How has your approach to customer engagement/retention/loyalty changed due to new MarTech tools and solutions?
We are B2B so don’t use a lot of the MarTech tools currently available. For customer engagement/retention/loyalty we mainly rely on:
- Mailchimp for “monthly” email campaigns
- Survey monkey for annual customer sat surveys plus immediate feedback surveys after each customer visit
- Rpa to reduce customer service errors, speed up processing, and to free up workload/resources
- Drupal content management system for our website platform
- We also built our own bespoke customer360 system in house using our own IT team
With all the new MarTech tools and solutions now available, what is one of the key pitfalls to avoid in the procurement process?
Usually these evaluations & decisions involve a proof of concept. One pitfall is not designing the POC properly, which can lead to a underwhelming result that does not justify the tool’s purchase.
How have you best managed to integrate legacy systems with new MarTech solutions?
We haven’t really done this except to have our WeChat microsite development vendor integrate job application forms with our recruiting system.
What MarTech vendors have impressed you with their solutions and understanding of true business needs and challenges?
For WeChat development: Rise-bd (in Shenzhen, China). For Drupal CMS: Unimity (in Chennai, India).
How has your organisation / team dealt with the challenge of the marketing industry and wider digital world evolving at such a fast pace?
We try to learn and stay abreast of best practices by attending events like The MarTech Summit and also ones put on by vendors: Google (Google Cloud), Oracle, LinkedIn/Microsoft, etc.
What is your key takeaway piece of advice that you would give when speaking to others on how to evaluate and select a MarTech stack?
Always get 3 quotes (this may mean reaching out to more than 3 vendors/solutions)
How did your MarTech journey begin? Please let us know your top 3 findings and discoveries.
It started when I worked for gateway which pioneered direct pc selling even before Dell. I focused on CRM and pricing systems (i.e. Zilliant). My suggestion is to evaluate the MarTech product/solution itself based on these 3 dimensions:
- Intelligence/AI
- Automation/Processing
- Customizability/Fit
(In addition to traditional considerations like cost, vendor risk, ease of implementations/support, etc.)
What do you predict as being the top MarTech trends for 2020?
I think there will be more consolidation as a lot of the leaders will gobble up smaller players or the latter will seek to get acquired or merge to survive/cash out.
Investors (growth stage vc & pe firms) will want to show top line growth and inorganic growth is a quick fix. Others will need to exit to show returns for their investors so will sell to a strategic buyer, etc.
