What does technology mean for marketing? Part 1.

Well nothing really. That is if you mean to use the technology in isolation, as a tool to plump up your monthly report to your boss or to impress the executive at the next ex-co meeting.

You see, as marketers, we get very excited about every analytic platform, touch screen data gathering tool or location-based push technology. Very often when said marketers get approval to acquire these technologies, the execution goes horribly wrong and doesn’t generate the insights or excitement that was expected and the technology is deemed a failure and sits on a server gathering the equivalent of digital dust.

Of course, as with any technology, its output is based on its input within the framework provided. Or crap in, crap out excusez mon français. So what does technology mean for marketing? In this multi-part post I’ll give my opinion on how to decide what technologies to use, how you implement them and hopefully answer the question “But what does it mean?!”, spread across 3 main areas where technology has become more prevalent in, and critical to, marketing. I’ll be wading into analytic and monitoring platforms, marketing and/or advertising technologies and then lastly the stuff that makes you go WOW!

Damn, I’m starting with the boring one, *whiney voice* analytic and monitoring platforms . Please, keep reading or worst case, skip this one and wait for the last one and maybe then wind back to this one. But don’t skip the the in-between ones, those are less boring than this first post but not as “can-I-please-throw-you-with-money-I-want-it-I-want-it-I-want-it” as the last one.

Without further ado…

Analytic and monitoring platforms

You would’ve heard of most/all of these: Google Analytics, Sprout Social, SocialBakers, Hootsuite. The list naturally goes on ad infinitum. You have the larger international players and you also have local vendors who have tailored software for specific geographic areas.

All things being equal, these technologies are the easiest to implement. They normally require a live website or a published social media account and a credit card. A short sign up process later and within a few hours you’ll start getting statistics. Wonderful, lovely statistics all doffed in flat design, Helvetica Neue and  swanky infographic layout. And lots of bright colours, enough bright colours to make your eyes bleed. I jest.

Empowered and emboldened with your report on the well-being of your companies’ digital persona, you walk confidently into the boardroom ready to dazzle the crap out of the ex-co. Problem is, they don’t care, but once they start looking at the report, at worst, they’re going to start asking all sorts of uncomfortable questions and at best they’ll give it 5 seconds of air time and we’re off to the next point on the agenda.

Impact of your investment? Zero. Frustration level? Gazillion. So how do you maximise the impact? Return to basics. Before you even embark on searching for a measurement tool, agree with your ex-co what the need is, what the expected insights need to look like and how the reports that are going to be generated are communicated so they have the desired effect on the business.

In the next post we'll look at what to do before even looking at this type of software, how to take action based on insights from the data you generate and how to decide which platform to choose.

Reinard du Plessis, CEO, Marbee