MarTech – or marketing technology – is, quite literally, marketing and technology combined. Much of our marketing is virtual, whether through social media advertising or by copywriting articles and advertisements. Since nearly all marketing now uses technology, almost everybody involved in marketing is using MarTech.
Martech Research
There are a few different MarTech components and tools. For instance, you are almost sure to use MatTech to develop ideas for your marketing campaigns. Maybe you will look at previous campaigns and analyze how they have been successful. Or, you might try to find search terms for a particular keyword so that you can assess its suitability for an article.
Once you have finished the project, you will likely use Google Analytics to see how well a particular campaign did. Maybe you’ll look at sales to see how they increased as a result of direct ads. Or, you might assess your success by social media likes and shares. These metrics all use marketing technology to measure their effectiveness.
The technology platforms you use for these tasks are all designed to improve your marketing – and are considered part of the MarTech family.
Whether you realize it or not, you use Martech frequently for all of the above and more!
MarTech Platforms
Another branch of MarTech includes the platforms you use to reach your audience. These platforms include Facebook, Instagram, online journalism websites, and even email. They are all part of Martech as well. When you post an advertisement on Facebook or put an Instagram story up, which collaborates with another brand, you’re taking advantage of the power of marketing technology.
Seven Categories of Martech Tools
Ultimately, there are many categories of Martech software tools. These include:
- CMS (content management systems), software for web publishing, is used to work with content such as articles, videos, and podcasts. A flexible CMS example is WordPress, used for many membership sites, blogs, and company brand websites.
- SEO (search engine optimization) is the science of getting visitors to a website through organic search results, such as claiming the number one spot on Google. Part of the process is gathering information about different keywords to know which words to target. There are many tools used in the SEO process, including Moz, Keysearch, Yoast SEO, Rank Math, Ubbersuggest, and more.
- Landing pages and A/B testing help people build and optimize landing pages. Companies such as ClickFunnels, Optimizely and LeadPages excel at allowing marketers to create high converting pages. For WordPress, tools from Thrive Suite [Previously Thrive Themes], such as the Thrive Architect and Thrive Optimize, do a great job.
- Marketing Automation focuses on guiding your prospect through the sales process through personalized automated content delivery, generally using email as a basis. ActiveCampaign and Infusionsoft are two of the best-known marketing automation systems.
- Analytics – A MarTech core concept is measuring. Analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics and Clicky, are used to measure customer behavior and marketing results.
- Content marketing and curation platforms allow marketing teams to create unique content depending on what other people have posted that has proved popular. Using content automation, marketing teams to save time, especially if they don’t have the staff or resources. Curation can help distribute content in a way that will be effective and give the desired campaign results.
- DAM – Digital asset management helps organizations cultivate their digital content across all areas of the organization. Big brands generally use DAM products to keep their message and marketing consistent.
There are also all-in-one platform services. These include ClickFunnels, Kajabi, and Kartra, aiming to do it all. Each service may claim to be great at everything. However, they generally have a specialty such as funnel building, course creation e-commerce.
There’s no way to list all the MarTech software and companies, or even types of tools. According to MarTech Today, in 2011, there were about 150 significant tools. As of the last count, nearly 5,000 companies provide MarTech tools – and the number is growing.
To conclude, marketing technology – known as MarTech – is everywhere you see marketing. Today, almost all marketing starts with digital creation and ends with digital analysis. Marketing has become a playground for technologists.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be diving into specific tools that we find indispensable for building out great marketing campaigns.
