What are the top MarTech trends right now? What should a MarTech stack consist of, and how can it help companies better understand and evaluate customer behaviors and preferences? In this week's "Being a", we talk to Aimfor's knowledgeable Marketing Tech specialist Deborah Lazar, who LOVES to press buttons to see what happens.
Marketing technology is a central part of all marketing strategies today. Everything in the marketing process, from first contact to customer engagement, is primarily technology-driven. Over time, a simple technical understanding has become insufficient; today's marketers must master advanced tools and classic marketing principles to succeed. "Being a" talks to Deborah Lazar, a MarTech specialist at Aimfor.
A consistent theme in Deborah's professional journey is her passion for mastering new systems. She elaborates:
– I push as many buttons as possible to see what happens and I am always looking for new ways to use the systems to make my job more efficient. My current focus revolves around CRM and Marketing Automation – helping customers to implement new setups and enhancing existing ones.
What are the most impactful MarTech trends, and how are they affecting the marketing landscape?
– What everyone is talking about right now: AI, chatbots and virtual assistants. You might think this AI thing is new – but if you think about it, you realize that it has been in most tools for a long time. The big difference is that it is now visible to "ordinary" users and that you can interact with it.
Deborah continues:
– Beyond AI's potential in content creation, it can help you analyze a lot of data in a short time. It allows marketers to understand customer behaviour, identify patterns and predict trends in a completely different way than before.
My greatest challenge is convincing organizations that quality data is essential – and that not all data is good data!
What should a MarTech stack consist of?
– This is highly individual and depends on the nature of your company, your objectives, and so on. However, to generalize, you'd want tools that align with the various phases of marketing. If we consider the stages of Inbound Marketing, "Attract - Engage - Delight", it could look like this:
Attract - Tools for SEO, SEM, Lead Generation
Engage - CRM system, MA system
Delight - Analysis tools
How can a good MarTech stack help companies better understand and evaluate customer behaviors and preferences?
– A good MarTech stack gives companies invaluable insight into the customer journey. By leveraging automation, A/B testing and predictive analytics, we can create tailored campaigns and predict the customer's next step - creating stronger customer relationships and faster growth.
What challenges and obstacles do you encounter when implementing MarTech solutions, and how do you overcome them?
– My greatest challenge is convincing organizations that quality data is essential – and that not all data is good data! Data that isn't well-structured complicates segmentation and analysis, and most importantly, hinders truly data-driven decisions.
– Another common challenge is getting systems to work together, not just implementing new stand-alone systems or tools. Many companies already have legacy systems in place, and integrating new technology solutions can sometimes be difficult. The purpose of collecting data is to get a 360-degree view of the customer, but if we don't make the data available across the platforms, we create isolated data. All of a sudden, that 360-degree view isn't so 360 anymore.
Deborah makes a last note:
– The most important thing to remember is that you typically can't just implement a system and expect it to do magic on its own. A Marketing Automation system is designed to automate certain aspects of your marketing. However, for it to function optimally, you need a strategy for setting up automations, content to populate it, a testing plan, and most importantly: continuous monitoring and optimization.
Which tool do you find the most fun? Hubspot
Which tool do you think is the hardest to clean up after someone else? Hubspot :D