(No, not the boots. The Marketer, Jasper Marten.)
In this episode, Doc Marten and I talked about a disease that every Marketer has caught at one point:
DumpingLegacySoftwareAndWorkingwithNewVendorsItis.
It’s a mouthful I know, but you gotta recognize the symptoms so that when you catch it (not IF!) you can beat it quickly.
And Jasper Marten is the guy to beat it. As CMO of PensionBee UK, Jasper oversees a team of 12 marketers who have turned a complicated product (personal pension plans) into something so simple over 252,000 members use them.
Have “get new software” in your New Year’s resolutions? Don’t skip these 5 tips.
Time to get our MDs (Marketing Doctorates).’
1️⃣. If You Want A Tool, Market It.
“Everybody actually wants a new tool implemented or sees an opportunity.
(Marketers have an advantage here…)
You've got to promote it.
You've got to market it.
You're not just a marketer for your customer.
You also sometimes have to be the marketer to your own decision-makers in the organization.
We've got an advantage.
We're already Marketers.
So just wear that marketing hat and go out and promote that before you start thinking about the actual implementation.
(This is GOLD. Think about it like you’re selling a customer. What’s the value prop? What’s the benefit?)
2️⃣. Know What You’re Looking For.
First of all, does the tool actually do what I want the tool to do?
Does it achieve my goals?
Far too often with suppliers, you look at options online or you start talking with a sales team and it's always “yeah, it can do that”, “yes, it works perfectly”, “yes, it’s all fine” because they need to achieve a sales target.
Actually punch through that sales chat and figure out “is this tool actually going to deliver what I'm looking to do or am I being sprinkled with AI-powered?”
Cut through it.
3️⃣. Invest In A Single Source Of Truth.
There's always going to be something that is not plugged in (to your current systems). That means you don't get the whole picture.
Therefore the whole tool becomes useless in my view.
The best integration that works really well for us at PensionBee is having one source of truth; a database like Postgres or Snowflake.
And a tool like Iterable, which is what we use for our nurturing, connects directly to that database rather than connecting through Salesforce and then to the database.
(Getting data un-siloed is a MASSIVE unlock. It helps every get on the same page and move forward.)
4️⃣. Be Like A Bird And Have A Migration Plan
How do you minimize a disruption?
Well, in our case, making sure that both the new provider that you onboard with understands that you are moving away from an old provider into a new provider.
Expect some flexibility.
In the case of our migrations from the old platform to Iterable, we had an overlap on the two tools.
We were still sending out clear communication to our customers while the new tool implementation was taking place.
A good migration plan with a bit of overlap between two tools is actually quite crucial.”
5️⃣. Go To The Conference Before You Buy
Don't underestimate the smell test and that is reputation.
Do they (the vendor) invest in the tool?
Is there a conference where they talk about new features being rolled out?
All of these things really matter because you're going to commit to that tool for at least a couple of years because you don't want to change that all the time.
So for me, that is one of those things where I generally think that's often misunderstood.
Go to a conference that's organized by the provider if they've got one.
Does it make sense?
Are they there for the long haul?
(ALWAYS ask around before you sign any contract. I know the Marketing Besties in Marketingland will have an opinion. )
