Guides

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. 6 vendor a chance to disclose any other costs of using the product that may not be obvious. Will you need to invest in other technologies to support this one? What resources will you need in-house, or will you want to leverage a third-party agency? 7. How long does it typically take to get up and running? Find out the average implementation time, but don't stop there. Does this implementation/migration have dependencies on cross-departmental resources? What percentage of implementations run into hurdles or take longer than anticipated? Can you "fast-track" it? Are there shortcuts you can take or pre-implementation initiatives that help pave the way to success? 8. How will I measure success/ROI? By starting with the end in mind, the conversation will shift from features and functions to impact and results. You're about to invest your time and money in a tool to solve a problem or address a need; find out what success looks like and how long it will take. 9. Can you provide me client references? Calling a reference enables you to ask questions similar to the above: How long did it take before you were successful? What resources did you use to get set up and drive adoption? What level of change management was required in the organization? Were there surprises, in costs or other areas? Don't miss this opportunity to gain unique insights from customers who have already been through the process you're anticipating. Have your list of questions prepared. Bottom line: if all you need to know from a vendor is how their product works and gets configured, you can consider their professional services team. But if their product has to integrate with and leverage other parts of your martech stack and data set, consider an agency who has the breadth and depth of experience that you truly need. ENLIST AN OUTSIDE AGENCY'S HELP TO ENSURE TECHNOLOGY SUCCESS Leveraging the expertise of an outside agency, you may benefit from a dedicated focus to your project to deliver rapid value. Unlike the systems or tools vendor, a good agency will be proactive rather than reactive, and prescriptive rather than rigid, and they can deliver the experience in MarTech stack integration you may not have in-house. That experience enables them to focus on customizing for your needs rather than making you change your needs to fit a vendor's so-called best practices. An agency may also provide managed or project-based services to support your ongoing needs, alleviating the need to hire additional full-time resources that can sometimes lead to bloat and layoffs when the business scales back. You'll have more control and oversight of your MarTech initiatives and outcomes. To learn more about DemandGen and our services, visit www.demandgen.com. More Demo, Less PowerPoint If you're getting a demo, get an actual demo of the product. Set the expec- tation prior to the meeting that you don't want to see screen shots and lots of PowerPoint slides. You want to see the actual product in use, not just listen to someone talk about the product! In a one-hour meeting that's devoted to the demo phase, at least 40 minutes should be spent seeing the actual product. (The majority of the dialog I list above should take place outside of the demo meeting, so you can focus on really seeing the product capabilities and not take things off the demo track with those important questions.) Remember: you're buying the product, not the sales rep. If you're not building good rapport with the sales rep, ask for someone else to be assigned to you. On the flip side, if your sales person is fantastic but the product isn't, don't get charmed into a purchase.

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