No matter what industry you are in, it is important to pay attention to the MarTech trends to stay ahead of your competition and frankly, to be relevant these days.
In 2019, to better service my clients and develop marketing programs that achieve results, I’m continuing to integrate more MarTech solutions to the mix. To achieve marketing results today, you must stay on top of the thought leadership and technology development activity whirling around us and select the key initiatives that will drive results for your business.
To begin your annual marketing roadmap, it’s important to assess the gap between your desired and achieved results. I begin my new year planning at the end of the year before the new year. It is a process I have developed over the years and kick starts my new year with a force!
I look at my annual results (financials, customer profiles and feedback, digital advertising insights, team performance measures, project completion data, etc.) to determine my annual success. With this information, I set my sights on the upcoming brand-new year and plot my desired achievements.
To implement my desired results, I spend time looking at emerging markets and trends. It is fun to find a surprising nugget or emerging trend in the process. I am certain this process makes my work better every year. This year, I’ve identified three simple MarTech initiatives businesses should be implementing:
1. Educate Yourself on MarTech
Investment in marketing technology is growing, however, marketers are generally confused by the MarTech options available to them. According to ChiefMarTech, the number of MarTech companies in 2011 was 150. This year, the number of MarTech companies is well over 7,000 with the most popular options providing marketing automation, CRM, social and CMS solutions.
In a July 2018 survey of 800 brand and agency marketers worldwide conducted by Warc, agency respondents said that their lack of understanding of available technologies is the biggest impediment to greater investment in marketing tech. It is very important for business owners to educate themselves on the power of MarTech for their business growth and more importantly, their customer experience success.
2. Create a Voice Strategy
Even though I still get a little spooked by “Siri” and “Hey, Google”, personal assistant devices are continuing to become useful and popular. This cannot be avoided. Almost one-third of the 3.5 billion searches performed on Google everyday are now voice searches. Companies need to be mindful of this significant growth.
It is important to adjust your SEO strategy to include more conversational words and content that better aligns with voice search. Remember, the way people type, and the way people speak are very different. Be sure to develop your content with voice search in mind.
3. Leverage Live Chats and Bots
Chatbots help brands to improve customer service, all within a set budget. Chatbots are quicker than humans in giving any data-related answers and taking requests. They have humor and personalities and offer personalized service to any customer in need, any time.
It is easy to integrate bots with your website and your social media platform. The information you gather from the bots can also be leveraged to tailor and adapt your marketing strategies. Whether you want a chatbot as a simple customer service solution, or for more advanced promotion features, now is the time to get the technology in place for your business.
2019 continues to be an exciting time to be a marketer. Our marketing customer profile data has evolved over the years and far exceeds the simple product ownership and usage information of the past. Marketers today assemble sophisticated customer data that include communication preferences, social and sentiment data and relationships, mobile profiles, devices, app usage patterns, anonymous and logged-in web activity data, feedback and listening data, and geolocation and proximity data. With the wonderful help of technology, we now have the phenomenal ability as marketers to examine, understand and create marketing solutions that achieve measurable results!
I look forward to an innovative and insightful marketing year ahead!