Using Marketing Technology to Build a More Visible Brand
The success of some of the newest brands on the market is due to marketing technology. Brands like Uber, Air BnB, Lyft, Grub Hub and Seamless have managed to leverage marketing technology to paint the perfect picture of their ideal customer. All these brands are itching to reach the same costumer base. The companies mentioned above are looking at city-dwelling millennials who love to travel and value convenience. Through MarTech, the above brands have been able to use the data they’ve collected to tailor the user experience specifically to their customers.
While new brands seem to have marketing technology down to a science, older brands are lagging behind. Unable to invest in a marketing agency to collect and decipher data, small and mid-size businesses are lagging even further behind.
What is marketing technology?
Back in the golden age of marketing, there were four things that most companies focused on; price, product, placement, and promotion. Placing a product in the direct line of sight for consumers, and promoting that product through TV, magazine, sales, and adverts was the core foundation of marketing. Today, things are different. New School marketers focus on The 6 Cs; Making contact, connecting with the userbase, monitoring consumption, considering consumer needs, starting a conversation, and building a community and monitoring consumption.
New school marketing presents its challenges. It isn’t enough to collect the data from consumers; a company must be ready to utilize that data. In most cases, the job is easier said than done. This is where marketing technology comes in. High-end marketing software makes it easier to collect data, follow trends, and, perhaps most importantly, pinpoint patterns within the consumer lifecycle. These patterns allow a marketing professional to make educated guesses about product performance. It also allows professionals to tweak campaigns to fit current trends based on the date they’ve collected.
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The new school of marketing
Martech has changed the landscape. Besides data, it has changed how companies are reaching their preferred clientele. Influencer marketing is a relatively new concept, mostly born out of the Martech space. Influencer marketing entails identifying influential individuals in a space. For example, a makeup company may send over free samples to a YouTube beauty guru. Another may offer their fitness tea to an Instagram model. These paid influencers have built a wide fanbase through social media. Influencer marketing allows marketers to leverage an influencer’s following to reach a particular demographic. It can be considered word of mouth marketing for the new age.
The push of outbound marketing and the pull of inbound marketing is another difference between the old school and the new school. The pull of inbound, however, needs to be measured uniquely through the use of marketing software and technology. Through the creation of more data, we must move into a space that best utilizes that data to create a harmonious user experience. All the data in the world won’t matter if it isn’t being used to harness a complete and clear picture of the target demographic.
Dan Gartlan helps companies of all kinds drive their business initiatives and achieve their goals with strategic marketing programs that deliver results. As President of Stevens & Tate Marketing, he has over 20 years experience across various industries, and continues to share his expertise to build brands nationwide.