Editorial
Selecting, implementing and managing martech solutions invariably involves a tug of war between marketers and IT, two teams that inherently fall on opposing sides. Marketers clamor for tools with which they can create digital experiences and effectively engage with consumers at scale, whereas developers seek adaptability, connectivity and the freedom to pick the tools for the technology stack.
Such a scenario results in conflicts and inefficiency. Hence why a cohesive and inclusive strategy for selecting the right martech tools is crucial for building compelling digital experiences.
The Common Goals of Marketing and IT
In reality, marketing and IT share some important common goals:
- Adopt scalable martech solutions that enable the creation of captivating experiences for both potential and existing customers.
- Collaborate seamlessly and efficiently across teams.
- Align and connect martech tools based on business needs.
A way to meet those shared goals has been to switch from monolithic platforms to MACH architectures, which focus on API-first. APIs ensure that services can communicate with one another for a fast, flexible martech stack.
MACH gives you the freedom of selecting the right tools for your needs while ascertaining that the tools you pick work together well. That's a tremendous advantage over the old, monolithic approach, whereby bundled, best-in-class tools often offer solutions replete with major shortcomings, hampering teams' effectiveness.
Related Article: Expert Tips for Taming the Martech Madness
The Marketing POV: Inclusion at Outset
All too often, marketers are left out of the decision-making process for selecting technologies and are simply handed a suite of tools and a directive to “make it work.” That scenario leads to frustrations among marketers, who must keep up with multiple channels, including fast emerging ones and consumer demands in an ever-changing environment.
Realistically, brands must recognize that marketers are in the trenches and therefore closest to the workflow for building experiences. In fact, marketers’ input should carry as much weight as that from developers vis-à-vis selection of martech tools.
In addition, the current crop of tools — typically a rigid monolith martech suite or a cobbled-together mix of legacy and best-of-breed solutions — lack usability for marketers, who would then lose real-time control over content. To be effective, marketers must be empowered to independently build experiences, personalize them and measure performance without having to call on IT help.
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The Missing Ingredient: Collaboration
For martech solutions, marketing can share its perspective on the tools they need to streamline existing processes and kick-start new ones. On the other hand, IT’s in-depth knowledge of vendors, architectures, scalability and integration requirements is equally valuable. Therefore, it makes sense that evaluating and recommending martech solutions be a collaborative effort among those stakeholders. When the solutions are all set, collaboration can continue with no interruptions.
Adopting composable technologies is only the first step, however; the composable tools must be connected before they can work together. Additionally, marketers also need effective tools for creating and managing experiences. A digital experience composition (DXC) toolset, which offers business users no-code ways working with composable architectures, would be ideal.
By adding an experience layer to a martech stack, marketers can do their job regardless of back-end sources, retaining control over processes like personalization and A/B testing in a low-code or no-code environment. On top of that, the experience layer separates experience creation from orchestration of the back end, giving developers the freedom to add or replace back-end tools without disrupting marketers’ workflow.
Related Article: The 6 Must-Have, Must-Change Martech Categories for 2022
The Results: Wins for Developers and Marketers
With the setup described above, marketers get to do what they do best — driving conversion and engaging with customers — without being hampered by a lack of technical expertise. Simultaneously, instead of being bogged down by integration tasks and the like, developers can architect, strategize and orchestrate across the various platforms of the composable architecture.
Ultimately, cross-team adoption of martech solutions streamlines internal operations, facilitates collaboration, and raises productivity — a tremendous win for enterprises.
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