By Teresa Leno, CEO and Founder of Fresh Finance
Effective marketing technology (Martech) can significantly enhance your business performance by increasing marketing efficiency, improving client experience, and bolstering your advisors’ business growth. However, as the Martech landscape evolves, your current software may be outdated and cause your company to lose its competitive edge. Here are seven red flags that signal it’s time to replace your Martech stack.
Red Flag #1- Decreased Efficiency
At one point, your Martech was an asset that made tasks more straightforward and efficient. It offered numerous tools and marketing capabilities that helped your business thrive. However, the current decrease in productivity signifies that your technology is no longer up to speed or suited for your business’s current needs. Decreased marketing efficiency could include slower data processing, increased software crashes, or insufficient integration capacity. This slowdown can leave your team frustrated, unsatisfied, and bogged down by work.
Red Flag #2- ‘Swivel Chair’ Integrations
The key to a robust marketing technology stack is seamless integration—connecting different components to work together and deliver cohesive results. It may be a red flag if your current software does not work toward this seamless connection. Complex or failed integrations hamper data flow, limiting your ability to make data-driven decisions, which can be detrimental to the function and productivity of your marketing operations.
Red Flag #3- Inadequate Reporting
One vital function of marketing technology is providing insightful and actionable reports on marketing performance. If your current software struggles to generate accurate, granular, and real-time reports or lacks critical metrics affecting your decision-making process, it may be time for an upgrade.
Red Flag #4- Deteriorated User Experience
Like any technology, a robust marketing solution should enhance rather than hamper the user experience. If your marketing technology is not secure, adaptable, user-friendly, or intuitive anymore, it may cause information silos and operational inefficiencies. A deteriorated user experience affects your internal marketing team, advisors, and the end-users—your customers. Furthermore, if your advisors don’t have a robust user experience from their enterprise marketing portal, they are less likely to use it, which wastes financial resources.
Red Flag #5- Unpredicted Expenditures
Your Martech should streamline your operations and mitigate overhead costs. However, it’s causing unplanned expenses due to system crashes, software updates, paid integrations, or employee training. In that case, it might be cost-effective to consider an upgrade by replacing your current Martech in the long run.
Red Flag #6- Limited Advisor Engagement
Advisors today expect personalized and instant Martech solutions from their organization that are approved and ready to use. If your Martech lacks personalized, out-of-the-box marketing capabilities, social media integration, real-time engagement, or other customer-centric marketing features, this limitation could be a vital sign that it’s time for a replacement.
Red Flag #7- Non-scalable Solution
Your Martech should be able to adapt to the changing needs of your business, manage increased workload, and easily incorporate new innovative features. However, if your current martech stack fails to scale with your business growth or lacks technological advancement, it’s a clear sign that an upgrade is imminent.
These signs are incomplete but provide a general guide on when to consider replacing your Martech. An effective marketing solution should be efficient, integrate effortlessly, provide in-depth reports, enhance user experience, be cost-effective, encourage customer engagement, and scale as your business grows.
Investing in a new Martech is an essential decision that involves an in-depth analysis of your business needs, marketing goals, and industry trends. It may seem daunting, but with a comprehensive understanding of your business, replacing your Martech can bring new life into your operations and end-user experience. Remember, technology must support your business; if your current Martech is more of a hindrance than a help, now is the perfect time for an upgrade.
Teresa Leno, CEO of Fresh Finance, worked as a financial advisor and experienced firsthand the importance of financial education to help clients make more informed decisions before a crisis. Through her experience, Fresh Finance was started as a financial content marketing solution to help advisors validate their expertise through sharing content.
