Month: April 2022

Should I Join a Remote Marketing Operations Team?

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Hi Jo,

I’m in the market for a new job, and so many of the marketing operations positions out there are for remote-first or international teams.

To be honest, I’m wary of joining a team where I don’t get to meet up with people in person (I haven’t had the best experience working remotely during the pandemic) and I’m not sure I have the bandwidth to onboard into a brand new company from afar.

Am I making too big a deal out of this?

Thanks,

Fretting Frankie

pink horizontal line

Hey, Frankie. First things first: your job is a big deal, and you’re more than allowed to ask these questions as you try to find the right one. 

You also aren’t alone with these sentiments. In a recent post, I talked to recruiters about the benefits of building a team with people from all over the world.

But, looking at your question, I’m hearing you say that you don’t think remote work is the right fit for you. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why that might be? 

 

A better work/life balance

For generations, we’ve been conditioned to believe that we can only be productive in the office, surrounded by our colleagues. But is that really true?

For me, the fact that I can more easily weave in and out of my work and home lives makes me much more productive in both areas. If I ever get five minutes between meetings, I can put on a load of laundry instead of just waiting around at my desk. 

 

Managing the social aspect

Another concern might be the social aspect—and I hear you.

It can be hard to imagine how you replace casual water-cooler conversations with text on a screen, but just because it’s different doesn’t mean it isn’t effective.

Slack and all its various integrations (does anyone else use the giphy randomizer?) make it easy to:

  • communicate your insights
  • share style of humor, and
  • meet new people on other teams.

Every day, I see people take advantage of these tools to build relationships both within and outside the professional setting.

Not only that, but joining a remote team helps you expand your network outside your region. That’s particularly valuable for the marketing operations industry, which has such widespread expertise.

 

Rent office space

Now, if you’re someone who can’t imagine working at home because you live in a small apartment with your very loud roommate, who also works from home, that shouldn’t stop you from looking at remote positions.

Companies taking a remote-first approach are really looking for the best possible candidates, and if that means providing a stipend so that you can rent a small office, I’m sure they’ll find a way to make that happen.

We’re in an unprecedented time in the workforce, and you should never be afraid to ask for what you need to have an optimal work experience. 

 

Look at the company culture

Another important thing to remember is that your aversion to remote work might be based on working with your current employer, who had to scramble to figure out remote work during the pandemic.

For a lot of companies, the shift to remote work was messy (at best) and it left a lot of people disillusioned with the idea of joining decentralized teams.

Consider this: Leaders today have spent a lot more time thinking through what they can do to empower their distributed teams, supporting them with the right tools, policies, and processes. Don’t let that one experience put you off from testing out something different.

 

Lean on your MOps skills

You may be saying to yourself “OK, you’ve addressed a lot of my concerns, but am I equipped to join a new team remotely?”

I think you are.

The skills you need to succeed in a remote team are the same skills you need to be a good MOps professional:

  • proactivity
  • accountability
  • problem-solving, and
  • good communication.

As long as you’re able to proactively think about solutions to any problems that might arise, and communicate those solutions effectively, you’re golden. 

 

You’ve got this, 

Jo Pulse

P.S. RP. is a remote-first company with a great team and strong culture. And we’re hiring. Visit our careers page to see if there’s an opening that matches your skills.

How Do I Show My Boss My Value?

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Hi Joe,

I’m not sure what to do. As a MOPs professional, I do so much for the company and am always juggling a ton of things on any given day. My boss thinks I only work in Marketo, but I actually take care of so much more! What can I do to show them my contributions and how I’m actually spending my time?

Thank you,
Undervalued Uriel

Hi, Uriel. I wish this weren’t a common problem, but it is. So often, MOPs “teams” are made up of a small group of people that sit under Marketing or Sales, reporting into leaders that don’t fully understand what MOPs is and how much effort it takes to get it right. It’s a challenge, particularly for small teams that are left to manage multiple tasks and projects without much investment or support.

