Open up any marketing publication and you’re likely to see dozens of phrases and terms you don’t completely understand or had the opportunity to use. If you don’t stay up-to-date on all the latest and emerging technologies, you can sometimes feel left out, excluded, “uncool.” It can feel like you’re not part of the “it” crowd.
But keeping up with the ever-growing products and processes can feel downright overwhelming. And it’s not just in your mind. B2BMarketing.Technology, a website dedicated to helping CMOs, VPs, and marketing directors “make more strategic marketing technology purchase decisions,” quantified the tremendous rise in available marketing technology tools in its June 14, 2017, blog post, “Marketing Technology: Too Many Tools, Too Little Strategy?” In it, writer Tom Pick reports that the number of tools available to marketers grew from a catalog of 150 tools in 2011 to nearly 5,400 tools in 2017.
While these edgy and evolving strategies and tools can give organizations an edge—or at least give customers something new to look at—not investing in them isn’t necessarily a brand breaker. Believe it or not, you can continue to market successfully without every bell and whistle.
And this isn’t just small-organization thinking, either. In 2014, CMO.com’s Senior & Strategic Editor Giselle Abramovich reported that Mark Addicks, CMO of food giant General Mills, cited a brand’s purpose, not its ability to utilize the latest and greatest tools and technology, as the key to effective marketing.
So, know who your customers are. Know what motivates them and how you can help them solve problems. Provide trustworthy and respectable customer service and products. Stay true to your mission and culture. These are the things that will drive your success. All the fancy programs and tools—if you have the time and the resources for them—just make the ride a little easier.