For those interested in innovating the practice of marketing, there are many challenges in adopting emerging technologies. Here are seven ways to overcome those challenges. 

1. Don’t Evaluate all Technology the Same Way – Because most new technology is IT related, we tend to take an IT approach to evaluating the adoption of new technology. But new platforms such as SaaS make it easy to get into and out of contracts and thus make it easy to test drive new technologies. I remember a financial services company that thought iPads could be really useful, when they first came out and bought a dozen for the team to experiment with and use.  Getting a native app developed, even from an outside vendor is not such a big deal any more.  Don’t evaluate each technology as if you were making a million dollar IT decision. There are different levels of cost, and risk.

2. Look at the Utility, not Just the Adoption – People often make the mistake of looking at the absolute level of adoption versus the adoption rate and more importantly the utility of the technology. With the advent of ubiquitous Internet access and bandwidth it makes adoption of new technologies fast and easy. (They go viral) The more important question is the utility of the technology. If the technology has real value, then people will adopt it and people will find a way to get access. Does anyone remember Internet cafes and people still go to libraries and community centers to get Internet access.  You also need to have a criteria for understanding when a “new” technology is no longer new.

3. Look at the Cost, Not Just the ROI – In some cases you may end up spending more on creating the business case than the cost of adopting the technology. So how much is it going to cost you to set up and experiment with a new technology? It is often free. Or take advantage of a free trial, or at least watch a demo. Will this technology become a cost of doing business? In other words, it is expected today that a company will have a website, no matter how little traffic the site gets. Not having a site might hurt the brand and that is a lot harder to determine in terms of ROI. I remember recommending to an Intellectual Property Law firm they should be leading the way in adopting new marketing technology as a message to their existing and prospective clients. I felt it would enhance their image and brand. Is adopting this technology consistent with our image, reputation and brand?

4. Consider it Part of Professional Education - Companies provide training opportunities, sometimes it is hard to measure the return on those investments, but they are important.  Providing hands on learning is a necessary form of learning when it comes to new technology. This training is a cost, but is better thought of as an investment.

5. Know who Your Lead Users Are – If the technology has customer facing applications, know who your lead users are and ask them to try it out. They could be a real asset as they like experimenting with new technologies and can provide you valuable feedback to help you decide if this is a technology you want to roll out to everyone and/or even if you want to adopt it at all. You might want to form a customer advisory panel that just helps you evaluate the adoption of new technologies.

6. Understand How Disruptive the Technology Could Be – The more disruptive, the more likely the potential adoption of the technology will face more resistance. This is because with opportunities comes threats and it is not in everyone’s interest to change. People will resist change as part of their nature, and larger changes will generate larger resistance. People don’t often look at what might happen if the technology works. In many industries, there are first mover advantages. There is a very real chance we will pick up the innovators and early adopters who are not currently our customers. A segment of your customers will also be early adopters and they will be very forgiving of bugs in the new technology and they are often willing to help you work them out. Those who adopt the technology later expect the technology to work.

7. Have An Emerging Technology Budget  - The way to deal with these challenges is to have a small amount of money budgeted to try emerging technologies, so it becomes natural to experiment with a few new things each year. Then the questions is of all the emerging technologies out there, which ones do we want to experiment with this year?  You might determine, in your business it just makes sense to have a small amount budgeted to experiment with new technologies, as a R&D marketing expense.