The panel for this session consisted of the following people and their respective stages on their marketing technology stack journey:

• Stefanie Knapp (Allen Matkins) - with a developed marketing tech stack
• Julie Gurney (Benesch) - currently developing the marketing tech stack
• Amy Holtzman (AlphaSense) - outside of the legal industry and has recently inherited a tech stack

Here is an example of a tech stack by Stefanie:

As you can see there are several components to make up the anatomy of a legal marketing technology stack; advertising & promotions, content & experience, social & relationships, sales and data. 

All agreed that it is crucial to plan your technology such that it can talk to each other and integrate. This involves planning and research. A few examples of this not happening were shared. It sounded painful! 

In terms of where to start, all agreed that you must start with the objective. All 3 panellists had seen situations whereby the tech is bought before identifying the outcome. 

Amy explained you need to:

1. Scope out what you want to achieve
2. Get your people and process in place 
3. Back in your technology

Stefanie supported this view by saying that you need to work on culture first as the attorneys need to be involved with this technology. To build on this you need to be giving feedback (data) that matters to the attorneys. Since they sell high value services they will be most interested in feedback that shows if their existing key clients and those that fit their target market are engaging at some point online. 

Finally, the panellists advised that a central data source is so important to help you report back to the business and gain further investment.