Martech Landscape:

From this foundation, leaders can engage their team leads to have meaningful discussions about operational and talent gaps that could be augmented by technology. These discussions could be centered on the following areas:

• How the CRM is performing in managing customer relationships

• Is the marketing automation platform effectively supporting key programs

• Does the project management software help the agency stay on top of commitments, deadlines, and budgets

• Is the resource management software playing an influential role in ensuring healthy and happy teams that can deliver excellence without getting burnt out

• Do the collaboration tools properly align efforts to the clients needs and desires

• How are the financial platforms enabling the business to maintain good cash flow as well as guiding the business decisions in line with the firm’s bottom line

• Are internal systems unified and clean, and do all teams understand what the data means for how to approach sales, client retention, resource management, and other areas of business

These steps are just from an operational perspective. Taking into account the creative aspect of marketing and after doing an honest assessment of employee creative strengths and weaknesses, leaders can more intelligently evaluate traditional and emerging tools like generative AI images and videos to amplify their capabilities to satisfy existing clients and/or win new business.

Leaders also should not forget the importance of the right HR performance management and recognition software that can boost employee satisfaction and retention.

When performing this step, it is important to ensure the technology purchases will scale in an affordable way with the business. No one wants to keep repeating the technology purchase cycle in a short period of time when they should be focusing on getting to their destination of growth instead of focusing on changing the technology tires on their vehicle.

It goes without saying that IT must be part of this evaluation and purchase cycle as they are the ones that will ensure proper configuration internally. This is crucial to maximize the ROI of purchases along with ensuring new software adheres to data privacy, security, and other measures that protect your business integrity.
Making sure IT is part of the strategy and purchase cycle will also help to develop the right metrics for your business for all technology purchases.

Navigating the Martech landscape requires a strategic approach tightly aligned with business objectives that intelligently embraces innovation in a manner that is customized to each business leader and marketing team.

As CEOs, we must lead our companies and not let new technology innovations drive us.

For agencies that would like to hear from their peers on how Workamajig has been a valuable asset in navigating the martech landscape, check out a couple of customer stories below:
https://www.workamajig.com/client-reviews/ea-collective
https://www.workamajig.com/client-reviews/lavidge