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Top four marketing technologies you need to keep, invest in and experiment with – Forrester report

Technology & Data

Top four marketing technologies you need to keep, invest in and experiment with – Forrester report

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Forrester’s new report advises which technologies marketers need to turn their attention to, comparing business value with maturity.

Forrester surveyed industry technology experts and suppliers in its new report, ‘Tech Tide: Martech For B2C Marketers’, to find which technologies marketers should be maintaining, discovering and throwing out.

The report emphasises that in age of channel-agnostic consumers, marketers need to embrace technologies that enable omni-channel brand presence across all platforms.

Forrester breaks strategy decisions down into four categories, measuring business value against maturity:

  • Invest – Low maturity technologies with high business value potential.
  • Maintain – Mature technologies that have proven their worth and marketers should continue evolve with.
  • Experiment – Technologies that require further exploration within marketing applications.
  • Divest – Antiquated technologies that are no longer with it for marketers.

 

Invest

Content marketing platforms (CMP)

CMPs facilitate the collaboration between different marketing teams to focus on a single content strategy and optimise downstream cross-channel distribution to key audiences. According to Forrester the value in using CMPs comes from having a single environment to contain all of a campaign’s content planning and workflow.

Cross-channel campaign management (CCPM)

CCPM is a seasoned marketing technology that supports customer data management, analytics, segmentation and workflow tools, measuring campaigns for digital and offline channels. Over the decade, marketers have seen many iterations and evolutions of this technology as it continues to adapt and accommodate new channels and strategies. However, Forrester does warn that marketers will need to watch out for the limitations data integration will place on these tools.

Cross-channel identity resolution (CCIR)

CCIR is the analysis of marketing analysis, orchestration and delivery through integrating identifiers across available touchpoints and devices. Marketers understand the value of CCIR in developing insights and engagement, the technology connects multiple sources of identity and customer information to support robust targeting.

Enterprise preference management (EPM)

Marketers using EPM reduce wasted efforts by gauging what kinds of content their audiences want to see and how often, directly from consumers. Forrester says respecting consumers’ preferences can build stronger relationships with customers and allow for more nuanced personalised messaging.

 

Maintain

Digital intelligence platforms (DI)

DI platforms are used to develop holistic understandings of customer bases over digital touchpoints, enabling brands to deliver perfected decisions and experiences in the moment of engagement. DI platforms have been adopted widely, Forrester found that over 90% of customer references agreed that their firms had executive support for DI platforms.

Email service providers (ESPs)

While costs have declined for email marketing response rates have remained constant. Forrester says the long-term survival of this platform will depend on innovation and the potential consolidation with broader platforms to meet modern marketers omni-channel needs.

Enterprise marketing software suites (EMSS)

EMSS is a well established category that coordinates data flows, insights and engagement over various touchpoints to deliver analytics, orchestration and an insight driven customer experience. The value of an EMSS is reducing the complexity of deploying, managing and using marketing technologies to a single interface.

Loyalty technology platforms

Companies in various industries rely on loyalty platforms to drive customer acquisition and identify customers across interaction points. These technologies not only enhance a brand’s insights for marketing, but it’s customer service and product development also.

 

Experiment

Content intelligence

Content intelligence uses artificial intelligence (AI) to capture inherent qualities within content that resonate with consumers, such as its emotional appeal, style, subject matter, tone and sentiment. Forrester says the industry is still feeling its way through the best approaches to content analysis using AI, however the technology holds future promise in being able to realise the full value of the relationship readers have with their content.

Customer journey analytics (CJAs)

CJAs combine quantitative and qualitative data to create an understanding of customer behaviours and motivations, optimising customer interactions and predicting future behaviours. Forrester says the business impact of this technology is still unknown, true valuations will require marketers to experiment and run tests on improving existing journeys.

Influencer marketing solutions

Still an emerging technology, influence marketing solutions locate and asses digital influencers for product/content placement, content creation and media activation. Forrester warns marketers to distinguish engagement from value, with some vendors of this technology taking credit for sales and business impact that may not necessarily have been tied to the vendor’s contribution.

Mobile engagement automation (MEA)

Using real-time and contextual insights, MEA proactively engages with users in the appropriate mobile moment, fueling engagement with primarily mobile messaging and notifications. When considering implementing this technology, Forrester says brands need the appropriate technology to support a complete mobile engagement strategy.

Divest

Cross-channel attribution

Forrester recommends marketers divest themselves of cross-channel attribution as it often fails to prove its value. While attribution has had a long tenure in the industry, this technology can no longer measure the impact of branding or market forces data. Forrester says marketers who solely rely on attribution lack a complete picture of effective and unified marketing solutions.

 

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Josh Loh

Josh Loh is assistant editor at MarketingMag.com.au

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