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Invest in people to make your MarTech investment a success

Phil Marshall

March 27, 2019

It’s short-sighted to think that investing a large chunk of cash in a platform, without planning for what happens after it’s rolled out, will solve an organisations marketing woes

Agent3 recently attended “B2B – Get Stacked” and the inaugural “Martech Awards”. *Spoiler alert* We won, but more on that later. Organised by B2B Marketing, the event is targeted at all types of marketing professionals with a myriad of sessions aiming to inform, inspire and educate the attendees about all elements of Martech.

During a panel conversation where industry experts were discussing the state of Martech, Peter Bell (Marketing Director, Adobe) was asked, “what is the main reason for Martech investments to fail?”. His response was simple, a lack of investment in the people who are actually going to be using the platform day-in-day-out.

This statement really resonated with me. It is all too common that businesses are willing to spend significant portions of their budgets on all singing and all dancing martech platforms, but then do not invest in the expertise required to get the most out of the solutions. As a result they don’t get the expected ROI and it’s deemed a failure. It’s a bit like buying a major football club who are used to winning the league and putting the mascot in charge.

It’s short-sighted to think that investing a large chunk of cash in a platform, without planning for what happens after it’s rolled out, will solve an organisations marketing woes and enable for complex marketing initiatives to be delivered at scale from the outset. 

Marketing teams shopping for technology solutions need to pay as much attention to the investment in the platform as they do in who is using it. We recommend giving serious consideration to three options when making a tech purchase:

  • Inhouse team Invest in developing an in-house team who are capable of not only using the new platform, but have the knowledge and creative thinking required to take marketing initiatives to the next level. This can be achieved through training current team members, or through the recruitment of new members with the required specialist skill-sets.
  • Expert agency Work with an agency who has an award winning and experienced team who are experts on the businesses tool of choice. They will not only be effectively implementing the platform, but also planning a roadmap of how it can be leveraged to meet and exceed objectives. The main benefit of using an agency is being able to tap into the combined knowledge they have gained through working with many variations of the technology. This will enable them to support the application with best practice processes and workflows, as well as expertly troubleshoot any issues.
  • Inhouse Champion Having an in-house champion (or champions) who really understand the technology in use, and are also able to draw upon and combine the breadth of expertise and experience of an agency with an inhouse team. This will ensure that the use of the technology is maximised to keep delivering award worthy marketing activities.

Speaking of award worthy (I told you I’d come back to this)… with the discussion about the importance of people in martech, it seemed incredibly apt that the Get Stacked event closed with the B2B Martech awards ceremony, celebrating the people and teams responsible for achievements and success in the B2B martech arena.

With awards ranging from Martech visionary of the year to inhouse marketing technologist of the year, Agent3 were shortlisted for three awards at the inaugural B2B Martech Awards. We were the winner of the Best use of martech for ABM category for our work with Digital River. Obviously, winning any award is a proud achievement, but taking home one that recognises two key focus areas of Agent3’s offering – martech and ABM – is something that we’re very excited about.

I’m proud of the team we have assembled at Agent3. We’re an expert team of analysts, creatives and Martech practitioners who maximise Martech stacks for major clients across the globe. And now we’ve been recognised as leaders in our field.

There’s always a great deal of talk about martech platforms and solutions (and rightly so), but it’s good to remind ourselves that it’s the people operating them that is key to their success. If nothing else, it shows that marketers are not being replaced by the machines… yet!

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