It’s no lie that technology continues to infiltrate and transform the way we run our businesses. The opportunity to manage, measure and automate business activities to create a more efficient and productive workplace is irresistible. Marketing technology, in particular, is unlocking a new way of creating and executing strategies in 2023.
Marketing technology, fondly known as martech, are the tools and platforms that exist to help marketing teams attract and retain customers. It’s been a rapidly developing sector since its inception in 2011, now with thousands of vendors offering over 10,000 different platforms.
Marketing technology helps to create, communicate and deliver offerings across a plethora of marketing activities such as analytics, lead conversions and automations. The need for staff to waste time on tedious and menial tasks is now gone, empowering workforces to become more efficient and productive. Marketing technologies collect and analyze lots of data to offer actionable insights that can help boost strategies and improve ROI.
With so many different options, it’s integral for marketers to understand which tools are most important for their business. Let’s dive into all things marketing technology and how you can build the best mertech stack for your business!
The latest trends and innovations in marketing technology
In 2023, innovative marketing technology tools are allowing businesses to better manage their marketing efforts. Here’s some of the emerging technologies set to expand your customer touchpoints, optimize your content and drive your strategic decision-making:
AI-powered chatbots
Go to the most modern websites and within seconds, there’s a pop up of a friendly face offering to help. You can have a pleasant back-and-forth, receive guidance or ask to be left alone. Each response will be quick, intelligent and polite. Except it’s not a human on the other end - it’s AI.
AI-powered chatbots are sophisticated and context aware, continually learning from their interactions. They’re able to analyze a customer’s profile and past behaviors for a personalized exchange. Enabling a 24/7 interactive tool such as AI-powered chatbots opens constant support and communication channels to your customers, increasing data collection and leveling up your digital marketing presence.
Voice search optimisation
The use of voice search is rapidly snow-balling and companies are being urged to optimize their websites to allow this type of search. Voice search optimization means the information on your website is upgraded and streamlined to appear in voice searches. You might be thinking, how is it different to text search? When we talk to our devices it’s more conversational and we phrase our questions closer to how we speak in real life.
Think of Siri or Alexa - they’re more like friends than virtual assistants. And whether it’s a phone or a smart home hub, most consumers have constant access to a voice search device. Having a voice search optimized website allows your business to be found by these voice search technologies and virtual assistants. With 71% of consumers now preferring to ask questions via voice search, it might be the marketing technology your business needs.
Data-driven personalization
Utilizing data to increase personalisation is becoming a pinnacle of successful marketing. With developing marketing technology, the avenues for data collection are endless. Data-driven marketing uses insights on consumer motivations, preferences and behaviors to inform marketing strategies and tactics.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are key trends for digital marketing in 2023 and are the backbone of personalisation. Creating marketing campaigns that respond to the unique interests of individual customers makes them feel appreciated and seen by your brand.Tapping into data-driven personalization will drive customer loyalty, increase satisfaction and drive conversions.
Marketing technology tools and platforms
With an abundance of marketing technology tools available, it can be hard to know where to start. We’ve compiled a list of martech stack must-haves to improve your marketing team’s productivity in 2023.
Top 5 marketing technology tools to step up your marketing in 2023
1. For analytics: Google analytics
Looking for a free way to analyze data for your business? Google Analytics is for you.
One of the most popular digital marketing tools, Google Analytics has all the tools you need to analyze your website users. It helps you understand the performance of your marketing, content and product efforts through reports and real time data. To start using this marketing technology tool, you must make an account and add a JavaScript tracking code to each page of your website. Each time a page is visited, the code will document data about their interaction and behavior. It can track their location, what device they’re using, how long they spent on your site and an abundance of other useful data.
2. For landing pages: Unbounce
Unbounce is an unreal marketing technology that allows you to custom-build landing pages for each marketing campaign. While websites are built for exploration, landing pages are built for conversions by keeping customers focused on the specific action you want them to take. Unbounce has harnessed AI to create two easy-to-use landing page builders with smart features to help you create stunning and effective marketing campaigns in only a few minutes. Gain insight. Stay informed and scale your business with Unbounce.
3. For workflow automation: Zapier
If you want to automate tasks between apps, use Zapier. It follows the simple ‘when this happens, then do that’ command. For example, when someone subscribes to your website, then they get added to a spreadsheet. It takes the hassle out of repetitive tasks, transferring information and other menial tasks.
Each of your automated workflows is called a ‘Zap’. Each Zap has a trigger and one or more actions. With more than 5000 integrated apps, Zapier is the easiest way to automate your day-to-day tasks and build workflows.
4. For email and marketing automation: Mailchimp
Struggling to stand out from the crowd? Email automation software, such as Mailchimp, allows you to create captivating marketing communication backed by real-time data. Optimize content, segment interested audiences, personalize the customer journey and never miss an opportunity to connect. Mailchimp understands that reaching the right people at the right time is critical to conversions and would be an awesome addition to your martech stack.
