Generation Shift – 2
Continuing with the transformations from Martech 1.0 to Martech 2.0:
All Customers to Best Customers: Martech 1.0 has been about targeting all customers with little regard to their lifetime value. Martech 2.0 will be about identifying the Best customers and creating differentiated experiences for them (think Velvet Rope Marketing). It will be about creating a separate business unit and shift from trying to foster loyalty in everyone to ensuring Best customers are treated like royalty and never churn.
1-way Broadcast Messages to 2-way Conversations: Martech 1.0 is about sending a huge number of broadcast messages via email, SMS and push notifications. Martech 2.0 will be about conversations. Email with AMP, SMS with SoIP (SMS over IP) and RCS, and WhatsApp are making these messaging channels interactive. Think of this shift as going from Messaging to Messaging+.
Loyalty Points to Atomic Rewards: Martech 1.0, with its transaction-centric view of the customer, incentivises the purchase. Martech 2.0, with its attention and time-centric focus, offers micro-incentives for micro-moments (“atomic rewards”) not necessarily linked to the transaction.
Point Solutions to Full Stack: Martech 1.0 is about stitching together various martech solutions as the need arises. Martech 2.0 will be about thinking full stack – from the CDP to analytics to engagement to personalisation to product experience to omnichannel communications. This is what will power the unified customer view that marketers need.
Data Silos to CDP: Martech 1.0’s point solutions ended up creating data silos which were broken down by the deployment of a Customer Data Platform (CDP) embedded in the Martech 2.0 full stack. The CDP will combine all customer data into a single repository.
Marketer Actions to Machine Predictions: Martech 1.0 is about the marketer making decisions on campaigns and journeys. Martech 2.0 will be about AI-ML using the customer data to drive the next best action for each customer, and continuously learn to improve the experience and outcomes.
Internal Teams to Progency: Martech 1.0 has been about staffing cross-functional talent within the marketing teams. Martech 2.0 will be about making use of a progency (product-led agency) which combines right- and left-brain skills to deliver the outcomes for retention, reactivation and referrals that marketers want.
10% of Budget to 50% of Budget: With adtech and new acquisition gobbling up most of the marketing budgets, Martech 1.0 spending has been at just about 10%. Martech 2.0 will drive a rebalancing as the importance of retention, growth and cross-sell becomes clear to CEOs. The “one rupee solution” will allocate a relationship and rewards spend for every customer every month.
Here is a table which summarises the transformations:
In short, Martech 2.0 will be the “real thing” – what marketing should always have been with its focus on maximising lifetime value by building deep, engaging and rewarding customer relationships. The transaction is an outcome, rather than the only goal. With the focus on retention, reactivation and referrals incentivised at the right times with rewards, revenues will rise and so will profits.
