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Why Martech is a Strategic Imperative for Business Growth

Marketing technology has been on the rise over the last decade, let alone years. If you haven’t embraced Martech yet, and work in marketing (or sales, for that matter), then you better get on-board before you get left behind! New marketing technology has given businesses opportunities to build impactful and measurable marketing campaigns, analyse marketing data in real-time, and automate their marketing to drive conversions, productivity and ROI up, while lowering costs, time and inefficiencies. That’s what we’re going to talk more about in this article – how marketing technology helps brands to grow, while generating tangible business value.

Agile Marketing means better ROI

Most marketing departments are pretty wary of spending their money on advertising because they don’t think they can tell exactly who’s going to see the ads. This would be true in the old world of marketing, but, in today’s world, all of this information is at the marketing department’s fingertips.

With marketing technology, a marketer, big business or company owner is able to look precisely at an advertising campaign’s performance and check who is seeing that ad, and what kind of impact it’s currently having and will continue to have. These factors can be tweaked as much as necessary to get the most customers coming through the door.

In other words, Martech enables continuous improvement to drive more targeted traffic, generate more leads, and report ROI back into the business in a transparent manner. Dan Purvis, Director at Comms Axis

Companies have more opportunities to hone and develop their strategies accurately with data making forecasting easier. ROI is what every marketing move is designed to achieve. You want to get out more than you put in, and with so much data to analyse and use to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses, your strategies can be more accurate and achievable than ever.

Marketing has entered a great period of positive change, and it is through the development of new technologies and processes that it has been possible.

Martech puts your Customer First

Marketing has always relied on customer data and insight. But, as more data has become available, the processes and methods for using and analysing this data have become more sophisticated.

The industry has undergone quite a pivot from having so much data and not truly understanding what it means or how it can help them, being able to track it all in real-time and glean valuable and actionable insights from it.

As such, the role of the marketer (and any marketing department) has evolved beyond creativity. It has become a strategic imperative for business growth by adding a layer of science and rigour to campaign analysis.  There is no place to hide, but everywhere to grow.

The Rise of Marketing Operations

Marketing operations has therefore emerged as an exciting field that has been gathering momentum due to the direct impact it has on a business’ ability to drive tangible and measurable ROI. It systematically organises your strategy and processes, both through technology and in line with business activities outside of the marketing department. Efficient marketing operations is key to synergising the whole business and achieving your core goals.

Inter-departmental fragmentation is often talked about, but intra-departmental silos are often ignored. For example, within your marketing department, there may be further separation and discord. Different marketing functions may operate in isolation with no wider connection to strategy; data may be mishandled, incorrectly inputted due to human error, or stored in different formats and in separate locations. Lack of communication too plays a key role in keeping what should be a cohesive connected department apart.

Today, marketing is powered by technology.  Even if you don’t recognise your business as technologically driven, you can be sure it has a marketing tech stack in action. Whether that’s the most basic and well-known of applications such as Google Analytics,

Hootsuite or Mailchimp, or more specialist software for your niche.

Technology can be instrumental in ensuring these fragmented processes are brought together. The goals within your marketing department may differ but they can now be centralised, streamlined and aligned. Over 4,000 companies now have an investment in marketing technology, and it is a growing industry, which all businesses can benefit from.

Many marketing professionals consider themselves “creatives”. And with good reason, too, as it is an essential element of their role and one that has elevated marketing beyond a general “nice to have”, to having a demonstrable impact on the business. Yet, despite this, it has not managed to always be seen as a strategic imperative by the Board and C-Suite.

However, as smart technologies and Big Data continue to shape the way marketing campaigns are formed, it is time to accept marketing is a science. Driven by technology, yet still incorporating the creative insight of your team, marketing has become a scientific art that can be measured, tracked and monitored closely, to ensure the best possible results.

80% of companies now have a chief marketing technologist or equivalent according to the 2015-16 Gartner CMO Spend Survey. This further corroborates the point that marketing technology is here to stay and that it goes beyond being a supportive addition to the marketing mix. As it enables the driving of sales, improvement of efficiencies, and generation of tangible business ROI, marketing is now able to be positioned as having a strategic imperative that directly helps accelerate the growth of any business.

With closely targeted campaigns, lead generation and sales should be amplified to deliver higher ROI. This should, therefore, allow you to meet every expectation of your target market, as you have the data to ensure you know what they’re looking for.

Martech isn’t new…

Martech is not a new concept, though, and when fused with marketing operations it can streamline your customer journey and accelerate your business growth from brand awareness through to lead gen and sales. You can be sure the competitors in your niche are building their marketing stacks, if not already utilising them, so you need to be doing the same.

Choosing to ignore the benefits that marketing technology can bring to your business is actively choosing to position yourself at a disadvantage to your competitors. The modern sales and marketing landscape has changed in a hugely positive manner thanks to technology; your business needs to make sure it changes too.

If you would like to see how Martech can help grow your business, then do please check out Comms Axis’ services – we love no-obligation conversations!

Dan Purvis

Ranked by Brand Republic as one of the Top 50 UK Marketing and Social Media influencers, Dan Purvis is passionate about bringing content, marketing and sales together to connect businesses with their audiences, in order to deliver tangible business value and ROI.

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