You’ve probably heard it before: the best marketing strategies and tactics are only as good as the technology you use to execute them. And while that may be the truth, building an effective B2B marketing tech stack can be a daunting task. With thousands of tools and services available, it’s hard to know which ones are worth your time and money. But wait — there’s good news! While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for every business, there are a few key pieces of technology that every B2B marketer should have in their arsenal. In this post, we’ll walk you through the process of building the best B2B marketing tech stack — so if you’re not sure where to start or are looking for ways to optimize your current setup, here’s what you need to know.
What is a Marketing Tech Stack?
A marketing tech stack is a collection of tools and software that work together to help you create, execute and measure marketing campaigns. It’s what allows you to turn your marketing ideas into reality and make them work — but it’s also part of what makes marketing so complex. The problem is that there are literally hundreds of different tools out there — each claiming to help B2B marketers with everything from lead generation to social media analysis — so it can be hard to know which ones will actually help you achieve your goals.
What’s essential to understand is that the B2B marketing technology stack is a unique beast. It’s not just a combination of tools, but also the way they’re used together. This means that you can’t simply buy the most popular products and expect them to work well together; it takes more than that.
That said, when you finally have a strong marketing technology stack in place, it’s like having a superpower. It’s something that can help you do things you never thought possible — like track every single lead, automate your entire funnel and get extremely detailed data-driven insights that will help you make smarter decisions moving forward. For B2B marketing teams, this superpower can be the difference between being average and being amazing.
Using Technology in Your Marketing Strategy
In today’s digital world, marketing technology is the secret sauce that helps you stay ahead of the competition. The possibilities are endless and it can be used to create a seamless customer experience from start to finish, allowing you to get a crystal-clear view of your audience and their needs. In addition, this means you can deliver content that resonates with them and ultimately drives more sales.
Furthermore, one of the biggest advantages of using technology in a B2B marketing strategy is that you can automate many of the tasks that would otherwise take up valuable time. This is especially helpful if you’re part of a small business that may not have the resources or manpower to spare on repetitive work — such as sending out personalized email campaigns, monitoring social media and analytics, producing marketing reports and more. Incorporating a marketing automation tool like Marketo or HubSpot can significantly streamline your marketing operations. By automating workflows and repetitive tasks, your sales team can focus on nurturing leads and closing deals, while your marketing campaign performance can be tracked and optimized in real time.
But automating mundane tasks isn’t the only way to leverage technology in your marketing stack. Here are some other ways you can take advantage of it:
- Dynamic CTAs: Imagine always being at the forefront of your audience’s mind. This can help you stand out from the competition and build brand loyalty — and it’s possible with dynamic CTAs. These are effective because they change based on the user’s data, such as their location, device or previous actions.
- Lead scoring: There are tech-based tools that automatically measure the potential of your leads based on their actions. This way, you can prioritize which leads to focus on first and which ones are worth following up with. What’s more, this allows you to segment your contacts into different groups based on their behavior and use that information to determine what type of message will resonate best with them.
- Updating meeting slides: Never go back to manually update your meeting slides, when you can do it automatically. There are tools that will allow you to easily sync your data with your slides, so you can ensure that they are always up to date. This is especially useful if you’re managing a lot of accounts and meetings.
- Contact data enrichment: Leads are the lifeblood of any business, but if you don’t know who they are, it’s impossible to do anything with them. Data enrichment services will help you identify your leads and fill in any missing information so that you can build a more complete picture of them. This makes it much easier to send targeted emails and enable you to build a more personalized relationship with your prospects.
Building a Better Marketing Tech Stack
Now that you’ve got a good handle on what marketing technology can do for your business, it’s time to start building your own stack. There are many different components that go into this process, but here are some of the most important things to consider:
Identify Your Goals and Challenges
To avoid overwhelming yourself and your team, it’s important to take a step back and think about what you’re trying to accomplish with your marketing tech stack. What are some of the challenges that you face on a daily basis? How can technology help you overcome them? This will give you an idea of what features are most important for each marketing tool in your stack so that you can prioritize accordingly. For example, if your sales technology needs to integrate with a content management system for seamless account based marketing, you’ll want to ensure compatibility and ease of use.
Consider another scenario: Leveraging a martech tool like Sprout Social can enhance your ability to automatically schedule out social posts on multiple channels. Similarly, a robust SEO tool like Moz can make it easy to track performance on Google search for important keywords, making it simpler to automatically flag pages that need attention.
Research Your Potential Tools
Once you have a sense of your goals and challenges, it’s time to start researching the different marketing tech tools that could help you meet them. There are plenty of options out there, so make sure to do your research before making any decisions. Don’t forget to check out reviews from other customers and consider how each marketing tool integrates with other software that your team already uses (or plans on using in the future). For instance, the performance of Google Ad campaigns might be easier to track with an analytics tool like Looker Studio, or even Salesforce dashboards. And in some cases, free is the best way to go — Google Search Console, which provides insights into your website’s performance in Google search results, is the source of truth for SEO performance, and it costs nothing. Choosing tools wisely can be crucial for marketing leaders looking to refine their marketing campaigns and maximize ROI.
Organize Your Data
Next, you’ll need to organize all of the data that flows through your marketing channels. This can be done in a variety of ways:
- By type: Web analytics, lead generation, etc.
- By channel: Email, social media, etc.
- By campaign: Free trial sign-ups, newsletter opt-ins, etc.
The goal is to create a central repository for all of your customer data that is accessible to everyone on your marketing team. This will make it easier for you to track progress, spot patterns and trends, and make informed decisions about where to spend your marketing budget.
Stack Your Tools
This is where the fun begins! Now that you’ve organized your data, it’s time to make sense of it all by using the right tools. Make sure they’re able to integrate with each other, so you can easily combine data from multiple sources and get a complete picture of your marketing efforts. And remember, it’s not just about adding more tools to your stack — it’s about finding the right tools that work together harmoniously to achieve your marketing goals.
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