Taking the backwards "IT" out of Online Marketing
In the best of scenarios, collectively, the IT department within an organization is an extremely busy place, with the hustle and bustle of scoping, engineering, implementing, and testing every phase of an online web property. Priorities on projects originating from product development, marketing, sales, and support have to be weighed accordingly. However, with the ever-changing world of online marketing, companies have to be increasingly more agile, and aware of changes across the enterprise.
Taking the backwards “IT” out of Online Marketing is not intended to be a rant, but a resource that will empower online marketers to forgo the need to consult with IT on every little change to a website or system, using tools and tips I want to pass along to peers across our diverse discipline.
Removing the shackles of “Legacy” Systems and Attitudes
One of the hardest things any marketer can do is to divorce their own ego, and encourage others to do the same. Ego is the only thing keeping us from achieving the best product, service, or assistance for our clients. In an online world where trends emerge overnight, and demands fluctuate more often than the tides, sticking with what worked yesterday, a week ago, or a year ago just won’t cut it.
One of the hardest things an IT manager can do is divorce a legacy enterprise system that works and gets the job done fine today, except for the fact that it doesn’t accommodate the latest marketing fad. Obviously, compromises are to be made.
The solution: Take the problem of technology and ego out of the equation. Apply multivariate testing on an ongoing basis, free tools exist such as Google Website Optimizer, and the mathematical methodology can be applied using any web analytics tool. Cool dudes like Avinash Kaushik, and Manoj Jasra are giving away their insights into winning over allies for free, check them out.
Revamp your own Web Development Skills, become a l33t marketing haxor!
Many of us online marketers have to rely on IT in order to turn brilliant ideas into mediocre compromises… joking of course…
Wouldn’t it be great if you could take IT out of the equation? Sure it would, but you don’t want to have to juggle all the coding requirements for every marketing project. Believe it or not, you don’t have to be an expert in coding to take critical projects under your belt, if you’re equipped with the right tools.
Wouldn’t it be great if your IT manager could get rid of your incessant pestering, change this, the scope is wrong, you misspelled the promo code, analytics code is missing, etc etc? He might stop hammering nails into wrists every morning as he checks his e-mail inbox.
The solution: Empower marketing to be self-sufficient. Whether it’s through educational sessions that “teach a man to fish” or through empowering users including marketing with WSYWIG web editing programs or a wonderful new CMS. The very existence of lead generation, sales, and interest in a product or service lies in the hands of marketing.
All we need is love, and communication
OMG, my blog has gone cutesy and cuddly. Did someone just wallpaper my office with Hello Kitty and slip me a mickey?
Not at all. Communication is key to any relationship: personal or business. Keeping those lines of communication open is the only way that marketing and IT will come together and find common ground. You don’t have to be friends, you just have to understand the priorities of the other party, and be ready to discuss viable solutions, and possibly give and take a little bit.
A word of warning: Meetings are the least profitable investment any company can make. Why? Because in a meeting, everybody stops working, but keeps getting paid. Opportunity cost comes into play at some point. I’ve been in some organizations that have said, call a meeting, regardless of how small an issue is, so that it does not escalate or stew. Whereas other companies have gone on record to recognize the opportunity cost of having everyone in a room, wasting valuable production time – marketing or IT.
The solution: Be selective of who you include in meetings, not out of politics, but out of respect for that person’s time, and their prospective attendee value. Can people be updated on progress after the fact with meeting minutes? If so, great. Consider how much it would cost the company to include individuals in meetings not only now, but for any successive meetings that might arise later.
Honest advice, and food for thought before you rally the troops for the next big web redesign that was due yesterday.
Like I tell my niece: “Play nice!”
