Design Your Best Marketing Technology Stack and Plan the Transition: Sneak Peek at FlipMyFunnel Conference

Picture posted by Terminus

I can’t decide which is more exciting about next month’s FlipMyFunnel conference in Atlanta (register here and use the code DR50 for a 50% discount): the opportunity to interact with a great collection of speakers and attendees or seeing what the conference organizers at Terminus do with the notion of MarTech Stack Jenga. Based on one cryptic Twitter picture, they’re up to something big.

My own contribution will be a presentation on designing your marketing stack. This is something I’ve done for years as a consultant but it’s now an especially hot topic. Here are some of the key points I’ll be making:

- the stack is based on your business and marketing strategies. I’ve described the importance of strategy before but have now refined my explanation to show how marketing programs, business requirements, and functional requirements connect over-all marketing strategy with martech. The picture below also highlights the importance of planning for future business, marketing, and martech developments.

And I’ve provided a sample template for organizing your requirements by system.

- a winning stack is efficient as well as functional. I'll present a checklist for evaluating your stack design along those dimensions.

- how you draw the stack makes a difference. I’ll argue that a diagram which shows relationships between systems is more helpful than one that simply lists the different components. In the example below, the flow highlights the isolation of sales and service from the rest of the stack – a critical weakness that isn’t apparent when you look at the systems only.

- transition planning must be systematic as well. Companies struggle with transition planning even more than they struggle with stack design.  The goal is to sequence the stack changes so that each new system adds the greatest value with the least disruption. This requires understanding which system changes support each improvement.  This lets you figure out which improvements would be supported by changing any one system, what would then be possible after changing a second system, what is possible after changing a third system, and so on.  The worksheet lets you explore different sequences so you can pick the best one.

This will be easier to understand in person than in writing. Don't take my word for it: join us in Atlanta and see for yourself.