The role of people in marketing is undergoing a radical transformation, and email vendors must adapt to the evolving needs of companies. Traditional support models, such as account management and ticketing systems, are no longer sufficient. Modern businesses require on-demand assistance and smart consultancy to thrive in a technology-driven world.
A recent report launched by Technology for Marketing, the Marketing Technology Support Report 2017, delves into the changing landscape of support within MarTech, highlighting critical shifts in what marketers expect from their providers.
Marketing is No Longer Just a People Business
Marketing was once inherently a people-centric business, but this paradigm is shifting dramatically. Technology has become the cornerstone, with marketing automation now seen as the ultimate goal. This technological embrace has fundamentally altered the role of support, the people involved, and even the human intellectual property required in modern marketing. While there’s a prevailing notion that support is valued less, a dichotomy exists in MarTech regarding the role of human input as technology increasingly automates marketer functions.
Requirements Shift to Support and Strategic Consultancy
The proliferation of tech platforms offers significant benefits to end-users. Innovations like predictive systems, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are enabling faster and more accurate decisions than human intervention alone. This translates into improved ROI and empowers users to achieve more with fewer resources than ever before.
This technological evolution necessitates a changing role for personnel within vendor organizations, a shift prominently highlighted in the report. End-user requirements are evolving; for instance, traditional account management is less valued, while effective support services and strategic consultancy are increasingly sought after. The report underscores this by indicating that account management is less valued than direct, on-demand phone support.
The New MarTech Support Landscape
Despite the rise of advanced technology, over 50% of respondents still require some form of support from their email provider. This indicates a clear shift in what MarTech buyers expect. At its core, it signals the end of outdated account management models and a pressing need for vendors to develop new support services tailored to these modified demands. Key areas of demand include:
- Direct, Responsive Support: Users demand immediate assistance for issues and are increasingly unwilling to accept automated ticketing systems that can lead to days or weeks of waiting for a resolution. Prompt, human interaction is critical.
- Resolving Complexity: As technology advances, it often becomes more complex, especially with bolt-together solutions resulting from mergers and acquisitions. Vendor teams are essential to help users navigate this complexity, ensuring they maximize their investment and potential ROI.
- Operational Assistance: Many organizations find themselves needing to hire external agencies to operate the technology they’ve purchased due to internal resource limitations. Vendors have an opportunity to bridge this gap.
- Continuous Training: Ongoing training is vital, both for new releases and to support the often high turnover of employees within user organizations. This ensures consistent utilization and value extraction.
- Integration Specialists: There’s a growing demand for experts in integration. With the increasing use of APIs with third-party systems, marketing teams need support to clearly understand and leverage the benefits of these complex integrations.
- Strategic Consultants: The diminishing role of the traditional account manager broadens the potential for consultants. Companies will always benefit from an external perspective to avoid becoming internally focused and losing sight of the broader market picture.
“Using the tech in a previous role, the support was excellent. However, the tech has since been bought by a major industry player, and it’s just crashed and burned. There aren’t words to describe the levels of frustration.”
This quote from a report respondent perfectly encapsulates a sentiment heard from many companies: technology providers are increasingly offloading support to third parties, and that support is fragmenting into different requirements. The report clearly states there is no substitute for insight or commitment from the vendor. End-users need help delivering on the vision they were sold, and who better to provide that than the organization with the deepest understanding of the technology?
Essential Email Marketing Wish List
The wish list compiled from respondents at the end of the report offers invaluable insights for both vendors and clients. The key takeaways reveal a strong desire for more collaborative and results-oriented vendor relationships:
- Facilitating Innovation: Marketers want vendors to actively help them build and present a business case for innovative new strategies and implementations.
- Preventing Costly Mistakes: Guidance from vendors to avoid common pitfalls and expensive errors is highly valued.
- Demonstrating Business Value: Clear evidence and explanation of how a solution will tangibly improve a business’s specific outcomes are crucial.
- Understanding the Full Tech Stack: Clients expect vendors to understand their entire technology ecosystem, not just how their proprietary solution fits in isolation.
- Maximizing Tech Utilization: Training should go beyond basic button-pressing, focusing instead on how to derive true, measurable value and get the most out of the technology.
“Vendors are good at selling the vision – and potential – of the tech. However for people on the ground, getting out the starting blocks and working towards that vision is a struggle. Particularly since vendors will only provide basics and high-level onboarding and then leave you to your own devices after 90 days”
This powerful quote succinctly summarizes the future requirements for people in MarTech. While the expectation is for technology to automate as much as possible, marketers still critically need their vendors to be readily available for quick, convenient support when required. The landscape of support in MarTech may be shifting, but it’s clear that human expertise and assistance remain front and center.