Is there a Gap in your Organization?

If you attended the Omniture Summit in Salt Lake City this year, you heard many of the speakers touch on the same subject; the interaction between marketing and technical groups, or the lack thereof.

Too often we see companies that are months or even years into using an analytics tool and still cannot get the data that they want due to poor interaction between marketing and IT when it comes to implementing and maintaining analytic tools. Is it lack of communication? Or miscommunication? It’s even more than that!

There are four primary issues contributing to the conflict and ultimately underuse of analytics tools: misunderstanding, fear, trust and support. In order to realize your goals and get your tools in place properly and quickly, you must overcome these hurdles.

Misunderstanding

There are typically two parts to misunderstanding; the first is what you want to do and second is how to actually achieve it (technically).

To create the integrated marketing environment, you need nimble and reactive analytics tools and processes to help drive your success. To do this, more and more marketing groups are realizing that they need more control over the implementation and management of their analytics tool. In most cases, IT does not truly understand the tool you have purchased and therefore has misconceptions about how you’re managing it would make it better. You need to clearly lay out a plan for maintaining the tools and your goals so each group is clear. IT will then be much more likely to work with you and hand over some control, just as they have started to allow you to control the content on your web site.

The second misunderstanding is that an analytics tool is a “set it and forget it” solution. Not the case! Online analytics is a continually evolving process that requires regular attention. Analytics tools pose a unique challenge for IT groups. Traditionally IT groups build their technology in modules so they can build teams and isolate problems. However, the analytics tools span the entire enterprise and therefore many development teams. How do they manage something that is just a little piece of their daily function but spans the organization? Plus, a good tagging framework requires some foresight and planning to be somewhat self-maintaining and have the ability to be modified or added to quickly. To do this you must make the tagging part of your development process or find a way for your marketing group to manage it.

Working with IT to determine an effective tagging and management is much easier once each group truly understands the goals, processes and what it takes to manage the tagging.

Fear

The knee jerk reaction that most IT groups will have is the fear of what this tool could do to them, not for them. Seth Godin’s description of the purple circle on his head, said it well. We are all concerned that we will do something that will leave a big ugly circle on our career for years to come. This fear often causes people to throw up walls, become naysayers and turn off their ears.

I assure you that your IT group has tackled much more complicated issues than your analytics tool but you must first get them to work with you. As with most things, education is the key. They are busy, and your new project may not be high on their priority list. Create a brief presentation that clearly demonstrates your intention, the need and their involvement. Find someone in the organization that can speak both the marketing language and the technical language, and then make sure they are present during all conversations. Identify similar projects that have occurred and use them as examples of how it worked then, so we can probably make this work too.

Trust

You need to earn the trust of the IT department. Trust that you will not break things. Trust that you will adhere to their processes. Trust that you will keep them in the loop. Trust that you really understand what you are doing. Trust that you’re taking over the management of the analytics tool will make their life easier. IT departments have various systems and tools in place that take many hours to implement and manage, one wrong move and entire systems can be jeopardized. You need to build their trust that you will be saving them time, not causing them more work.

To accomplish this you need to lay out controls and processes that ensure you cannot break things and show your eagerness to work within IT’s existing processes. Whether it be timelines, development cycles, version control systems, points of contact… show your willingness to create “Rules of Engagement” that will ensure success.

Management Support and Direction

Just like any project, it is important that the stakeholders have the proper expectations for what you want to accomplish and why. Not until you do this will you have a chance at success.

Once you have the stakeholders support, you then must layout a clear vision of your needs for management. The least of your needs should be their support and direction for the project, when you call upon them. And you will need to call on them. Even if you have a good relationship with your IT group, you will at some point need management’s support to hold things together when you hit bumps in the road. Don’t rush past this step. Understand all the stakeholder needs and anticipate the challenges. Then present your project to management with a clear vision of what support you need from them.

Marketing Analysts don’t get excited about the details of implementing an analytics tool, but everyone wants to reap the rewards. We all know that you will never realize your goal if you cannot get things implemented correctly and manage them properly. If you find yourself struggling to realize this goal, step back and asses your situation. You might realize that some of these issues are at play in your organization.