Like most people, I hate spending money on some things but love spending on others.
For example, I’ve been known to overpay for hotels, restaurants, good wine, and good food because I enjoy them. But I’m a Scrooge when it comes to things like cars or handyman tools (screwdrivers, hammers, pliers, etc.).
In marketing, I find that most organizations are the same way. They’ll readily and eagerly purchase (and even pay above-market prices for) some things. But they’ll tell everyone to get other things as inexpensively as possible.
Technology is one of those things companies want to buy inexpensively.
Technology as the gatekeeper
Technology investment is one of the biggest barriers to innovative marketing changes. Inevitably, when teams get excited to try a new approach in their marketing strategy, everybody gets excited until this realization hits: They’ll have to invest in new tools to get the project done.
That’s when analysis paralysis sets in. Teams often feel they can’t move forward with the new approach until they decide on the technology purchase. But they can’t decide on the specific technology until they’ve designed the new approach.
“The technology will help enforce the standards and how we’ll work,” they think. “But don’t we need to create the new ways we’ll work before we can create the standards?”
It can be messy.
Now that it’s the fourth quarter (for many), planning is underway. Budgets are due. New strategies are being formed for 2025. Leftover money must be spent before the year’s end.
Naturally, thoughts turn to technology needs. You may be mulling over questions such as:
- What technology should we budget for (and why is it AI)?
- Which new tools will help us achieve our plan (and why aren’t they AI)?
- What cool new capability might we buy with that leftover money (is it AI)?
This year’s tech questions seem particularly complex.
I hear many marketers asking if a customer data platform will become the next new thing. Others don’t even know what a customer data platform is.
Some talk about finally upgrading to a digital asset management system (DAM). Others wonder if the four DAMs their company already has are enough to accomplish the new thing they want.
How about a new analytics solution? Some people hate Google Analytics 4. But what would be better?
Then there’s AI. Is it time to finally invest in an enterprise AI solution? Or should you stick with the ones embedded in your productivity suites?
And didn’t product X get four new updates last week? Wait. Did we forget about intent data? Add that to our tech dream board, too!
Before you buy any or all of that, pause. Take a deep breath. Realize that all those dreams could quickly become nightmare scenarios if they require skill levels your company can’t accommodate.
That’s one reason marketing technology decisions can be incredibly frustrating. Everyone wants the technology to be easy.
Caveat emptor: Think before you buy
Have you heard this aphorism? “A boat is a hole in the water that you throw money into.”
It means that when you decide to invest in a boat, you’re not just buying the boat — you’re also committing to everything that goes along with owning a boat. That includes renting a dock, acquiring a trailer, keeping up with the significant maintenance required, and paying for the fuel and other costs of operating it.
It’s not a stretch to adapt that saying to our industry: “Marketing tech is a hole the business throws money and time into.”
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest in it (or buy that boat if you need it or love to go out on the water). Marketing technology can return extraordinary value. But, yeah, no one’s excited about writing the check to pay for it.
The key is to be conscious of what you’re buying. Any marketing technology worth purchasing involves all these elements:
- Implementation
- Training
- User learning curve time
- Ongoing administration
I’ve seen some real challenges on this front.
One B2B company I work with has been stuck in some form of software selection or technology implementation cycle since the beginning of the year. It’s limited in the number of creative campaigns it can craft because it has been so busy figuring out the technology to help craft more creative campaigns.
Ironic.
But if tech purchases won’t make your 2025 content dreams come true, what should you focus on to set your program up for success?
I have a few ideas.
Focus on change first, then technology
I’ve been advising clients and colleagues to worry less about which new technology will be a must-have for 2025. Instead, I recommend developing the muscle to evolve content activities into repeatable processes. Then, you can apply technology to support or enforce those processes.
How do you do this?
I find that it’s critical to hold frequent discussions with stakeholders about the audience and customer journey. It’s the one thing that is genuinely cross-functional, involving not only marketing but also sales, customer service, finance, product, brand, and even the C-suite.
In other words, your team probably isn’t the only one creating bold new content plans for the coming year.
Expect to participate in many meetings to understand what the sales team wants, what the brand team thinks, what the public relations crew has on their mind, and what senior leadership thinks.
But success isn’t built from a mutual understanding of separate agendas. The teams must come together to develop one collaborative content strategy for customer and audience engagement.
To achieve it, focus on these three fundamentals:
1. Orchestrate connected experiences, not siloed hand-offs
Think about 2025 planning in a way that lets you decouple customer and audience data management from the content experience. Explore how you can create a unified view of your subscribers and customers so that things like “audience,” “lead,” “opportunity,” and “customer” are attributes in a single database instead of siloed buckets.
That probably means technology will eventually play a role. But first, create awareness of what content is planned, by whom, and where it will be distributed.
Almost every business would benefit from communicating about the portfolio of content that will be created rather than meeting about what was created.
2. Shift to meaning-driven (not data-driven) content operations
What meaning do the email address, first name, and last name of someone who registered for a white paper contain? If it’s early in the customer’s journey, chances are little to none.
You can, perhaps, draw some inferences about buying intent based on the topic of the digital asset. But, the intent with which that data was provided may completely circumvent that inference. (How many [email protected] or similar email addresses do you get?)
That kind of marketing data has no inherent meaning. It’s just a collection of facts, figures, and attributes. You need more interactions with that person to develop a relationship.
Focus on developing new strategies to find the emotional value in information that’s given rather than gathered.
Consider an email address gathered from a gated white paper versus one given to subscribe to a weekly newsletter after reading that white paper. How much more valuable is the email address when you know it’s given willingly, trustingly, and with the expectation of receiving valuable communication from your brand?
3. Organize for agility, not speed
You’ve probably read many essays about how marketing teams need to operate with more agility. Just remember, agility isn’t about moving faster. It’s about focusing on high-value, high-priority activities.
The constant pressure of more and more content arises from a fear of moving too slowly. Replace that fear with joy by planning to spend more time developing powerful thought leadership stories and less time creating endless assets.
Think about how to shift your processes to spend more time planning powerful, meaningful, differentiated content. Once you create those stories, you can decide how to transform them into digital assets.
Can you separate the process of content creation and digital asset production and end up more agile? I think you can.
Content marketing field of dreams
An “if we buy it, they will come” approach to technology (to paraphrase a famous movie line) rarely leads to success.
Yet, it’s one of the primary drivers of technology selections. Too many businesses allow their technology purchases to drive their future marketing approach.
You can’t measure success by how much technology you deploy. That’s like thinking you can get to work faster by purchasing more cars. You’ll just accrue more debt and spend too much time managing and maintaining those cars.
What will 2025 bring? More AI? A social media collapse? Google search collapse? Paid media explosion? The growth of influencers? The return of the metaverse? NFTs? A B2B version of TikTok? We. Don’t. Know.
But, as you’re looking at your budget, plan, or year-end spending, take a beat. Before you commit to a tool purchase, think about what you hope you and your team will be spending time and money on this time next year.
Write it out. What does your day look like?
That’ll help you dream about how to accomplish it. You may still hate spending on technology, but the ability to apply it to a better purpose should diminish the sting.
It’s your story. Tell it well.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute