{"id":15975,"date":"2022-02-22T17:01:04","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T17:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/22\/most-important-vendor-selection-tips\/"},"modified":"2022-02-22T17:01:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T17:01:04","slug":"most-important-vendor-selection-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/22\/most-important-vendor-selection-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Most important vendor selection tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For the past 20 years at Real Story Group, we\u2019ve helped hundreds of enterprises make good martech stack decisions, and over that span, I\u2019ve been fortunate to advise a wide array of technology selection teams. I saw a lot of things go well, and many things go\u2026not so well.<\/p>\n

Oh, the lessons we learned!<\/p>\n

The most important finding, though, was that spreadsheet-heavy, waterfall-based selection methods just weren\u2019t cutting it anymore. So we started counseling a more agile approach grounded in modern concepts around user-centered design, empirical testing, iterative adaptation, and cross-team participation. In short: design thinking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Eventually, my colleague Jarrod Gingras<\/a> and I encapsulated those lessons in a book, \u201cThe Right Way to Select Technology<\/a>\u201d (Rosenfeld Media), from which I\u2019ll share some of the most important lessons and tips here.<\/p>\n

Most important lessons<\/h2>\n

Before getting into specific tips, let\u2019s review three meta-lessons.<\/p>\n

1. Tell < show < test<\/h3>\n

Vendors love to talk about what their technology can do and will readily discuss case studies. They will show<\/em> what their platforms can do as well, but this typically entails canned demos, and it falls to you to map their relevancy to your needs. You need to perform hands-on testing<\/em> no matter the toolset before making any final decisions. In other words, never skip a bake-off<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. The biggest-name vendors often have the most technical debt<\/h3>\n

Some of the most prominent martech vendors today have been around for some time, and their systems \u2014 including those they acquired \u2014 are getting long in the tooth. To cover for this, they get very aggressive about marketing, sales and, uh, \u201canalyst relations<\/a>.\u201d They become less enthusiastic about in-depth technical and functional vetting. That doesn\u2019t mean you should exclude big-name suppliers; just that you should not short-cut any diligence. And never allow yourself to get bullied<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Get clear about stack-fit<\/h3>\n

Martech stacks are evolving to meet the needs of an omnichannel world<\/a>, and vendor strategies have shifted accordingly. This is a time fraught with both significant gaps and overlaps in your stack. For any new or replacement platform, get clear about where those services \u201cfit\u201d in the larger picture.<\/p>\n

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Top tips<\/h2>\n

Our book publishers encouraged us to conclude each chapter with a series of practical tips, and we ended up typing out more than a hundred all told.<\/p>\n

For those that prefer quick reads, here are some of my all-time favorite tips:<\/p>\n