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Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey report shows that CMOs remain bullish on technology, and technology accounts for the largest percentage of marketing budgets at 26.2%. The Gartner research also shows that marketers use only 58% of their existing technology capabilities, which means that there is more to do with technology in the marketing sector.
As a result of COVID, in 2021, digital transformation has already seen exceptional growth. The pandemic has pushed years of transformation through in a few weeks. Based on our market research, the following are the key trends we noticed that are emerging already in the MarTech space. Many of them you would have already seen in the previous section, or will be explained in detail in the coming sections.
The ubiquity of smart devices means brands will have to create more variations of content in the coming decade that are optimized for each smart tech device and across the smart tech ecosystem. Be it for smartwatch creatives or ads for smart fitness equipment, voice search optimization, and so on.
Cloud Migration
Data is the core asset of the MarTech industry, and problems often appear when it comes to a marketing technology stack that has to work with significant information loads. Brands are migrating to cloud-based MarTech solutions.
MarTech software has to work with significant data loads that may grow dramatically in particular circumstances. At a specific point, bandwidth demands may exceed the capacity of the application. While using cloud based MarTech engineering, you get an opportunity to scale your software up and down more efficiently. The scaling of on-premises applications may require you to buy expensive hardware and install costly upgrades. It provides significant opportunities for the development of MarTech business solutions that deal with immense data loads. Such solutions are used for creating highly scalable and secure applications, with advanced disaster recovery functions. Also, such solutions provide a significant marketing technology stack that allows delivering flexible apps at an affordable price.
Blockchain
Blockchain enhances the trust between marketers and their target audience, by creating a transparent environment where one party doesn’t feel exploited.
MarTech capabilities will experience a fundamental paradigm shift from traditional functional categories of siloed, vertically optimized systems (UX + IP + Data), to thin, scenario-optimized UI/UX solutions built on commoditized, open systems, leveraging the core app and bridge protocols, based on Blockchain technology. While current MarTech solutions compete, based on how well the entirety of their stack delivers value on its own and/or via interoperability with other siloed, vertical solutions, Blockchain MarTech solutions will compete based on their interoperability across a variety of open algorithms.
The customer will be empowered to dictate the how, what and when of personalized communications, with a corollary increase in trust in the tracking and accountability of the use of their personal data, especially given increasing customer desire for and regulations concerning Privacy such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Extended Reality (XR)
As the new normal continues to actualize, the best of both worlds, pre and post-pandemic marketing, are combining to create the new industry standard, going forward. The extended reality, abbreviated as ‘XR,’ is a term that’s earning new recognition. Extended reality represents the combination of augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality. XR technologies, pulling from all three fields, are meant to extend the reality that consumers or users experience, by merging the real world and the virtual world in varied combinations.
The potential impact that XR technologies could have on both in-store and out-of-store consumer marketing is unlimited. Use cases often go beyond industry verticals and field specifications. For example, extended reality can be used both to test and sell major purchases—home appliances, investment furniture, high-end fashion, cars, etc. Brands can use XR to offer fully immersive experiences, designing specialty experiences, branded video games, and elevated shopping experiences. The same technologies can also revolutionize healthcare, helping with physical therapy and even serving as a distraction method to supplement or substitute putting patients under anaesthesia. They can pave the way for safer training and operation in manufacturing industries, while across all industries, XR can change the way professionals interact with their teams—as soon as we are hosting brainstorming sessions in a shared virtual space, the remote V/s return-to-office debate might take a back seat.