7 Ways to Build a Successful Marketing Technology Roadmap

If you’re looking to constantly connect with your customers for continuous growth, then forming a strategic marketing technology roadmap is not an option – it’s a necessity.

Technology is ever-evolving and marketers have to find channels that provide a great customer experience while helping them reach the company’s goals by integrating new marketing technology into the already existing framework.

It provides you with a strategic approach for the use of a variety of tools to support business goals while leaving room for flexibility and innovation.

So, how do you go about it? Through a marketing technology roadmap.

Let’s look at how you can create one successfully.

How to create a successful marketing technology roadmap

When done right, the following steps can help tap into the rewarding world of marketing technology:

1. Know your audience’s needs

A business looking to build a successful marketing technology roadmap needs to first consider the current consumer trends and use them to customize the roadmap to meet their needs.

Consumer behavior at each level of the buying process provides valuable insights on what tools you need to incorporate to deliver on customer expectations.

For instance, shopping online is now more preferable than visiting physical stores as non-stores were grew at a rate of 22.6% in 2020.

Image via Census.gov

So, how accessible is your business online? Do you need more visibility?

Keep in mind that customers expect the same level of connection and care as they would find in a brick and mortar store.

These minor details help inform existing marketing goals or shape new ones.

2. Understand your internal goals

Your organizational goals, including what experiences you endeavor to give to your customers, should help you narrow down to the best tools.

There are numerous marketing tools available today but not all would prove appropriate for your current or future marketing goals.

Here’s the truth—you can easily catch the “shiny new object bug.” To curb this, you need to clearly define your problem, objectively choose the tools that can solve it, and put in place key metrics to measure results.

3. Conduct a gap analysis on current capacity

Performing a gap analysis is a crucial step that precipitates the rest of marketing technology roadmap buildup.

The reason for it is simple. To address any tech gap you may have, it's also prudent to assess your current digital capabilities. This allows for the identification of gaps that require bridging to keep in line with future goals.

For instance, if you’ve got analytics tools and marketing tools, but don’t have tools that can generate sales reports, you’ll be able to discover that through the gap analysis.

You may discover that you already have the tools you need in place but have remained underutilized. On the flip side, you may find the need to revamp the entire structure.

4. Create a budget

As a marketer, strategic planning doesn’t cut it if you don’t have the funds to back you up. You need to keep in mind what is feasible budget-wise.

According to a recent Deloitte CMO study, marketing budgets stand at 11.8% of the entire organizational budget. Additionally, marketing spending is growing at a very high rate.

Image via Deloitte

A majority of the tools are expensive, meaning you need to prioritize the tools that will best upgrade your capabilities within your budget.

To achieve this, you can employ strategies such as:

• Choose a monthly, quarterly, or yearly budget
• Select a budget per tool
• Select a budget per strategy

Each of these strategies come with their perks, but your organizational setup should help you choose the best and most cost-effective option.

5. Pick feasible and easy-to-integrate tools

While there’s a lot of digital marketing tools out there, you may not want to introduce new tools that won’t integrate with your existing technology stack or pose a data risk. For instance, if you’re adding a lead gen tool to your stack, you need to consider if it integrates well with your tech stack. You also need to evaluate how fast and effectively you can synergize your chosen marketing tools.

Utilizing individual tools can be beneficial, but cross-tool synchrony can provide even better value. For instance, you could leverage powerful CRM solutions that have a host of tools themselves. This would ensure that all the tools work in sync with each other.

Importing existing data and efficient communication across the technologies are some of the considerations that require critical research to avoid short-term or long-term integration issues.

6. Create internal momentum to get rid of bias

Let’s face it – internal bias towards new technology is a big impediment that makes it even harder to implement. Ideally, you should involve your team through the entire process so they can become your biggest cheerleaders.

Start by consulting them on the challenges they face now on simple tools such as building an email list from scratch for a major project or conducting keyword research.

Once you take note of their concerns, you can urge them to participate in choosing the tools and discuss how best they can utilize them to run successful email campaigns or find keywords.

With everyone on board, you create an internal momentum and increase the chances of a successful marketing technology roadmap rollout.

7. Review your MarTech roadmap

Technology keeps changing and your customers will too. Auditing your roadmap allows you to introduce new business ideas and processes in response to these changes to enhance your marketing activities.

Has your roadmap eased your workflow? Does your team work better now?

These are some of the questions that can help you assess success or failure.

It’s worth nothing there’s no shame in dropping a tool and choosing other options. What matters is that you continually place, test and iterate rather than place and forget.

Summing up

When effectively employed a marketing technology roadmap can help you enhance your customer relations and experience positively.

To get maximum value from your plan, it’s important to define the gaps and check for already existing technologies that can integrate with the new tools you bring in to solve the problem.

However, this alone isn’t enough. Selling the strategy to key stakeholders and winning them over is also important for a successful launch and implementation.