In my previous article, I listed the six core competencies for those who manage marketing technology. Here, I will explain the first core competency, “generalized system understanding,” and what it means to marketers.
Defining generalized system understanding for marketers
Marketing technology must be aligned with marketing processes to realize the most value to companies. This can give marketers an advantage as they are closer to marketing processes and data collection channels.
However, when some marketers hear “generalized system understanding” along with martech, their minds may drift into other initialisms (CDP, EDT) or technical and seemingly abstract concepts.
In reality, it is less about being an expert in these terms, getting platform certifications and “talking tech,” but about understanding how data should flow through the martech stack and how that can help or hinder the marketing processes. This understanding is less technical and more business-related (i.e., which data should be in each platform of our stack so we can properly use it to engage with your customers?).
This presents a huge change in point-of-view that greatly benefits marketers who work closely with activation points for customer data (throughout all channels) and not only at the top-of-funnel activities (such as promotions, advertising, lead generation, etc.).
The importance of a systemic view in marketing
When you are overly focused on just one type of marketing activity (instead of seeing the entire customer cycle and its touchpoints), you cannot have a generalized and systemic view, which is critical when matching martech (tools and platforms) and marketing processes (how teams work around the different marketing activities).
As a marketer, you have a unique perspective that technical teams might miss. This makes your partnership with IT and other technical stakeholders crucial. You can guide developers to make the best technical connections within the martech stack.
Those insights are also extremely useful when it comes to data privacy documentation and stakeholders, as you will understand what customer data is needed, where and when.
Usually, martech platform benefits are considered for customer-facing activities and communication only. However, they also have the power to improve internal marketing processes, and this is where a lot of these platforms’ value and ROI can come from.
By exploring and connecting martech tools from a marketing perspective, you can increase this technology utilization while also improving your own marketing processes.
A systemic view matters more than certifications
With a systemic view, you can strategically manage martech platforms by leveraging your experience with marketing processes and understanding customer data flow. The goal is to enhance customer experiences across digital channels and optimize marketing processes for teams and stakeholders.
As marketing technology evolves, companies face a growing array of platforms. Even with top-tier solutions, they often use a mix of tools. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and what’s right for one company might not work for another.
Thus, a systemic view of how these platforms affect marketing processes is more strategic than focusing on specific tools or acronyms. You can provide unique insights to the multidisciplinary team, especially when IT might lack firsthand experience with marketing processes and customer data channels.
Questions to help you get started:
- Are the tools where we collect customer data automatically connected to the tools we use to communicate with the customer?
- Are we getting the customer data we need in each of these communication and engagement tools? Is the data being sent automatically? When is it updated (cadence)?
- Do we have the right customer data points in the right place, safely and ready to be used to engage these customers?
Next steps
As you answer the questions above, start mapping martech platforms to marketing processes and teams involved in customer engagement, ecommerce, sales and wherever customer data is involved. This helps you understand how each platform can improve marketing processes, make them faster and more agile or eliminate redundant operations.
Contributing authors are invited to create content for MarTech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the martech community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.
