8 Best Practices to Avoid Common Marketo Implementation Challenges
Whether you have already entered the Marketo community to get the best marketing automation services or you just want to integrate an upgraded Marketo automation platform, your marketing team might come across several challenges.
Though Marketo has a lot of potential, most of the time the processes aren’t defined within the program. Therefore, choosing the sales and marketing alignment and making business process decisions before Marketo implementation is not only a difficult task, but also time-consuming. The marketing team needs to make a variety of decisions and establish processes before the implementation. Also, it is important to understand how the funnel works and the important features of the program.
Before you leap into the process of Marketo implementation, analyze your marketing team’s current stage in terms of inbound leads, content creation, and sales marketing allotment. For an organic transformation aiming towards higher marketing achievement, with the help of Marketo, you need to have a stronger hold over your marketing team and its position.
Common Marketo Implementation Challenges
Although, if you have already implemented Marketo to enhance your marketing automation strategy, then it has become the core of your marketing technology stack along with your CRM system.
But to make the most of the advantages of Marketo, you need to be aware of the common Marketo Implementation challenges and also how to avoid them:
Align teams across the organization for the implementation
The success of Marketo implementation depends on the effective cooperation of every section of your marketing team. Thus, you need to designate one best talent from each team such as Digital/Web Operations, CRM and IT, Sales Operations, Content, General Marketing, and every other section of the marketing department.
Also, make sure that the designated team members are completely on board and the entire marketing team is driving towards the same marketing objective for seamless and quick Marketo implementation.
Consider expert advice
If you are overwhelmed by the benefits of Marketo and have a long-term implementation plan, it is ideal to take expert advice. Resorting to secure professional services to navigate through the process of Marketo implementation and meet your resource needs can prove to be helpful in the near future. It will also aid you with an expected maturity curve and timeframe so that you can track your marketing progress over time.
Document the technical issues
Implementing Marketo means interfering with your company’s technology stack, which sometimes can lead to unexpected technical issues related to Marketo.
You should document such issues for future references and maintain technical architecture documentation from the day of implementation. As your company grows over time, your Martech stack will also grow around your Marketo instance, and you will need to build this documentation over time.
Thus, make sure that your technical resources are in place and easy to access during an emergency.
Keep a record of successful templates for all major marketing campaigns
In traditional marketing, marketers used the same template for different customers and purposes. But in the modern approach of marketing, each new request uses a unique method and requires new templates.
Thus, to make your marketing process consistent and optimized for speed, Marketo allows you to build templates for all your marketing needs.
Whatever be your marketing strategy, make sure that the entire process runs on templates based on best practices and further A/B test the templates regularly to optimize for conversion. This will help your business grow at an unprecedented scale.
Share and celebrate every Marketo implementation success
For the success of any project, it is important to build team confidence around the system. Same is the case for a successful Marketo implementation. You need to let the extended team and the organization know your success throughout your Marketo implementation, no matter how big or small it is.
Implement UTM parameters
To offer extra help to your marketing team for Marketo implementation, you should implement UTM parameters. This will provide them with better insights on your customer data and make your campaigns more effective by tracking how leads approach your website. UTM parameters will thus help you improve the targeting and effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
There is no room for “trial and error” approach
If you want your Marketo implementation to work at its finest, you need to start off with the best practices. Thus, it is ideal to frame the best Marketo implementation methodology from the very beginning and ask your entire organization to follow the same.
Measure Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) continually for faster adjustment
With Marketo’s advanced metrics system, it is now easier than ever to measure the performance of your Marketo system. And by leveraging this service, you can understand how successful your Marketo implementation is. Based on the result you also need to make any needed procedural adjustment without wasting any time.
Last, but the most important thing to remember during Marketo implementation is that…‘slow and steady wins the race’. There is no point rushing into the final decision. You need to follow each stage of the process, understand the issues if any, and proceed accordingly to gain certainty with the program and avoid spending extra.
Most often marketers make the mistake of repeating completely avoidable errors during Marketo implementation, just because they are not aware of the above-mentioned facts. We at Marrina Decisions have gathered expert knowledge in Marketo instances to assist you through the entire phase of Marketo implementation. So, if you are getting started with Marketo or planning to upgrade the existing Marketo for better performance, drop us a line at experts@marrinadecisions.com. Or, if you are comfortable on social media, then you can simply DM us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. We provide Marketo implementation services and consultancy to help your marketing team get up and running fast and on the right track.