Waste Not, Want Not
Calling Martech Utilisation into account.
If you have a utilisation problem with your marketing technology, you’re not alone: according to a recent Gartner survey of CMOs :-
Marketing tech utilisation was down to 42% from 58% in 2020. A substantial decline in an already poor trend.
It also surfaced that the CMOs surveyed, met with budget pressures were facing a conundrum:
Cut optimisation activities, or increase them?
On one hand, cutting activities is counter-intuitive, given driving up utilisation improves ROI overall, and improved ROI helps fortify businesses in hard times. On the other, upscaling activities can exacerbate an already vicious cycle: implement, underutilise, get frustrated, replace, rinse and repeat.
Ultimately, the sooner you use as many features of a platform as possible, the better the return, but it comes with the assumption that you’re using the best-fit platform for your needs, and importantly, using it well. So how do you smartly improve utilisation and therefore increase your overall return on investment?
Unpacking utilisation
Utilisation can mean different things to different people. Hubspot CRM visionary and VP Scott Brinker simplified utilisation in a Venn diagram of features, skills, and value. Scott argues utilisation is a meaningless metric unless tied to value.
Put another way, utilisation is important, not just because of maximising tooling and realising investment value but chiefly because of the positive and negative flow on effects to people, organisations, their customers and ultimately the business’s bottom line.
Hubspot CRM visionary and VP Scott Brinker simplified utilisation in a venn diagram of features, skills and value. Scott argues utilisation is a meaningless metric unless tied to value.