How to avoid a Marketing Auctopus

Hi Alex, I’ve found a few strategies really helpful. For instance, when we were looking at a new CRM, we put together a cross-functional team with folks from marketing, IT, sales, and customer support. It was eye-opening to see how everyone had different insights, and it helped us spot potential issues we might have missed if it was just one team.

We also decided to run a pilot program with a small group before the full rollout. It made a big difference—catching a few glitches early on saved us a lot of headaches later!

Of course, we make it a point to schedule regular check-ins after we implement new tech. This way, we can see if it's actually helping us meet our goals and tweak things if needed before they turn into bigger problems. For example, when we tested a new email marketing tool, we realized it wasn’t integrating well with our existing systems. So, we paused the rollout, gathered feedback from the team, and decided to explore other options before moving forward.

We create a simple pros/cons list and we list the missing functionalities from each tool. Then we evaluate the value for money and build the missing features on our own. But we try to avoid drowning in too many tools.

Although I have worked with Marketing departments in the past, I've never experienced any potential marketing takeover essentially of working practices and day-to-day operations/business.  This has been achieved in a number of ways -

In all instances, we've been clear in our goals and focus.  There has never been any 'scope creep' or shadow IT/Marketing/other function.  Shared goals, open communication, tactical and strategic thinking, working with the same mindset in the same direction will ensure we have controls in place to stop anything awry from taking place.  There is no division between departments - all departments are interlocked and interdependent.

Also having a strong core of communication and collaboration, has meant that no one department could wield or exert influence over the whole enterprise.

By understanding workflows and optimising them, by being agile and improving 'ways of working', by adapting to market conditions and supply and demand has ensured that marketing were all set in reality, had set ambitions, and more importantly never got 'above it's station'.

Finally, by having a master data management focus, we have always been in control of our data and personal identifiable information, so this has effectively curtailed any efforts for marketing to have any unwarranted takeover of all operations.

Good thorough investigation of all the aspects of the tool is critical, assessing it with your whole company and across teams is very important as it creates a way for everyone along the way to chime in, especially for SW or tools that get very heavily intertwined with all kinds of things in your business and many departments touch those systems or tools.

I'm also a big fan of the term Marketing Auctopus!