Over 200 companies published a declaration in The Wall Street Journal announcing that CRM systems alone are not enough and do not fit the requirements of the modern digital world. Airship, Segment, Amplitude, and Mixpanel are some of the leading names, united with other independent software companies, to set new standards for marketing and business technology.
United in their approach, these companies believe that a one-size-fits-all approach would not lead to better products, smarter business decisions, customer privacy, and strong customer relationships.
The Platform of Independents wrote in an open letter, “CRMs were perfect for the Rolodex era. They are not equipped for today’s digital age, where massive volumes of data about customer interactions flow directly from your websites, mobile apps, emails, kiosks, and call centers every single second of every day. Companies need to use the best technology available for each of these channels. Instead, they are often locked into the tools and capabilities (or lack thereof) which their CRM suites provide.”
A fully integrated single CRM tool is not the answer anymore and there’s a clear transformation in the marketing industry over the years. There are new metrics in place, new methods for analyzing customer engagement, user behavior, and also new and emerging AI-driven technologies that did not exist a few years ago.
How can the Martech ecosystem thrive today and what features differentiate them from traditional systems?
With custom-built Martech solutions, there is an opportunity to move towards people-based marketing, connecting both online and offline channels.
One company doesn’t solve all problems.
Open to innovations and new technologies.
Combining the best of breed solutions allows businesses to become lean.
Offer personalized campaigns based on intelligent profiles of their customers or user behavior analysis.
Customer-centric and not channel-centric, focusing on a seamless experience on all channels - online, offline, in-app.
How can we build a realistically working Martech stack by combining best of breed solutions?
1. Tracking User Behaviour Analytics with the help of Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics (Omniture before it was acquired by Adobe). We can watch individual visitors live as they navigate through our website or recordings of their sessions with tools like Hotjar, Lucky Orange, and Crazy Egg.
This gives us an insight into which part of the website are users interacting with the most, what CTAs are they clicking on, does the content on any section keep them hooked, what pages of the website are pulling maximum visitors, and what is the exit rate. Based on this analysis, we can work on the design, the content, the CTAs, the forms, etc.
2. A seamless digital experience focusing on customers, rather than channels, can be created with Drupal. Empowers an organization to connect with users, customers, and visitors, wherever they are - online, offline, or in-app.
3. Lytics not only offers intelligent insights into user behavior and engagement but also allows us to segment users based on these metrics and then, create, scale, or automate marketing campaigns accordingly.
4. Application of innovative technologies such as AI-driven chatbots that use contextual information to deliver relevant messages and also offer a potential solution to a problem - very human-like interaction.
It is important to gather valuable data but having that data in a database is clearly not enough. Brands can improve conversions, build a positive brand image, promote loyalty, and drive sales, only by refining the process of data activation. Now, recognizing the fact that data activation is part of the new business paradigm today, your Martech stack can be a gamechanger.
Visualizing the Flow of Data to Identify the Value
Gathering Data
Not just the CRM but also how and where it was gathered
Bringing Together Customer Data
CDP Technology - Customer Data Platform gaining a lot of attention, where all customer data is combined for marketing
Actions
Inflection point suggesting actions such as product recommendations, customer insights, real-time alerting, personalization, etc.
Embracing the data-driven culture
Increasing access to tools and finding new ways of doing things.
Emerging Concept of “Citizen Martech”
Technical limitations are gradually fading away for all marketers keen on becoming more data-driven in their approach.
Invest in Training
Gartner recommends investing in marketing team’s training to improve Martech stack effectiveness.
How to design your Martech stack?
What data does your business need? - Defining the data points for profiling of your users in their customer journey.
Audit - To identify what Martech solutions you already have. From CRMs to email apps to social media schedulers, everything.
Defining your unique business challenges and opportunities - In the current state, 3 years, and 5 years down the line. This will help you determine which vendors, services, tools, etc are most useful for your organization.
Determine which technologies are most important for you - What level of business growth you expect over 5 years? Accordingly, determine which technologies you need to adopt, cease, or continue with during this timeline.
Gap Analysis - Finding the gap in your current Martech set up. What technologies are overlapping and which technologies are underutilized? Every solution should be matched with a specific marketing goal.
Execute - With the help of Google Tag Manager or Tealium, your improved Martech stack can be simplified.
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