Voting For The Homecoming Queen
I am the person that people come to when they need help selecting a MarTech product to solve a problem. I have long been fascinated by marketing technology, how they work, and how they help solve problems. I have spent years evaluating and testing various tools trying to find the right solution for myself. I also might suffer from a bit of shiny object syndrome, but that is another story.
The questions I get asked are what tool I would recommend for solving a specific problem. The more common questions I see asked are requesting the best product out of three popular tools. The biggest problem with this way of picking a software solution is that you are not looking to solve a problem; instead, you ask people to cast votes for the homecoming queen.
Everyone has an opinion of what tool they think is best; it is typically the one they are using. When you are looking for a new MarTech tool, you need to begin with a needs analysis. Not all solutions in a given category offer the same functionality. Some will provide features that you will never use, while others offer the minimal feature set required to solve the problem.
With over 8,000 and growing available MarTech tools, it can be an overwhelming task to complete. Many MarTech products can solve your problem, and the best one for you won't always be everyone's favorite. Focus on the issue you are solving and choose from there.
The framework I use when evaluating any tool starts with three questions. What specific problem am I solving? What does my current workflow look like without this tool? And what does success look like six months after implementation? If you cannot answer those clearly, you are not ready to evaluate anything. You are just browsing, and browsing with a credit card is how companies end up with twelve overlapping subscriptions and no clear data strategy.
I have watched teams pick tools because a competitor uses them, because a conference speaker endorsed them, or because the sales demo looked slick. None of those reasons hold up when you are three months into implementation and realize the tool does not integrate with your existing stack. The real evaluation happens when you map your actual use cases against the product's capabilities and talk to customers who operate at your scale, not the enterprise case studies the vendor hand-picks for their website.
The best tool is almost never the most popular one. It is the one that solves your specific problem with the least friction, integrates with what you already have, and does not require you to restructure your entire operation to accommodate it. Start with the problem. Document your requirements before you ever open a vendor's pricing page. And when someone in a Slack community tells you their favorite tool is the obvious choice, remember that they are voting for the homecoming queen, not solving your problem.
Related: The Stories We Tell and Success Comes From Playing Games.
