Frankenstein Marketing Technology

Technology makes life easier.  For business, web technology allows for a level of integration and automation of some of the largest profit centers your business has (marketing, sales, support, operations, etc.).  However, like Frankenstein’s monster, technology can sometimes run amok.  If you’re ready to add some real value to your business through such web technologies there are two ways to go: proprietary and (what I’ll call) Duct-Taped Frankenstein.  Let’s review before you throw the switch.

What you NEED versus what you WANT

Depending a lot on exactly who your ideal buyers are and how complex your sales and delivery model are, what web technology you need is very different from what technologies you may think you want. Here are a series of pains and the type of technology best suited to get the job done.

Support and Delivery Systems

They say, never make it hard for customers to give you money.  It should also be said that happy customers are far more likely to pay — happily.  Rolling out systems for customer support, project or delivery reporting and payment portals allow your business to stay lean and will lower client turnover.  Consider payment portals, file managers, investor relations systems, project management solutions, etc.,  worth their weight in gold.

Sales & Prospect Tracking

To best help your sales team monitor, track and nurture prospects and to make sure no leads fall through the cracks, a SFA and/or a CRM technology will go a long way to getting you there.

Marketing & Sales Integration and Automation

One way for marketing to become a profit center rather than a necessary evil is for it to generate, nurture and pass qualified leads to your sales team.  Again, a CRM solution will get that job done right.  If you want the process automated (put on ‘auto-pilot’ if you will), a marketing automation solution is a valuable add-on.

Branding & Visibility (with a dash of Credibility)

On the outskirts of sales and marketing is the idea of business credibility in the marketplace through branding and visibility initiatives.  The value here is a bit cerebral (I’ll admit), but the payoff is simple:  “Oh, I’ve heard of you.  You’re awesome!”  Now that’s how to kick off a sales call!

To get there, a delicate mixture of social media, online press releases, content marketing via your blog or corporate website, email & direct mail marketing and, perhaps, a dash of thought leadership (white papers, articles, webinars, etc.).

There’s a whole slew of technologies that will aid in your quest for that perfect mixture and we’ll get into those in just a second.

Suite of Proprietary Solutions or Duct-Taped Frankenstein

As I mentioned before, there are basically two technology routes you can take to achieve the above sales, marketing, support and delivery business needs.

The Suite of Proprietary Solutions Model

In what I’ll call the Suite of Proprietary Solutions Model, you can lower your initial web technology investment by finding a suite of proprietary solutions on the market that integrate (or “play nice” together).

Here is an example list of a suite of proprietary solutions:

• For Support & Delivery (Customer Support Portals) – SalesForce.com
• For Sales and Prospect (CRM or SFA) – SalesForce.com
• For Marketing and Sales Integration/Automation – HubSpot
• For Branding, Visibility & Credibility – HubSpot, PRweb, HRmarketer + Social Ears (if selling to HR)
• TOTAL COST of OWNERSHIP: $36,600 per year (estimate)

Our TCO number is based on an organization with 10 users and a house list of between 1,000 and 10,000 contacts conducting a bi-monthly PR and social media campaign.

I should mention that this doesn’t include the actual production of press releases, content, and communications.  This number is just for the technology and just goes on and on.  You never own the technology.  You’re just leasing it on a monthly basis.  Again, the advantage is the lower initial investment.  The drawback is that investment is ongoing.

The Duct-Taped Frankenstein Model

I’ll be the first to admit it, but what I’m calling the “Duct-Taped Frankenstein” model doesn’t include ALL the tools included in the proprietary solutions above.  However, I would venture to say it includes A LOT of them.   In this model, you simply invest the money upfront in building or rolling out RE-MARKed technologies that together achieve your business needs.

The advantage is you’ll OWN the technology.  You pay for it to be built or RE-MARKed for you once.  After that, it’s yours to upgrade, brand, modify and support.

Here’s an example list:

• For Support & Delivery (Customer Support Portals) – myClient or myCentral (enterprise-level)
• For Sales and Prospect (CRM or SFA) – SugarCRM (free, open source CRM)
• For Marketing and Sales Integration/Automation – Open Source CMS + marketing plugins
• For Branding, Visibility & Credibility – yoURLs or JDMr + WooEB or PRweb
• TOTAL COST of OWNERSHIP: $15,000 (one-time) + $253 per month

In this TCO estimate, we’re offering a rough estimate of what JDM would bill to build-out or RE-MARK technologies like these for an organization of an infinite number of possible users, an infinite number of contacts and conducting a bi-monthly PR and social media campaign.  The monthly fee is mostly just for press release distributions and shared web hosting.

The obvious advantage is a lower TCO and very little ongoing charges.  You own it.  It fits your process.  It’s everything you need — nothing you don’t.   The drawback is, of course, the large initial investment required.

Before you storm my castle with pitchforks…

I’m sure there will be more than one of the townsfolk ready to come at me with torches and pitchforks for suggesting over-simplified, open-source solutions for real business needs are better than proprietary ones.  For the record, that is NOT what I’m saying.

I’m merely suggesting a good, hard look at what tools and technologies you really NEED and which you WANT.   If you find that you NEED and will USE all 22 tools included in HubSpot or the thousands of plugins in the SalesForce App Exchange — go for it!

If you’re like JDM, they are “nice to have” but not critical to our business.  I’d prefer to keep $35,000+ in the bank every year and use the web technologies we OWN and customized to fit OUR process.

Hateful comments or requests for proposals?  Bring ’em on!