When enterprise brands explore switching to a new martech platform, they inevitably hear pitches making numerous claims about how easy they’ll be to work with, and how everything they want to do is possible on this new platform. They’ll see slide decks and videos and maybe even some hands-on demonstrations of the product so they can get a feel for the user interface.
What they won’t get, in the vast majority of cases, is a true “proof of concept” where the vendor’s team shows first-hand how to leverage the tool – while using the brand’s actual data to showcase personalized cross-channel campaigns.
And that feels unfair. Why do you need to pay for a trial to see if you want to buy the product? At MessageGears, we pride ourselves on offering POCs to brands that are serious about offering better messaging to their users. Why should you do a POC with MessageGears? Here are the four main differentiators you’ll be able to see in action:
Direct data connection
Because MessageGears’ customer engagement platform connects directly to your data source, there’s no need for data mapping, copying, or syncing. Many times, prospects use queries they’ve already built internally for their current ESP or CDP and copy/paste directly into our platform.
Other platforms might be able to set up a sandbox for you (and we can too!) to be able to get an overall feel for what it would be like to use the platform and how the backend would work for your marketing team, but you’ll have to spend days if not weeks just on data mapping to have a meaningful POC.
When you do a POC with MessageGears, you can see exactly what our product can achieve for your brand. There’s no bait and switch – you’ll experience just how powerful it is to have a truly direct connection to the data that powers your campaigns.
Ease of installation
MessageGears is easy to install and connect to your data source because it uses common web application architecture to run. This simplifies the installation process, making a POC logistically feasible in a short amount of time.
The average time for a guided install with MessageGears is about 45 minutes – from the start of the process to running and connecting to your data source. Optionally, we can host our platform for you during the POC, simplifying the process even further if it helps your team.
You’ll learn just how easy it will be to get up and running with MessageGears so you can quickly get powerful campaigns in-market.
Open-source templating language
MessageGears’ open-source templating language called Freemarker creates a smooth transition process to ensure you don’t have to do complicated rewrites for systems to understand each other.
A POC will help you see in real time what a difference open-source language – and no need for complex add-ons – can make for your team.
Switching from your current vendor, who may even use a complicated proprietary language, is not only easy but also very well documented. Combined with direct data access, you can create and migrate programs in a matter of hours, not months.
With other vendors, you’re typically dependent on their team to learn their proprietary language, and they’re not always working with you to migrate programs during a POC. But we’re glad to help wherever we can.
Team expertise
Speaking of help, MessageGears’ solutions team has experience migrating enterprise clients from every major competitor as well as years of experience in marketing automation and cross-channel communications. We’re able to anticipate hurdles ahead of time and develop a plan for clearing them before they occur.
We know your time is valuable, and a POC is a process you don’t enter into lightly. So it’s essential that our team is prepared for every eventuality and knows how to execute the POC so that you learn everything you need to as efficiently as possible. Because we’ve been doing these for so many years, there’s virtually nothing we haven’t already encountered, and that helps us maximize what you can get out of the POC.
Witnessing the level of support you’ll receive from our team during a POC will give you a preview of the type of support you’ll come to expect as a MessageGears customer. We consider our team a true extension of yours and we’ll be there for you every step of the way – even helping to brainstorm and execute campaigns hands-on if you need us. MessageGears’ support functions just like our platform – without limits.
If you’ve considered a vendor switch and think a live POC could benefit you in your vetting process, we’d love to talk about setting one up for you.
Elsbeth Russell
Elsbeth has nearly two decades of experience helping brands attract and engage audiences through content. For the past six years, she’s been dedicated to helping B2B companies in the email marketing space connect with audiences through community building and social media marketing.
