Product adoption: It’s tough to get return on investment with something that isn’t used
There are many obstacles in adding to your martech stack but understanding possible impediments means you can address them early in the process.
My path to martech was through tech. I focused on managing websites, functionality, integrations, software development, business requirements and so on. Marketing came into the scene when I joined a website team within
For instance, there are many advantages to a free,
A technical person may favor a CMS platform (free, open source or not) that’s more flexible development-wise allowing it to better interact with an existing and future stack. It may require less effort to add features, integrate with other systems and offer the organization more control. This could (emphasizing the possibility, not certainty) yield less frustration, technical debt and difficulty meeting development goals. However, if business users find it burdensome to use effectively, they’ll likely resist it. Thus, any investment into the system risks going to waste. No one wins in this scenario.
Out of fairness, it is important to note that business people don’t like it (understandably) when the techies tell them that a request isn’t feasible or will require a lot of time to accomplish. The challenge goes both ways. Balancing technical and business objectives is both an art and skill that rarely provides clear answers.
The CMS space isn’t the only one that requires balancing technical and business needs. Systems for digital asset management (DAM), marketing automation, analytics and conversion testing are just a few other examples.
Further, great UI/UX is just one factor in this tricky balance. Another factor is
Fortunately, there are some tactics to boost or address lackluster product adoption. These include:
- Sponsorship – Products need internal champions who monitor their performance, advocate for their needs, and address issues that arise to make adoption easier.
- Evangelization – Sponsors should also educate their colleagues about how they could benefit from a product’s offerings. For example, an SEO tool that monitors links and keyword mentions could benefit PR. Get more bang for your buck.
- Training – An organization may have skilled employees, but they require training to better harness what’s available to them — especially as systems change or add new features.
- Informal Working Sessions – These sessions can have different purposes. One purpose is allowing users to huddle to discuss and help each other with their projects, and another is providing a time when a developer can tackle simple requests so that tasks don’t get caught in project management purgatory.
There are many obstacles to product adoption. However, with an understanding of these impediments, one can address them. This work is not just nice; it’s essential to establishing and maintaining a martech stack that yields a great ROI.
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