Several weeks ago, I attended a webinar where a presenter stated that marketing is relatively easy, it requires marketers to “Know the market. Know the magic. Connect the two”. But today’s modern marketer has to leverage a much more involved MarTech system and process.
Every business has key things they need to focus on, and they need supporting systems and infrastructure in place to do these activities. Enablement harnesses and connects the following 3 elements:
A (Key Resources - eg. data, MarTech stack, people & partners)
B (Vehicles - eg. owned media, paid media, earned media)
C (Channels - eg. website, chat, mobile, phone, face-to-face, e-commerce)
Key resources harness and leverage vehicles, and use them to drive stimulus. Then, the goal is to drive customers to channels, where it’s the most convenient and best experience for them to interact. The key resources are critical to keeping the channels working. Without proper enablement, the flow is limited. Enablement is essential to facilitate connections to get flow and momentum within your ecosystem.
Here’s some tips from the Tekside team that we’ve used to help enhance enablement with our B2B and B2C clients:
Document a clear ecosystem. To get the right data flow, you need to have a clearly documented map of connections between data in your ecosystem.
Address your technology needs. A common issue is companies have been over-buying technology, and ultimately have a system that’s too hard to integrate and connect. To have successful enablement capabilities, you need the right solution that will get the job done without going overboard (ex. providing capabilities that you don’t need). Speciality agencies can provide you with an objective, third-party point of view on your technology needs.
Identify clear responsibilities. Often, the responsibility to run and monitor enablement falls on IT departments. This may work in some cases, but marketers should evaluate who in your teams has the best capabilities to handle this task. It’s likely that your IT department already has lots to do, and may welcome your marketing team’s help. In addition, beware of the risk of having all tech responsibilities with one individual. What happens if this person leaves? Partner agencies can be really useful in these cases, because they offer an “extended bench” who are able to quickly fill in gaps.
Enablement helps bring your plan to life. It involves people, processes and tech. Proper implementation is important for today’s marketer. Marketers who are ready can be agile, execute quickly, and rise to capitalize on opportunities.