Marketing technology – Martech for short – has been formed and developed in recent years. For all the marketing-related tasks you want to do, you will almost always find a tool to help solve that task. There is one thing […]
It is pretty much a given that you will need more than one tool, and this is where the martech stack comes in. The martech stack is a collection of tools that use different technologies to help you achieve your marketing goals in the most effective way.
Creating a martech stack is not easy because different companies have different needs, and there will be different solutions for those needs.
But by planning your martech stack carefully, you can manage your marketing campaigns and budgets intelligently to bring in the most return possible.
MARTECH MARKET FUNDING (BILLION USD)
Photo source:
https://chiefmartec.com/2018/04/marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-2018/
Some points to note about the martech stack:
- Set clear goals before considering whether or not to use martech to achieve them.
- There are around 7,000 martech solutions and they are divided into 6 categories.
- Using Martech to create omnichannel customer experiences
- Centralize data sources and integrate martech tools together
How to build a martech stack
It's estimated that there are over 6,800 marketing technology solutions from over 6,200 vendors, so how do you know where to start?
Choosing the right software solution for your business is just as important as finding the right combination. One of the key ideas behind the martech stack is that every tool you use to succeed in marketing needs to be integrated and interact with each other.
Choosing the wrong tool can be a costly mistake. Data shows that martech spending increased by nearly 30% of the average marketing budget in 2018. However, if the money is poured into a solution that doesn’t fit your organization and workflow, it can not only drain your budget but also impact your business performance.
So how do you know for sure which martech is right for your business? Start by being clear about what you want to achieve and how the technology will help you achieve it.
Start by outlining your marketing strategy.
Tools help make certain aspects of your marketing plan a reality, but they can't replace the foundation of a solid marketing strategy.
You won't be able to compare software solutions or evaluate how well they will meet your needs if you haven't clearly defined what your needs are?
A business targeting a demographic of 25-35 year olds with an average spend history of $50 will have very different martech needs than a global B2B company with an Executive-level customer base.
There is definitely software out there that can help you execute and manage your marketing strategy, and here are a few questions to answer to find the software you want:
- Who are your customers?
- What is the size of your customer base?
- What geographic area are you marketing to?
- What are your marketing goals?
Once you have answers to these questions and a better understanding of how your team works on your marketing strategy, you will be able to figure out where improvements are needed and what technology solutions support your strategy execution.
What makes up a marketing stack?
Scott Brinkner, author of the Chief Marketing Technologist Blog, divides martech into six distinct categories:
- Advertising and promotion
- Content and experience
- Social and relationships
- Trade and sales
- Data
- Manage
Almost all of the 7,000 martech solutions on the market today fall into one of these categories, along with a few others.
To further simplify this step, you can separate the martech stack into three main stages.
- Attract
- Interact
- Analysis and optimization
1.Attraction
Regardless of company size or target audience, attracting more interested people (hereinafter referred to as Leads) is definitely a key point in marketing strategy, and it is not easy to do. In fact, increasing traffic and leads was ranked as the top marketing challenge by more than 60% respondents in a Hubspot study.
Photo source: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/3476323/State%20of%20Inbound%202018%20Global%20Results.pdf
There are many ways to attract more leads. In the context of digital marketing, this is considered to increase traffic and build trust with the audience with tools such as:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Content Creation
- Social Media Ads
- Landing page
- Social Media Marketing
- Webinars
2. Interaction
Once you've got people visiting your website or convinced them to sign up for your newsletter or software trial, the challenge is how to keep them interested in what you have to offer.
Some examples of martech that serve this purpose include:
- Marketing Automation
- Email Marketing
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and customer tracking tools
- Chatbot
- Sales support tools
- Retargeting
3. Analysis and optimization.
Creating a successful marketing strategy means continuously monitoring, analyzing data, and optimizing campaigns and marketing activities based on that data.
You won’t be able to create a successful marketing campaign overnight. But with the power of data and optimization, you can gradually improve your campaign as you learn more about your audience.
Types of tools and platforms that support analysis and optimization include:
- Web analytics software
- Business Intelligence Platform
- Content Intelligence Platform
- Lead management software
- Conversion rate optimization tools (A/B testing, AI-powered or hybrid)
Other important features to consider about your Martech Stack
So now you know how your martech stack can be categorized and what types of technology solutions are included in each category, but what else should you keep in mind when building your marketing stack?
- Integration – Your tools need to work well together and integrate with your existing technology. For this reason, creating a marketing stack shouldn’t be the job of just one department, but should involve IT. Whatever your needs, working closely with IT is important to choose the right tools and ensure they’re deployed with minimal disruption to your business’s normal operations.
- Centralized data – An important part of integration is ensuring that tools do not duplicate data or use different data sources for their operations. Ideally, there would be a single point of centralized data collection that is used by all other martech tools to ensure data integrity.
- Real-time processing – In this fast-paced world, you will only be successful if and only if the data you use for marketing is constantly updated. Using real-time data means you can respond to customer needs faster.
- Omnichannel Experience – Unless you’re in a special situation where all of your customers are in the same location, you’ll want to make sure your martech stack allows for cross-platform reach with pre-integrated engagement sequences. Good tools are those that help you identify the right time and place to reach each customer.
- Data Insights and Analytics – To get the most out of your tools and figure out where to focus your efforts, you need to rely on insights from the data provided by the martech stack.
- Scalable and flexible – Whatever technology is currently working for your business, adapt and change with you and your marketing strategy. Simple low-tech solutions will work for small businesses but are often difficult to scale as they grow. Always keep an eye on the future and consider how your martech stack can adapt and change accordingly.
Examples of Martech Stack
Now that you know what the marketing stack looks like and understand what goes into it, let’s take a look at some examples to understand the Martech Stack better.
Every year, chiefmartec.com hosts The Tackies – an awards show where marketers are invited to present a visual representation of their marketing stack. The entry is a fascinating insight into how brands from across industries build their marketing stacks.
For example, connectivity technology company Cisco uses a variety of solutions to capture more leads, including its own Webex video conferencing solution and its business intelligence platform, Impact. Content intelligence is powered by platforms including Cisco Spark, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Brightedge. Automated design technology is managed by tools including 6Sense Insights and Google Analytics 360 Suite.
It’s interesting to see how companies build their martech stacks, but it’s important to remember that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Every business needs to build their own martech stack to meet their individual needs.
