5 Questions to Ask Your Marketing Tech Vendor Before You Sign on the Dotted Line

 

 

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Not every office purchase you make requires a pre-planned grilling. You could happily fill your basket with multi-pack Bic's, printer paper and staples to your hearts content, hit ‘check out’ without even giving it a second thought. Job done.  

 

Okay, so Karen from accounting might have moaned under her breath about the fact that you got gel Bic's rather than ball point but what’s new? She’ll live.  

 

But when it comes to tech purchases, you’re looking at something bigger. Something much bigger. This purchase has the potential to revolutionise your team’s way of working, but it also has the potential to waste some serious company dolla. So, trust us when we say, preparation is key.  

 

With so many martech solutions on the market, you need to be sure that you purchase the product that’s right for your needs.  

 

We’ve devised 5 questions to ask your martech vendor before you sign the dotted line... 

 

 

  1. What’s your product roadmap and plans for future releases? 

    First things first. You want to get to know the vendor’s vision, direction, priorities and predicted progress over time. You want to know what it’s all about and where it’s heading. And at the rate of the current martech evolution, it’s just as important to know that this product is going to keep up with the future, as to where it is and what it can offer you now.  
     
  2. How many clients do you currently support – and do any of them match our requirements?    

    There’s no real right or wrong answer here. A large customer base can be a positive indicator of the quality and reputation of the system. However, smaller vendors with fewer clients could offer their perks too. Having fewer clients may offer more accessible customer service and personal support. A great way to find out is to ask for specific clients who have similar requirements to you and ask them for their opinion directly. Cut the salesy, sunshine chat and get an honest opinion.  

  3. What’s your training and onboarding process?   

    Teams before tools. Don’t undervalue the impact of your team. Consider how the system will change the working process of your team as you want to keep disruption to a minimum. Also factor in how simple the system is to grasp. There’s no point investing in a state-of-the-art system if your team can’t use it.  

  4. What is the expected ROI in terms of revenue, savings, and increased productivity?   

    Marketing technology typically costs a company a significant amount of both time and money, so it’s important to ask the tough questions to be sure it’s worth the investment. You should identify quantifiable goals beforehand such as lead generation, revenue, and increased productivity for your team so you can be prepared to ask your vendor for no-nonsense quantitative data. 

  5. How does the tech integrate with our current marketing stack?  

    You want to think about your stack of tech tools collectively, how well to do they play together? A tool in isolation will naturally only deliver a fraction of its true value. So, it’s important to know how quick and easy it is to marry any new solution to your existing stack. You don’t need to shut down any solution which wont connect out of the box - but you do want to be clear on what the cost and effort required is to integrate with your stack if it doesn’t already have a native integration or it doesn’t have a quick plug and play connecting through a middleware tech solution.