Today, technology fuels practically every facet of marketing, from product development to refining target audiences to executing promotional plans; marketing without technology is almost impossible in our world today.
The introduction of the internet has had a significant impact on the customer purchasing journey, and customers have become more demanding – requesting more personalizations, options, and distribution channels.
To fulfill these demands, modern marketers developed a slew of technology-enabled marketing tools known collectively as martech.
Definition of MarTech
Marketing technology (also known as martech) refers to the systems and technologies that enable marketers to engage with customers more effectively. These solutions leverage technology to automate many of the time-consuming and repetitive chores that robots excel at, allowing marketers to devote more of their time to their profession’s creative and strategic aspects.
Customer data aggregation and cleansing, data analysis, insight development, customer segmentation and targeting, execution of customer interactions, and automatic optimization of recurring marketing campaigns are all examples of marketing activity layers that marketing technology may solve.
Why Should Businesses Care About MarTech in 2022
Many businesses in 2022 still suffer from a silo effect, in which distinct departments, such as sales, customer service, and marketing, have limited views of customer interactions and access to only a subset of data. It is difficult for all divisions to cooperate toward common company goals and create a unified and ideal customer experience when they lack a holistic view.
MarTech can bridge these gaps by providing a shared, centralized platform for data storage and giving all departments visibility into the many parts of the marketing puzzle and the broader picture.
By combining MarTech with other major platforms and systems typically utilized in business, marketing teams may analyze client interactions at all touchpoints. The insights gained from this data will allow marketers to quickly pivot and address areas that require improvement or adjust strategy to engage customers throughout their journey better.
Below are some of the issues businesses face in their bid to adopt marketing technology solutions either for their business marketing campaigns or day-to-day operations.
- Choosing the Most Appropriate MarTech Platform
Choosing the right platform is challenging because it entails more than just finding the right technology – it also entails finding the ideal partner. Integrating a new system is frequently difficult, and the process of engaging with internal and external stakeholders to roll out technology might cause unforeseen snags.
- Changing the Corporate Culture
Changing the way marketing functions can be a significant problem for many firms. Working with colleagues to teach them new platforms and workflows impedes day-to-day tasks. Unfortunately, altering the company culture to embrace martech can be a hard challenge for many businesses.
- Processing Excessive Data
In today’s marketing world, there is a lot of data. Your organization may face a significant problem in sorting through data to identify what is and isn’t important. Choosing the proper vendor and collaborating with data scientists to examine massive volumes of data can assist/guide your marketing department on the right path.
What is a MarTech Stack?
A MarTech stack is a collection of marketing technology and solutions that can assist marketing departments in meeting their goals as well as the overall business goals. Email marketing platforms, content management systems (CMS), customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, customer data platforms (CDP), and analytics tools are some of the technologies that can be used.
Below are some of the common use cases of MarTech in today’s world:
- Solutions for Data and Analytics
Marketers have a method for gathering statistical data, interpreting it, and validating it for future trend and demand analysis. Today, technology-powered software considers various factors to provide results and trends, allowing marketers to understand shopper behavior better. They also provide a measurable indicator of the effectiveness of marketing initiatives and messages. Software such as Google Analytics, Oribi, and others make it easier to collect and implement website and application data and marketing plans.
- Content and Experience
Creating a comprehensive consumer experience is simple with a marketing stack. Marketers create comprehensive marketing campaigns by utilizing mobile app builders such as AppInstitute, video marketing tools such as goopi.tv, email marketing platforms such as MooSend, and content marketing tools such as BuzzSumo.
Today, Content Management Systems (CMS) assist marketers in creating a website and managing their web presence without requiring specialized technical knowledge. Marketers also employ both pull and push marketing methods, such as search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and social media marketing (SMM), to boost the exposure of websites on search engine result pages.
- Customer Relationships
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a set of techniques and practices for managing a company’s relationships and interactions with customers across the customer lifecycle. These tactics include reminders, contact and task management, and keeping a record of reports. Martech stacks such as Hubspot, Salesforce, and others make it simple for marketers to keep such information and develop meaningful interactions with consumers and prospects.
- Social Media Management
Because social media is such an important element of modern corporate engagement, technology that assists in managing these platforms is a must-have. Not only are social media platforms valuable for your content strategy, but they are also a significant resource for prospects and clients seeking customer service and other information.
Measuring your social media engagement using a MarTech solution allows you to identify which content is trending the most across your platforms and provides insight into how effective your interactions with people are. MarTech stacks such as Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social are the go-to social media management tools for most businesses.
How to Create a Unique MarTech Strategy in 2022
Here are some best practices for creating a successful martech strategy:
- Take a top-down approach
Create a martech “stack” from the top down, beginning with the company’s overarching marketing strategy and goals. You will make better decisions on what specific skills and measurements you need to support if you consider high-level objectives in broad terms.
- Include all data
Carefully assess all existing data sources that should be integrated to fulfill your martech objectives, and ensure that your chosen solutions are compatible with those sources. It is vital to have a thorough client profile based on all accessible data.
- Ensure that all channels are integrated
Consider all of the marketing and communication channels you require right now, as well as those you anticipate using in the near future. Your martech stack will only be able to maximize the total customer experience if all channels – email, SMS, on-site/in-app, online advertising, social media, call center, etc. – are coordinated effectively. No more compartmentalization!
- Collaborate with IT
Collaborate with IT throughout the definition, selection, and implementation stages. While most martech solutions aim to reduce marketers’ dependency on IT, the IT department’s cooperation and buy-in are nearly always required for developing (and sustaining) a functional martech stack.
Top MarTech Trends To Watch Out for in 2022
Over the last few years, the significance of marketing technology (MarTech – as it is often known) has grown exponentially. According to Gartner, MarTech currently accounts for more than a quarter of yearly marketing spend at major firms. Let us look at the top three trends that will dominate the Martech world in the coming years:
- Massive Automation And Artificial Intelligence
Many martech tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze data, produce insights and predictions about consumer behavior, make suggestions, optimize campaigns, and customize messages for individual customers are currently exploding.
AI automates a wide range of large-scale tasks that are time-consuming (or simply impossible) for humans, allowing marketers to concentrate more on their business’s creative and strategic components.
- Enhanced Customer Experience Personalization
With the prevalence of chatbots, live chat, self-service, and tailored products/services, customer experience has never been more personalized. As a result, sending marketing emails to customers is becoming obsolete, and all firms must adopt an Omnichannel strategy.
The main goal is to make clients feel more linked to your company, rather than making them believe you are seeking their money. In this context, sentiment analysis is particularly important because it may assist marketers in increasing customization and thereby driving a better customer experience.
- Data Unification
It has never been more vital to guarantee that all available consumer data is consolidated, sanitized, and available for analytics, insight, and action. An appropriate customer data platform (CDP) is now thought to be the best approach to do this.
In Conclusion
As firms shift more of their marketing to digital rather than traditional channels, the emphasis on implementing technologies that support these channels will—and already has—become increasingly obvious.
With these deployments becoming an increasingly significant component of marketing campaigns, organizations constantly ask themselves what MarTech equipment they require and why MarTech will benefit their unique goals.
This is especially true when the relevance of data in informing campaigns and plans is taken into account— the capacity of MarTech solutions to aggregate and analyze data is critical. As investments in digital marketing continue to climb, anticipate more organizations to beef up their MarTech stacks in the future.