Coronavirus crisis gives marketers time to focus on martech adoption

With so much uncertainty right now, martech purchasing plans are likely on pause. But according to experts, this may be a good time for companies to focus on executing with the martech they already have.

“Our advice is to shift your focus to existing vendors and internal users. Engage them on tool adoption strategies and methods,” said Michael McCune, senior director for Gartner for Marketing, in a blog post. “It might not be the time to undertake a full-stack audit, but it can be a time to advance your partnership with IT to another level. Take the time now to discuss how you can improve your collaboration when budgets come back.”

Collaboration with IT is just one of the ways McCune suggested that companies can improve their adoption during this crisis. For example, he recommends checking in with your vendors.

“Now is the time to reach out and ask how your peers find further success with the tool: What new use cases have they become aware of? What is their product roadmap?” he said.

Late last year, Gartner released its Gartner Marketing Technology Survey 2019 findings which indicated that marketers were only using 58% of their martech stacks’ capabilities.

At the time, senior director analyst at Gartner Benjamin Bloom strongly emphasized the need for driving adoption in order to create value. “Marketing teams are leaving martech’s potential untapped, imperiling both their credibility and impact,” said Benjamin Bloom, senior director analyst at Gartner. “Translating marketing technology into business effectiveness correlates with martech utilization. With looming economic uncertainty, marketing teams need to focus on becoming more agile — putting extra emphasis on training, talent and system integration.”

Why we care

It’s been only four months since that Gartner report and today martech and other business technologies are practically holding many companies together. We hate the idea that companies may have to postpone acquisition or upgrading of new tech, but if we all come out of this as wizards of our existing stacks we will be in an even stronger place to add elements.