Along with digital marketing, marketing tech stacks have undergone several changes. They started out as ways to organise and build marketing channels. But as complexities increased, marketing managers and their teams determined the ways in which the process could be optimised according to what they were looking for.
The principles haven’t changed. It is about the best ways to find and approach target audiences, determine where and when they spend time, attract and inform them, build interest and then convert them.
The options available to marketers is bewildering today and it requires careful analysis to construct the whole picture, rather than parts of it. Data may be the new oil but you need to determine if your marketing engine runs on diesel or petrol. And if you pour the wrong oil in, the engine is not going to fire up at all.
The assumption is that all data is important – and nothing could be further from the truth.
Concentrate on the data streams that matter
How do you figure out the important ones? Let’s take online sales data. Most of the parameters are around what is easy to collect – what time the sale happened, the price points, the products purchased and so on. Building a profile backwards from this data is going to lead to all kinds of confusion. It may help from an overall sales viewpoint to determine what needs to be done, but not far beyond that.
Build a tech stack that addresses customer interests and tracks customer journeys
You’re going to have to build it, if you don’t already have a good view into what your customers are looking for. It begins with what you do in Pre-sales Marketing. That’s the point at which customers check out options or simply looking to build a set of base criteria to base decisions on. This is like the ignition stage. If you correctly determine the points of interests for customers, then providing in-depth information becomes the most important objective.
At that point, you’re looking to stand out in a sea of competitors. And customers like comparisons while companies don’t. In a world with limited information, people went by what their circle of friends or associates told them. They no longer have that constraint. And they are looking to find the best value for the money they will spend.
Have you noticed how product reviews on YouTube rack up huge views? Especially from those influencers and channels who have already built credibility over years and are open about the facts they know. People look to them to figure out what they should be concentrating on.
Building that credibility is key. And it should be the first stage of firing up your marketing tech stack.
Converting interest into engagement
There are several channels you can build to do this. But rather than throw everything at prospects, determine what they are comfortable with. Respect boundaries because aggression is outdated and customers can easily tune out from any marketing outreach program that gets intrusive.
From interest to engagement to purchase, customers have to be guided and provided with the right inputs
Whether it is email, newsletters, webinars or product demonstrations, customers now have the option to respond or hold back. And companies should be sensitive to this, pacing out the programs in ways that customers are comfortable with.
For example, a major payroll company in India held a series of monthly webinars around issues on labour law. This was of interest to the HR and legal departments who were also the prime decision points for the payroll solution.
A decision was made to never promote the company’s products during these sessions. But the attendees knew that the emails came from the official company account. The people who spoke at the webinars had decades of experience in labour law. And they built the authority that translated into sales over time.
This strategy won’t work in the short term. It needs authority to be built and the base to buy into the product. So that marketing engine included building the CRM, an email program that sent out emails for registrations, a monthly webinar to build the prospect base and invite other associates as well.
Over time, some of the HR or legal associates would reach out and ask for a product demo and that’s the point at which the sales team took over to drive the conversion.
Build the stack around customer journeys
Coordinating the marketing tech stack around defined customer journeys will bring the best results.
HubSpot enables building a tech stack that helps with everything from determining audience interests to evaluating responses to keeping them engaged across media and deep analytics to determine which strategies and campaigns are working.
Rather than use multiple programs to manage the stack, HubSpot helps you build it at every stage, including the visibility and response. From lead generation and management to email and newsletters, segmenting interest groups right from the entry point on the CRM, to plotting the journey with content and engagement right through to handover to sales.
The advantage of course is a seamless flow from the time the prospect is enrolled in the system. It is one of the critical aspects of building and extending the stack. One set of data needs to flow into the next one. Having disjointed points of data does not give the progressive picture or connect with customers over the course of their journey.
HubSpot has built seamless connections with over 600 plug-ins through defined APIs to ensure compatibility, and more importantly, visibility during the entire marketing outreach.
Talk to us to find out how to build and deploy a marketing engine that works for you on HubSpot.
