Tech Stack Rules: Things You Must Teach Every Member of Your Marketing Team
There’s a lot of software available for your marketing team and it’s essential to make sure your marketing team is up to speed on your tech stack.
Every marketer must master technology. Even seemingly unrelated technical skills can affect the performance of your marketing team.
Today, it’s not enough to know marketing methods, it’s crucial to know what software and technology you need to stay ahead of your competitors.
Technological Competence Affects Marketing Results
Being tech savvy is not a bonus anymore – it’s a requirement.
Your marketing efforts will be much better with a tech competent staff.
Something as simple as learning how to use advanced spreadsheet functions can give your staff a dramatic performance boost.
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Or take cloud-based file storage services for example. A simple thing like Google Drive or OneDrive will save them time and make collaboration much easier.
“Technology promotes independence and helps spot opportunities before your competitors do.”
If you equip your team members with technology that can boost their effectiveness and efficiency, you can control your payroll costs as your business grows.
To begin, start by building your marketing tech stack by choosing the right applications from the following categories.
1. Email Marketing Software and Apps
An article published by Forbes, says that, on average, email marketing generates four times the returns you can expect from social media marketing.
To operate safe, effective email campaigns, you’ll need a reliable email platform with advanced capabilities such as SendGrid or MailChimp.
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How Sendgrid Helps Your Marketing Team
Your team can use SendGrid to automatically send personalized, contextual emails to leads and customers. The app can automatically send order status and shipping emails to your customers. Likewise, you can use SendGrid to automate your email newsletter.
SendGrid provides a robust set of analytics and reporting tools. As a result, you’ll always know how many people open your messages or unsubscribe from your lists. The app also provides templates, A/B testing, and design tools that can enhance your email marketing effort.
Why MailChimp Might be Good for You
MailChimp features easy-to-use tools for list segmentation that help you optimize your campaigns through personalization. Also, this cloud-based app provides campaign monitoring tools that can help you tweak your email strategy in real time.
Small, growing businesses can start with MailChimp’s free email marketing service and then choose a premium package after they grow. Such versatility makes the service a good component of almost any marketing tech stack. Here’s an in-depth take on Mailchimp pricing and all available plans and packages.
2. Social Media Marketing Software and Apps
Essentially, social media marketing involves the use of social networks to promote your business and brand. To succeed, this tactic involves more socializing and sharing than pitching sales.
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Your business should use social media to interact with your audience, share valuable original and third-party content, and respond to comments. These ongoing activities may seem overwhelming.
To improve your results while reducing your human resources expenses, add one of the following social media marketing platforms to your tech stack.
Find the Right Topics with BuzzSumo
Offer your social media audience relevant content by learning what topics are trending online. BuzzSumo can also help you identify your niche and connect with influencers.
In other words, this cloud-based app can help you and your team focus your social media strategy on the right people at the right times.
By exporting data fro BuzzSumo, you can extend its effectiveness beyond the cloud. You can use the app to create an editorial calendar or develop an advanced social media campaign.
Ultimately, as your content becomes more relevant to your customers, you’ll have an easier time encouraging them to visit your website and convert.
Use a Hub Like Hootsuite for all Your Social Media Accounts
When you use Hootsuite, you’ll have a chance to manage all your social media profiles from a single user interface. Therefore, you and your team can save time and eliminate the tedium of manually logging into multiple social networks every day.
Additionally, Hootsuite can help you save time on content creation by repurposing your content in multiple formats for use on various platforms.
It will also track the performance of your social media marketing campaigns and provide your marketing team with tools that show them what works and what not so they can make data-driven decisions.
3. CRM Software Solutions to Look Into
Customer relationship management software can help you make lead nurturing, sales, and customer service a team effort.
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A customer may speak with one of your employees on one day about an order or issue. What happens when that employee is either sick or on vacation the next time that customer calls?
CRM eliminates knowledge silos within your organization and thereby provide a consistent customer experience. Consider adding CRM tools such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Hootsuite to your marketing tech stack.
With the right app in place, everyone in your organization will have the ability to record every customer interaction onto a centralized data platform that updates in real-time.
This will give your marketing team searchable databases that will include customer histories, past purchases, issues, and solutions.
These CRM apps also provide marketing automation tools that increase productivity and prevent leads from falling through organizational cracks.
Common Mistakes that can Harm Your Business
A solid marketing tech stack is the most important asset for your business. Simply having access to powerful technical resources doesn’t guarantee success, however.
Your marketing team should know how to use each of these solutions, otherwise, you are just wasting money.
So, to achieve the best returns on your investment, you and your team should avoid the following mistakes:
Inadequate Training
No tech solution in the world will help your business if your marketing team has no idea how to use it. It’s not enough to buy a new solution.
Before you start, screen your marketing team and see how tech savvy they are. Do they need help with troubleshooting operating system issues, or they have advanced knowledge about common OS problems?
You have to train your staff and teach them about the basics first and advanced solutions later. By investing time, effort, and money in training, your business can increase the value it extracts from its marketing technologies.
Taking The Popular App, not the One You Need
Consider how you can best use technology in your business before you invest. While a popular app might seem like a no-brainer, it might not be best suited for your specific needs.
Always do proper research and invest in technology and software that best suits YOUR needs instead of what works for most businesses. By taking a good look at what you’re missing, you’ll know what features and capabilities to look for as you shop.
No KPIs to Measure Tech Impact
Even after careful planning and ample training, your marketing team might have misconceptions about the impact of tech. Avoid this mistake by defining key performance indicators that will help everyone objectively assess the impact of technology on their work.
In summary, technology has much to offer your marketing team. Select tools from each major category that are best suited for your needs.
Make sure your team is on board and invest in their training – they will bring more value this way.
