In a recent post on her CMO-focused Forrester blog, analyst Sheryl Pattek notes, “technology has become the lens through which you should view your relationships with your customers. Your marketing team cannot be at its best unless it excels at understanding and using the right technology the right way for the right results.”
As the marketing leaders in our organizations, we know that customer-centric marketing is the key to driving results – almost as well as we know the importance of having the right marketing technology to support our efforts. But in what Pattek terms the “post-digital world,” the industry evolves quickly, and there are more channels and more opportunities to reach consumers every day. How can CMOs choose a foundational marketing technology that can accommodate our changing needs?
Enterprise marketers need a technology foundation that can effectively meld customer data (our own and third-party) with messaging and delivery tools to manage interactions along the customer journey. CMOs are beginning to realize that a three-pronged approach is essential for success: one that facilitates data activation, optimization on the fly, and interaction with our audiences. We must be able to reach across all available channels to speak to customers individually, creating unique, personalized experiences that resonate, at scale. And we need actionable data to drive real-time decisions that can create this level of personalization, and yield (and measure) the meaningful results we all crave.
The first step is selecting the right technology platform. There are many options available, but it’s important to realize that the same solution may not work for everyone. There’s no one-size-fits-all here; in fact, the best technology platforms will be flexible enough to allow organizations to build their own marketing stack. Most marketers will have existing technology partners to whom they’re loyal. The “right” platform will allow these partners to seamlessly overlay their solutions. Think of it as “choose your own adventure” versus a narrow, pre-defined story line.
With the right technology, the story has a very happy ending: The customer wins. And the CMO does pretty well, too.
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