Marketing Management

Three quick pieces of news on the MarTech conference coming up in Boston, October 2-4: Seth Godin has been added as a keynote speaker to the MarTech program, where he’ll do a special afternoon keynote on October 3, “It’s Your Turn to Engage: Embracing The Work That Matters.” Seth is truly inspiring for all of us wrangling a new frontier of marketing and innovation, and I’m sure his presentation will be a fantastic way to …

Seth Godin now a MarTech keynote + last week for beta rates Continue Reading »

I have an allergy to hype. I know, that’s an unfortunate condition given that I’m in the field of marketing technology. It’s like being a lactose-intolerant maître fromager. Luckily, the symptoms are relatively mild — mostly involuntary rolling of the eyes and rapid finger twitching on the delete key. But I also have an addiction — I admit it — to stories of how marketing is changing. Not the hypothetical, buzzword-laden promises of change that …

Marketing + Technology + Management – Hype = MarTech Continue Reading »

I am excited to share with you one of the first entries to The Stackies: Org Edition awards. Rishi Dave, the CMO of Dun & Bradstreet, and his team just shared with me their “org stack” graphic above (click for a larger version). This is a terrific example of the kind of illustration that we’re hoping people will contribute to The Stackies. It reveals the five major functions of the marketing organization as seen from …

Where does martech fit in Dun & Bradstreet’s marketing org? Continue Reading »

As we were planning the upcoming MarTech conference for Boston, the Third Door Media team and I had an invigorating discussion about the philosophy of “martech.” What is martech? Who are the citizens in this growing community? What are the shared ideas and ideals that bring us together? What do we collectively aspire to achieve? Coming out of that conversation, I was inspired to take a pass at answering those questions with a written statement …

The Grand View of Martech: A Martech Manifesto Continue Reading »

We’ve been running The Stackies for three years now, where we’ve invited marketers to send in a single slide that visually illustrates their marketing tech stack. We run it as an awards program and a drive for charity (the last Stackies program raised $7,800 for Girls Who Code), with a little friendly competition and trophies at the end. But its main purpose is to encourage our community here to share ideas and experience with each …

What’s better than a marketing tech stack? Your marketing org stack Continue Reading »

I know, you get asked to participate in a ton of surveys. You’re super busy, and most of the time, the results of these studies are of dubious value to your actual work. So it’s easy to pass on taking them. But if you like the content of my blog, and have ever found it helpful, I’d personally ask you to participate in this survey: Marketing Organizations in the Age of Martech. I also believe …

What do marketing orgs look like in the martech age? Let’s find out Continue Reading »

One of the points I raised when we released the 2017 marketing technology landscape was that “the platformization of marketing technology” was now fully underway. Heterogeneous marketing stacks have become the norm. Even if many of the integrations between different marketing technologies in a stack are still relatively “shallow” — i.e., passing around fairly lightweight data, such as contact record fields, activity events, and common campaign identifiers — there is nonetheless a basic level of …

Is marketing technology entering a post-platform era? Continue Reading »

Okay, I admit it. I’ve just been waiting for an excuse to post this “5 Stages of Martech” chart. These stages were originally slides in the opening keynote at MarTech San Francisco back in May, when we unveiled the 2017 marketing technology landscape. I figured a little comic relief was in order as we contemplated life in a world of 5,000+ marketing technology vendors. But just a few months later, The Martech 5000 doesn’t seem …

Struggling through the 5 stages of martech? Let’s learn together Continue Reading »

The agenda for MarTech Boston, October 2-4, has just been posted, and I am once again awed and humbled by the incredible cast of speakers who have agreed to participate. If you want to understand the real truth of how to lead at the intersection of marketing, technology, and management, this will be a two-day conference you won’t want to miss. Let’s start with the keynotes: David Edelman, CMO of Aetna, on B2C marketing and …

Check out the amazing speakers who will be at MarTech Boston Continue Reading »

It’s a scenario straight out of Kiefer Sutherland’s TV series 24. There’s a ticking time bomb somewhere in the city. The only way to stop it is to torture a captured suspect into revealing its location. Yes, torture is wrong. But is it worth it to save the lives of hundreds of innocent people? What do you do? This hypothetical dilemma has come up so many times in both fiction and serious philosophical and ethical …

If a marketing tactic works, but people hate it, should you use it? Continue Reading »