Just as a chef is dependent on the quality of their ingredients to make a delicious dish, so too are marketers dependent on their tools and marketing technology stack to make their strategy effective.
This is especially true when it comes to program strategy. A killer master plan to segment, target, and convert your customers with ABM, for example, is only as effective as the tools that make that strategy a reality. One unintegrated tool can throw the whole process out of whack, resulting in a chaotic and difficult-to-measure end result.
Unfortunately, making the most out of a martech stack to serve your strategy is a challenge for most marketers. A Gartner survey found that only 42% of marketers say they use the full breadth of their martech stack’s capabilities in 2021 — a figure down from 58% in 2020.
Why? It’s a toxic cocktail of technology overlap, not being able to hire the right talent to own adoption and utilization, and the simple fact that tools are complex and difficult to nail down into a single ecosystem.
If that sounds like your marketing program, you’re not alone. We’ll review two areas where your technology might be under-serving your strategy and one solution for getting your strategy and martech to work together.
The Right Tools Drive the Right Customers to Campaigns
There’s no denying the importance of segmentation when it comes to marketing — at least 65% of your campaign strategy comes from having the right audience in mind. Having the right tools and techniques in place to drive more relevant customer segments to a corresponding message makes all the difference in the world when it comes to achieving your desired outcome.
Plus, it’s just what customers expect. An impressive 71% of customers expect personalized marketing messages from businesses, and 76% are disappointed when they receive generic messages instead.
The catch is that there are as many ways to segment your customers as there are segmentation tools (which is, ahem, a lot). For example, you could segment your customers by:
- Buying stage
- Engagement
- Purchase history
When the possibilities seem endless, that’s where it’s key to understand what strategies your tools and your tech can actually serve, and vice versa. Otherwise, you might spin in circles buying new tools for capabilities you don’t even need.
Without Data, You Can’t Pivot As Easily
Of course, perhaps the most important way that your martech stack should serve your program strategy is with insights and data. Without insights to lead you at every step along the way (pre-campaign, during the campaign, and post-campaign), you run the risk of making decisions steeped in bias, not cold, hard facts.
For example, you might use your martech tools to build segments or provide a window into the impact of the campaign, rather than creating segments by yourself or relying on a siloed view of metrics to determine your campaign effectiveness.
A good indicator that you’re doing it right? Ask yourself these questions:
- Pre-campaign: “Can I roll up my intelligence gathering (intent, engagement, etc.) into something that provides insights into what to do differently or how to structure my outreach?”
- Post-campaign: “Can I aggregate results to either make a course correction or a strategic recommendation on my planned course of action?”
Additionally, you can inventory your martech stack by examining your functionality needs and goals, and then mapping your data flows and integrations.
Tools Provide Concrete Data Rather Than Best Guesses
When it comes to marketing program strategy, if you don’t have tools for customer segmentation and data analysis, you might as well be throwing darts in the dark. You might hit your target occasionally, but you’ll be unable to see how well you’re executing your strategy or what’s going wrong whenever you miss.
Translated into real-life marketing speak? Without the right martech tools and strategy in place, you might experience one of these consequences:
- Redundant and siloed technologies
- Lost credibility with senior leaders when marketing strategy fails
- Underutilization of tools’ breadth and capabilities
It’s no secret that marketing teams need help when it comes to martech. A Gartner survey found that only 16% of marketing leaders say their digital transformation initiatives are “fully implemented.”
Enter Inverta. Our experienced team of marketing technology veterans can help you navigate the complexities of martech strategy and implementation. We help companies maximize their investment by customizing the experience and getting rid of redundancies. Learn more about our solutions here.
