Delivering on Promises: Acxiom Corporation Shares Expert Tips

Maximizing Your Brand Experience with MKTG Plan

In the world of brand experiences, the competition isn’t just limited to your direct contenders. In fact, the benchmark is set by the best in the industry. Consequently, customers now demand brand interactions to be relevant, timely, and personalized, raising the bar for businesses. To meet these expectations, leveraging marketing technology or martech is essential, offering the potential for a superior customer experience at a large scale.

Overcoming Martech Hurdles with External Support

Although martech holds promise, the reality is that integrating and optimizing intricate martech ecosystems often surpasses the capabilities of in-house teams of a brand. Investing in these technologies alone does not necessarily deliver the expected value. For this reason, many brands turn to external expert advisors like martech service partners to help them make the most of their martech investments.

The Value of a Martech Service Partner

With the right partner engaged at a suitable time, brands can maximize the return on their marketing investments promptly. The partner can aid in the effective implementation, integration, and optimization of platforms to achieve the desired business objectives. This brings us to a significant question: what’s the ideal time to bring in a martech service partner?

In a recent survey conducted on business decision makers across the U.S. and U.K, 60% revealed that they hired a service partner at the implementation stage (36%) or soon after realizing they needed support (27%). For smaller businesses, the latter percentage went up to 34%, probably due to budget limitations that drive attempts to incorporate technology without external assistance.

The Prime Time to Engage a Martech Service Partner

Interestingly, most successful brands consider the optimum time to collaborate with a service partner is much sooner. Here’s why:

Select your Partner before Choosing a Platform

Involving a service partner during the exploration of potential technology platforms can provide valuable guidance on platform selection.

About 24% of businesses adopted this approach for logical reasons. A partner can act as a consultant at the technology selection stage, analyzing business objectives, defining required use cases, and recommending the best fit platform(s). If a solution has been preselected, they can serve as a vital resource to validate the choice and provide support in crucial steps such as operational readiness assessments and internal data reviews before budgets are allocated.

Engaging a partner before executing the implementation process accelerates value realization from martech since most SaaS tech providers need an upfront payment. It is estimated that brands typically take about four to six months to select an appropriate service partner. Therefore, waiting until after platform acquisition to bring onboard a partner could lead to a wastage of nearly six months of platform fees, which you’ll spend on a non-functional system.

It’s Never Too Late to Seek Partnership

While there’s a compelling case for early engagement of a martech service partner, any time is right to commence such a partnership. According to our research, 13% of brands sought a partner post the full implementation of the technology.

At this stage, partners can prove immensely valuable in assessing tech stack performance, identifying improvement possibilities, and plugging gaps in technology utilization. Brands often require their consultative approach to realize the expected martech value, develop new use cases as the technology scales across the business, and manage the technology in line with evolving business needs.

The Impact of Timing on Partner Selection

Commencing a relationship with a martech service partner reaps considerable benefits regardless of the timing. However, the point at which a partner is engaged could influence the type of partner you choose and the skills and experience you seek.

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