There’s hope on the horizon, though. The talent pool of MOPs professionals and leaders is growing every day, and that means that companies are far more likely to hire managers and directors that understand how many plates you have to spin in a role like yours. In the meantime, here are some of the things you can do to improve your current situation.

Have a transparent conversation with your leaders. Your manager doesn’t know what they don’t know. And while it’s not your job to educate them, what you can do is have a frank conversation about the different things you’re doing, and how you can’t do them all. Going into this conversation, take the time to list out tasks you do, how much time you spend on them, and prioritize them based on how much value you feel they add to the marketing team. If you feel that you need another person on the team, share your advice around how you would divide the tasks to make the most impact. At the end of the day, you’ll be the MOPs expert in that conversation, so make sure you show that expertise.

Take a forward-looking approach. Another important conversation to have with your manager is about the direction you want your career to take. As you know, there are so many paths and specializations to follow in MOPs. Choosing a path and communicating that to your manager will help them understand that you can’t be the “catch-all” for MOPs, and it will give them the opportunity to support you with the training and mentorship you need. Pair this with strategic thinking around where your organization can take MOPs moving forward, and a good manager will be even more inclined to crafting a role that is right for you.

Don’t be afraid to make a change. If none of that works, then it might be time to move on to greener pastures. You deserve to work for a team that gets how important your role is—so start looking for one. Companies that have built a strong MOPs culture will have various people in MOPs roles, including a director or VP that has years of experience in the space. The job descriptions will also be telling. If the hiring manager has written down a laundry list of tasks they want a specific MOPs role to fill, you can bet they don’t fully grasp what MOPs is all about.

Your future is in your hands—and it’s bright. As MOPs continues to grow as a space, there are going to be so many more solid opportunities for you to build your career with. Just wait and see.

You’ve got this,
Joe Pulse

How to Show Your MOPs Value to Sales in a Constructive Way?

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Hey Joe,

I’m really frustrated with Sales right now! They just aren’t understanding what we do and how MOPs can really help them. How do I express my frustration without getting emotional? I want to share my thoughts, but need to do it in a constructive manner. How do I go about that?

Thanks,
Frustrated Frank

Frank, this is a great question. The fact that you’re looking for a constructive solution to this challenge speaks volumes. So often, we see Sales and MOPs teams at odds with each other, even though they’re meant to be working towards the same goal: bringing in more qualified leads and new customers. Taking the time to ensure your teams are on the same page and understand the value each of you bring to the table is a great first step.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had conversations with Sales team members who don’t have any insight into what we do and how we do it. Just trying to get them to input data in a consistent way so that our marketing automation tools can work properly can feel like pulling teeth. This is particularly frustrating when you feel it’s your role to connect the dots between Sales and Marketing, and it doesn’t feel like you’re being heard.

When it comes to sharing these thoughts with Sales in a constructive way, there are a couple of things you can do. The first is to remember that your Sales team is likely dealing with their own frustrations and challenges—and it’s worth knowing what these are before having a conversation with them. They may be facing pressure from their director or have KPIs that run against your team’s, although that shouldn’t be the case. All Sales and Marketing metrics should ladder up to a joint revenue goal, and if you feel that’s not happening or that your KPIs are at odds, then that’s an important conversation you should be having with your leadership.

Another big thing you can do is talk to Sales about your processes and how they align with theirs; but be careful with how you address this. One thing I’ve learned in my years working with different teams is that any time you question a process, people are bound to get a little defensive. So, instead of asking ‘why aren’t we doing XYZ?’, you can reframe the question to ‘are we able to do XYZ?’. This will open the door to a much more constructive and collaborative conversation—and it’ll inspire your Sales team to ask your team questions in the same way.

