Definition: MarTech
What is martech?
Martech AKA marketing technology is just what the name implies: technology solutions that can be used for a variety of marketing purposes, ranging from digital asset management and marketing automation platforms to chatbots and social media monitoring tools.
As marketing (and the world in general) becomes increasingly digital, the martech landscape has proliferated year-on-year, as illustrated no better than by the now-iconic Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic (Chiefmartec), which visualizes a total number of 8000 martech solutions as of 2020.
What aspects of marketing can martech tools help with?
Think of any marketing process or activity, and chances are there’s a complementary martech solution to support and/or automate it. However, martech solutions can be broadly categorized to reflect the different areas of marketing, as follows:
- Advertising & Promotion: Technologies that support advertising and PR activities.
- Content & Experience: Perhaps the most popular and wide-ranging category, these martech solutions primarily support content marketing and management activities, ranging from marketing automation, SEO, DAM, and optimization/testing
- Social & Relationships: Primarily focused on martech solutions that help build and nurture customer relationships in the digital space. Examples include customer relationship management, conversational/chatbot marketing, social media management, and customer advocacy tools
- Commerce & Sales: Covering martech tools that directly impact selling, this category of solutions help to better align marketing and sales activities. Examples include e-commerce platforms, sales automation/enablement, and affiliate marketing
- Data: You guessed it: martech solutions that focus on retrieving, managing, and visualizing data sets from marketing activities. Examples include data visualization, mobile/web/marketing analytics, business intelligence, and data integrations
- Management: This martech category doesn’t support a specific aspect of marketing per se, but is more focused on helping marketing teams to work and collaborate more efficiently. Examples include project management, talent management, budgeting/finance, and communications
Curious to see our predictions on the state of the martech landscape in 2030? Check out our article: Marketing & Martech in 2030: Past, present and future.
What are the top martech tools today?
There are many different types of martech available, each with its own unique features and benefits. Here are some of the most popular martech tools available right now.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation refers to the use of software tools to automate repetitive marketing tasks such as lead nurturing, email campaigns, and posting on social media. By using marketing automation, businesses can save time, improve the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and free their teams up for more useful and rewarding activities. Marketing automation tools also help brands to deliver a more personalized experience to their customers and increase the efficiency of their sales funnel.
Digital Asset Management systems
Put simply, digital asset management (DAM) is software that allows companies to create, manage, and deliver digital assets quickly and at scale from a centralized and secure platform. DAM becomes essential when increasingly decentralized internal teams manage too many assets – it helps with version control, collaboration, and asset distribution, ensuring that every stakeholder, internally and externally, has access to the most up-to-date files. By using a DAM, businesses can save time and improve their workflows, leading to increased productivity and better marketing outcomes.
Workflow and project management platforms
Workflow and project management software platforms help businesses streamline their creative processes, from ideation to production. These platforms often include features such as task management, collaboration tools, project timelines, and budget tracking.
By using these tools, businesses can ensure that projects are completed on time and within budget, while also improving collaboration and communication among team members. This should result in higher-quality output, quicker time to market, better use of resources, and a much happier creative team.
Learn how to streamline the creative process for better content and faster results.
Analytics packages
Analytics packages enable businesses to collect, analyze, and interpret data related to their sales and marketing activities. These tools provide insights into key metrics such as website traffic, social media engagement, email open rates, and conversion rates.
By using analytics packages, businesses can identify areas of improvement and optimize their marketing strategies for better results. They can also track the performance of individual campaigns, which helps with future planning and decision-making. Finally, they help busy marketers to understand which messaging, content, and channels are resonating with customers and leads. This means they can adapt and improve their marketing strategy based on concrete data insights and create campaigns that will cut through the noise and help them get a competitive edge.
Discover how to unlock data-driven insights for your content with Bynder Analytics.
CRM systems
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are martech tools businesses use to manage their interactions with customers and potential customers. CRMs can help with lead generation, customer segmentation, sales forecasting, and delivering customer support. By using a CRM, businesses can improve their customer relationships and increase customer satisfaction for better retention rates, higher customer lifetime value, and more successful sales and marketing campaigns.
Social media management platforms
Social media management platforms are tools that businesses use to manage their social media presence across multiple channels. They help marketers create and manage content, schedule posts, and monitor engagement and trends.
By using a social media management platform, businesses can save time and improve the effectiveness of their social media efforts. They can also gain insights into audience behavior and engagement and find out what is and isn’t working in this notoriously busy marketing space. This helps inform future marketing strategies and ensures marketing messaging is hitting the right notes with the target audience.
Email marketing solutions
Email marketing platforms help businesses create and send email campaigns to their subscribers. These martech tools often include features such as email templates, automation, segmentation, and engagement analytics. By using an email marketing solution, businesses can improve their email marketing ROI, increase engagement rates, build brand awareness, grow communities, and nurture leads through the buyer journey.
Curious how Bynder can connect your existing martech stack? Learn more about our integrations here.
