5 ways an all-in-one marketing platform can benefit your business
The world of marketing can be tough. Not only is the job description broad and often demands a hugely diverse skill set, it also requires flexibility and the ability to adapt to the needs and whims of your audience and as technology evolves and updates.
Here at Diginius we believe in making your life easier and we like to ensure that our blogs explore ways to optimise your performance or share top tips to utilise technology for example, how to use Artificial Intelligence for business success. Our advice today though could be a game-changer for any marketing team.
Most marketers will admit to getting frustrated when having to flick from platform to platform to analyse different data sets or to create different campaigns. Or maybe you’ve seriously considered throwing your laptop at the wall when you’ve forgotten one of your fifty different passwords only to then be told you cannot enter an old password. *Sigh*
A good solution for solving these issues as well as to improve your performance, boost your ROI and to allow for most efficient data collection and analysis is to unify all your data into an all-in-one marketing platform.
In the coming article, we will guide you through the things you’ll need to consider when choosing a platform as well as going into greater depth into the rewards and benefits when you find an all-in-one marketing platform software that works for you.
What should you consider when choosing an all-in-one marketing platform software
All-in-one marketing platforms are great for the many reasons which we will discuss below. Yet, choosing one is not a decision to be taken lightly. Afterall, this platform will play a part in informing budget allocation, marketing and sales strategy as well as possibly wider business decisions.
Integrity is a value close to our hearts at Diginius and we understand that in writing a blog such as this we are helping you to make a fairly momentous decision – one that you want to get right first time. Therefore, this blog will start with a warning.
Choosing a platform is likely to lead to trade-offs which depend entirely on your priorities and needs: depth vs breath, certain integrations vs lead intelligence, scheduling vs SEO keywords … A good all-in-one platform will likely meet many of your requirements – ideally all – but it is important that in assessing your options you remain down to earth. All-in-one doesn’t mean everything under the sun and doing your own targeted research is vital.
Moreover, it takes time to implement such software and perhaps some re-training too. Yet, according to Panorama Consulting in 2018, it is a worthwhile investment with 49% of businesses that invested in software implementation reporting an improvement in all of their business processes.
So without further ado, let us delve into all the wonderful things that an all-in-one platform can do.
5 benefits of all-in-one marketing platforms
Time efficiency
The world of marketing is constantly changing and so to produce both an efficient and effective marketing campaign, time is of the essence. Time management is a common issue for those who work in marketing, especially when time is wasted doing inefficient legwork rather than using it to make strategic decisions or create impactful campaigns.
Not only managing the time it takes to create posts, to produce campaigns and to access data but also the time it takes to analyse your KPIs and pull out meaningful strategic decisions from your assessments.
This is the most obvious way that an all-in-one platform can help you. Data which is consolidated in one area allows you to flick between different platforms and draw out valuable comparisons with ease.
Reduced operational costs
Reducing operational costs is another useful benefit that comes from shifting over to an all in one digital marketing platform. However, you will have to think carefully about the needs of your business.
As mentioned above, if you are lucky you will be able to find a platform that has absolutely everything you need and that offers sufficient depth in their offering that allows you to delete all your accounts on other software. However, it is likely that while a good platform will allow you to consolidate most of your data, it won’t be able to do everything. Nonetheless, when you balance up all the offerings and choose wisely, your subscription costs are likely to decrease.
Moreover, you will be able to handle more business effectively with your workforce able to focus their time on tasks that more directly generate income. And the IT team will also be glad to have fewer integrations to manage too!
Improved collaboration
Like with all areas of the business marketing and sales efforts work best when the team can communicate and share information. With all (or at least the majority) of your critical data in one place, team members have access to the same metrics to inform their decision-making. With automated reporting, it will also mean that more people will be able to analyse the data reducing the likelihood of problems remaining under the radar.
Moreover, it will lead to better collaboration between the teams – especially between sales and marketing. It is easy, especially within a large company, for teams to become insular. Performance soars when teams can share their needs and wants as well as have access to pertinent information that may aid this collaboration. Hubspot shared that when sales and marketing teams are highly collaborative, businesses enjoy a 38% higher win rate for sales and 24% of businesses reported a higher customer retention rate.
