I have worked with a lot of technical teams, and frequently I hear them say that they are specialized in a specific coding language, whether it is python, or Ruby, Java, or whatever is coming next. Tech teams work on the architecture of platforms that rely on these coding languages. Technology is often turned toward itself, and the goal is to build the best tech resource, be the best developer, and to geek about it.
In marketing, it is a little different and our goal is customer satisfaction. Everything revolves around the customer experience and satisfaction. Sometimes customers need to go through a long journey, and sometimes the experience is short and sweet and the question is simply to figure out the quickest way to buy.
Being in the martech world, and it is especially true in the burgeoning marketing automation space, I see a lot of corporations being extremely technology specific and only want to work with Eloqua, Pardot, or other nichy martech software specialists. 
Products evolve, companies rise and die, and marketers should not be focused on the technology they are using. They should be focused on what they are doing with it, and the problem the tool is solving. It is just as if you would buy a small electric car because it is trendy, when you really need a sedan to move your family. The electric car is more economical on gas than the sedan, but it takes you 3 trips to bring everybody from a point A to point B.
I have heard that large corporations usually manage a larger number of prospects with Eloqua or Marketo, lower databases are on Pardot or Hubspot, and I have heard the opposite as well. It all depends on what you are doing with the tool, it is not just based on benchmarks.
Most of the marketing automation tools do these things:
- Email marketing
- Analytics and Reporting
- Lead management
- CRM integration
- Landing pages
- Social marketing
- some do SMS marketing as well
The fun and techy aspect of these tools should not take away from the fact that they are created to make the customer’s life better. The product certifications and specialization tracks is a marketing way for tech brands to grow and keep marketers captive of their technology. The assumption is that if you can’t do something as a marketer, it means that you’re not smart enough and then you need to train to be able to solve your problem. This way you never really question the tool itself, you become an evangelist and you specialize in finding complex workarounds.
Why not selecting the right tool in the first place?