The son of a friend of mine is 25 years old and lives with a roommate in a small house. He has a great job, lots of friends and a bright future. Like many of us, he keeps around a few sentimental items from his past. One of them is a hockey-themed comforter his mom bought for him when he was 11.
The hockey comforter makes sense in his world. He is used to it, and he sleeps better with it on the bed. The truth is, all of us have a sentimental attachments to the way things used to be...some more than others.
This story demonstrates one of the reasons it can be tough to get marketing groups to adopt change. People are comfortable with the way things were, and hesitant to learn new ways of doing things. The hesitancy can actually be very emotional—as emotional as giving up a favorite comforter.
Change management is an entire discipline in the marketing world that helps organizations overcome both the logistic and emotional barriers to change. One of those barriers is also a tool you can use to divert the emotional, focus on the logical and overcome resistance: data.
Overcome the data barrier and use it to boost marketing software adoption
Data is a barrier to adoption of marketing automation software and marketing operations management software, in part because it is intimidating to those who aren't used to dealing with it every day. Help people become more comfortable with the data aspect of your new automation or operations system, and you will help them become more comfortable with the changes.