Lastly, remember that sometimes actions speak louder than words. You know that MOPs can be a valuable partner to your Sales team, so show them. Consider building out scoring models where Sales can identify prioritized personas and automatically receive the leads that are the most likely to convert. Establish an automated system for passing on the right content at the right time to leads that are already engaged. Develop processes that help MOPs and Marketing bridge the gap for MQLs during the nurture stage, without overwhelming them with information. Showcase the different tools (e.g. social, targeted ads, event invites) that MOPs can deploy for engaged leads. These are all things that will help build the partnership across the customer journey.

At the end of the day, it’s all about teamwork.

You’ve got this,
Joe Pulse.

How Do I Build a MOPs Team?

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Hi Jo,

After several years in a single-person MOPs team, my company is now willing to invest in growing MOPs. Encouraging as it is to have initial support from leadership, this will be my first time in charge of building out a team.
How can I hire, structure, and lead a MOPs team effectively? What should I account for in my plan?

Thanks,
Leading Leah.

Congrats on getting buy-in, Leah. By giving the green light to growth, your company is showing they take the success of MOPs seriously. Creating a team from the ground up is no mean feat, but as a new and rapidly evolving function, building and leading a team in the MOPs space comes with a few unique challenges to plan around.

Here’s a rundown of the key considerations your strategy should address:

  • Competencies: While the tools and processes in your organization will determine some of the fine print, the essential mix of skills in a MOPs team broadly breaks down as follows:
    • A people leader who understands marketing technology platforms
    • A day-to-day owner of each marketing system and tool
    • A data expert to own reporting and data warehousing, with expertise in BI tools (e.g. Tableau)
    • Someone to handle day-to-day deployment and requests from Marketing, building campaigns, emails, and other tactical pieces
    • Depending on your budget for headcount, multiple functions can live in one individual; for example, you might own admin or reporting while leading the team.

  • Role design: Whether you’re hiring one person or several, indicate in the title if each role is a generalist or specialist position, and to what extent the position’s deliverables roll uphill and have the candidate interfacing with C-Suite. A smaller team might have a MOPs Manager (wearing all hats) and a Junior MOPs Specialist in support; in larger organizations, you tend to see Senior Directors and VPs of MOPs along with Managers of Martech and Analytics. Note how those roles suggest degrees of seniority and focus.


  • Attracting candidates: The benchmarks of expertise in MOPs are different from more standardized functions like IT. It’s not uncommon to see job postings for senior MOPs leaders that ask for 10-15 years of experience—in a function that hasn’t existed for that long. Without prior experience hiring in MOPs, collaborate with HR to research the correct compensation and realistic skillsets for roles in the space. We’re in a candidate-driven job market right now, so your offers need to be compelling to poach top talent.


  • Nurturing internal talent: For the same reason, recognize and reward effort. Don’t overlook junior colleagues from adjacent teams (e.g. Marketing, IT) who want to learn new things. Some of the best professionals get their start after an organization gives them the chance to grow, so keep an eye out for ambitious internal candidates.


  • Leadership initiatives: MOPs people are driven to excel and willing to take a swing at things; you want to harness that competitive nature in productive ways. Your team should understand what success looks like, so share high-level KPIs for the organization that cascade downwards to Marketing and MOPs. Encourage your team to create job descriptions for more senior roles above them. This accomplishes a few things: clear upward career trajectories will incentivize people to dress for the jobs they want, and if your team is displaying these advanced competencies, it’ll help in negotiating promotions, training, and raises with HR.
  • Role design: Whether you’re hiring one person or several, indicate in the title if each role is a generalist or specialist position, and to what extent the position’s deliverables roll uphill and have the candidate interfacing with C-Suite. A smaller team might have a MOPs Manager (wearing all hats) and a Junior MOPs Specialist in support; in larger organizations, you tend to see Senior Directors and VPs of MOPs along with Managers of Martech and Analytics. Note how those roles suggest degrees of seniority and focus.
  • Attracting candidates: The benchmarks of expertise in MOPs are different from more standardized functions like IT. It’s not uncommon to see job postings for senior MOPs leaders that ask for 10-15 years of experience—in a function that hasn’t existed for that long. Without prior experience hiring in MOPs, collaborate with HR to research the correct compensation and realistic skillsets for roles in the space. We’re in a candidate-driven job market right now, so your offers need to be compelling to poach top talent.
  • Nurturing internal talent: For the same reason, recognize and reward effort. Don’t overlook junior colleagues from adjacent teams (e.g. Marketing, IT) who want to learn new things. Some of the best professionals get their start after an organization gives them the chance to grow, so keep an eye out for ambitious internal candidates.
  • Leadership initiatives: MOPs people are driven to excel and willing to take a swing at things; you want to harness that competitive nature in productive ways. Your team should understand what success looks like, so share high-level KPIs for the organization that cascade downwards to Marketing and MOPs. Encourage your team to create job descriptions for more senior roles above them. This accomplishes a few things: clear upward career trajectories will incentivize people to dress for the jobs they want, and if your team is displaying these advanced competencies, it’ll help in negotiating promotions, training, and raises with HR.You’ve got this,
    Jo Pulse.

