Martech 2.0
Here is a short summary of my ideas about winning in the coming martech era, that I spoke about at two industry events a few weeks ago: IAMAI Marketing Conclave and ET Martech Asia. Many of these are themes I have covered in my writings on marketing over the past couple years. There are many new ideas that I have connected together. When implemented as a whole, they can give businesses a definitive edge.
- Huge Growth of Digital Customers
- Adtech –> Gooked Brands –> Doom Loop –> Profipoly (for BigTech)
- Martech –> Hooked Customers –> EPFG –> Profipoly (for Brands)
- Martech’s 3Rs: Retention, Reactivation, Referrals
- To create Hooked Customers, focus on upstream of Transactions
- Attention, Engagement, Habits
- Martech’s 5 Problems and Solutions
- Attention: Messaging+
- Branding: Email Moments (Ems)
- Churn: Velvet Rope Marketing (VRM)
- Data: Full Stack
- Engagement: Atomic Rewards
- Needed: Progency and Rebudgeting
What it boils down to is a sea change in customer experience and that is what will be the differentiator going forward. Consider our own behaviour and preferences. There are many options for us to buy the products we desire. Why do we choose certain brands over others? While price and convenience are important determinants, we are not always scanning for the cheapest and speedy delivery has now come to be taken for granted. Intangibles like branding and experience also matter. This is where the next-generation of martech tools and ideas come in with the realisation that attention, engagement and habits are upstream of transactions. The next set of challenges are before and after the transaction: the pre-purchase persuasion and the post-purchase pandering to create moments and memories that drive the next actions (future transactions and word of mouth spread).
Martech 1.0 was all about driving the transaction through a collection of point solutions; Martech 2.0 will be about addressing the much wider customer experience through a full stack that is natively integrated. Martech 2.0 is not about broadcast messaging; it is about encouraging conversations. Martech 2.0 is about thinking through the value of each customer and ensuring that the Best and most valuable customers get differentiated experiences. Martech 2.0 is about building mental availability for the brand – these 15-30 seconds of daily delight that inform and educate, and not just shout and sell. Martech 2.0 is about making the customer journey fun and exciting – which is why there is a need for atomic rewards: micro-incentives to win micro-moments.
It is these innovations that are all coming together to create the strategic inflection point for brands. By doing Martech 2.0 right, it becomes possible to think of the customer relationship as that of a “subscription” – a steady stream of predictable continuing purchases for long periods of time. By doing so, brands eliminate the openings that competitors need to grow their own business and thus deprive them of the oxygen of profits. Martech 2.0 is about understanding the jobs customers want done. Martech 2.0 is about creating unique moments to savour for each of us in our brand engagements – starting from the personalised email in our inbox to being greeted when we enter a physical store. Martech 2.0 is about the experiences and moments that lead to the transactions – moments which create memories, stickiness and lifetime loyalty. Bringing this new world to life are Martech 2.0’s magicians: microns, micronbox and µniverse.
