What Is MarTech, and why is it important for nonprofit marketing?
In today’s increasingly digital world, marketers rely on online platforms to plan, implement, build, execute, and measure their campaigns. There is no way to avoid using a marketing platform online—this reality brought about the term marketing technology or MarTech. Simply put, MarTech is marketing!
One of the most exciting things about MarTech is that it is an ecosystem that includes AdTech, SalesTech, web optimization, and more. When you work in MarTech, you have the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues across many departments and specialties and help the entire organization achieve its goals, as well as with many different clients to help their missions and campaigns prosper.
What Is MarTech, and What Isn’t?
Defining what MarTech is and isn’t can be difficult; even experts disagree on a firm boundary. Even though the lines between what tools are and are not considered MarTech can be blurry, our experts have a few advised guidelines. How does Media Cause define that line?
✅ MarTech: Tools that help marketers reach their audience and create conversions are part of MarTech.
❌ Not MarTech: Tools that marketers use to go about their workday, like Google Calendar, Slack, or Zoom, are usually not part of MarTech and would only be a part of the marketing technology landscape if used as a conversion action.
Ultimately, the best delimiter is whether a MarTech tool supports the marketing team’s goals and initiatives. If your organization uses a platform or tool to support your business goals, you should include it as part of your MarTech. Any tool, platform, or website helping you reach an audience, get your message in front of them, and get them to convert is considered part of your marketing technology.
What Are the Critical Components of a Marketing Technology Stack?
If MarTech is the overall concept, then a MarTech stack is the list of all the tools a marketer uses to succeed. While this is an expansive topic, here is an overview to get you started:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM): A CRM helps marketers reach their current or potential customers and better understand relationships and interactions. Some CRMs include multiple tools, and others are more of a database of information.
- Content Management Systems (CMS): If you have a website, your CMS is how you create, modify, or delete content from your website pages.
- Email Marketing Platforms: An email marketing platform builds, sends, and measures email efforts. This can be part of a CRM or a stand-alone platform.
- Social Media Tools: This is a broad category of tools that includes the actual social media platforms themselves, where an organization can post and track interactions, as well as include third-party tools that aggregate data from multiple social media sites into one place.
- Automation and Integration Tools: This category of MarTech tools covers much ground. Many CRMs and email marketing platforms include the ability to automate some processes, but there are also third-party platforms that can help with different automation actions. If your organization has to use a tool to send data from a form to your CRM, that counts as an integration MarTech tool.
- Fundraising and Donation Tools: Most nonprofit organizations will have an online platform to collect donations and information about the donor. Fundraising platforms play a critical part for organizations, and, as such, are a MarTech tool.
- Analytics and Data Visualization Tools: If an organization builds reports or dashboards to showcase key marketing objectives or campaign results, these platforms are part of MarTech.
🛠 New Tools Come Out Every Day; How Do You Keep Up?
Every organization needs to keep their business goals in mind and focus on how they plan to accomplish them. MarTech is a constantly evolving landscape, as demonstrated by the rapid growth of AI technologies. The goal of every person working in MarTech is to be aware of all of the features of the tools you are currently using, stay up to date on what new releases those tools have coming up, and make an honest list of tools you would like to have.
Learn to Adapt and Align
Ultimately, marketing technology, or MarTech, is a dynamic and integral component of modern marketing strategies, encompassing a wide range of tools and platforms that assist in reaching and converting audiences effectively. As the landscape of MarTech continues to evolve with emerging technologies and trends, marketers must remain adaptable, staying informed about new tools and updates while aligning them with their organization’s and client’s specific goals.
Whether you are looking to set up MarTech systems for the first time or are hoping to bolster your current efforts, Media Cause experts are ready to help.