If you are tasked with doing more for your company with fewer resources, taking a close look at your marketing technology (MarTech) stack is a must. A stack assessment will help you identify opportunities to realize more value from existing technologies, divest in underperforming tools, and identify gaps. Your MarTech stack is likely full of hidden gems that can help you make a bigger impact on revenue while driving more value from your current resources.
According to Gartner’s State of Marketing Budget and Strategy 2022 report, average marketing budgets across all industries are up 3+ basis points to 9.5% of a company’s total revenue. Despite macroeconomic concerns and inflationary pressures, most Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) believe their own economic outlook is strong. However, history tells us that marketing budgets are likely to land on the chopping block when budgetary constraints come into play. And according to Gartner, since CMOs spend, on average, a whopping 25.4% of their marketing budget on technology, conducting a MarTech stack assessment is the prime place to start to drive cost savings.
5 Steps for Assessing Your MarTech Stack
In a recent webinar, Director of Advisory, Ryan Johnson, at The Demand Generation Group at BDO Digital, discussed how to assess and optimize your company’s current MarTech efforts. According to Ryan, it’s important to identify 10+ key tools you want to assess, with an emphasis on the tools that cross different groups. These tools are highly integrated into the organization and give you the most bang for your buck.
Once you’ve identified the tools you want to assess, Ryan suggests following these 5 key steps:
1) Assemble all key stakeholders together, including all teams that rely on marketing and sales technology – not just system users, but also system owners.
2) Evaluate each system you’ve identified against the following criteria, to better identify any critical gaps. Points of evaluation for technology solutions include:
- Impact: What’s the impact of the system on meeting sales and marketing objectives?
- Usage: How much is the system actually being used? How many people are trained and proficient at using the tool?
- Adoption: How well is the system being used by the overall team? Leadership buy-in is crucial to ensure solid adoption rates.
- Integration: How well is the system integrated with other tools?
- Investment: How much of the overall marketing budget is spent on that system? Does the value align with the cost?
3) Examine how each system performs with respect to each of the five criteria in step 2. Analyze them to clearly see where strengths and weaknesses intersect and identify areas of redundancy and any gaps.
4) Present insights and recommendations to the key stakeholders, using visuals and charts to summarize key actions and priorities. This includes recommendations for which tools to enhance, maintain, or discontinue. A chart depicting impact versus investment is a powerful visual to assist with making decisions around each tool.
5) Assign: Develop an action plan to implement approved recommended changes. Then assign actions to team members to gain buy-in. Governance is essential to keep new initiatives going. Investing in people to make systems run effectively is also key to driving a return on investment (ROI).
Ryan also shared an overview of BDO Digital’s D3 Methodology – a 3-pronged framework for determining whether key areas are driving desired outcomes around central revenue output: demand creation, demand management, and demand expansion. All three areas are integral when determining whether or not a key focus area (technology in this case) is aiding or hindering revenue or needs optimization. The D3 Methodology assessment is also offered by BDO Digital and can be applied to nearly any key area of focus.
Is it Time to Assess Your MarTech Stack?
There are several reasons why it may be time to take an in-depth look at your marketing technology. You may have new marketing professionals on board who would benefit from an assessment. You may be knee-deep in budgeting and considering every cost-saving measure. Whatever the reason may be, watch the webinar on demand to learn more about how best to assess your MarTech stack.
Don’t have the resources to allocate to an assessment? Let BDO Digital’s team of professionals conduct a comprehensive assessment of your marketing technology and provide recommendations for driving tangible cost savings. Our team can also help you build out a MarTech roadmap to scope out long-term plans and goals. Reach out to us today or get started with our free self-assessment.
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