Clearly any tool that helps collaboration is a win then!
Optimized user experience
Easy has been a word that has already been used a lot but it really does sum up the all-in-one offering: it just makes your life easier in so many ways. Perhaps you are an in-house team that is tired of creating complex spreadsheets and flicking between different platforms for your weekly marketing report. Or, maybe you are an agency who wants to manage all their clients in one place and user-friendly displays that also help when presenting your ideas to clients.
It just simplifies everything and keeping things simple makes everyone happy.
Easy analysis
In a world where we are swimming in data, data-driven decision making is becoming a more crucial component of marketing efforts. Data-driven decisions have an application in all aspects of marketing and by analysing your metrics closely you will be able to draw out meaningful information about your audience as well as where your product/service sits in the market. With an all-in-one platform, you can easily analyse more data without creating tiresome spreadsheets and ask more questions of the data at your disposal.
Likewise, it encourages a holistic view of your marketing strategy. Marketing campaigns do not happen in isolation from one another and the information you draw out about your latest Instagram post might also help with your Microsoft Ads campaign. Your audience is your audience after all and while there are of course nuances to every platform, there are also similarities.
A data-driven approach facilitates this sort of thinking and its success is clear in the numbers. PwC conducted a survey of more than 1,000 senior executives and concluded that data-driven companies were three times more likely to experience improvements than the organisations who rely less on data.
An all-in-one marketing platform therefore doesn’t only make the assessments that you are currently performing easier but allows you to develop your data analysis skills and push you towards a more data-driven approach.
How to choose the best all-in-one marketing platform software?
There is no one size fits all solution here and choosing a software such as this is a personal decision that reflects the needs of your business or agency. However, there are a few central considerations which you will need to weigh up:
- What tools and integrations do you need?
It should be quite easy to formulate this list and write down all the tools that you currently use, platforms that you need to keep track of and maybe spaces that you are looking to move into in the near future. For example, if you don’t currently advertise on Bing but are fairly keen to do so soon it is important that your new tool accommodates for that.
What might prove more difficult is putting that list in order of priority and thinking carefully about what is essential and what is desired. Understanding your needs before you start searching means that you will be able to make an informed choice and a choice that will give you all the rewards and benefits detailed above.
- How much are you looking to spend?
Money, money, money must be funny in a rich marketers world. If streamlining and reducing operational costs is high up on your priorities, you will need to think carefully about your budget. When you start comparing different tools, you will then have to weigh up certain functionalities against your budget.
Despite my warnings about trade-offs, if you are looking to reduce costs it is a highly effective way to do so. This is especially true if you are currently using expensive tools with lots of functionalities that you don’t take advantage of.
- What are your KPIs?
This leads neatly onto metrics. All platforms are different and some have greater depth in one area while others offer something different. This is a simple matter of ascertaining what data allows you to make effective decisions and perhaps what data you would need in order to make more informed strategic moves.
Are all-in-one marketing platforms suitable for agencies?
Certainly! Many platforms are designed with agencies in mind and provide a space where all your clients data is easily accessible. Utilising an all-in-one platform is likely to give you a competitive advantage over those who don’t by standardising, streamlining and even automating processes to time, money and energy.
Are all-in-one marketing platforms suitable for single users?
Yes again! You are likely to have different needs to an agency so it once again comes down to doing the right research for the needs of your company and the direction you are headed. It is perhaps easier for single users to know precisely what they need out of such a platform without needing to balance the needs of competing clients.
Yay or nay?
The general advantages of an all-in-one platform are clear: they save time, money as well as improving a host of marketing actions either through automation or streamlining. They may also save your sanity too! However, suggestions of platforms have deliberately not been mentioned here for a very good reason. You need to do the research for your agency or business. Now you understand what the offer is and what things to consider, you will be well placed to make the right decision.
Perhaps Diginius could be the answer for you. Whether you are an agency or an in-house team, discover how our all-in-one marketing platform, Diginius Insight Platform boosts your ROI.
