Thoughts on Marketing

What’s in your Tech Stack?

Which tools to use, when there’s >15,000 to choose from!

[Originally published as The Marketing Mix newsletter on Substack. Please subscribe for the latest, every 2 weeks]

“What’s your Tech stack?” is a common question when I’m talking to prospective clients. Sometimes they want to know if I’m familiar with a particular tool, like Hubspot or Figma. At other times, I think it’s just to get an idea of what they might need to invest in.

So, here’s the basic set-up for a B2B marketing process:

  1. CRM. Salesforce is generally way too complicated for most start-ups. At the early stage, there are lighter touch options like Hubspot, Zoho, even ZenDesk.
  2. Email automation. So many choices. Active Campaign, Mailchimp, Constant Contact..it may even be built in to one of your other tools.
  3. Prospect data. Apollo is my current favorite for small sales teams.
  4. Task Management. I like Asana; but there are plenty of good tools out there.
  5. Design software. In rising order of complexity: Canva, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite
  6. Website. For years, my only answer here has been WordPress. But I’ll admit, I’m not so sure these days…

Other than “not Salesforce,” I don’t hold strong opinions on specific tools. It’s more effective, in the short run, to look at optimizing whatever the client is currently using. Faster adoption, easier to make progress. And then switch out to better tools as you outgrow them.

There are a bunch of others that can be added into the mix, depending on the marketing strategy. Things like landing-page builders; SEO toolkits; social media management; webinar hosting; and analytics beyond Google. But let’s get the foundation built first.

Oh, and if you think I’m ducking the question by not recommending a specific tool…there are >15,000 martech tools available.🤯[Check out Chief Martech’s report]

What I’m Reading

AI Slop Invades the Office [404 Media]

tl;dr Companies may talk about the value of AI, but they admit in their financial filings that they are not seeing the productivity benefits. Maybe because a lot of AI use at the individual level is to create slop, tick the box, and move on to the next task.

Favorite Quote: “…there is widespread adoption of AI, but that it’s not proving to be that useful, has not resulted in widespread productivity gains, and often ends up creating messes that human beings have to clean up. Human workers see their colleagues who use AI as less competent…”

Traditional Search vs. AI Search: The Side-by-Side Comparison [Andy Crestodina]

tl;dr A handy summary of the two types of search – how they work, what they’re used for, and where they’re headed.

Favorite Quote: “Search is about getting ranked and clicked…AI is about getting recommended based on the user’s context…In other words, AI reaches farther down into the lead generation funnel.

We’ve Learned More About How to Appear in AI Answers [SparkToro]

tl;dr Maybe it’s not so tough to get your brand mentioned in LLM search results. So long as you’re willing to take the “spam” route to get there (reader beware!)

Favorite Quote: It’s a Rand Fishkin video. So give yourself a treat, and just watch the whole thing😁

Drink (Dispenser) of the Week

I’ve never drifted far from my engineering roots. So I was fascinated by the new draft beer vending machines at a recent football match (St Mary’s Stadium in Southampton).

Now, that may not sound particularly innovative. But bear in mind, you have 30,000 fans, many of who want to grab a pint in a 15 minute window at halftime. So the trick is pouring a decent pint of beer, quickly, without adding too much foamy head, or overflowing the glass.

Definitely a good upgrade. Although, as much as I like Asahi (Official beer of Southampton FC!), I scratch my head as to why it’s impossible to get a pint of bitter at an English football match.

Cheers!🍺

Steve

P.S If you know you need to take marketing seriously, but don’t know where to start, let’s chat. I help growing B2B tech companies build their marketing muscles.

P.P.S If you’ve enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to The Marketing Mix newsletter – my thoughts on B2B marketing, sent out every 2 weeks.