How to Build and Optimise MarTech Stacks

Building a MarTech stack is crucial today. But is digital transformation in Marketing about technology and platforms?

No. Technology is the enabler. The driver is providing consumers with a holistic experience.

There are four key pillars for technology adoption in Marketing.

1. Consumers: Understanding audiences will always come first. Both Qualitative and Quantitative initiatives but backed by technology in terms of understanding segments and behaviour, and building personalised journeys.

2. Brands: How consumers understand or relate to the brand as well as how brands distribute content. Technology helps to actively listen to consumer sentiments, brand interest, distribute content in the right channels and understand how consumers respond to or engage with brands. 

3. Data: Data influences every aspect of marketing. Using technology to build a Single Customer View and using data for personalisation, recommendations, Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics, more efficient Adtech, real-time trends.

4. Automation: Automation enables omnichannel, identifying key moments in the consumers’ decision making process, making communication contextual and relevant, influencing consumers through their journey.

When you think of MarTech, start with the pillars, rather than the tools. 

If you have an existing stack. how can you consolidate your SaaS spend by optimizing your technology and vendor stack?

This is important because many companies use disparate tools where the data doesn’t flow through, there different teams performing different functions in silos and many times only a few features of a tool are used.

There are a few steps to go about consolidating stacks.

1. Understanding the business goals that can be fulfilled through improving Customer Experience - it is important to prioritize based on business goals because as tempting as it is to overhaul everything, time and resources are always limited. Business goals help keep the focus on what is essential vs being a good to have vs a shiny new thing that you want because everyone in the industry is talking about it.

2. Going to the heart of the matter - the customer journey, understanding how it has changed, especially in the post pandemic world, and identifying the improvements that are needed for both, effective acquisition and retention. The journey forms a clear guide as to how business goals can be achieved through effective customer interaction at each stage,.

3. Based on the priorities & journeys, what are the use cases where technology can help bridge the gaps? Use cases are important to go from top level strategy to focused areas where technology can help teams perform specific actions. Typically this means listing all the functions that teams perform and what actions are required through tools.

4. Auditing the current tools and where these fall short or are not effectively integrated is the next step. There could be tools that duplicated, under utilised, not integrated, or used by specific teams but the data is not shared with others.

5. Redrawing the ideal tech stack and evaluating solutions. It's not necessarily about reducing the number of tools, as much as about having tools fulfilling all the key use cases. In order to do that, it’s equally important to have in-house resources that can effectively use the tools and get the best out of customer success teams of technology providers. Setting KPIs and ensuring that these are met is critical to seeing measurable results.

I have a podcast on Decoding The MarTech Stack.

I also consult with companies on MarTech so if you are an overwhelmed CXO I am happy to work with your company on building or optimising your stack. Do get in touch.

(Image credit: Photo by Slidebean on Unsplash)