The presentation I didn't get to give

I mentioned in a previous post that a scheduling mishap prevented me from giving my presentation at the Henry Stewart conference last week.  As many of you know, the conference is largely focused on using software to improve marketing processes and operations, and lots of software vendors were in attendance.  So I deliberately titled my presentation provocatively: "Ten Things Most Vendors Won't Tell You."  Many attendees were intrigued (or politely pretended to be) and asked me to share the "ten things" in this blog.

So, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, I'll spend the new few posts sharing with you ten things you probably will never hear a marketing operations software vendor say to you.

#1) Software is not sexy!

Some marketing software vendors might pretend like software can be the most important, most exciting and most impactful part of the marketing process.  But, unfortunately for we software vendors, it's not true!  Other things are far more important, and many of them are things that software can't really help with at all -- such as creativity, strategy, and employing the right process.  Process in particular is important when it comes to marketing operations.  There's a great quote I heard once: "the only thing worse than a bad process is a bad process that's been automated by software."  It's particularly true in marketing!  Don't listen to any vendor who tells you that software will solve all your marketing problems.

  #2) You're too easy to impress!

Beware software vendors who try to impress you with lots of bells-and-whistles in their software.  There's nothing a vendor likes better than to make your eyes light up in wonder when they show you a flashy feature in their product.  But the reality is that these things are usually unimportant to the successful transformation of your marketing operations.  The really important aspects of software, the things that can make or break the success of your implementation -- such as design for usability, for example -- can't be shown in a short product demo.  And sometimes the most mundane features of the software can have the biggest impact on your operations, if they address your particular challenges.  So, marketers, please be sure to take the time to truly understand your problems, and what you need to fix them.  And don't let yourselves get distracted!

That's all for now.  More next time.

Comments

[Kevin Hillstrom]

I hope people find your approach at honesty to be refreshing. I do!