Marketing technology applies to all innovative digital solutions used in promoting products and services geared toward utmost customer experience.

Now more than ever, brands take into account the entire customer journey. Hence, companies create teams and invest in innovative solutions to satisfy customer experience and scale marketing efforts faster.

As the modern era advances, tech providers continue to launch new innovative solutions. In this way, marketers can improve the buyer journey, which includes marketing technology.

What Is Marketing Technology?

The rise of digital technology paved the way for the development of software programmes and tools. These tools help attain marketing goals. This technology is called marketing technology or MarTech.

The amazing dynamics of MarTech includes consolidating and diversifying marketing strategies. But how does it work?

How Marketing Technology Should Work

MarTech is not only using technology in marketing. Marketing technologists are experts in establishing connections between IT and marketing. They assist companies in the “big change” for the next normal.

Here’s how MarTech should work to help brands:

1. Provide Streamlined Information Flow
   For instance, open application programming interface (API) and independent software vendor (ISV) ecosystems. They enable marketers to use a streamlined flow of information.
   
   In this way, they can make a big difference in their campaigns. API empowers reporting to ensure correct data flows. This tool detects and flags errors real-time before they cause revenue losses.
   
2. Promote Easy And Flexible Marketing
   API converts data from various sources into one business view. Hence, API is a very powerful efficiency driver. API eliminates the most tedious and time-wasting marketing tasks like generating reports. 
   
   Brands adopting technologies no longer rely on built-in reports. Instead, marketers use API to integrate data into systems and reports.
   
3. Enable Seamless Multi-Channel Marketing Measurement
   Multi-channel marketing platforms include mobile devices, SMS, email, company website, SEO, social media, push notification, GPS and others. With multi-channel marketing, businesses take advantage of various ways to reach more customers.
   
   A recent forecast research report shows that the projected multi-channel marketing industry share will be US$28 billion at 24% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2017 to 2023. The Asia Pacific region will have the highest CAGR rate.
   
   The ecommerce sector will be greatly in demand, along with the tight competition, and broadening IT landscape in the region.
   
   The current health pandemic opens new opportunities for the hospitality, entertainment, travel, and retail sectors. It also holds true to any firm looking for reliable, scalable, and efficiently managed solutions to focus more on the core business.
   
   For this reason, the multichannel marketing industry, along with MarTech, encounters lower negative pandemic impact than others do.
   
   MarTech provides the much-needed analytics for multi-channel marketing measurement. More brands focus more on viewing, optimising, and completing customer journeys across digital media and devices.
   
   With API, device data delivery is easier, providing marketers an instant view of the entire buyer journey.

How MarTech Tools Work

There are major areas of marketing technology. Each area has a recommended set of tools to use to help maintain a constantly connected buyer’s journey.

1. Content Creation Tools
   Content greatly matters. It is the focal point of all marketing messages, offers, and engagements. Some of the MarTech content tools include search engine optimisation (SEO), content management system (CMS), and email marketing.
   
   Empowering customer interactions on networks, platforms, and devices entails massive content creation. Therefore, marketers are in constant search of content tools to make content curation more effective and efficient.
   
   The key considerations when choosing content tools include:

2. Advertising Tools
During the content planning phase, it is crucial to know how to promote content. Data insights provide marketers more time to concentrate on their marketing campaign’s creative elements.

The relevant tools to use in this area includes native content ads, press release (PR), and social media Pay Per Click (PPC). They also include print advertising, programmatic and display, and mobile marketing.

These tools help marketers gain a deeper understanding of customers to be able to personalise offers and messages.

When choosing the right tool for advertising and promotion of content, it is essential to consider the impact of each ad on click-through rates. Advertising should strike a balance between driving traffic and promoting brand interaction.

MarTech should scale advertising. It promotes more engaging customer experiences throughout the sales funnel.

3. Social and Consumer Relationship Tools
These tools promote customer relationships and social engagement. Some examples include call analytics, account-based marketing, social media marketing and monitoring, customer relationship management, and loyalty tools.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited recently announced a historic milestone of reaching one billion active consumers worldwide in the March fiscal year 2021. Daniel Zhang, Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group explained that the company delivered strong growth.

Because of a healthy foundation, the company generated US$1.2 trillion in gross merchandise value (GMV) this fiscal year.

He pointed out that the company’s achievements were established because of clear value propositions they provide to consumers and merchants. He also mentioned that the consumption economy of China greatly benefits from digitalisation. Alibaba will continue to focus on innovative value creation and customer experience.

Companies that highly value consumers’ voice prosper. MarTech provides tools to enable brands to nurture customer relationships. Some examples include powerful AI tools, engagement, guidance, education, and entertainment tools such as over-the-top (OTT).

The important considerations when choosing the right social and consumer relationship tools include:

• Technology suitable to answer consumer questions 24/7
• Consumer follow-up to enhance customer experience
• Promoting two-way conversations
• Technology to use in brand-building

4. Commerce and Sales Tools
Consumers expect a smooth sales experience, so companies should personalise offers with the use of IoT marketing, sales automation, affiliate marketing, and e-commerce.

Big data or high volume of consumer and business data is impossible to handle without commerce and sales tools. Because of AI and other MarTech tools, there is significant improvement in accuracy and scalability. In this way, companies can provide better customer experience while hitting sales.

The critical things to consider when choosing commerce and sales tools include:

• The buying process
• How to maximise the value of customer interaction
• Technology to use to improve upselling and cross-selling
• Customer experience

5. Data Analytics
Data analytics tools include business intelligence, data enhancement, customer management, data visualisation, and data management. Other tools include web and mobile analytics, customer intelligence, tag management, privacy and compliance, and cloud integration.

Effective use of data analytics tools is crucial in business decision-making. While AI scales real-time data optimisation, marketers design the flow of data to feed into the system.

Hence, data complexity is the biggest challenge for marketers nowadays.

Digitalisation is also the biggest challenge for chief operating officers. According to David Ng, COO of CSOP Asset Management, technology is a double-edged sword because companies focus too much on digitalisation but fail to focus on choosing the right people to enable digital transformation.

Hiring the right people to handle data analytics is vital. Hence, it is important to consider the following when handling big data and using data analytics:

Stakeholders who will benefit from data insights
How to get stakeholders onboard

How to allocate sufficient budget to fund data solutions
Dedicated and qualified MarTech team
Data gaps that can hinder success

6. Management Tools
Management platforms touch product, talent, collaboration, budgeting and finance, agile process, projects and workflow, and vendor analysis. All of these management aspects and tools can help transform every business aspect.

Management tools not only help save time and effort in manual labour. They also promote effective and efficient optimised workflows and processes to make better business decisions.

The key considerations in choosing the right management tools include giving employees the proper training. The management should listen to their feedback to improve the process.

The MarTech Challenge

MarTech aims to make marketers’ lives easier so they can focus more on the core of the business. However, the great challenge of a marketing innovation tech programme is how it rapidly grows a business. It is not enough to invest on tech solutions alone.

Choosing the right people to handle the job is imperative to achieve business goals. When team

members are skilled and experienced in using MarTech, marketers are more confident to drive big change.

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