6 Takeaways From MarTech Conference 2022

the 2022 MarTech® Conference may have ended last week, but the insights we got from the info-packed sessions are incredibly valuable. If you missed the 2-day conference, don’t worry! We distilled what we learned into 6 big takeaways for business owners.

1. Empathy matters

The first takeaway from the MarTech Conference is what customers expect when being sold to. There are three pillars to look for. first, empathy is key. Customers want to know if you understand them or if you’re just trying to make a quick sale. Do you recognize their desires and goals? You’re not empathizing with your customers unless you can answer those questions.

Secondly, there’s transparency. Customers don’t want to feel tricked or lied to. They want to feel like you’re being honest with them, and they are being heard. Customers want to know what products and steps in the conversation are coming next, honestly and forthrightly.

Finally, there’s responsiveness. Customers don’t want to be treated like a number. Instead, communicate and treat them with the utmost importance. Take the time to get to know your customers’ wants and serve them accordingly.

2. Are your customers ready to buy?

According to Gleanster Research, 50% of the leads in any system are not yet ready to buy. Take that in for a moment! Half the leads in any system are not in “buy mode” yet. So when you’re marketing, it’s key to remember that you’re not selling to people already determined to buy something.

Part of the process of selling is nurturing the 50% that’s unsure into becoming part of the 50% that is ready to buy. This will take time and effort, but through empathy, transparency, and responsiveness, you can help people realize the time to buy is now.

3. Remember, your audience is human

The third takeaway keeps building upon the ideas of empathy, transparency, and responsiveness. Humans are your audience, not MQLs, SQLs, or leads! People are, well, people! And people want to be treated as such. If you look at your customers as numbers, you’re going to sell to them like they’re numbers.

If you sell to people like they’re numbers, they’ll feel like you’re not being genuine with them and won’t want to work with you. Keeping the human in the sales process is essential. Remember, behind every lead is a person who wants to be comfortable with who they’re buying from.

4. Go through your own workflows

Fourth, it’s important to experience your workflows from the outside in. As the one who created the workflows, you may believe everything is perfect and seamless for potential customers. However, customers who are going through your workflows may completely disagree.

There are 4 important questions to ask yourself as you go through your workflows:

• Does this make sense?
• Is this what I expected?
• Is this interesting?
• Does this provide value?

If you can answer those questions in positive ways, then you’re set. However, there is a good chance that when you go through those questions, you’ll find ways you can improve things for your customers.

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5. Avoid the “creep factor” when using personalization

Personalized marketing continues to be an essential strategy for businesses and one that is preferred by most consumers. According to Accenture, 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that offer a personalized experience. In addition, nearly half of consumers changed their buying behavior and switched to a different brand during the pandemic because they weren’t getting the personalized experiences they wanted.

However, with access to all that data, it’s important to avoid pushing personalization to a disruptive level.

“Find the right balance between how personalized we can make an experience, but make sure it’s not overly personalized to the point where someone might view it as creepy…”

Ryan Fleisch
Director, Product Marketing, Real-Time CDP and Audience Manager
Adobe

Finding this balance takes empathy. Ask yourself, “how disruptive would it be if you responded to your customer using this specific data point?” When you see that a customer visited a specific section on your site, it’s creepy to call them asking questions about it. But if you send messages to your customer about topics they showed interest in, that would be more of a complementary approach.

Engage customers with useful content that is right for them at the moment. Rely on data points to determine what kind of content will be useful for your audience, including:

• Customer information like the products and services they have
• The level of engagement or progress within your products
• How they’re interacting with your digital experiences

6. Get in alignment with rapidly evolving consumer preferences

Consumers have had to adapt and change their day-to-day lives through two years of the pandemic. For many people, home-first has become the way of life. That means more investments have been made to make their homes able to do more. According to Gartner58% of consumers think the pandemic will have lasting effects on how they view their homes, up from 12% in 2020.

“Marketers must recognize that consumers are in the midst of an exhausting practical and spiritual overhaul.”

Kate Muhl
Vice President Analyst
Gardener

It’s clear that these changing behaviors will also transfer how and where consumers will purchase products and services. Now, businesses and marketers need to embrace that more consumers will have a home-first mentality. Make sure your brand and offerings are accounting for consumers that will be thinking about how they can have an experience at home first. See if you can find a hybrid between digital and real life. Find ways to use one to enhance the other.

A perfect example of this was shared during a session with Trinh Tam, EVP Marketing & E-Commerce at Harry Rosen, a men’s luxury clothing store. They transformed an in-person experience into a digital one with virtual laydowns. Typically, an in-store stylist will pick out 2-3 complete outfits and lay them out for a customer to evaluate. But now, through the use of a custom in-house app, stylists are sending virtual laydowns for customers to view online. Customers then have the option to either buy the whole outfit online or come into the store to see, feel, and try on the pieces in real life.

Wrapping up the 2022 MarTech Conference

Now that you know our 6 big takeaways from the MarTech Conference, you can apply them to grow your business, build stronger customer relationships, and run a more efficient marketing strategy.
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