Marketing tech stack: The unicorn of personalization + great CX
Personalization and engagement are key to business today. By consolidating your marketing tech stack, you create better customer experiences.
Martech is a growth driver; it accelerates innovation in retail and many other industries. And when marketing technology and the mindset that goes along with it are reconsidered, it can mean truly differentiated customer engagement that drives revenue growth and loyalty.
This is the future of martech: Using data to provide customers with high value to build relationships that last.
How can marketing leaders make the most of this opportunity?
3 trends fueling the future of martech
As they plan for this year and beyond, here are top trends marketing leaders should watch:- Creation of the value exchange
- Personalization at scale
- Customer data management as a foundation
The value exchange: Benefits for both sides
Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of data privacy and how brands use their data. Get ahead of the curve and buy into the “value exchange” now.
Offer consumers tangible benefits for providing personal information, as martech is already heading that way. IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Future of Customer and Consumer 2021 Predictions sees 60% of consumers in developed countries accepting loyalty perks in exchange for their data by 2024.
Creating a value exchange provides benefits for both parties. Consumers get a more personalized retail experience, on top of loyalty perks. And brands can leverage this data and better engagement for more loyal, long-lasting, and profitable customer relationships.
Data compliance: An ultimate guide to consent, privacy, and best practices
Data compliance encompasses the standards and regulations in place to ensure data is secure, protected from data theft, misuse, and loss. Here's a primer on getting started.
Personalization hinges on a complete view of the customer
The future of martech is all about data fueling a full, 360-degree customer view. This comprehensive view enables retailers to integrate timely omnichannel engagements that make it possible to hit revenue targets beginning in Q1 of 2022.
But many retailers are overloading their martech stacks and clouding the real work that needs to be done. Instead, marketing leaders within these retail organizations need to manage complexity for optimal performance and enhance overall martech effectiveness to deliver personalized engagements at scale.
Mass advertising is out, and personalization is in. Smartphones make it easier than ever to reach each target consumer with individualized messaging. The rise in personal technology has happened alongside the rise in customer expectations and retailers are in a great position to deliver, if they can leverage the marketing technologies at their disposal properly.
Breaking 360: It’s time to move beyond the 360-degree view of the customer
For decades, brands have chased the goal of creating a 360-degree view of the customer. It hasn't worked out so well, and now there’s a better, faster, more agile way to gain customer insight and improve CX.
Martech misalignment
In 2020, Gartner’s Marketing Technology Drivers of Genius Brand Performance report estimated that martech “represents 26% of marketing expense budgets, yet brands utilize just 58% of their marketing technology stack’s capabilities.” However, by 2022 the report also suggests that chief marketing officers who use 70% of their martech capabilities can enjoy a 20% increase in marketing ROI compared to their peers.
So, the time truly is now to utilize a customer data foundation that enables collaboration across previously siloed teams.
But before we get to this martech ideal, retailers need to figure out what’s creating this misalignment. Even though martech stack utilization is low, Gartner found that somehow 81% of marketing leaders felt that their tech was useful at meeting their organization’s business objectives. Yet Gartner’s 2020 Marketing Technology Survey predicted that “by 2025, 80% of marketers who have invested in personalization will abandon their efforts due to lack of ROI, the perils of customer data management or both.”
Not only are marketing leaders overly optimistic about their current martech stacks, but their personalization strategies also need a major refresh to not fall flat in the future.
Personalization in retail: Laying the foundation for success
Personalization helps retailers get closer to their customers, but how do you get started? Here are some steps for customer engagement success.
Improving customer data management
The engagement between customer and brand, whether B2B or B2C, is a primary reason companies spent $1.4 trillion on digital transformation in 2020, according to IDC’s Worldwide Digital Transformation Spending Guide.
As marketing becomes more personalized, brands will have to align their martech stacks with the real-time data that helps consumers relate to a brand.
Nearly a quarter of respondents in Gartner’s 2020 survey cited the lack of a strong customer data foundation as one of the top three impediments to martech utilization. The only way brands can overcome these martech challenges is to use marketer-friendly solutions that will increase operational efficiency, deliver more sophisticated customer engagement, and scale personalization across multiple marketing and commerce channels.
