Record funding coupled with an explosion in the number of marketing technologies has made it impossible for marketers to choose and explore the latest innovations in martech.
After months of research and feedback, we are excited to announce the launch of Tech Talks, a new initiative by ClickZ and its sister brand Search Engine Watch to help make sense of the marketing technology (martech) landscape.
With customer expectations at an all-time high, more budget being spent on martech than on people, and the average enterprise utilizing over 1,000 cloud based technologies, marketers have an almost impossible job to ensure that they are utilizing the right tools to remain competitive.
In addition, with so many technologies (there are over 200 email technologies alone) how can you keep up to date with the latest technologies that could be cheaper and offer new and transformative features?
Before we dive into what Tech Talks are, we wanted to cover three key market trends and some of the questions they raise.
Over the last five years we have seen a combination of factors that have led to an explosion in the number of marketing technologies with over 8,000 names technologies according to Scott Brinker, and over 60,000 companies that make up the marketing ecosystem according to Boston Consulting Group.
When starting a search for a new technology where are you meant to start?
With funding increasing every year since 2017, last year saw a record high.
This surge of funding has enabled many marketing technologies to accelerate growth and capitalize on emerging technology like AI to deliver new data points and improve efficiencies across all areas.
With this wave of innovation, how can you keep up with the new opportunities to deliver a better customer experience or find a new and more efficient way to collect and analyze your customer data?
Our third market trend covers off the demand from marketers for technology. According to Gartner’s latest CMO Spend Survey we are now spending more of our marketing budgets on Technology (26%) vs 25% on labor.
This huge proportion puts huge pressure on the decision makers to ensure that the technology they use is the best choice for the business.
But with so many technologies and new ones launching every day, how can you be sure?
This mix of increasing number and complexity of technology with the increase in demand creates a huge headache for marketers, but also an opportunity for those that get it right!
It can be argued that choosing the right technologies will enable you to remain competitive, fend off new competition and deliver a fantastic customer experience.
Sounds dreamy right, but how can you be confident in your choices?
Gartner has a nice illustration of the complexity of this process below:
Unfortunately there isn’t a silver bullet. However, we did ask you, our readers, who are in the trenches having to make these decisions every day, how we might be able to make your lives easier?
The outcome… Tech Talks.
These are 15 minute explainer videos delivered by senior executives (non-sales lead) covering 15 key areas (one per minute).
These include the market problem they solve, the history and team behind the tech, a demo of the key features (usually about half way through), case studies, the customers they serve, any limitations and focus areas, the pricing model, integrations, the typical on-boarding process and more!
The idea is that you can browse in your own time (without being hassled or followed around the internet) the inner workings of a group of technologies and then when you are ready, request more information!
We have also built functionality to search via category as well via the customers that use the technology so you can see what tech your competitors are using.
We have just launched our first 13 Tech Talks and have more flowing in every day, so check them out here and also send us your feedback.
