At a recent conference, I talked with a marketer whose company sends marketing emails through an all-in-one platform.
"Why do you do that?" I asked.
"Because it's part of the marketing automation package we bought," he replied. "It's all part of one platform."
"Is it doing what you need?" said I.
"No, but it's all connected, so I have to use it," he answered.
His answer got me thinking. How many marketers use all-in-one platforms just for the simple fact that it’s all connected? There’s obviously a trend among companies to consolidate their marketing services through single platforms, but might another solution be more beneficial for their business needs?
Benefits of all-in-one marketing platforms
I can understand the appeal of having one dashboard to manage instead of five or six – one platform to rule them all, so to speak. Marketers need information at their fingertips and the more complete the information, the better the next decision is going to be. It makes sense right? I mean, you want all of your marketing to talk to each other and share data. You want the functions that an all-in-one platform could provide. We envision a Star Trek like interface where we have the insights, models and data that will make our marketing resonate at an individual level.
Down side of one-size-fits-all marketing platforms
All-in-one platforms are usually made up of technology from companies the big cloud providers acquired and then assembled into a platform.
It might have an email module you can use to send messages, but it's not necessarily the best-of-breed service an email marketer needs to succeed.
Email marketing is more than just sending email. Does the email module give you detailed, granular reporting? Can you build messages quickly? Does it integrate with your ecommerce and customer-care databases for segmented, triggered and real-time messaging? Who helps out when something goes wrong?
An all-in-one platform takes away your choice of vendors. You end up making your decisions based on the technology the platform provides instead of being able to surround yourself with best-of-breed technologies.
Although omnichannel marketing has broken down the old silos among communication channels, we still do our work in a siloed environment. The tools you need for email marketing are different from those for mobile marketing, social, SMS/texting and the web.
Yet, the reality beyond a really flashy sales demo is that for most companies, the actual solution is not what we have envisioned. Integrations come up as part of a longer roadmap, dashboards have work-around solutions and attribution is still a conversation reserved for the board room deciding how to measure results. It can all be a bit frustrating and go against the reality of the all-in-one fantasy.
All-in one Vs best-of-breed
Although analysts and industry pundits had been urging companies to consolidate all of their marketing needs on a single platform, I'm seeing more marketers looking beyond the portfolio and seeking out best-of-breed technology again.
If you use an all-in-one or cloud service, see if the email function is the best email tool on the market or just bolted-on technology. Look under the hood to see if the platform offers true integration that requires no effort or hours from your IT team. Is it the best email tool you can use or just the tool that's offered?
Email in an all-in-one platform should not be just one tool in a suite of others. It should be the tool. When you're evaluating vendors, the buying decision should rest not on the suite as a whole but on the quality of the individual tools that make up the suite.
Your marketing landscape is not a straight line with applications scattered all along it. It is a circle with your company in the middle.
If you can't execute a necessary function, look for a new provider. Look for the right partnerships outside of the marketing suite. The focus is on integration timelines and scalability.
If you can conquer that, you have a winning solution.
This is a sponsored article brought to you by Adestra. For more than a decade, Adestra has been providing marketers with powerful best-of-breed email technology and award winning service that enables connections to the wider marketplace. For more information or to book a demo, please visit http://www.adestra.com/book-a-demo