48% of marketers will increase their inbound marketing budget in 2013–the third year in a row inbound budgets are increasing at or near a 50% pace. It seems each month more platforms spring up to claim a piece of that spending, and promise the right solution to automate and improve daily marketing work.
While some of these platforms are very effective and truly deliver increased efficiency and ease, some cause more pain than progress. For example, the CRM you bought to better understand your pipeline is so difficult to use that your team insists on using spreadsheets to look at the “real” opportunities.
Learning that your platform is the problem can be sobering, especially when implementing it was a costly investment. Your organizational processes might be easier to control and adapt, but can be completely disrupted with the wrong tools in place. So how do you know when the technology you’re using is the troublemaker?
1. You’re making it work, but it’s not working for you
Let’s say you implemented a new marketing automation program to accelerate your outbound marketing programs. Six months in, it’s collecting digital dust because you need a technical resource to configure it and all your budget was used up during initial implementation. Trying to make it work the way it should is costing your staff time, and your company money.
2. It doesn’t force behavior change
You’ve taken the time to train and educate users in your new web content management system to allow greater levels of contribution. But blog posts and content updates are still emailed to the webmaster when ready. If the technology is something you or your colleagues avoid using at all costs, it’s not creating any value for your organization.
3. Deep down, you know there has to be a better way
If you spend sleepless nights thinking about how much better your shiny new platform would work if it juuuust did this one thing better, and wondering if there’s a more effective solution out there, your gut is telling you to move on. Use your sleepless moments (or the next morning) to write down how the new platform should make your life better, and start building a business case you can take to your manager.
Chances are you’ve felt a surge of relief when a technology that wasn’t working for you was nixed by your team, or maybe you championed change only to find out that everyone else hates your current system as much as you do. What’s really important is to make the change rather than rationalize a bad solution.