How Do I Find the Best MOPs Leader?

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Hey Jo,

I’m trying to find the right person to lead our MOPs team—and I don’t know where to start. It feels like there’s a lack of MOPs leaders in the market, and I don’t want to hire someone just for the sake of it. What should I do?

Thanks,
Hiring Hilary

 

Hi Hilary, great question. Unfortunately, this is a challenge that MOPs hiring managers are facing across the board. The thing is, our sector was originally built to meet the needs of the marketing automation platforms that have emerged over the last few years. As marketing teams adopted these technologies and reshaped how they did things, they gave certain individuals the opportunity to take ownership and become specialists in them. This means there are only a handful of people who have long-term experience with the tools and data analysis requirements that sit at the heart of MOPs.

In addition, because we’re still in the early days of MOPs, we’re only just starting to see educational programs and degrees focused on building the skills required for this area of marketing. In short, when it comes to building a strong and experienced MOPs talent pool, we’re still playing catch up. It’s not all doom and gloom, though! There are still ways for you to find the right MOPs leader for your team—you’ll just need a little creative thinking and patience.

First off, really think about what impact you want this person to have. As a function, MOPs encompasses multiple projects and capabilities, and they may not all be right for your business. When I have intake calls for a MOPs leadership hire, I ask the team what projects they’re doing in the next 90 days (e.g. rolling out Marketo instances), and pull the key skill sets from that. The bonus? You won’t have a laundry list of requirements on the job description that might put people off from applying.

Now that you know what the team needs, craft a clear picture of the candidate you’re looking for. A MOPs leader needs to have the right balance of technical and business acumen. They need to be able to understand the technical details while also using big-picture thinking to make decisions and guide their team. Part of this balance also requires managing expectations with executive stakeholders so that MOPs team members feel they have the space to do their jobs. Most of all, they need to be constant learners that aren’t afraid to break the status quo.

The MOPs space is always changing—it looks totally different today than it did six months ago—and leaders need to be able to adapt quickly while also being brave enough to lead some of those changes themselves.

If you ever feel that you have to compromise on a hire, my advice would be to compromise on platform experience, not project experience—technologies can be learned, after all. Also, remember the 80% rule. If you’ve found someone that doesn’t quite meet all the requirements, but has strong leadership potential and learning abilities, take a chance. They might be just the right person to lead your team to their next big success.

Now, this one is important. Before you go to market with this role, make sure what you’re offering is appealing. In this market, candidates have the power to choose, and they’re largely looking for companies where they’ll have flexibility, growth opportunities, and a voice at the table. Knowing that, you have to strive to be a company that people want to work at.

You’ve got this,
Jo Pulse.

How Do I Create a Webinar Campaign?

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Hey Jo,

I’ve been asked to manage a webinar campaign at work. It’s my first time taking charge of webinars, and I’m unsure of all the processes to account for and the information I need to gather.

Where do I start with webinars? What do I need to do to make this succeed?

Thanks,
Webinar Willa.

 

Willa, thanks for writing in. Putting a webinar campaign together for the first time isn’t always easy, but it’ll be a rewarding experience and a good step forward in your role.

From my time working on webinars over the years, I’ve found there to be a pretty low general awareness from other stakeholders towards the demands of webinar campaigns and preparation required. Before you can start to build a registration page, the concept of your webinar needs to be compelling and the strategy solid.

So, before focusing on anything technical, take some time to clarify the fundamentals; your manager and team are there to help. Here are some of the key points to establish:

  • Purpose: What’s your webinar trying to accomplish? Who’s the target audience?
  • Content: What’s your webinar about? Who’s presenting?
  • Delivery: Which webinar software will you be using? Is it integrated with your marketing automation platform?
  • Promotion: Do you know which channels you’ll use and how you’ll allocate spend? What copy and assets do you need? Look back at past webinar campaign report data to inform your decisions here.
  • Scope: Ask a colleague to work with you to develop a webinar blueprint or briefing form that contains all of the relevant information. This can help to establish and convey the scale of the work involved to other team members as you go through the process.At this stage, you can start working out the flow of processes and getting stuck into the technical side:
  • Share your steps: You want all your relevant stakeholders to understand the steps, timescales, accountable team members, and dependencies involved in getting each piece of the puzzle together. A visualization tool can help you communicate your processes succinctly.
    Templates and testing: Program templates are likely to save you some time.Once you’ve uploaded them with the relevant details, loop a colleague in to test them out. Play with it until you can register for the webinar, get the correct emails flowing at the right time, and generate a link to access the session.
  • Self-serve: Self-service updates will make your life easier after you start the program. Create a shared space where relevant teams like Sales can see automatic updates with registrants and attendees.
  • Follow-up: Think about how you want to engage your registrants after the webinar, whether you send a follow-up email to suggest other relevant webinars or set up a nurture program.After you’ve got performance data on the webinar, bring your team together to show how your processes worked and share the results. You’ll get the opportunity to reflect on what went well and what you can improve for the next campaign. But this is also your moment of recognition; congratulations, you pulled it off.You’ve got this,
    Jo Pulse.

How Can I Increase Data Integrity in My Organization?

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Hi Joe,

The data situation in my organization is a mess. Whenever it’s time for Sales and Marketing to collaborate, they both bring different insights to the table from data sets that don’t correspond with each other. As a result, our data is unreliable, and we struggle to be proactive and make confident decisions about campaign activities and spend.

What sort of change needs to happen to improve our data integrity? How can I encourage teams in our organization to participate in sorting out our data?

Thanks,
Siloed Sam.

 

Break silos: To align your efforts, avoid duplication, miscommunication, and rogue analytics coming from each business unit, all your data needs to live under one roof. Your first move should be to invest in a central data warehouse, where your teams can easily maintain the cleanliness of your data through master data management and data cataloguing.

Allocate costs based on each team’s resources: Modern platforms like Snowflake offer easy ways to allocate the cost across the organization as storage and compute are distinct and can be tracked by line of business. This lowers the barrier to entry for organization centric data management and teams with limited budgets can invite more teams to join and enable easy data sharing among them without bearing the whole cost.

Get leadership buy-in: Marketing and Sales teams that lack data literacy tend to shy away from data management. To overcome this, leadership needs to infuse the value of data into your culture, whether by requesting data from Marketing to clarify insights and support decisions, by investing in data enablement for their marketers, and by setting a course for data and reporting initiatives.

Find the right people to lead the charge: Any data transformation effort needs to be staffed with people who know about data pipelines, BI, and how to present to various stakeholders. Depending on where these skills lie, this initiative might live under your CMO or IT. Is IT’s partnership with Marketing strong? Can MOPs translate the technicalities for Sales and Marketing? Consultants and agency partners can jump-start the process, but you need internal clarity beforehand on what your organization wants to achieve.

