Your Web Developers Hate You. Here’s Why

It’s disheartening, but if you’re using point solutions for marketing tasks, your web developers may hate you.

Using multiple point solutions for individual marketing tasks will create a silo-system that makes it harder for marketers to stay organized and analyze data. This silo system also limits the capabilities of your IT team, causing them to potentially encounter compatibility issues and technological redundancies that reduce efficiency levels. Contrary to a multiple point solution, integrated systems are easy to use, maintain, and develop; they also provide the best data for marketers.

How to Change Developer Hate Into Love

If you find yourself reading this post and nodding along in realization that you have a multi-point system (and that you’ve annoyed your entire IT department), don't worry: we have a few solutions up our sleeves.

1) Point Systems Are A Short­ Term Solution. Celebrate the Long View.

It is true that multi-point solutions can initially save money — and depending on the complexity of your systems, your initial save could be $100,000+. However, the benefit of saving that money is soon wasted in the amount of time that must be spent on the long term maintenance of multiple point systems. Instead of relying on the short benefit, choose to instead focus on a long term view.

Integrated systems will give you better control, which will reduce the amount of time and money that is spent on long term maintenance. Case in point: instead of having to conduct multiple timely system updates, your tech team will be free to conduct fewer cohesive updates as needed.

2) Housing Data Under One Roof is A Must

Multiple point systems make it incredibly challenging for marketers to prove that there was a valuable Return on Investment (ROI). The recent SEMPO marketing report revealed that from 2012 to 2013 more agencies and companies found it harder to measure their ROI across multiple marketing channels — and that makes it harder to show the efficiency of your spend or champion for a larger, more impactful budget.

Due to multi-point systems, agencies are having a hard time realizing proper ROI analysis in the following marketing areas:

• Paid Search - The number of agencies that have "good" insight into ROI was down 32 percent from 2012.

• Email - The number of agencies that have "good" insight into ROI was down 16 percent from 2012.

• Digital Display - The number of agencies that have "good" insight into ROI was down 9 percent from 2012.

• SEO - The number of agencies that have "good" insight into ROI was down 19 percent from 2012.

• Search - The number of agencies that have "good" insight into ROI was down 4 percent from 2012.

To better understand your ROI, choose to house your data under one roof and find integrated solutions. Learning how to understand customer data and avoid confusing data silos will help you to create an integrated marketing platform that delivers high-quality, ROI-optimized results. Focus on buying a comprehensive system that will work well with other technologies, and don't be afraid to pass on a solution that will result in a future data headache.

3) Focus on True Integration

The best integrated solution will be one that is compatible with your specific marketing needs. To this end, an integrated solution should have intelligence and automation built into it. Integrated solutions should allow users to automate, test, and learn. When you work towards an automation solution, you will discover that you can be more efficient with your work, and thus save both effort and time. Technology is the fundamental backbone of integrated marketing. As a result, keeping both technological limitations and benefits in mind will help you to choose the correct integrated solution for your business needs.

Moving Away from a Multi-Point Solution

Focusing on an integrated marketing solution will result in your ability to house data more efficiently. A cohesive, integrated solution will also help you to effectively maximize the resources that you do have to create an environment that is focused on delivering high-quality results efficiently and in a cost effective manner. In short, multi-point systems are the short term solutions of yesteryear — embrace the long term benefits of an integrated marketing system today.