Tech-Driven Marketing: Four Capabilities Marketers Need Today
Our growing access to staggering amounts of data, in fact, along with our evolving ability to parse and analyze that data, is enabling marketers to know more about consumer behavior, preferences, and purchasing patterns than ever before. This is all a way of saying that we are at a very transformative place in martech, says,
Paul Iaffaldano, chief investment officer, BIP Capital.
There’s an adage about good marketing being both an art and a science, and this has never been truer than it is today. And, while there’s no replacement for the “art”—think a brilliant creative marketing concept, crisply written copy, and compelling visuals—it’s clear the “science” aspect is also at work and driving new and better marketing tools.
While every CMO knows that their job is becoming more and more ROI-driven, quite often the differentiating spark is a creative insight. I see dozens of companies leap with a clever insight that communicates a company’s benefits to its potential customers in a more compelling way. The secret? Most often, this differentiating spark is driven from the data collected and analyzed with the aid of the marketing tech stack.
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Our growing access to staggering amounts of data, in fact, along with our evolving ability to parse and analyze that data, is enabling marketers to know more about consumer behavior, preferences, and purchasing patterns than ever before.
This is all a way of saying that we are at a very transformative place in martech. As a martech investor, I have the opportunity to regularly see new solutions that are changing what marketers do and how well they perform. While some may see the martech landscape as crowded, there is always ample room for innovation. Startups offering these capabilities are especially promising from my viewpoint:
1. Provide a Holistic View of Marketing Data
Almost all digital marketers use cross-channel marketing strategies. And, while we have greater access to data for each channel these days, such data is typically contained in “silos” in different products or platforms, making it difficult for marketers to get a holistic view of their overall marketing performance. BIP Capital portfolio company DemandJump is one company that provides a single, consolidated view of cross-channel data while also delivering actionable, AI-powered insights. It enables marketers to see the complete path to purchase for their target market so they make better decisions and greatly improve ROI.
2. Location-Based Marketing
A way for businesses to attract new customers and increase loyalty in existing ones, location-based marketing uses a mobile device’s location to alert the user to ads and special offers from vendors in their proximity via text messages to smartphones (users must opt-in for these alerts). The offers may often be personalized, based on data the vendor has collected about the customer, such as past purchases, age, or gender. U.S. investments in mobile location-targeted ads are expected to reach $26.5 billion in 2019. An example of a martech innovator in this area is Cuebiq.
3. Community Commerce and Micro Blogs
Community commerce is a popular concept that brings vendors with products together with people who have a community following and can promote those products. Millennials, in fact, are 54 percent more likely to purchase a product or service recommended by such an influencer, such as a personality on Instagram or YouTube. But it isn’t all about celebrities—it’s also about finding online networks where people with like-minded interests and views can interact. Whether your passion is knitting or collecting sports cars, there are online communities where you can engage with and gain knowledge from experts. Two such sites focused on beauty products that are built around this concept include Ipsy and Glossier.
4. More Personalized Marketing
It was probably about a decade ago that CRM tools became a martech darling. Companies were mesmerized by the ability to automate the movement of prospects through the sales funnel and still are, making CRM the biggest software market in the world with anticipated revenues of $80 billion by 2025. However, businesses are also realizing the need to once again connect with prospects on a more customized, one-on-one basis. Innovators that support these more personalized interactions while still retaining the benefits of CRM can provide companies with a huge competitive advantage. One such innovator in this category is Segment.
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There’s no denying that art will always be the most indispensable part of marketing. But, as a martech investor, it’s the “science” aspect that interests me most as it is a controllable factor that can help us to better evaluate our performance and enrich it in ways that lead to more meaningful interactions with customers and prospects.
As we continue to learn from and apply the volumes of data we now have access to, marketing technologies will find new ways to more precisely control our outcomes.
