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12 / BUILD THE STACK

Eight rules to live by

17 / BEYOND THE STACK

Make Martech matter

07 /RESPECT THE STACK

Discover its potential

THE MARTECH

ISSUE

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No great mind has ever existed without a touch

of madnessAristotle

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One of the many buzzwords thrown around in today’s everchanging marketing landscape, Martech is nowhere near as mysterious or complicated as it sounds. It’s about recognising evolving technology and knowing how to utilise it to form a successful marketing strategy.

In this issue, we reveal the true nature of Martech and help B2B marketers understand how to harness it. Like many of the trends we cover in The Knowledge, Martech is about connecting all the pieces in the puzzle and understanding the bigger picture for your business.

Francesca MacKenzie Editor

Is Martech driving you mad? Don’t worry, help is at hand.

EDITOR’SNOTE

THE knowledgeTHE MARTECH ISSUE

Any sufficiently advanced

technology is indistinguishable

from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke

04

DEMYSTIFYING MARTECHWe marketers tend to turn concepts into catchphrases, meaning that we occasionally speak in riddles. Even the simplest idea, when abbreviated enough, can take on a new life as a complex specialism — and so it goes with Martech.

A portmanteau of ‘marketing’ and ‘technology,’ Martech is merely a shorthand way of talking about the technology and tools it takes to plan, execute and measure marketing campaigns. It’s about taking an approach to marketing that positions technology as a core driver for growth and creating a strategic technology framework for a B2B business that can underpin every stage of a complex, nuanced buyer journey.

Even if they don’t realise it, every B2B marketer knows their way around at least a couple of the most basic Martech tools; they needn’t fear it.

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THE knowledgeTHE MARTECH ISSUE

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ARETHA

FRANKLIN

07 1. Teresa Regli, Digital & Marketing Asset Management: The Real Story of DAM Technology & Practice

https://chiefmartec.com/2017/01/digital-asset-management-martech-cocktail

Once Martech is well integrated at your organisation, what was slow becomes fast, the jumbled mayhem becomes clear, and traditional limitations become easier to conquer. You might even say that Martech is where the magic happens.

Martech enables ongoing, real time acquisition and analysis of customer and prospect data. As such, it can be used to craft the most timely, useful response in any given buyer situation. It also powers automation — saving a huge amount of time and money — as well as personalisation, which meets increasing customer preferences for tailored, targeted experiences.

As we mentioned in our Data Issue, personalisation is not going anywhere, and buyer demands will only become more advanced. A good Martech stack should be one step ahead, ready to respond to those needs. But many marketers aren’t yet sure what one actually is, let alone what it should look like.

A Martech stack is the set of tech tools or pieces of software that a company uses for marketing purposes. These take on diverse forms and functions that span the whole breadth of the field.

In Episode 2 of the video series, ‘Martech Explained’, BDB’s Head of Technology, Oliver Brewood, usefully spotlights the essentials of any campaign-oriented stack. Theresa Regli, meanwhile, discusses commonly used tools in her book, which covers digital marketing and asset management.¹

Here’s how we boil her ideas down:

1. Data Acquisition & Management Tools

These enable you to gather and analyse insights to use as the foundation for your marketing efforts.

2. Content & Engagement Management Tools

These include tools for overseeing and organising content assets and campaigns over different platforms, e.g. social and emails.

3. Marketing & Sales Service tools

These help to optimise campaign execution at a micro level, while broadening the scope of a campaign where possible. They may include streaming video platforms, campaign analytics tools, e-commerce tools and much more.

4. Channels

The major media distribution channels, e.g. social, email, web and mobile, can be considered as Martech tools in their own right.

RESPECT THE STACK

THE knowledgeTHE MARTECH ISSUE

RESPECT THE STACKTogether, these four segments cover a broad base of marketing technology tools which stack together to support and empower the buying cycle at every stage. ‘Stack’ is a nice metaphor for a suite of marketing tools, because it implies a solid yet agile foundation. Once set up, it becomes a B2B marketer’s springboard, and should always act as the first step towards a fully-realised and nuanced Martech strategy.

