Here’s what you need to remember from this year’s European edition of the Martech conference.
Why is Martech growing?
Why are Martech/AdTech and other technologies in the field of marketing growing so rapidly? The answer is simple: because they can. Software writes faster, cheaper and more efficiently today than before. It also makes it easier to combine various solutions, saving time and money and allowing users to measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts. Is it unique to marketing? No. This is a general trend in all areas.
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„The medium is the message” has evolved into „The mechanism is the message”. We are immersed in technology and algorithms. We experience them everywhere, without being aware. If a door opens automatically when you enter a building, from the point of our experience it is as important when it opened as how quickly as it will close, if we have to wait for it, etc. This is the most trivial example of how an algorithm is telling us subconsciously – developing the assessment of reality. We can put this experience into different categories: friendly, unfriendly, etc.
You say that the way systems are programmed in the company has nothing to do with marketing? It all depends on how we define marketing. If marketing is the management of information coming out from and entering the organization, then yes – it is also a part of marketing.
Art & Copy?
Is marketing Art & Copy? Not anymore. At least, it’s not only that anymore. Technology has mandated that Art & Copy evolve into Code & Date. We should remember, however, that in the words of Ann Handley “Technology is only as good as the story”.
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It doesn’t mean that is Art & Copy is great, than technology can be (at most) just as good. The point here is that Code & Date is a story in itself. Remember the automatic doors – they write stories on their measure but they still have a history, for example „I ran and smashed into the door because they opened up at the beginning rapidly, then slowed down and fooled me!” Remember – programming is storytelling too.
CMO engineer?
Probably not. The point is not to know exactly how, but for this thinking about technology to be in their DNA. Do not forget about it, you have to understand it. You do not need to be created.
What is Customer Experience?
CX = Media + message + mechanism
In fact, it is difficult to find a simpler definition!
The global beer brand tells a story
Of all the neat stories that have been in my mind, basically one thing stands out: The key to marketing success should be the reliable, monolithic data set. Building it consumes much time, effort and money. However, it is the most important element – it’s here that the possibility of real analysis, visualization, and conclusions begins.
Global agency – the moment of truth
With a history of failure and success, he told one of the global agencies, according to one conclusion: never give up, test, develop, test, develop, test …. Failure is part of success. Seemingly obvious but takes on new meaning when someone talks about his case.
Who will survive?
When I look at a huge, mature organization, I see dinosaurs. Marketing is part of that organism. Meanwhile:
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In short, be as smart as Google, as simple as Apple, as fast as Skype, as available as Uber, and as social as Facebook.
Key to success
You probably expect that I will write about that you need to invest in technology – to develop, acquire, study, implement. Yes, but that’s not the key. We go back to the beginning and start from scratch. The key is the culture of the organization. The stronger the culture, the less you have to manage and control, thereby you can quickly and easily assimilate the latest trends and solutions.
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It is many a slip between the cup and the lip
The distance between what we want to achieve and the goal seems to be very small sometimes. However, the paradox of Zeno of Elea seems to perfectly check out in this case. Consider the e-commerce giants who base their work on data. They have everything: money, infrastructure, full control over a huge amount of data, a mass of talented people and desire. Their goal is to build communication based on data. Meanwhile, Ebay is a cautionary tale about how torturous the way to this goal may be.
To better illustrate, let’s imagine all the buzzwords that symbolize the modern technology used in marketing. Then, let’s put them in a bag. Put eBay’s logo there. What’s all there? Practically everything. The result? Data analysis is included, but when it comes time to examine the behavior of a specific person, it turns out that the man slips out from under the advanced algorithms. I still cannot predict what he wants.
For example, here’s Adam, who wants to buy a team „A” t-shirt. He buys it. The problem is that the predictive system tells Adam that also bought a shirt from team 'B’. The problem lies in the fact that club „A” is on the warpath with club „B”! Unfortunately, the machine does not know that. It lacks an understanding of the context. As a result, the „offensive” customer proposition spoils the experience.
I can see right-brainers as they say, „Ha! Piotr Golczyk, all your technology and digital is not worth it! Man is an inscrutable, mysterious, and infinite being, we are (…) „and here you can add any number of sentences depending on what we believe.
Well, no. We simply have too little data and a lack of experience.
There is a big distance between the desire to build data-based marketing and the practice of marketing based on the data. It stems mainly from the fact that man and the culture in which he lives are both extremely difficult to analyze. They require plenty of simplification. This, in turn, leads to generalizations and the entire effort of personalization falls flat with a thud.
Here are some tips:
- Start from the customer
- Personalize
- Use data analysis to take control of the content
- Create a working environment that teaches naturally
- Be ready to throw everything you’ve done to the trash
Summary
It was a groundbreaking #conference in its way. Over the last two years, a number of assumptions and possibilities in the area of Martech / AdTech have been verified. Not everything is as simple as it sounds. A lot of failures await us along the way, but many victories do as well.
BI + AI + all-buzzwords =! Marketing omniscience.
Not yet.