Succeeding in enterprise Martech, improving your data skills, removing friction and more...

In this edition:

1. Succeeding With Enterprise Martech Stacks

2. How to Improve Your Data Skills

3. Removing Friction for Marketing Ops

4. How to Refresh Your Martech Stack

5. For Paid Subscribers: 10 Inconvenient Truths About Marketing Ops

What if your tech made you smarter? The Revlitix platform proactively shares funnel diagnostics and revenue success patterns without the need for a data team - check it out here.

Friends of the Newsletter: The Humans of Martech podcast is one of my favorites. Check them out on Spotify or Apple podcasts.

Plan Ahead! The world’s best in-person marketing ops conference is back - get your early bird tickets here.

---

What you need to nail when you work in enterprise Martech

Thoughts from Paul Wilson (Slack, Adobe) and I on managing enterprise Martech:

1 – Take a “product-based” approach to manage marketing operations

Instead of a “service,” imagine marketing ops is a product with inputs, outputs, and users. Interview your stakeholders to understand what outputs are most important and what pain points need to be solved. Evaluate the success of your operation against those outputs. Use prioritization frameworks to rank order features (projects, tech integrations, process improvements) and use agile methods and roadmaps to execute work efficiently.

2 – A robust governance model for change management

Most of work is change management. New technology and new processes must be vetted and analyzed using second-order thinking and implications. Change and technology rollouts should be planned well in advance with frequent communications and clear timelines. Stakeholders must be led through change, not forced through change.

3 – A single intake process for all Martech requests

Move intake out of slack, email, and conversations. Setup a formal intake system using a project management tool and prioritize all incoming requests against a planned roadmap and current work. A single intake process should cover issues, tech & feature requests, and campaign support keeps everything organized and prioritized.

---

How to improve your data skills

9 simple steps to start improving your data skills today:

1. Learn the basics of statistics
2. Know your data sources
3. Chart your results over time
4. Understand data field types
5. Learn relational database basics
6. Get good at tracking and tagging
7. Know the 4 types of analytics and when to use them
8. Start forecasting results
9. Develop critical thinking and business acumen

Slowly work your way through this list and you’ll be amazed at your data proficiency.

---

Removing friction for your operations

Friction is present in so many areas of business and operations.

Here, we see friction between people, technology, processes, information, skills, and customer experience.

How do you address this?

PEOPLE FRICTION - Slow down to speed up. Check alignment and buy-in of top goals, R&Rs, and timelines.

TECH FRICTION - Put together a plan outlining how the right tools will be used in the right way. Set KPIs such as adoption rate, ideal platform usage, process time, time to value, and efficiency.

PROCESS FRICTION - List all the steps of a sales or marketing process and create a Gantt chart based on how long each step takes. Find ways to shorten the longest steps and identify which steps can be completed concurrently.

INFORMATION FRICTION - The goal is to easily surface the data and insights that sales and marketing need to make better decisions.

SKILLS FRICTION - Create surveys and focus groups to rate your team’s proficiencies in all tools and processes. Kick off educational efforts (training, documents, recordings) to address underperforming areas.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE FRICTION: Pretend you are a customer and mystery shop your sales and marketing processes. How long does it take to get a quote? To trial your service? To purchase? To hear from customer success? Document your experience and share it with the team.

In short - you can level up your business on many fronts by removing friction.

---

How to refresh your Martech stack

I love the idea of a Martech refresh. Like spring cleaning your tech stack.

Saves time and saves money on redundant tools.

But many marketers don’t know where to start.

Here are things you can do to kick off a Martech refresh:

1 - Platform Audit: List out all of your tools by owner, purpose, cost, and team users. Identify duplicate use cases, shelf-ware, and anything else that would block streamlined operations.

2 - Data Health Review: Review samples of data to check for completeness and accuracy. Kick-off projects to resolve any discrepancies.

3 - Marketer Survey: Survey internal marketers to understand their needs and pain points - ensure you have the right tools that match their requirements.

4 - API Check: Review all API calls and connections to ensure smooth functionality and integration across your tech stack.

5 - Financial Analysis: Take a deep dive into pricing for all tools to ensure you're maximizing ROI and optimizing your budget.

6 - Security Inspection: Ensure data storage is secure and compliant, safeguarding against unauthorized access and prioritizing customer data privacy.

This work needs to be collaborative. To achieve the best possible outcome, bring in key partners from product, ops, marketing, and more.

---