How to Simplify Marketing Priorities with a People, Process and Technology Approach

Managing today's marketing organization takes a lot. You need subject matter expertise in digital tactics and technology, strategists for marketing program planning, analysts for insight and team managers to ensure successful implementation.

For each person, technical, people and tactical skills, creativity, project management and analytics knowledge are all important in different ways according to the specific role. 

The weight and complexity of all that responsibility often gets in the way of success. That's why it's good to simplify. One simplification model for complex situations that I've found to work really well is People, Process and Technology. These three muskateers of disambiguation can be a lifeline in the right situation. 

If you want a fresh look a where to prioritize your digital marketing management efforts, here are ways that a People, Process and Technology view can be leveraged:

1. People

• Your Customers: Research customer insights to understand how buyers discover, consume and act on content they interact with when researching solutions.
• Your Marketing Team: Assess the skills of your internal marketing organization as well as related departments and subject matter experts that might be able to contribute to marketing content.
• Your Community: Look at outside resources in the form of industry influencers, subject matter experts and your community as sources fox content collaboration and promotion.

2. Process

• Marketing Planning. Identify internal processes for setting goals, content planning, creation, promotion and performance optimization. Do they support integration across channels? Do they facilitate integration of collaboration with contributors from both internal and external sources?
• Performance: Look at the process for marketing goals translation to measurement. Are overall business goals and key performance indicators included in the process for measuring marketing success?

3. Technology

• Tech to Scale. Identify marketing technologies that can serve current needs and that can scale.
• Tech That Integrates. Ensure marketing tools and technology support your wishes to integrate marketing messages and promotions across channels.
• Tech Simplification. Focus on marketing technology that simplifies the marketing effort (vs. overcomplicating it).

There are many more ways than what I've listed above to use a People, Process and Technology view to simplify and improve prioritization within digital marketing. But you have to start somewhere and I think this might be as good a reminder to those chest high in experience as it is a primer for marketers just getting started.