Many pundits say that people’s attention spans are shrinking, thanks to the multitude of channels vying for our attention. But I don’t think they’re shrinking—I think they’re evolving. Martech can be a part of that evolution.
What does this mean to marketing and sales? People want to brought into the conversation and engaged with, rather than just talked to, and, they want to receive customized messaging. Here are five martech recommendations to make that happen:
1- Customize your campaigns
Done well, customization unlocks the ability to create behavioral triggers that lead to higher engagement, since it relates to the user’s own experience. Choose tools that enable integration with customer databases, so they can then provide greater personalization. Continually work to refine this model using the data you collect, like customer and prospects’ product usage. Then, use your marketing automation platform to create forms with progressive profiling, and continuously enhance your understanding of individual customers.
2-Focus on delivering a muliti-dimensional story
Bring your audience into the conversation with interactive content and a visually compelling story. If your content is data-heavy, charts and other visual elements are a must. Be sure to move fluidly between topics, and reflect the flow of the conversation you’re having with your audience. A conversational storytelling approach will make your content far more engaging, memorable and impactful.
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3- Get comfortable with predictive and AI-enabled tools
Predictive technology helps you look at past data to see where you’ve had success, in order to iterate future strategies accordingly. That insight can also help you refine your process and assign a value score to new leads. Criteria such as company size, location and industry are all factors that contribute to the viability of a certain lead, so collecting this data from past deals can inform how likely new prospects are to convert into customers. That information also helps sales teams prioritize leads and manage pipelines. There’s even an opportunity to use machine learning to refine sales tactics continuously.
4- Utilize sophisticated marketing automation tools to refine your strategy
As tools and platforms become rapidly more intelligent, “speed to lead” strategies make far more sense for growth than traditional nurture flows and funnel organization.Tools that automatically alert salespeople to new leads in near real-time, or when a prospect is viewing content outside of a face to face meeting, can be the one element that makes or breaks a deal. Building a tech stack that combines AI-based predictive scoring, product usage, and response management with proprietary content allows marketing teams to accurately tier incoming leads, tailor engagement approaches, and more effectively target via marketing automation and iterative sales processes.
5- Use tools that integrate well together
This is probably my most important piece of advice. If your tools are snazzy but don’t communicate well with each other, you’re doing yourself—and your team—a great disservice. Without integrated tools, team collaboration will suffer. You will also struggle to bring your sales and marketing teams into alignment. That, in turn, can impact your bottom line: SiriusDecisions research shows that highly aligned sales and marketing operations (or functions) in B2B organizations achieve 19 percent faster revenue growth and 15 percent higher profitability.
So, to maximize the impact of your martech strategy, use integrated tools that help your team work together better. Solutions that provide real-time notifications from collaborators on changes, status updates and project recommendations are essential. The marketing technology you implement should also provide a complete picture of what’s working—and what isn’t. This way, your sales and marketing organization can stay in step with customers’ evolving attention spans and develop relevant messages, content, and tactics that will keep them engaged.
In today’s information environment where attention spans are evolving, competing for mindshare is one of the most formidable challenges for marketing professionals. Whenever you are in the position to tell your story, capturing audience attention and staying relevant is critical for success. Today’s martech tools can make all the difference—whether you are working to qualify and nurture leads, improve team efficiency, collaborate more effectively or deliver a game-changing marketing plan to decision makers, technology will help you to stand out, convey your ideas and add some sparkle to your story.
Nadjya Ghausi is vice president of marketing at Prezi.
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