In the third of our series on virtual events, we look at the important choice between a self-contained platform and an event stack built out of best-in-breed solutions. That’s been a classic dilemma in martech itself, although to some extent it resolved itself, with the more comprehensive suites becoming increasingly receptive to integrations with third-party solutions.

Marketers should approach this decision by first determining their objectives. If, for example, you are planning for a large event, with thousands of attendees and presentations, being mindful of scale is important because you’ll need a high-performance platform that can handle a large number of participants simultaneously. If, on the other hand, your event will have limited attendance and features pre-recorded content, or it’s a mixed scenario with live and on-demand content, you face a completely different set of challenges. In addition to defining your objectives, you will also need a list of features you expect to have for attendees, sponsors and your team. This will save a lot of time when it comes to evaluating vendor offerings.

While an all-in-one platform might seem less risky than a built-to-order stack, you’ll be limited to the tools it offers; a custom stack allows you to switch tools in and out. At the end of the day, the choice will depend on the experience you want to offer.

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One topic which came up on yesterday’s MarTech Live, which looked at agile marketing, was getting executive buy-in. It’s important to have top management on board if you’re about to start running marketing and marketing ops in a very different way.

The first important message to deliver is that an agile approach, by increasing visibility into workflows and workloads, will tend to optimize marketing budgets, not least by eradicating unnecessary work. Secondly, agile should be tied to revenue generation, especially in the current economic climate. Third, emphasize agile’s positive effect on productivity and effective prioritization of tasks.

Ultimately, executive approval will be easier if success can be demonstrated. Rather than immediately jettisoning the traditional approach to important campaigns, consider starting out with small wins: an agile approach to reformatting customer journeys, for example.

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80+ tactic-rich sessions, empowering keynotes, live virtual networking… it’s all here. Check out the MarTech agenda and join us online, October 6-8, for free!

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“Agencies are brands too and need to be treated as such.” Lauren Cover, Sprout Social.