“I’ll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of earl grey than you can do in a year in the field.”– Q
The Role of technology in marketing has been growing exponentially in the last few years. It started evolving with functions like accounting, inventory management, project management. Then came technologies to automate sales, service and most recently, marketing.
There are a lot of great technologies available now, and like you, I have tried some of them in my own marketing strategies. Needless to say, technology, tools, gadgets- all of them exist to improve efficiencies of the user, save time, money.. whatever. But when it comes to using technology for marketing particularly, we have a unique phenomenon.
Marketing is an art as much as a science – it’s not like a production line or logistics management. And you can never fully automate the ‘art’ aspect of marketing- that still needs a really competent human- i.e. Marketing or Account Manager to lead the effort intelligently. The Key account management tool exists to enhance all of the inherent skills of the Marketer and enable victory. Let’s illustrate this with a really simple example.
I bought a fantastic e-mail marketing tool once and thought it would do wonders. But, without a great subject line (headline) that makes sense to the recipient and without really great, relevant content, the email tool is useless. In fact, it could be detrimental and annoy my prospects. In developing DemandFarm over the last 3 years, I set out to make a James Bond-like the tool that solves everything effortlessly and wins the confidence of the most difficult customers.
But recently while watching a James Bond film, it dawned upon me that DemandFarm is ‘Q’, not James Bond. For the uninitiated, Q is the nerdy genius providing Bond with all his gadgets. In reality, the user of my product (Key Account Manager) is James Bond. I was trying to make DemandFarm a James Bond.
It is imperative for Bond to have a Q at his side. Think for a second, what makes James Bond exceptional?The swag, the license to kill or the awesome gadgets that get him out of every near-death situation he gets himself into? All the tools Bond owns come from Q – the Jetpack, laser shooting Omega Seamaster Professional watch, every gun, every bullet in that gun and the Aston Martin.
Bond is incomplete without the modified Aston Martin built by Q. The car is a veritable tank, providing the bond with a companion he can count upon every time. It’s Q’s gadgets that make the man on her majesty’s secret service a living weapon. So for every James Bond of a Key Account Manager out there, dial ‘demandfarm.com’ for your very own Q.
