Demystifying Martech for Brands – How to Put the Customer First

Could our expert panel demystify Martech in just one hour? You decide…

What is Martech?

A portmanteau of marketing and technology, the panel summed it up as being about the use of technology – but predominantly data – to create new relationships and engage existing customers to produce better marketing outcomes and better overall customer relationships.

Is Martech the same as Adtech?

No. It’s different to Adtech because with Martech we’re talking about known users as opposed to Adtech’s focus on the unknown.

The big Martech challenge?

Martech is incredibly broad with multiple facets. In recent years we’ve seen an explosion of both the solutions offered and the providers offering them – some 8,000 – mostly due to the move to highly accessible cloud-based tech. Throw away the logos and we’re still left with 49 different categories. The difficulty is understanding what they all do and how best to use them.

So, as a marketer how do you break this down to get what you need?

Be prepared:

• Remember that any solution is only as good as the data that drives it. Look at the foundational elements of your infrastructure before you do anything else.
• Understand how you work as an organisation. How are you going to support new technology? You need to embrace the collaboration of marketing, technology, and data and reflect that in the team you hire.
• Bring the whole team with you. This is a continuous journey. Digital transformation is an ongoing project and you need everyone on the same page.
• Ensure you have the relevant education and training in place.
• When you’re building your customer experience, bake-in first-party data collection. Consumers want more agency and increasingly understand the value of their data.

• Start small:
• Start small and ladder up. Focus on achieving one thing for your customer – whether that’s a pain point or added value. Then orientate people around that specific goal and outcome.
• Map your customer journey. Forget about the tech – get the post-its out.
• Write a brief about the problem you have. What are you trying to do? Keep it super simple.
• In this way, you can treat it as a series of test-and-learns. As you progress you’ll start to see results that will then inform your next move and you can resource accordingly.
• Be action-focused and always bring it back to the original brief and the problem you’re trying to solve.

Macro to micro:

• A natural inclination is to look to one system that fits all but this isn’t necessarily the best choice. It’s perfectly possible to have lots of point solutions and multiple tactics at play and think about how these all work together.
• Many of the smaller players have one single feature that they do very well. To capitalise on this there’s a trend towards ecosystem thinking with increased partnerships and open connections. And there are new companies popping up that act as micro-connection services, making it easier than ever.

What is the most important piece of Martech for 2021?

The panel agreed that the CDP (Customer Data Platform) could prove the most important piece of Martech, becoming “as big or bigger than CRMs in the coming years”.

For more information on why there’s so much hype about CDPs please take a look at our session exploring their role here.