Tool Evaluation
Part of Evaluating marketing software
Writing a requirements list from real marketing tasks
Turn real marketing work into requirements suppliers can demonstrate, including outcomes, exceptions, essential conditions and evidence requests.
Write a marketing software requirements list by describing the work people do, the result they need and the exceptions they must handle.
A useful requirement lets a supplier show a specific outcome. It does not merely repeat a product feature name.
Collect tasks with a beginning and an end
Ask the people who perform and receive the work for recent examples. Choose a routine case and a difficult one: perhaps preparing a campaign audience, approving a change after sign-off or correcting an enquiry before it reaches sales.
Follow each from its trigger to the final hand-off. Note the starting information, who acts, where they wait, what they repair and how they know the task is complete.
Do not assume every awkward step needs new software. Record whether the problem appears to come from a system limit, a missing decision, inconsistent data or an unclear responsibility. If nobody can agree what a “qualified enquiry” means, a new field alone will not settle the definition.
Key principles from Victoria’s procurement guidelines
- Source
- Buying for Victoria – Specification Writing Guide
- Focus
- Real-world tasks, not product features
- Best Practice
- Traceable corrections and clear hand-offs between teams
- Avoid
- Assuming software fixes all process gaps
Write each requirement as an observable outcome
| Field | What to record |
|---|---|
| Task and user | Who needs to do what, and when? |
| Starting point | Which approved information or event begins the task? |
| Required result | What must the user or receiving team be able to see or do? |
| Exception | What should happen if approval is refused, data is missing or a record changes? |
| Evidence request | What should a supplier demonstrate or explain? |
| Priority and owner | Is this essential or negotiable, and who can confirm it? |
For a hypothetical campaign hand-off, a requirement could read: “When a marketer corrects an enquiry's campaign source before hand-off, the sales user can see the agreed source and the correction is traceable.”
The evidence request could ask a supplier to show the correction as an ordinary user and explain how it reaches the receiving system. That is clearer than “has CRM integration”. It does not presume a particular connector or claim that one has been tested.
Separate essential conditions from preferences
Tie an essential condition to a consequence. If only approved staff may release an offer, describe the required approval boundary and what should happen when an approver is absent. If a chart colour or screen arrangement would merely be convenient, record it as a preference. Calling every request mandatory makes a shortlist less informative.
Include conditions outside the visible marketing workflow where they affect the decision: roles and permissions, information handling, accessibility for intended users, necessary data exchange and retrieval of records. Ask the appropriate internal owners to define those conditions. A marketing team can describe what it needs to accomplish without inventing a security standard or deciding an information-handling obligation on its own.
Essential conditions vs. preferences in marketing software requirements
- Essential ConditionOnly approved staff may release a promotional offer; if no approver is available, the system must notify a backup role.
- PreferenceThe campaign dashboard should display charts in blue and orange for brand consistency.
Review and trim the list
Read each line back to its task owner. Ask, “What recent work would this have changed?” and “What would count as a satisfactory result?” Merge repeated requirements, split lines that contain several independent outcomes and remove features with no identified user or decision. Preserve genuine alternatives: two suppliers may reach the same result by different routes.
The finished list should be short enough to use in a supplier briefing. For every essential line, a reviewer should know why it matters, who can judge it and what evidence is still required. If those answers are missing, return to the task before expanding the product search.
