Bill Binch has spotted a mismatch between the new technologies marketers planning into their 2017 strategies, and which are actually going to be the most effective for engaging customers.

If you’re trying to anticipate a global tech trend to jump aboard, you might be waiting a little longer for your departure time, because when it comes to anticipating the best tech for their customers, businesses in different nations all have their two cents to pitch in.

There’s one thing they can agree on, though – they’re all ‘excited’ for new touchpoints.

In Marketo’s ‘The Future of Tech’ survey, respondents from Australia, USA and Europe unanimously agree that emerging technologies such as AI, VR, and IoT will serve as touchpoints that positively affect how they engage with their customers.

When it comes to deciding which of these technologies will out-perform the rest, however, there’s some discrepancies.

Excitement

When asked which technology they were most excited to adopt in the future, respondents in the USA (38.6%) said predictive analytics, but the feeling wasn’t mutual. The UK (7%) and Germany (4%) both ranked this as the technology they’re least excited to adopt.

In fact, a greater percentage of UK (9%) and German (11%) respondents actually preferred no technology over predictive tech. So what are the UK and Germany excited for?

VR, apparently – 26% of UK, 30% of German, and 23% of Australians claimed they were most excited to adopt the technology in the future.

Anticipation

They may be excited to adopt it, but when it comes to anticipating the technologies customers will actually use in the next year, there was a different story to tell.

IoT is the most anticipated, and AR is the least across the board.

What technologies do you anticipate that your customers will be using within the next year?

The same goes for which tech that respondents were most likely to use in their marketing strategies; IoT was preferred by all, except the USA which greatly favoured predictive analytics over all else (69.5%).

Don’t expect to see Europe adopting AR and VR into their marketing strategies any time soon; UK and Germany all preferred no technology over adopting AR and VR (17% and 16.8%, respectively).

 

What technologies do you plan to include in your marketing strategy in 2017?

 

Customer engagement

What about when it comes to engaging customers, which technology is expected to be the most effective?

IoT is still the most predicted in Australia and Europe, but the USA still anticipates predictive analytics to be the top technology for engagement (56.8%).

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It may be idealistic to desire a unanimous global tech trend for the sake of consistency, but at the very least, these markets should accurately match the technology with their needs.

This survey reveals there are vast differences between which technologies businesses believe will work and what they actually will use. Australia and Europe both claim that better reporting and analytics to make sense of data is the one thing they need most to successfully maintain customer relationships, yet both fail to rate predictive technology as their preferred touch-point.

IoT may be great for offering seamless omni-channel experiences for customers, but it will ultimately fail to provide businesses with what they claim they want.

What businesses need from tech, and the tech they think they need to achieve it simply do not match. Maybe they’re caught up in too many trends? Maybe more transparency and understanding of what these technologies actually perform are needed?

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Bill Binch is ANZ managing director at Marketo.

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