As you might expect, a stack is therefore a highly-prized and personalised creation for any marketing technologist. No two are alike, as each reflects the values and aspirations of diverse companies offering a huge array of products.

It’s worth putting in the time to establish a well-working stack, but it’s important not to get so caught up polishing the details that the bigger picture becomes blurred. A lot of us are doing Martech on a much smaller scale than we could be, because we don’t fully understand the possibilities in front of us.

Data Gathering. Personalisation. Automation. We’ve heard these words but how well do we really understand them? We might see them as prescriptions we ought to be sticking to, rather than opportunities for growth which we could be seizing.

08 2. Forbes, 100 Stats On Digital Transformation And Customer Experience

https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/12/16/100-stats-on-digital-transformation-and-customer-experience/#4c2d1e383bf3

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hear forget, see remember, do understand

Confucious

THE knowledgeTHE MARTECH ISSUE

UNDERSTANDTHE STACK (and overcome your fears)

Many a B2B marketer might be a little daunted by the prospect of building a stack. Life can get comfortable for those of us hemmed into a long-standing contract with a software provider whose wares may or may not be aging well. We become accustomed to the kinks, bugs and workarounds we were trained in. The goal of a stack may seem too lofty compared to the rag-tag bunch of ‘.exe’ files that keep things running right now.

But what’s driving that feeling? Fear of new software and processes is essentially fear of the unknown. None of us can afford to let fear keep us in the dark ages while the competition is getting tooled up and trained up — not while 39% of executives believe a digital transformation needs to happen in the next 3–5 years.² A year is an aeon in Martech time, which is a much faster pace than many B2B professionals in old-guard organisations are comfortable with — but that’s what’s exciting. There are so many tech tools out there, with a great more being rolled out all the time. It’s a world of possibility and potential which any business is welcome to explore. How long does it take until you discover a diamond — the tech solution that gives your efforts the jumpstart they need and rockets your business to the next level?

“The marketing technology landscape has progressed drastically over the last ten years. Modern Martech offers us better campaigns, personalised at scale to optimise customer experience with relative ease. Crucially, it also fuels a reduction in the siloed thinking and legacy systems that hold marketing back from reaching its full potential.”

Oliver Brewood, Head of Technology, BDB

10 2. Forbes, 100 Stats On Digital Transformation And Customer Experience

https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/12/16/100-stats-on-digital-transformation-and-customer-experience/#4c2d1e383bf3

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If you build it, he will come‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson

THE knowledgeTHE MARTECH ISSUE

Whether B2B marketers are tasked with putting a stack together or finessing what already exists, following a few simple rules to live by makes life much easier. Stick to the following eight tips to save time and money as you craft your stack:

1. Define & align

The first thing is to lay out just what it is you’re trying to achieve with your B2B marketing stack. It’s helpful to start small. Pinpoint a key objective, like increasing email open rate, or managing a social influencer campaign, or whatever it may be that your business needs right now. Start building your stack around that objective first.

2. Audit existing processes

Before bringing a new piece of software into the mix, it’s wise to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the tools that are already in play. Are there obvious gaps where a new tool might easily fit? Are existing processes strained by the pressure of rapid growth? Consider which challenges you’re currently facing, and how they might be solved by a new piece of marketing technology.

3. Reach out

Look to the people you like, follow and spend time with, including colleagues and online communities, and ask them for recommendations. BDB’s Oliver Brewood mentions Capterra and G2 as two useful online resources, offering expert reviews and insight to help marketing technologists make the right decisions. Engaging colleagues, meanwhile, has the benefit of ensuring their needs are accounted for as the decision to invest in a new tool is made.

