Marketing departments are struggling. Marketing and technology have become fused to one another and the number of marketing technology solutions available to companies continues to grow at a rate that marketing departments can't keep up with. Last year, research company Gartner noted that in 2017, chief marketing officers (CMOs) were expected to spend more on technology than chief information officers (CIOs). Now, the MarTech Industry Council has released results of a study showing that 50 percent of CMOs are frustrated with the overabundance of technology tools and 49 percent reported integration problems with tools available to them. We are in a marketing technology bubble.

How can a company cut through to clutter and select the right marketing technologies? In this issue of Promotional Consultant Today, we'll share four ways to ease the pain from Michael Litt, founder and CEO of video marketing technology provider, Vidyard.

Select tools that fit into an ecosystem. No matter how good a tool is, it's not useful in today's marketing environment unless it can work with the technologies in your other systems. Make sure you are not just selecting tools, but creating an ecosystem where all of the components either integrate with one another or can utilize the right open tools to plug and play with each other.

Make sure your tech comes with real, live human support. It is difficult to fully realize the value of the technology your company has paid for without a proper onboarding and ongoing support from the technology provider, with access to real, live people for support.

Insist on attribution. Customer journeys in today's digital world don't neatly conform to the funnels of old. Prospects stagger in and out of a company's marketing technologies and it can be difficult to understand the impact each technology contributed to the final decision. Look for technologies that help the marketing department understand the role that technology played in the journey and final decision.

Invest in your people, not just technology. Companies that select and implement technologies without also setting aside resources to make certain that they have the people in place to optimize the investment in the tool, find themselves churning through technologies and do not get the return they seek from them. Be sure you have the right people in place who have the skills, training and excitement to make the most of the technology.

For more marketing and sales advice, read PCT again tomorrow.

Source: Michael Litt is the CEO and co-founder of Vidyard, a video platform for business.