There are over 7,000 marketing software solutions on the market.
Choosing the right martech is overwhelming. You’ll probably sleep under your desk for a week as you sort through the options… and you still won’t have scratched the surface.
The BIG question to ask is, how fast do you want this new piece of technology implemented?
Some of the big, well-known cloud marketing tech companies have lengthy implementations, tying up your money, time, and resources for months and months.
Years ago I worked for a company that chose a popular piece of marketing software. Our team found out after the ink was dry on the year-long agreement that our marketing team would have to rely on developers to create some of the much-needed campaigns.
This time suck was the reason our company stopped using the software after a month and lost tens of thousands of dollars — it didn’t deliver in the way we were promised.
Before you seek out new marketing software, step back and try to understand what is best for your company, the goals you want to achieve, and steer clear of martech that doesn’t talk about time to value.
Why Your Software Implementation Time Is Crucial
Time to value is all about speed to market.
How fast will your new piece of technology be available to free up your marketing team so they can be more strategic, creative, and productive?
Time is money, especially in e-commerce, but time is also the intangible you wrestle with.
If you grapple time to the ground and implement your new marketing technology in a shorter amount of time than the competition, you gain a competitive edge that leads to faster revenue growth.
Some of the biggest players in the martech field often overlook time to value.
Your peers and others in your industry may say you should only choose from the big cloud players, because it’s what everyone else does.
After you choose a big-name cloud player and ink out the contract, and months down the road when your implementation has stalled (and your boss is breathing down your neck because you wasted a truckload of time, money, and resources), you’ll begin to understand why time to value is a major concern.
Implementation is neither painless nor fast with the big marketing clouds on the market.
Using Magento 2 and looking for ways to predict the future value of each customer?
Data – What Does It Say?
If you were asked to show off the marketing technology your company leverages to grow revenue and explain how much each platform such as your EMP (Email Marketing Platform), CRM (Customer Relationship Management), customer service software, SMS platform, ad platform, and social media management contribute to revenue generation, would you be able to do so? You’re not alone if you said no.
Marketers use anywhere between 6–10 different martech pieces on a daily basis.
And because each data piece lives in a separate silo, many companies are unaware of how each piece of their tech stack adds to revenue growth.
It’s why having one location for all your data, such as a CDP (Customer Data Platform), is a great way for you to see and track every customer interaction and then use that information to build out your automations.
The shorter your time to value, the quicker you’ll be able to achieve additional sales, revenue, and profit. Plus you’ll gain the upper hand on the competition by streamlining the post-implementation process.
A company’s future success may ride on how the tech you chose works.
If your time to value is too long, and if the process to roll out new campaigns with your new tech is cumbersome, the less likely you’ll be able to achieve your company’s business goals.
Final Thoughts
Time to value is nothing new and has applied to many businesses over the years.
In marketing, as opposed to a factory floor assembly line, time to value can be ambiguous.
And if you and your team want to showcase your value, you have to start with a platform that quickly pulls together all your data and enables you to activate campaigns in a day.
It’s why Emarsys created a customer engagement platform, to enable you with a dashboard that offers marketing strategies and outcomes. You’ll have the opportunity to show your company how your team has influenced revenue for the better.
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- How Long Is Too Long to See Value in Marketing Tech?
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