MarTech refers to the application of a wide range of technologies to enhance the productivity of an entity’s marketing capabilities and processes. This application of technologies can be viewed in many approaches; for instance, MarTech can be discussed through STP (segmentation, targeting and positioning), marketing mix (promotions, place, product, processes, people, physical location, etc.), or even through different elements of marketing including marketing research. On the other hand, it can be viewed through major MarTech applications such as marketing automation, customer experience or analysing data. 

Scope of MarTech

The scope of MarTech can range from a straightforward social media content scheduling application to a sophisticated customer relationship management system. However, given the depth of MarTech, a framework is proposed (figure 01) to illuminate the adoption of technology for the marketing processes and capabilities in an organisation. Accordingly, the MarTech applications should be devised and deployed under 05 main pillars: communication and experience strategies, marketing research and analytics, e-commerce management, consumer management and personalisation, and task improvement and automation. As these pillars are propelled towards the overall marketing strategy, it’s aimed to achieve and strengthen a set of drivers that form an advanced and sustainable state of technology adoption, as depicted in (figure 01). Next, these five areas are discussed briefly.

Communication and experience strategies

This is the most visible pillar of MarTech in the industry and is commonly embraced by practitioners. It is evident that with the advent of AI technologies at the mass-societal level, consumers spend ample time on multiple tools and platforms on the Internet, including social media sites. Accordingly, these MarTech applications include social media marketing management, paid ad strategies (AdTech), and search engine marketing, which are mostly comprehended as advertising strategies to cover all possible communication channels in the digital space. Moreover, the proliferation of generative AI, blockchain, robotic developments, and augmented reality technologies has heightened consumer experience applications incredibly. For instance, the metaverse is becoming exponentially popular among users as never before. The interactive activations carried out by brands as BTL activities and events are a part of this MarTech pillar and can be observed frequently in Sri Lanka.

Marketing research and analytics

Predominantly powered by AI and big data technologies, research and analytics on marketing data provide a fundamental discipline to understand consumer behaviour and the effectiveness of marketing strategies voyaged by the organisation. Both descriptive and predictive analytics facilitate this regard.

E-commerce management

Although businesses are hardly used to considering e-commerce as part of MarTech, the perspective on the business process as a technological initiative can immensely transform the magnitude of e-commerce operations. 

Consumer behaviour and personalisation

This pillar could be the ultimate level a marketing department can reach in terms of devising both long term and short terms marketing strategies to understand consumer and offer personalized products and recommendations. Today’s AI developments combined with customer relationship management systems and business intelligence systems offer highly complex and advanced insights about their target group. An extreme level of this MarTech applications can reach up to hundreds of potential segments and millions of discrete personal recommendations generated by information systems automatically. 

Task improvement and automation

This pillar represents the adoption of technologies for the operational activities of an organization’s marketing sphere and the automation of certain processes, including the consumer journey in an e-commerce website, for instance. Activities include creation, scheduling, publishing of digital content and sending emails to customer groups etc. 

Challenges in MarTech adoption

Even though such challenges are numerous, some of the key obstacles observed in the Sri Lankan context are articulated next. 

• One of the dominant struggles marketers face today is a lack of proper knowledge of available technologies and their usage. Every day, a new tool or service is innovated and released to the world. Picking what’s best for each circumstance requires a wealth of knowledge. Additionally, it’s a blind myth that technologies invariably carry high costs, but that’s not always the truth.
• Another failure marketers face is a lack of implementation skills and capabilities. MarTech applications must be led by marketers with profound technological backgrounds, and those implementations are reiterative in nature, requiring knowledge of the marketing process.
• Ecosystem misfit led by technology-averse managers also causes improper adoption of MarTech applications. Although, this doesn’t apply to certain organizations, more or less of this challenge poses inefficiencies. 

Recommendations

To conclude, a few recommendations are proposed that some marketing professionals could consider deploying in practice.

• Need for marketing technologists: Modern-day marketing departments should have separate individuals exclusively voyaging in MarTech adoption within these processes. This includes a total circle of researching, devising, implementing, and sustainably managing MarTech applications.
• The involvement of technology consultants is imperative given their wide and up-to-date knowledge. However, selecting a proper consultant would be a massive challenge but the consultancy viewpoint outside the organisation is often beneficial.
• Incorporating a MarTech application as part of the marketing strategy is a phenomenal approach rather than considering it as part of the deployment strategy or a set of tools to be added to the overall strategy.

Finally, it should be acknowledged that, although MarTech is jargon or a set of practices and applications used to improve marketing processes, modern marketing capabilities are short-lived without the adoption of technology. Hence, every marketer must engage in continuous learning and application of these solutions to gain a competitive advantage in the market.