4. Be selective

In 2020 and beyond, tech tools are bound to continue proliferating. Fortunately, B2B marketers don’t need most of them. After the initial research stage, create a shortlist of tools that merit further investigation. Choose carefully — make the most of free trials whenever possible. During the trial, it’s best to explore thoroughly while keeping core objectives firmly in mind. Expensive bells and whistles are a distraction that may never end up getting used, even if the software comes with a big-brand nametag.

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BUILDTHE STACK

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5. Engage with vendors

After even the most thorough research, there will likely still be unanswered questions. This is the moment when it’s best to begin engaging with vendors: you’re well-armed with the information you need to avoid being easily swayed. If no free trial is on offer, ask for a personal demo — they should happy to oblige. Take the chance to ask very specific questions and make sure you fully understand and appreciate their answers, so you can leverage them to best effect.

6. Integrate the benefits

As Oliver Brewood points out, Martech tools are often acquired and implemented in an isolated way, when marketers would get a lot more value out of choosing tools that are ready to be integrated into existing systems. Wherever possible, try to ensure that different elements of your Martech stack know how to communicate with each other and share info. Can your marketing automation software, for example, drop intelligence directly into your CRM? If it can’t, maybe there’s a piece of software out there that can.

7. Pay the right price

It’s important to make sure that a software provider is offering a pricing model that actually works for your business. Oliver Brewood uses the example of learning management solutions: some providers offer a license fee which covers a specific number of users, while others offer a per month payment model. If training large numbers of employees for a short period of time, the per month option would be more cost-effective, while for a small number of users engaged in ongoing training, the per user model would be ideal.

8. Take the time

Make sure you carve out the time and commitment to make your Martech stack a priority. If a stack simply accumulates in the background, there’s no way of really knowing how effectively it’s working. It takes patience to find the right tool, and then to implement it, which can be a tough feat in a siloed, sceptical environment. Engaging colleagues, as discussed in point three, and getting their buy-in from the very beginning, is crucial for successful integration. Ensure all key users feel completely comfortable with a new tool before you move onto the next.

8 tips to save time & money

as you craft your stack

THE knowledgeTHE MARTECH ISSUE

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You are confined only by the walls you build yourself.Andrew Murphy

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VISUALISEA STACKWhen building a stack, it can help to use a visual framework to keep track of each component and how it aligns with others — or at least, how it should. By keeping a picture of a structure in mind, B2B marketers can ensure that each new software acquisition has a place and purpose, without too much overlap with other tools that might do the same, or maybe an even a better job.

For five years now, Scott Brinker’s Chief Marketing Technologist Blog has been holding The Stackies,³ an annual competition where marketers around the world are judged on their single-slide illustrations of marketing stacks. The bar is naturally raised each year, as we get to enjoy ever-more visually stunning and architecturally elegant stacks.

A recent winning B2B example came from Esri, a software provider who imagined their marketing stack as types of terrain to journey through, including Acquisition Bay and Retention Ridge.

15 3. Chiefmartec.com, 48 marketing stacks beautifully illustrated for the 2019 MarTech Stackies: Marketing Stack Awards

https://chiefmartec.com/2019/04/2019-martech-stackies-marketing-stack-awards

THE knowledgeTHE MARTECH ISSUE

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To infinity...

...and beyondBuzz Lightyear

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The rise of Martech is a learning moment for professionals across industries, but especially B2B professionals. We already pride ourselves on our technical knowledge, our accuracy and our expertise.

How can any of us live up to that image if we’re not prepared to learn new things? How can we expect any customer to believe our propositions if they’re not backed by the latest and greatest tools and techniques available to us?

The good news is that the process of trying out new tools and learning what they do is itself a part of the Martech learning curve. Those free trials are better thought of as free lessons. Any B2B marketer who finds themselves scratching their head can take a step back and start by getting to grips with the bigger picture concepts that this software is geared around.

BEYONDTHE STACK

THE knowledgeTHE MARTECH ISSUE

©2020 B2B|IMG Published by Barrett Dixon Bell.

All enquiries: weareb2b@bdb.co.uk

Master the topic, the message, & the delivery Steve Jobs