A number of people have been asking me when the 2016 version of my marketing technology landscape will be released. The short answer is “soon.”
But I’ll share some more color if you’re interested…
For the past two years, I’ve gotten in the habit of working on that landscape over the Christmas and New Year holidays. Things quiet down for those couple of weeks, and I sit out on the deck of my brother-in-law’s house, in a typically warmer climate, and assemble the far majority of the landscape in that time. I actually enjoy working on it — like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, but one where you have to go hunting for the pieces out on the Internet.
This year, however, two things caused this to take much longer than I originally anticipated.
First, as you might surmise from the picture at the top of this post — the view from my chair as I sat down to work on this year’s version — I decided to reorganize the landscape. (Don’t read too much into the design shown in that photo, as that was very early in the process.) I’ll have more to say about the new design with the final release, but I believe the marketing technology space has shifted in interesting — and arguably counter-intuitive — ways that could be better represented by a different layout.
However, rethinking groupings and categories — and re-evaluating vendors through this new lens — has proven to be a fairly intense exercise, requiring more time to get it right.
Second — and the amusing irony of this is not lost on me — I underestimated the number of marketing technology companies out there today. I won’t make a prediction as to the number that will be on the final release of my landscape graphic, as space constraints will force me to make this “a very large representative sample” at best. But suffice to say, the industry has not shrunk.
The dynamics of this industry keep getting more fascinating every year. So I promise, I’ll have an updated landscape for you soon with some really interesting points for discussion.
In the meantime, as a brief diversion from the real work of categorizing the space, I’ll share with you a couple of amusing categories of marketing tech companies, such as the Marketing Blues:
And Buzz Marketing (or perhaps I should have called it “Marketing Cross-Pollination”):
Clearly, the killer martech company of 2016 will be named “BlueHive” — I joke, but of course, that’s already a real company.
Okay, okay, I’m going back to work on that gigantic jigsaw puzzle now. Stay tuned!
P.S. By the way, if you’re interested in the continuing evolution of marketing technology, be sure to check out the MarTech conference this March — two days of in-depth sessions by leading experts and practitioners in the field, dozens of innovative martech companies, and over 1,000 peers. Beta rates expire Feburary 13, so sign-up before then!
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