WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: the best way to learn is to look at what others have built. It was the case for web base design using the "view source" option in browsers. Fro past years, chiefmartec Scott Brinker has been doing the same for marTech technology stacks and this is this year's best. Enjoy and maybe learn a bit from what others are doing...

WHY IT MATTERS: a long post on 3 key martech topics to pay attention for in 2022. Well researched, full of insights. Must read.

WHY IT MATTERS: I like the way RSG bundles solutions in categories that make sense and often are unique in the research landscape (as opposed say to gartner and forrester). Yet their analysis, and this post, highlight that the world of Customer Data Platforms - CDPs - remains confusing at best. 

WHY IT MATTERS: marketing has become a technology hot bed which warrants a hype cycle. Wow.

WHY IT MATTERS: essential read for all marketing and IT professionals interested in making sense of the marketing technology chaos.

WHY IT MATTERS: been ten years that marketing technologies have started to explode. This model from Forrester make sense of it all.

WHY IT MATTERS: great comparative study of 6 of the biggest tools with all kinds of great insight. Beware this is marketing material from sharpSpring with obvious biais!

WHY IT MATTERS: CDPs are maturing fast and should be considered first in organizations that look at centralizing the customer data.

WHY IT MATTERS: yes, technology and digital transformation affects all industries. Here a detailed look at beautyTech solutions.

WHY IT MATTERS: customer data platforms are starting to become more integrated into the web platforms. This book is a good summary of what's possible with a CDP. Just beware that there is an obvious bias towards the bloomreach solution - so do not discard the standalone version as they suggest!

WHY IT MATTERS: bear in mind that this list is pre-covid. But with so many retailers looking for solutions I felt this list to be useful. As with all WAVEs, have a big grain of salt and use the reviews , market positioning, etc. to prepare your own evaluations. And don'T discard solutions because they are not on the list. This is for B2C.

WHY IT MATTERS: open source solutions often don't make it in the gartner quadrant or forrester wave, yet they remain good solutions for the DIY crowd out there. Here a reference list to get started.

WHY IT MATTERS: biased for sharpspring (of course) this guide nevertheless is a great reference on features and pricing of top marketing automation solutions.

WHY IT MATTERS: this guide is specific about Google and Shopify but the principles apply to all eCommerce solutions and the various discovery channels out there (facebook, Amazon, etc.). It highlights the relative complexity and expertise required to let your eCommerce website standout in a sea of solutions. Retailers thus must learn new ways to market and merchandize their store and their products to standout online. In the illustration from the guide, just crafting the right title for your product names requires time and effort in order to make it easy for users to *find* your products on Google. Not easy, not simple. This is where Le Panier Bleu can help by reducing the clutter and making local retailers standout when buying local is a concern for shoppers...

WHY IT MATTERS: I love the quadrants, not so much for the ranking (often biased) but for the analysis. Jump to the end of the report to understand just how far we've come from phone based call centers to todays self-service and AI enabled mobile solutions.

WHY IT MATTERS: too many solutions in the marketing domain! This report can help identify solutions as it becomes more important to connect with customers and have a central repository of information

WHY IT MATTERS: useful comparison tool of 19 marketing automation solutions. Obviously biased in favor of Vbout but useful if you take it with the appropriate grain of salt.

WHY IT MATTERS: always great insights by RSG, this one is same. The net net: CDP is a great but immature technology with too many use cases and no solution that delivers on all of them. If you have a use case that mandates a CDP, go ahead and pick the best of breed solution that suits your needs. Otherwise, wait. So true.

Listening to the webinar I could not help and wonder: who in an organization should be leading a CDP implementation? The use case scream marketing but the technology requires IT skills and expertise. When will the role of marketingTechnologist finally become a reality?...

WHY IT MATTERS: software as a service or cloud based tools are often easy to connect. This example from Hubspot marketplace, with over 300 connections, is proof.

WHY IT MATTERS: learning from what best in class companies do is always good thing. This award from chiefmartech surfaces the best marketing technology "Stacks" - the list of technologies and solutions that marketing team at Cisco, IBM and others use to do their work - provides insights into the tools that companies leverage to do their work. And with over 6500 solutions in the marketing horizon, finding the "right" set of tools is so difficult that mapping yourself to what others are doing may be a good starting point!

WHY IT MATTERS: the marketing technology landscape is often confusing and this webinar presents a very good overview of the market and provides key insights to understand the macroscopic trends.

WHY IT MATTERS: say what you will, technology is often the driver of change. Always good to keep track of what's out there and what's possible because who knows, one of these may be useful... ;-)

Been tracking this technology landscape since its beginning in 2011 when it only referenced 150 companies. This remains one of the best tool to make CMOs and other executives understand that marketing is technology enabled and a leader in digital transformation in the organization.

Amazing reference of over 800 companies that deliver solutions for marketing automation and other marketing activities.