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Learn more: www.demandgen.com | main: 925.678.2500 | sales: 925.678.2511 | info@demandgen.com © 2017 DemandGen International, Inc. All rights reserved. DemandGen and the DemandGen logo are registered trademarks of DemandGen International. All other product and company names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 2 The 2016 Marketing Technology Landscape lists 3,874 vendors. What's more, the phrase "MarTech stack" yields over 50,000 Google results. The implication? When building your marketing technology stack, you must choose from thousands of solutions—a formidable task. Where do you begin? This paper takes a look at best practices for evaluating and implementing new technology solutions into your marketing technology stack, from conducting a gap assessment, to choosing vendors to deciding whether to engage with a third-party agency. THINK STRATEGY FIRST To apply technology effectively, you need to know where the gaps are so you can obtain solutions for strengthening those areas. Once you identify the gaps, you'll have a better understanding of which tools fit your needs. For example, if you have a steady stream of leads at the top of the funnel, you may not need technologies that support driving acquisition. Marketing automation tools help with conversion, but perhaps you need additional help with lead scoring technologies, such as those that apply sophisticated algorithms and predictive intelligence. Or, you could augment conversion efforts with tools that enable content development. Measurement tools may include those that enable campaign attribution, demand funnel inventory capabilities and content consumption. "Strategy first" may seem like common sense, but unfortunately it isn't common practice in marketing. Marketers are trained to be agile and encouraged to push the envelope; however, using new tools correctly means leading with strategy and honoring the requirements—and measurements—for desired outcomes. THE ESSENTIAL FOOD GROUPS OF MARKETING Once you lay out your marketing strategy and identify gaps, you can set priorities for the technology you want to put into place to address any deficiencies. Organizing marketing technologies into essential categories is helpful as you begin to look at what you need. Although there are thousands of marketing tools (and the number seems to grow every week), typically they fall into these seven categories: 1. Content Creation Tools 2. Content Management Tools 3. Marketing Automation Systems 4. Lead Management Systems 5. Lead Management Tools 6. Data Management Tools 7. Reporting Tools

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