Get Stacked 2020 was B2B Marketing’s first virtual conference ever. Hosted by Joel Harrison and Shane Redding, various speakers shared insights on optimising their martech stack while adapting to our new working environment.
The day kicked off with B2B Marketing’s insights based on a survey of 300 B2B marketers. The report findings revealed marketers show increasing levels of frustration among practitioners and highlighted a number of issues including: technology deployment, resource management and the behaviour of the vendors themselves.
With that in mind, our breakout sessions and keynotes were packed with savvy tips to overcome the complexities with marketing technology. Here were some key takeaways from our two day event.
Make personalisation relevant to buyers
On day one, managing director for Webeo, Kirsty Dawe, presented an interesting concept: If B2B personalisation is a utopia, how we can bridge the gap with technology? After all, just because it’s personal, doesn’t mean it’s useful.
As B2B marketers, we need to focus less on what we already intuitively know about our customers and more on a keyword Kirsty hones in on: relevance. This can be achieved through building data efficiently, using personas across channels and segmentation.
She concluded: “We should be focusing on using personalisation to make it more relevant for them. One powerful tool to let people in is content, not just about your product, but actually helping customers with topics they’re generally interested in.”
How to tame the martech beasts
Emily Gravel, marketing automation manager at VMware Carbon Black, gave some key insights to wrangling your martech beast. She presented the first simple step, which is to understand your beast and then to identify which out of the three types of tech stacks you currently implement: the band aid stack, the over-customised stack and the IDGAF stack.
Emily also shared how marketers can cultivate their own tech stack dictionary and when it’s finally appropriate to unleash your martech beast.
Torstone Technology global head of marketing, Payal Raina, also used the term ‘martech beast’ but related it back to customer experience in her presentation on delivering ‘frictionless’ CX through marketing technology.
On day two of Get Stacked, she shared how to maintain both automation with humanisation to create a better buyer experience. Marketers can by accomplish this by optimising CRM, lead generation, and customer service martech tools. With her insights, businesses can now increase productivity, gain better data and insights, and engage customers more consistently.
Taking a leap with digital transformation
That human element should never get lost when thinking about your tech stack, whether you’re just starting out or have been implementing martech for ages. In Sunstar Global’s Kelly Hungerford’s presentation, she talked about how Sunstar Europe decided to be bold and ‘leap frog’ when the oral health company could’ve played it safe at the time.
She says: “If you asked us what our digital transformation process felt like, it was like racing a high speed boat and building it at the same time.”
Kelly also shared why customer experience is more important than price in martech and how Sunstar Europe succeeded in redesigning its marketing operations from bottom up.
Get back to the basics
Interestingly enough, our closing speakers for both days, Ed Nevraumont and Chris Boorman, both reiterated the same sentiment in their presentation: keep it simple. In times like today, slowing down and going back to the basics makes all the sense in the world.
During Ed’s career, he always reminded himself to keep it simple, especially in an oversaturated industry filled with endless martech solutions. In his presentation, Ed shared the top tips to optimising and simplifying your tech stack in order to show ROI and growth to your company.
Chris discussed how Forcepoint ‘slowed things down to speed up’ when the company realised their marketing automation was holding them back. Some quick win tips included: Focus on the problems you face, don’t let technology drive your decisions, and learn from others as much as possible.
Recharge, power on and cheers
It wouldn’t be a B2B conference without a little bubbly to end our event. We were not sure what to expect at the first go-around, but it far exceeded our expectations due to our adaptable staff and outstanding speakers. Thanks to those who participated and stay tuned for our next digital experience.
