Dear marketing tech: Stop trapping my data
To all my marketing tech vendors: Why can’t you just play nice with each other?
Seriously, my job is hard enough. It’s like there’s a new channel a day. We’ve got our blog, LinkedIn, Medium is the new hotness, Quibb is rising, Quora is steady, Facebook’s still in the game…and now there are a bazillion tech rating sites popping up. We need to be everywhere, and while we launch each new channel and start testing for performance and conversion, the CEO stink eye comes lurking asking me what’s working and what’s not.
This is actually harder than getting up and running in every channel. How do I answer this question? First, I start with 1password — because that reminds me what the f*ck I’m actually using. Then I log into this for web analytics, that for landing page optimization, that for paid ad performance, CRM this, Inbound that, LinkedIn and Facebook that.
It’s too much.
I don’t have enough time to double down on things that are working, because I’m too busy trying to stitch your systems together to figure out what’s working.
Here’s the thing: It’s my data about my customers and my prospects. You’re all hoarding it because you think the way to keep me locked in is to not let my data out. But it’s not yours, it’s mine. And the way to keep me is to build a product I can’t live without, not back me into a corner.
You all get into business to make my life easier, but you’re all making it harder. If you’d only play nice, and integrate with each other, so I can choose where I want to keep your intel…I’d use you all. As it is, I have no loyalty, because while you give me insight, you disconnect that insight from other insights which is ultimately what I need to make decisions.
Liberate my data. Liberate me. Help me be a better marketer.
At Drift, our platform is open. We’re friendly. We have three integrations complete for our free product (Drift Daily) — HubSpot, Intercom, and Segment. We’re committed to making our customers successful, and playing nice. Join us.
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