5. For lead conversion: LeadOwl
Never want to miss another lead? Connect your website to LeadOwl.
The LeadOwl experts understand the importance of converting leads to paying customers, especially for busy professionals. So, we created a single app for all your leads, bringing you real-time updates and allowing you to send personalized replies in seconds. The LeadOwl app can be integrated with your favorite marketing platforms such as Mailchimp and Unbounce. You can manage your team from a single account, monitor their response times and distribute new leads to different team members. Create a free LeadOwl account today and see how we can skyrocket your sales.
Strategies for success in marketing technology
It’s all well and good to have marketing technology tools at your disposal but how do you actually implement them in your marketing strategies? Unfortunately, there’s no one size fits all. Just like your business is unique, your martech stack will be too. Here’s a few things to do to make sure you choose the right tools for your team:
Start with strategy
Before you choose a martech tool, you need to have a broad idea of what you want to achieve with your marketing strategy. Equipped with the big picture, you can begin to break it down and identify the types of tools that will be most useful to put your plan into action.
Imagine your team wants to convert more leads. The strategy could be to send a personalized introduction to all leads within the first 15 minutes. From there, research tools you could use to implement the strategy - in this case, LeadOwl would be perfect.
Chat with your team
Go to the front line and find out the biggest challenges your team is facing day-to-day. What tasks take too long? Is there something that makes their job harder? Use your marketing goals to guide the conversation.
If your team wants to increase lead conversions, what specific things are difficult about keeping on top of all new leads? If they say remembering to check on lead acquisition, you know you need a real-time tool with notifications. If they say they don’t know what to send to new leads, you can research platforms that can send automated responses.
Achieving your business goals while also taking a load off your team? Now that sounds like martech success.
Keep it simple
We’re sure you’ve heard the saying keep it simple, silly (KISS) and it bodes well to remember when integrating martech to your marketing strategies. Write down your current strategy and review every step. Ensure each stage provides value to your team, find areas that could be more efficient and if anything doesn’t need to be there - get rid of it.
Find your baseline
Before you introduce any new marketing technology, measure where you currently stand. How many customers visit your website monthly? What percentage of leads become paying customers? Where are these leads coming from? Tracking this data before embarking on any new strategies gives your business a baseline to measure future performance from.
With a baseline established, you can begin to track and analyze data from your new strategies. What’s working? Are there certain trends influencing performance? Is anything performing worse than before?
By analyzing and drawing conclusions, your marketing team can tweak their strategies to find the ultimate martech stack for your business.
Stay up to date
Staying up to date with the martech world is easier said than done. But as a modern marketer, it’s imperative you stay ahead of the technology trends. Try these tips to stay on the pulse:
- Keep your focus on innovations relevant to your business and goals.
- Let someone else do the hard work for you by following a martech account on social media.
- Upskill yourself with regular training and resources.
- Find and attend martech conferences in person or online.
Marketing technology in the real world
Still not sold on the epic prospects of marketing technology? Let’s look at some of the most successful companies in the world and how they leveraged technology to drive business growth.
Nike
‘Just do it’ - both the iconic slogan of the leading apparel manufacturer and the ethos they embodied to create a robust ecommerce strategy.
As the pandemic wrapped its claws around the world in 2020, Nike realized the need to build an online strategy to directly connect with consumers. So, they expanded their servicescape to create digital communities such as Nike Run Club and Nike Training Club. In doing so, Nike transformed from a retailer to an icon of a healthy lifestyle.
Nike’s success lies in their integration of marketing technology to build a community that feels direct and personal to each customer.
Dominos
Whether it’s with beers on a saturday or a last minute weeknight dinner, Dominos is a favorite around the world. However, in 2008, the restaurant chain saw their stock price plummet due to decreased popularity and a drop in demand. It was then the Dominos team began to understand making pizza wasn’t enough - they had to provide more value.
Dominos introduced e-commerce elements to its servicescape that created an innovative and immersive digital experience. They introduced Domino’s AnyWare that allows customers to order pizza anywhere via many platforms. Using smart chatbots across several digital channels helped Domino’s process high volumes of data, resulting in better integration and automation. Through the use of marketing technology, Domino’s have become a multi-experience client service that customers truly enjoy.
Get to know LeadOwl
LeadOwl is a smartphone and web app designed for marketing agencies that revolutionizes marketing management. It’s a steadfast martech that allows marketers to visualize leads instantly and respond to prospects from the palm of their hand - anywhere at any time.
Experience the tool empowering marketers all over the world to capitalize on the hard work they’ve already put in. Start your marketing technology journey today with a 7-day LeadOwl free trial.