What is MarTech: How Has Technology Changed Modern Marketing?

What is MarTech?

MarketingMoves is perfectly placed to discuss how marketing has changed modern technology companies, but how has technology changed modern marketing? This month, MarketingMoves Director of Americas David Holton brings us a guest interview with CMO Debra Schleicher to discuss Marketing Technology (MarTech).

How has MarTech impacted Modern Marketing?

Modern marketing has changed dramatically in the last few years as marketing technologies (martech) enable organizations to better know and understand their customers’ journey by utilizing advanced analytics.

But to thrive in a highly competitive marketplace – and properly leverage the tools within the martech stack – the creative and the scientific members of the marketing team must not just coexist, but make each other better. Making this happen effectively is the principal challenge for the modern chief marketing officer (CMO), according to Debra Schleicher, serial Silicon Valley CMO.

Creative Application of Technology is the Key to Modern Marketing

The capabilities offered by new technologies enable marketers to apply a data-driven model to a number of key activities and leverage insights from the data to make smarter decisions faster. It also provides a stronger platform from which the creative elements of the marketing teams can begin to tell compelling stories that are meaningful to highly targeted audiences.

“The ability to know your customer and know the organizational role of each customer creates the opportunity to tailor marketing communications to very specific types of customers,” Schleicher says.

Too often, she explains, the connection is not effectively established between the two disciplines. Either, the nuances of the analysis are not properly understood by the creative, or the questions that the creative elements ask of the data science professionals are not properly contextualized. The key to integrating the creative and scientific elements of the team is to focus on the attributes of the specific target audiences.

“We know that the areas of interest of the CFO are different from those of the CTO in any given vertical market. We need data to help us understand the specific journey these executives are on so that we can develop creative content that will help them achieve their destination by understanding and communicating very specific business and use cases,” Schleicher says.

As board members and CEOs of organizations view the role of marketing as an organizational engine of growth and digital transformation, it is up to the CMO to redefine the measures and metrics that drive the ROI of programs and campaigns.

“KPIs are metrics, but not all metrics are KPIs. It is very easy to get lost in the numbers. That is why CMO leadership is needed to bring focus to the metrics that matter. With this realization, there are three questions modern marketers need to ask themselves to bring attention to the right measurements. How is marketing driving closure of deals? Is our pipeline value growing? What is the efficiency of growth,” explains Schleicher.

Evolving Marketing Assumptions

As marketing teams explore the value that data-driven decision-making offers, CMOs are reassessing certain marketing assumptions.

“The concept of the marketing funnel has been around for decades. In the old days, the fuller the top of the funnel was, the better. Today, however, B2B marketing CMOs know exactly which companies — and which executives — they are targeting very early on in the process,” she says.

As a result, the funnel needs to be flipped.

Flipping the Funnel

“We can be much more efficient at our initial contact and engagement efforts. The information that can be leveraged from modern data sources allows marketing organizations to cease non-targeted marketing tactics and focus on the customers and prospects with the greatest potential. This greatly accelerates the path to business development,” says Schleicher.

This is why account-based marketing is getting so much attention.

“An account-based marketing approach is driven by the sales team’s target list which should serve as a guide for both digital and analog programs. Given the level of specificity and precision of data that marketers can obtain on target accounts today, why would any CMO invest resources or budget dollars on anything else,” asks Schleicher.

Changing B2B Customer Expectations

While CMOs revise their strategies and leverage new technologies, the expectations of B2B customers are also developing in new ways. Executive expectations are increasingly shaped by their own consumer experiences.

“B2B marketers have to reflect the responsiveness of B2C experiences. Engagement and interactions with B2B executives must be responsive and personalized. To that end, customer experience will be the manner in which a B2B brand is judged,” explains Schleicher.