Rabbit holes and distractions.

Marketing Tech is great — But it’s not a silver bullet, it’s not perfect, and it's not instant - it still takes time to set up.

Just this morning, I was speaking with a client who had a perception, or expectation, that technology would allow them to execute a marketing campaign the way they had intended. It'll be close but it won’t be exactly as they had hoped.

Technology can help - a lot - and it does free up your time. Time you would have spent manually executing and implementing elements of your campaign distribution — so you can spend more of your time on the important and valuable tasks such as strategy and messaging.

• There are workarounds for when tech doesn’t ‘play well’, like instead of trying to attach an asset to the email, you instead provide a link to the asset. Besides, there are other strategic and technical reasons why you shouldn’t attach files to marcom emails.
• Scheduling automated posts to a specific social account sounds ideal… so long as the platform and location you’re posting to allows it.

Technology’s biggest benefit is in taking the time-intensive distribution off your hands. (I'd rather spend 2 hours building, setting up, and testing an automated email, than a couple of days sending them out individually to a list). Technology can’t - and isn’t designed to - do the strategy, or creation and development of your campaigns.

Allow time and plan your calendar.

Content still needs to be written, reviewed, and approved before it can be loaded into email and social platforms for scheduling. Trying to develop content for an email to several hundred contacts, the day it’s due to be sent, is going to be stressful and frustrating.

Technology platforms should ‘play well with others’ - but they often don’t. 

Our client started going down the path of “why cant we do this?” And in doing so, made tactic delivery a priority over strategy, message and execution.

Would it have been nice if the technology could have met all exceptions? Sure. But in the end it doesn't really matter.

I understand that they were ‘venting’ and they’re now back, focused on what’s important. But for just over an hour this morning, they got sidetracked having gone down a rabbit hole they can’t control.

The dynamics of leadership and team don't always allow for an honest, truthful exchange. It's times like these that an independent, external, trusted voice can not only be reassuring... but also extremely valuable.