More than Martech
Defining a more strategic approach for those seeking to sell martech solutions into brands.
Martech/ Adtech solutions often fall into a very operational realm within a brand’s overall marketing strategy. This in return leads to these solutions being rather treated in a very mechanical like way internally within brands and agencies.
The above challenge is typically faced by B2C solutions. Having a more strategic approach while maintaining relationships and collaborating with all the relevant internal brand/client parties is key for building long term dependency and value for these solutions.
Some of the key areas that the martech/adtech solutions should specifically focus on are:
Value Prop Adjustment:
To further add to the woos, these solutions are also mainly pitched in a very automated/mechanical like way which makes the value prop sound, well, very mechanical and one dimensional.
An ecommerce director would probably not understand or is probably not interested in knowing how AI is powering your online review aggregation solution. Probably the value prop from them is to understand why aggregating reviews across online platforms is important in promoting social proofing and brand visibility.
Hence, it’s very important to have relevant value props depending on who you are dealing with when you are having the initial chats.
Aligning with the end drivers:
In a typical brand HQ there are many internal stake holders when it comes to signing up for a new solution, but eventually the value of a solution is determined by marketing teams including local brand managers or agencies on board.
Typically, these solutions fail to maintain clients because the end drivers of the solution were not aligned with the value prop. They were also not aware if they needed this new solution and were just going ahead with it because the corporate office told them to do so.
In a situation like this, it becomes very important to align all the parties: The ones who sign off (C-level) and the ones who essentially drive the solution to be on the same page when a deal is won.
Internal Solution Strategic Teams:
Another reason that these solutions usually end up becoming very operational is when these solutions don’t have strategic teams working towards connecting the brand goals with what their solution has to offer.
This can be solved for by having a brand strategy driven team as a separate entity. Which, firstly understands what success looks like for brands and clients on a wider marketing scale, and secondly is able to find a connect for the solution in this overall success.
Martech and Adtech scene is pretty crowded currently, and involving yourself more deeply in a brand’s marketing road map vs just the tech road map should be a high priority for all solutions out there.
This, even, more so for those solutions which are more consumer facing in nature.