The rise of new data warehousing tools like Snowflake has made it more achievable than ever for businesses to de-silo their data with minimal upfront investment. As more Marketing activities take place online, the consequence is growth in campaign data; take advantage of these newly accessible methods for sorting, capturing, and analyzing data, and your revenue machine will run more effectively than before.

You’ve got this,
Joe Pulse.

How Should I Approach My First Days in Marketing automation?

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Hi Jo,

I’m due to begin my first role in marketing automation with a new company, and I’m wondering what I can do to get off to a good start. I’m interested in the technical and data-driven elements of marketing, but coming from a role focused more on campaign content, this will be my first time getting truly hands-on with a marketing automation platform.

What things should I prioritize learning? How can I make a good impression on my new team?

Thanks,
New Naomi.

 

Naomi, congratulations on your new opportunity. It’s natural that you want to shine and show your new colleagues that you’re someone they can count on. That said, don’t feel pressured to get a handle on all the complexities of your tools and the detailed dynamics of your industry and company just yet.

Marketing automation platforms come with quite a steep learning curve, and MOPs as a space is constantly changing. When I first started in marketing automation, I found there to be no shortage of new things to learn, from the technicalities of the platform to the priorities of the business and the ways that my new teams work together. Confidence and fluency in these things is something you’ll develop over time as you get stuck into the role.

For now, it’s best to focus on understanding the essence of marketing automation, the fundamentals of your platform, and what your teams need from MOPs to work effectively.
Here are some steps I recommend you take as you settle into your new job:

Think user-centric: Platforms are all about the user experience. If someone is reading your content, you have one shot at engaging them further—what does this page or email need to convey to encourage them to download that whitepaper or click through? Reflect on the principles of demand gen and inbound marketing; they underlie all the capacities a platform has to bring a campaign to life.

Resources: Check out your platform’s support documentation, learning hub (e.g. Marketo University, HubSpot Academy), and community forums. These resources will help you to self-sufficiently answer questions and explore different features in the platform, and you can also develop a network by participating in user groups and discussions. From interacting with people over time, you’ll increasingly establish yourself and learn more about the broader direction of the MOPs space.

Talk to people: What do various people in your teams like or dislike about your marketing automation platform? What challenges are they experiencing? Talking about these things is a good way to start forming relationships, and it helps to focus your learning of the platform. If you can discover how to solve problems that people are having, you’ll quickly establish rapport and expertise.

Small improvements: Your new team might want you to do things by the book or optimize established processes where you can. Always be receptive to what your manager asks, but suggest potential areas for improvement along the way. Whether you identify some tweaks to a page that could bring more conversions or introduce new visualizations that make data more digestible, it’s good to subtly show how you can improve things and make peoples’ lives easier.

You’ve got this,
Jo Pulse.

How Do I Get Management to Listen to Me?

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Hi Joe,

I’m having trouble getting respect from my Marketing leadership. Working in MOPs means I understand the processes between Marketing and Sales, what’s working well and what isn’t, but I don’t think my boss values my insights. My role involves lots of procedural responsibilities like building emails and handing leads over, which I think creates the perception that my contributions aren’t important to the big picture strategy.
How do I get my boss to listen to me? How do I make them see that my work adds value?

Thanks,
Ignored Isabel.

 

Isabel, I know this is tough. Getting your boss to really appreciate the value you provide in MOPs can feel like pushing a boulder uphill. After years of progressing my career in MOPs and working with senior leadership figures, I’ve seen a real blind spot from management towards the complexities of Marketing Operations.

That said, the disconnect goes both ways. A mistake I often made earlier in my career was to assume that everyone in a company speaks the same language. Data flows, systems maintenance, martech infrastructure; what comes fluently to us in MOPs can sound downright alien to people in other fields.

To leadership, it’s rarely apparent at face value how these components help the company to work productively and achieve revenue targets. Add those things together—poor understanding of MOPs, communication that doesn’t touch the bottom line—and you get a lack of respect.

