3 Must Have Technologies for the Modern Marketer

A customer recently asked me to provide some thoughts on how far the business enterprise has come with Marketing Technology in the past 5 years.  This question deserves a detailed response beyond what can be covered in a blog post, however in short, today's "Modern Marketer" has a wide variety of tools and technologies at their disposal to engage and delight leads, prospects and customers through the life cycle of a relationship.

About three and a half years ago (April 3, 2010 to be exact) we first heard of a device we have come to know as the Apple iPad, yet many thought it would be nothing more than an oversized iPhone, which we were introduced to just a few years prior.  Fast-forward to today and instant access to information has given fuel to methodologies such as inbound marketing and content marketing resulting in intense competition for the mind space of those you want to do business with. 

A sound engagement philosophy and marketing technology platform is at the core of the Modern Marketer's tool set.  Such technologies are focused on managing the entire customer life cycle from Lead to Customer.

My Top 3 Marketing Technology Picks

CRM - SalesForce

Inbound Marketing - HubSpot

Marketing Automation – Pardot and Exact Target’s MarketingCloud (Both owned by Salesforce)

A CRM system holds the single source of truth of customer interactions, opportunities and sales data.  An industry-leading example of a marketing technology platform is Salesforce, which provides a cloud based solution that when coupled with an implementation expert has limitless possibilities.  From Lead & Opportunity Management to Account & Contacts to Custom Workflow and Business Processes, Salesforce provides a one-stop-shop for Sales and Marketing's view into customer data.  Sales teams now have instant access to view and update customer and lead data  which is tremendously beneficial to the marketing teams who are then utilizing current data to design campaigns.

For those marketers who are as interested in attracting new customers as they are with delighting existing one's, their Marketing Technology needs may lead them to Marketing Automation or Inbound Marketing Platforms.  Three such Platforms that our technology team have investigated include Pardot, HubSpot and Lead Liaison. All offer some common features based around lead nurturing, email marketing, workflow, landing pages and segmentation.  (Note: The Exact Target Marketing Cloud is recognized as a leading platform however its recently added features have not been fully investigated by our team). When considering these tools, the critical success factor will center on your planning and marketing strategy vs. the capability of the tool you select.  Although each of the tools mentioned have their own unique features, they all do an excellent job of engaging customers and leads to feed sales teams seamlessly through integration to your CRM system.  This ease of dataflow is very helpful and can greatly contribute to bridging the gap between Sales and Marketing teams when executed with focus and efficiency.

As you consider your next marketing investment, ask yourself if you are maximizing your current email marketing efforts combined with onsite calls to action to manage an ongoing customer relationship. If the answer is anything other than a resounding Yes!... consider speaking with an expert in the marketing technology space or taking some time to review one of the offerings in the market.