The world which sees marketing and sales at different sides of the pitch battling for budget and attention is long gone. If you still see it this way, then maybe you need to consider your employment options because, now, they have no choice but to work together. To make the most of your business you’ve got to give up on the out-dated, silo-based business model and work proactively to grow your business!
Modern technology has changed the way sales and marketing can work together. It has changed how these departments can measure the effectiveness of their efforts. But modern tech is also largely responsible for the complexity of the new marketing ecosystem in the first place. Take for instance a large enterprise with millions of customers: today, you can have oodles of data points on each one. You have dozens of channels for interacting with them – which generate more data. And you have gazillions of ways for measuring and optimising the impact of each of your efforts – across marketing, sales, your call center, your stores, and so on.
Companies are only beginning to tackle the challenge – and the opportunity - of integrating sales, marketing, and indeed all other business data in a systematic way. It’s madness. Most businesses are still in a phase of trying out disparate bits of marketing technology, often in isolation from the rest of the team. But some innovative companies have been building “marketing operations” departments over the last few years in an effort to bring together their data, the technology and their business goals in a meaningful way. Data management provider Informatica has recently published an overview on marketing operations as an emerging new discipline.
Marketing technology (or the not particularly creative “Martech”) is the blending together of marketing and technology to suit the digital world and the modern business landscape. The 2017 Walker Sands State of Marketing Technology found 70% of their respondents expect their marketing tech budget will increase at least slightly and this is indicative of the market as a whole. Anyone involved in digital marketing will have been involved in martech on some level and it is spreading beyond the confines of the marketing department.
Martech isn’t there to replace your sales department and it isn’t another way to blast your customers with ineffectual fluffy marketing speak. It’s time to get real! Martech used properly gives you a fool proof way of aligning and working in tandem with the sales department, rather than keeping to traditional silos. A recent Marketo study found 86% of marketers expect to own the end-to-end customer experience by 2020 and this experience is impossible without sales and highly unlikely without the latest innovative martech solutions.
Blockchain is known as the technology behind bitcoin, but its disruptive impact is being looked at beyond finance. From ad-delivery verification to managing consumer data securely, blockchain has the potential to significantly disrupt the traditional ways of working. Businesses ignoring such developments are choosing to ignore potentially profitable routes to more growth and more sales.
“Marketing has become a technology-powered discipline, and therefore marketing organizations must infuse technical capabilities into their DNA.”
This is about as clear as it gets when it comes to Martech and businesses not investing and driving their companies in this direction, aren’t going to get the growth they’re looking for.
Science + Art = Modern Marketing
Marketing operations accepts that modern marketing is not all creativity and no all numbers and science. Instead, it has become a perfect blend of the two. Successful marketing campaigns are never successful without at least a small dose of creativity. And creativity should now be considered the norm – something involved in every marketing campaign you use. Companies like Chambord and Jeep have shown just how creativity works to great effect, cleverly incorporating the unusual and original with the core values of each brand.
Beyond creativity, modern marketing is powerful driven by data. Big data is undoubtedly a huge driving force behind many marketing campaigns and therefore business growth. The American Express Company is proactively using big data to effectively analyse and then predict customer behaviour. This then allows them to predict account closures and they are now able to predict 24% of accounts that will close within four months in their Australian market. Spotify too have maximised on the latest social insights in their final 2016 campaign. 100% fuelled by their insights, Spotify used the data garnered to take on each of their consumers on a personal level, creating dynamic listener experiences. The data was also used to create highlights and moments including their popular ‘weird’ highlights made them stand out, attracting even more attention and enhancing their leading position in their market.
Creativity and data naturally attract each other so why are you keeping them apart? Silos don’t work in the modern business world and working to keep them apart when they’re naturally drawn together is a serious misnomer. Blending Martech, data and creative is essential and while you may see ‘experts’ claiming big data or Martech will be the end of creative marketing in the 21st century, they’re all very wrong. Bringing them altogether is key to success and standing out against your competitors.
How does Martech Benefit Sales?
Why are you in business? Why is anyone in business? The whole point of it all is to sell and to grow, right? This puts sales at the centre of your business and to drive for the most rapid and effective growth, you should be using everything at your disposal to get there, including maximising on the latest marketing trends.
Sales are the lifeblood of your business, without them it is impossible to grow your business and with so many companies and businesses offering different ways to promote and push your business, there is no excuse. Lead generation, promotion and marketing can all be found on a single platform with the right technology and the right tech can give you everything from landing pages to email marketing to SEO and real-time analytics in a single place. The platforms are out there and the data is waiting to be collected so what’s stopping you from harnessing what you already have and pushing your business even further?
Good Fortunes to you; I hope I have helped your approach and mind set to marketing and business.