What does technology mean for marketing? Part 2.

In Part 1 of the post, we looked at some of the things you should consider before deciding on how you would implement certain technology platforms to improve your marketing.

Today we continue by looking at the thought processes and decisions that will help you make the right decisions. So onward with our first bullet-point list:

• Have a clear motivation for why you have the digital personas and be able to explain their existence in one sentence. Your ex-co needs to understand what these activities contribute to the strategy of the company and if and how they are aligned in achieving business goals. Also, be able to detail the resources involved in running these digital activities, input needs to be equal to or less than output.

• Once the foundation is set, determine what the critical measurables are, why are they important, what is the minimum standard and what is the industry benchmark. No use in measuring yourself in isolation, you need to be able to measure your own growth but you also need to be able to assess your effectiveness against your competitors.

• Once you gather enough data you need to be able to analyse them. What are the trends you see in the data over time? Is the trend good or bad and how does it compare to your benchmarks? What do the trends mean and how will the information assist you in shaping business decisions?

• This next part is the tricky one. With all this data on hand, you can't just present it as the software spits it out, no matter how pretty it is. You need to put the data in a framework that leads to insights based on what the business needs to measure. Your data thus needs to be interpreted in a manner which supports decision-making within the businesses' overall strategy.

And it's done! Not quite. Generating data, interpreting data and aligning the data with business goals is one thing. The data needs to translate to actions. Real decisions that will translate to growth and sustainability. This is why it's important to get the buy-in from your ex-co on what is being measured, what we learn from the data and what gets done with the data once understood by all concerned. Now the decisions borne from the data need to be communicated and implemented. Typically these decisions, within the marketing portfolio, should translate into actions around positioning of the brand, relevancy of the product or service within the chosen target market, availability of the product or service, the price and value proposition and lastly (and these elements are by no means exhaustive) the satisfaction levels of customers.

Only once you are able to close the loop from generating data to implementing business decisions, can you call your investment into analytic and monitoring software viable.

Finally, how do you choose a platform? Believe it or not, that's the easy part:

• What's your budget?

• What's your or the designated users' technical proficiency?

• How much time can you invest in getting the maximum from the platform?

• What is the level of integration required?

• How many people will be using the system?

• How basic or advanced do you need the feature set to be?

• Good ol' personal preference, what feels right?

Analytic and monitoring tools are there to provide real-time, objective insight into your marketing activities and that's where the value lies. Feedback that tells you whether what you're doing is working or that maybe you should transfer to HR... Bazynga! I hope my small contribution lends a hand in setting direction. Just always be aware of analysis paralysis!

This whole post is for naught though if you consider this post by TC.

Next post: I'll be weighing in on advertising platforms and marketing platforms. Hope you haven't dozed off...

Reinard du Plessis, CEO, Marbee