In our previous blog, The #1 Reason Marketing Technology Implementations Fail, we discussed how marketing service providers can stand in the gap between your marketing technology solution and your biggest challenge – finding time and resources to manage the solution you deployed. However, if your marketing technology vendor isn’t able to go the extra mile in the trenches to help you realize the full benefits of your marketing technology solution, then it may be time to change vendors. Here are 7 warning signs that something is amiss.

1. You haven’t achieved the goals you defined when the project began.

2. You cannot get the attention of your vendor to address the challenges you are having – or they want you to pay unreasonable fees to address these challenges.

3. You are only using a fraction of the functionality you are paying for, and your vendor isn’t helping you to get to where you need to be.

4. You have staff dedicated to managing the software that you would rather have working on marketing initiatives, or perhaps the staff person you certified to manage the technology full-time has left the company, and you are facing the cost of certifying someone else, but already short-staffed, you can’t really afford to dedicate a new resource to manage the software.

5. You expected your technology solution to operate more seamlessly than it actually does, and you are finding that interfacing your marketing software with a production/fulfillment/print company is still a manual or difficult hand-off.

6. Your ongoing operational costs (training, maintenance and software updates) are higher than expected, and your vendor wasn’t forthcoming about these costs up front.

7. Your marketing technology implementation requires more support from IT than expected, and your technology is not a priority for them. Translation: It may be time to switch to a vendor whose user interface is more intuitive to administer and puts more power in the hands of your marketing users.

Lasting Partnership?

1. People and process savvy. Full service marketing service providers are able to ensure you fully utilize all the functionality you have purchased and can oversee uploading important content such as HTML files, templates and target lists to your marketing technology system.

2. Agile support. Smaller, more nimble marketing service providers can help to augment your staff as needed to support your marketing technology solution and respond quickly to your needs when there are questions or issues. Additionally, they offer creative and project management services to help plan and manage the complexity of ongoing lead nurturing campaigns.

3. Integrated fulfillment. Full service marketing service providers offer integration of your marketing technology solution with print fulfillment, streamlining campaign delivery while campaign customizations can be quickly managed and approved through a workflow approval process.

4. Reliable delivery. A full service marketing service provider can help you get the job done right and on time, working as a scalable and reliable business partner in end-to-end campaign delivery and fulfillment.

Here are some hallmarks to look for in a successful marketing technology partnership:

How does your marketing technology vendor measure up? If you find yourself facing many of the challenges outlined above, then it may be time to change marketing technology vendors. Stay tuned for our next blog of this series guiding you through the process of changing marketing technology vendors.