You’re doing great work that’s worthy of recognition; what’s missing is a story of your value in MOPs that makes your impact on the business clear. Here’s some advice that can help you gain a seat at the table:

  • Unpack the strategy: Automating a ton of processes doesn’t mean your job is simple. Every email you build or webinar you host comes after weeks of planning to make sure your campaigns run smoothly and reach the right audiences. This is how you characterize your role to people who think you’re here to take orders; less plumbing, more architecture.
  • Know the room: You’re at a crossroads between technical know-how and commercial priorities. Your CTO and IT team might relate to the grittier aspects of your work, but for Marketing and Sales, it’s all about how you’re planning and budgeting for successful campaigns and generating leads. For responsibilities like vendor relations and data governance, you’ll need to surface how doing those things well helps your company be productive and profitable.
  • Unify your data sources: Reporting and analytics aren’t just ‘nice to haves’—they’re the best instruments for painting the picture of your impact. Give your tech stack some TLC and join together all the reporting elements that show how you’re performing against KPIs.
  • Share the right numbers: The most compelling move you can make with data is to leave behind the everyday operational challenges—the amount of tickets you’re handling, processes you’re running—and look at revenue. How many MQLs converted to SQLs? How many of those turned into closed deals, and at what dollar value? Those data points prove your contributions to business growth, so own them.Getting management to listen means changing their perspective of your value. It might not happen overnight, but persistence goes the distance.You’ve got this,
    Joe Pulse.

How Do I Evaluate New Pieces of Technology?

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Hi Joe,

I’ve been asked to evaluate new solutions that could replace one of our tools. This is the first time I’m having input into the assessment and purchase of new software, and I’m not really sure how I should approach this.
How can I identify the most effective tool for my company? What qualities should I look for to guide the decision?

Thanks,
Evaluating Evan.

 

Evan, it’s good that you’re thinking critically about this. The amount of martech solutions is increasing by the day, so it’s becoming more of a challenge to cut through the noise and advocate for the best tech.

It’s almost a rite of passage for people in MOPs to get burned by a tool, whether they were oversold on its capabilities, the solution didn’t gel with their stack, or it just wasn’t the right fit for the problem or goal at hand.

I’ve participated in evaluations where solutions seemed promising—useful functionalities, relevant integrations, good price point—only to not quite deliver on its purpose. Frustrating as it is to wait out a contract, these experiences make clear how important it is to be intentional with your tool purchases; and how sometimes, this is a difficult thing to get right.

Here’s some advice to guide your evaluation:

  • Know your agenda. What problems are you trying to solve or efficiency gains are you trying to achieve?
    Whether you want to improve a particular process, consolidate multiple tools into one, or make it easier to scale, see if you can accomplish this during the trial or demo phase, or determine whether it’s possible or not to do so. This is a big clue as to how suitable a tool is.
  • You might spot something interesting about a tool that isn’t why you wanted it in the first place. That observation can lead you to solve a different problem or open a new opportunity, but keep in mind the capability or issue that’s driven you to enter the process.
  • How well does a tool address the breadth of issues and functionality gaps in your company? You might find a solution that does exactly what you need it to without broader utility, or an adequate tool for your intended use case that fits optimally with other aspects of your business. Both are valid motives for choosing a tool; consult with the stakeholders in your company who’ll use or sign off on the tool to determine which would bring more value.
  • As a standalone product, is the solution you’re looking at best-in-class at what it’s designed to do? Is it an established market leader or gaining positive momentum? Does it integrate well with your CRM, CMS, and marketing automation platform? These are positive signs that a solution has longevity and that it’s compatible with your stack. Look for online reviews, Gartner Magic Quadrant placements, and partner/vendor certification with your core pieces of tech.
  • It’s worth doing your homework on the solution provider just as much as the tool itself. Take into account the deployment options, customer support, and training that the vendor offers, along with any third-party reviews and feedback from your network.You’ve got this,
    Joe Pulse.