Many Marketing specialists know: over the past ten years, marketing technologies (Martech) have exploded in growth. This growth process isn’t going to slow down. In fact, the latest 2020 study shows there are over 8000 marketing technology tools on the market. Most marketers use more than five tools on a given day, and more than 20 overall in the execution of their marketing strategies.

Martech platforms help your Business both recoup the investment and help you to get a significant increase in sales by accelerating the buying journey, growing awareness and acquisition, and increasing the overall value of each customer.

60% of companies want to increase their spending on MarTech in 2022 to double their business ROI.

Welcome, Top Martech Trends for 2021

77% of marketers think MarTech is a driver to provable ROI growth, and the most crucial decision each company should make is to choose the right MarTech tools for their business.

Welcome, Martech as a Strategic Enabler

We have identified 5 key marketing technology related trends. What are these trends, and how can investing in them improve your position in the market in today’s unstable post-COVID-19 pandemic economic situation?

Trend 1: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Technology doesn’t stand still. Artificial intelligence (AI) ranks first among all marketing technology trends. Whether you’re targeting businesses or consumers, marketers are seeking new products and enjoying technological advancements.

72% of marketing specialists believe the use of AI is improving their business processes. And, as of 2021, companies have spent more than $55 billion on the artificial intelligence of their marketing solutions. This number is expected to increase by 2 billion.

Today AI and ML have two main advantages for all online projects:

• The ability to conduct intelligent analytics, which will allow implementing more effective solutions
• The ability to ensuring the highest possible performance

All major media companies, including Instagram, YouTube, and Netflix, are implementing AI and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to identify and present content that is most likely to attract user attention.

Over the past couple of years, such an ML trend as chatbots has become an absolute leader among American brands.

Another area of accelerated growth has been AI-driven chatbots. A chatbot is a digital tool that can significantly expand your contacts. They also collect and analyze valuable data from customers, ask various relevant questions to visitors, offer new products and promotions.In 2021, over 69% of consumers in the United States have interacted with brands via chatbots. Chatbots both attract customers and accerate engagement – with an improvement in acquisition performance ranging from +25% inflow to the doubling of results. 

Unfortunately, many small and medium-sized businesses – in their desire to save money – haven’t adopted chatbots… missing out on a potentially profitable audience.  For chatbots to be effective, they don’t have to be intrusive and annoying. At times companies who have deployed an overzealous chatbot strategy risk have annoyed their customers and pushed them to competitors. Your chatbot strategy needs to be carefully deployed and monitored.

Trend 2: Data Analytics

Data analytics is the second marketing technology trend businesses are investing heavily in. Accurate research and measurement is vital to receive critical marketing information from the software systems. Nowadays the businesses use software platforms such as Board, Birst, and ClearStory to:

• Data Exploration
• Data Analysis
• Development of Interactive Dashboards
• Build Impactful Reporting

This advanced analytics helps to use the corporate strategy effectively and drive better business decisions faster and more relevant.

Data analytics is in great demand in the modern world. It allows companies to get analytical data without much effort. By installing a specific platform, companies are already involved in the process of collecting data to improve quality. However, do not forget about the human factor that interacts with data analytics. Professionals in their field should use the data obtained in the process.

Trend 3: Business Intelligence

Business intelligence (BI) is a system of applications and marketing technologies that allows you to collect data for analyzing business processes and accelerate the application of productive solutions.

Almost half of all small and medium-sized businesses use business intelligence in their marketing execution and strategy development.

Sisense, State of BI & Analytics Report

The BI business implementation jumped to 27% in 2021. This rise is going to grow since over 46% of companies said they see BI systems as a powerful business opportunity. In 2021, business owners with 10 to 200 employees said that their focus after the COVID-19 pandemic turned to BI as a way to survive.

Ease of use explains the popularity of business intelligence among all businesses. There is no need for programming skills to cope with this task. BI software in 2021 includes some vital functions, such as:

• Drag and drop integration that requires no development.
• Built-in intelligence and predictive analysis
• Fast natural language processing (NLP)

The main difference between business analytics is providing support in making specific business decisions and helping companies develop. Moreover, data analysis allows you to predict and transform data into business needs.

Trend 4: Big Data

Big data is a much more comprehensive approach to collecting information than data analysis. The main difference between big data and data analysis is working with a complex set of data that traditional software can’t perform. 

The main advantage of big data is to indicate the companies’ pain points, on which they should spend more effort or invest more money to become successful in the future. 81% of companies using big data indicated significant changes in the positive direction.

Big Data affects such vital companies marketing points as:

• Creating a better understanding of clients’ behavior on the market
• Developing effective ways to improve industry strategies
• Realizing useful tools that increase productivity
• Coordinating the reputation on the Internet using management tools

However, big data analysis is a complex process that needs to be prepared for. For example, it is worth choosing between two types of big data in the market: 

1. PC-based software that will be implemented into the resources such as Hadoop, Atlas.ti, HPCC, Plotly
2. Cloud-based software for calculating marketing efficiency and analytics in the cloud such as Skytree, Xplenty, Azure HDInsight

It is not necessary to postpone the implementation process. World leaders have long understood how a big date effectively affects business. A striking example is the streaming giant Netflix, which, with the help of big data on predicting efficiency and improving quality, saves more than $1 billion a year.

Trend 5: Mobile-First Approach

We can’t imagine our life without mobile phones. Business owners haven’t always been so attentive to smartphone users. In 2015, Google foreshadowing modern trends, launching mobile-first algorithms to support mobile versions of websites. Businesses that didn’t have a mobile-ready site lost visibility in mobile search results.

In March 2021, the final stage of Google indexing for mobile devices came into full force. Now is the time for businesses to introduce their online products and websites for mobile use.

About 60% of customers don’t return to sites with an inconvenient mobile version. Businesses need to do everything possible to optimize and improve versions of their products from all sides. And 60% of smartphone users contacted the business directly using search results.

Mobile-first trends intersect with ML, AL, and NLP in the use of voice search. People are rapidly adoptiong voice searches to find a certain product or service because of its growing accuracy and ease of use.

Over 27% of people worldwide use voice search on their devices. Gartner showed that 30% of all online sessions included voice search at the end of 2020. An average customer prefers a voice search to typing. So, implementing a voice search in your web and mobile versions will be a great idea in 2021 and beyond. 

The Scalers, All You Need to Know About Marketing Technology

Planning Your Transformation…

Marketing technology is advancing rapidly. For different businesses to flourish, high-quality analytics and tools are needed to attract users to their side. Paying attention to these key martech trends, companies will be able to choose what suits them well. Companies should prioritize these trends when developing their:

• Marketing technology budget
• Strategic marketing planning
• Research and analysis toolsets
• Talent acquisition and personnel development

Companies will be accelerate transformation of their digital sales and marketing by implementing proven marketing technologies.

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