Scott Brinker Shares Best Practices for Martech for the OMCP Standard
Just after his keynote at the 2017 Martech conference, Scott Brinker took a few minutes to share best practices in Martech with OMCP. Scott and his blog ChiefMarket.com are the go-to source for leading Martech practices. Follow Scott at @ChiefMartec.
Here’s a summary of the interview:
The Technology is the Smallest Piece
The technology is the smallest piece of the equation and the first step. The key is how to you shift the organization to be able to take advantage of this. Investing in the people who going to leverage the tech to execute the marketing programs.
One example: We see companies embrace Agile Marketing. INstead of fixed plans for the year or quarter we’re seeing teams have the agility to be more iterative and experimental in 2-3 week cycles. The technology which enables rapid iteration and rapid testing isn’t the bottleneck. Instead we need teams and people who are capable of creating the content for the experiments and who can analyze the results and act. The ‘muscles’ you get around those practices is more a factor of your success than ‘how did we do with the integration piece?’
Soft Skills that Enable Martech
Scott asserts that, given these advanced capabilities, a #1 focus is dealing with the change. People who love to learn, are willing to learn, and are OK experimenting are the ones to look for. In addition, executive support for a testing culture is required. Marketing management must encourage testing, celebrate failures, and support constant re-testing.
Group Tech Solutions into Layers
One best practice is to evaluate new marketing tech stack in layers, much like those suggested by Gartner’s Pace-Layered Application Strategy:
- Systems of innovation
- Systems of record
- Systems of differentiation
Systems of record are a core foundation. For example, your CRM and your marketing automation tools are systems of record. These require some time to evaluate, integrate, and implement. Once you have that foundation, we can move quickly to put systems of innovation (innovative tools) on top of that. Scott agrees that the IT and security teams and systems of governance are there to serve us and prevent a data breach or setback.
Staying up on New Capabilities
Beyond the learning curve of new capabilities, marketers must also manage the even-steeper curve expectations that are placed on the marketing team. This plays back to the earlier points that soft skills, and the encouragement of rapid try-fail-try again might be the best factor in the midst of the marketing tech growth.