The Rise of Marketing Technology
Updated: Jan 3, 2020
Written by: Evan Goodfellow
The future of marketing is in technology, people and fusing those two together to create an amazing user experience.
Technology Should Create a Greater Experience
I recently ran across an article that related directly to how our business is evolving. Insightrix Research is a full service marketing company, with a digital division who do graphics and design websites. As well we have our in-house software developers who develop much of our market research online community software used in our firm, plus sell externally. However, what we have to remind ourselves and our staff on a daily basis is that as important as this is to the success of the company, it is in support of and not to replace the most important aspect of our business, which is our relationships with our clients. The challenge for marketers is to use the technology to assist in enhancing the customer experience. We believe that a key to understanding the customer experience is through market research online communities.
In a recent post for the Firebrand company Gavin Heaton writes about the future of marketing in a post entitled Forget Technology – The Future of Marketing is People. In the article he cites a statement that the Gartner Group made back in 2012 illustrating his point. Gartner Group’s prediction was – “By 2017 the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO”. Back in 2012 there were a total of 350 marketing technology companies compared to today with a whopping 2000 marketing technology companies. With the changing landscape, marketers are now forced to think about marketing experiences, operations, middleware, platforms and infrastructure. Heaton suggests that with the rise of demands and the increase of marketing technologies the future will be about people connecting with people in a more engaging way, and that technology won’t replace marketers.
It’s all about the Customer
The thing that marketing technology focuses on, yet is overlooked, are the two central factors which is the customer and the marketer. Some people think that technology will automate us out of the marketing equation. Heaton disagrees with this concept and views ourselves as part of the marketing process. To illustrate this point he uses the acronym PANDA:
The “P” is for “purpose”…
The “A” is for “analytics” …
The “N” is for “networks”…
The “D” is “digital”…
The “A” is “art”
He goes on to explain that the digital is going to combine a lot more artistic with technical and will lead to a more “emotional and engaging place.”
With marketing seeking to deeply connect and engage on an emotional level with the customers and with engagement as the goal, sending more technology at the customer is not the solution. The solution is to use the technology to assist in making a stunning customer experience. The A is for art which deals with marketers learning to use technology as a creative tool. This change in the way we view technology is revolutionary as we move from seeing it as the tool to which we achieve our goals, and not the goal itself.
So with the growing number of technology marketing companies, we must remind ourselves that the two common factors behind these companies are the marketer and the customer. The technology companies that will lead the way in the future are those that help create an amazing customer experience and allow the marketer to engage deeply with their customers. This process will become more refined over time, as user experience is fine tuned.
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