Maximizing the Benefits of Martech: A Customer-Centric Approach

Imagine the perfect marketing scenario where every interaction feels personal, every message resonates, and every experience delights. Sounds amazing, right?

It should be possible with all the available martech tools—as long as you put customers at the center of your marketing.

New martech tools—especially with the rise of gen AI—have revolutionized how marketers connect with their customers, providing powerful ways to gather, analyze, and act on data like never before. With martech, you can transform raw data into actionable insights for more meaningful customer interactions and sustained growth.

Martech tools and strategies should place the customer at the heart of every decision (a.k.a. human-centric marketing), leading to better feedback, engagement, and satisfaction. 

Here are five ways to achieve it.

1. Deeper Insights Into Customer Behaviour

The first step is to understand your audience better. Martech’s advanced data analytics tools give you insights into customer behaviour. 

Even popular free tools like Google Analytics (GA4) allow you to do that. You can track user interactions on your website, revealing patterns, such as which pages draw the most attention and where visitors drop off. This information helps you refine your website to meet customer needs better.

Also, customer data platforms (CDPs) consolidate data from various sources into a comprehensive customer profile. These platforms gather information from social media, email campaigns, purchase history, and more. With this unified view, you can identify trends and preferences that might go unnoticed. For example, a CDP might reveal that a customer who engages frequently with your email newsletters also tends to make purchases during sales events.

Social listening tools monitor brand mentions and customer sentiment across social media channels. These tools capture real-time feedback on what customers say about your brand, products, and competitors. Analyzing this data lets you identify emerging trends and potential issues before they escalate. For instance, a spike in negative comments about a product feature can prompt immediate action to address the concern.

These martech tools collectively provide a deep understanding of your customers’ preferences, behaviours, and pain points. With this knowledge, you can tailor your marketing strategies to better align with customer expectations.

2. Increased Customer Engagement and Loyalty

Martech enables you to create highly-personalized marketing campaigns by leveraging customer data to deliver targeted and relevant content. 

• Dynamic ad generators allow you to craft ads tailored to individual preferences, making each interaction more engaging for your audience. 
• Personalized email marketing platforms like HubSpot let you send customized messages that resonate with your customers’ unique interests and behaviours.
• AI-powered tools further enhance personalization by analyzing vast amounts of data to predict customer needs and preferences. 

StackAdapt, for instance, uses an advanced patented algorithm to deliver personalized ads efficiently, driving engagement and performance. StackAdapt’s AI-powered tools ensure your ad campaigns reach the right audience at the right time, maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts.

Personalization significantly boosts customer engagement, conversion rates, and loyalty. For instance, 89% of marketers see a positive return on investment (ROI) when using personalization in their campaigns.

• Customers receiving content that speaks directly to their needs and interests are more likely to engage with your brand. 
• Personalized emails have higher open and click-through rates, leading to more conversions. 
• Dynamic ads that align with customer preferences result in better engagement, making your campaigns more effective.

3. Seamless and Consistent Customer Interactions

Martech supports omnichannel marketing strategies, which provide seamless and consistent customer interactions across various channels. Tools like Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Sprout Social integrate email, social media, mobile apps, and in-store experiences, creating a unified customer journey.

Using these tools, you can maintain consistent messaging and branding, regardless of your customers’ platform. This consistency is crucial for building trust and ensuring customers have a coherent experience with your brand. For example, if a customer starts an interaction on social media and continues via email or in-store, martech makes the transition smooth, and the messaging remains aligned.

Unified customer experiences help build strong relationships and drive satisfaction. Customers feel understood and valued when they receive a seamless experience across all touchpoints. This consistency impacts their perception of your brand and makes it easier for them to engage with you across different platforms.

Omnichannel strategies also allow you to track customer interactions across various channels, providing a comprehensive view of their journey. This insight enables you to tailor your marketing efforts to meet customers where they are and deliver relevant content at the right time.

4. Improved Responsiveness and Satisfaction

Martech facilitates real-time customer support and interaction, enhancing your responsiveness and boosting customer satisfaction. Chatbots, live chat tools like Zendesk and Intercom, and AI-powered customer service platforms enable you to provide prompt and effective support around the clock.

Chatbots handle routine inquiries efficiently, allowing your team to focus on more complex issues. These tools can respond instantly to common questions, helping customers find the information they need without delay. Live chat tools allow real-time communication with your customers, offering personalized support when needed.

AI-powered customer service platforms take this further by analyzing customer interactions to provide context-aware responses. These platforms can anticipate customer needs based on previous interactions, ensuring that your support is quick, but also relevant and helpful.

Prompt and effective customer support significantly improves the overall customer experience. Customers who receive quick resolutions to their problems develop a positive perception of your brand. This responsiveness fosters trust and loyalty, as customers feel valued and cared for.

Moreover, real-time interactions allow you to gather immediate feedback, helping you identify areas for improvement. This continuous feedback loop ensures you can promptly address any issues, further enhancing customer satisfaction.

5. Continuous Improvement and Innovation

Martech plays a crucial role in collecting and analyzing customer feedback, driving continuous improvement and innovation in your business. Feedback tools like SurveyMonkey, Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, brand lift studies, and social media polls help you gather valuable insights directly from your customers.

• Survey tools allow you to create and distribute surveys that capture detailed feedback on various aspects of your products and services. 
• NPS surveys measure customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend your brand to others. This simple yet powerful metric provides a clear indication of customer satisfaction and potential areas for improvement.
• Brand lift studies uncover the impact of your advertising campaigns in influencing audience perception or setting a baseline for awareness.
• Social media polls engage your audience in real-time, giving you immediate feedback on new ideas or changes.

Actively seek and incorporate customer feedback to align with customer needs and expectations. For example, feedback collected through surveys and polls can highlight specific product features that customers love or identify pain points that need addressing. You can make informed decisions that improve your products and services by acting on this feedback.

This customer-centric approach helps develop new features, products, and services that resonate with your audience.

Putting It All Together

Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario where a B2B company implements these five steps.

1. The company uses GA4 and a CDP to track and analyze customer interactions on its website and across its marketing channels. They discover that their target audience engages mostly with webinars and whitepapers on data security.
2. Using dynamic ad generators and personalized email platforms, the company creates targeted campaigns promoting its data security solutions. StackAdapt’s personalized ad delivery boosts engagement by reaching the right audience at the right time, leading to higher click-through rates and more qualified leads.
3. The company integrates Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Sprout Social to deliver consistent messaging across email, social media, and mobile app. Customers receive a seamless experience, whether they engage via social media, email newsletters, or the company’s app.
4. The company implements chatbots and live chat tools to provide real-time support on its website. Customers receive instant answers to their queries, and more complex issues are efficiently escalated to human agents.
5. The company uses surveys to gather feedback after product demos and customer support interactions. They identify a common request for more advanced data visualization features. Acting on this feedback, the company develops and launches new features, aligning its product more closely with customer needs and staying competitive.

Implementing these five steps is a great way to leverage martech to put your customer at the heart of your marketing strategy. 

Ready to explore how StackAdapt can help you win more business? Request a demo today to find out.