We all know marketing in tech is done differently to other industries, but what makes a great technology company marketing plan?

The IT and High-tech industries are well-known for innovation. But having a great product is only half of the work of a successful go-to-market strategy. Now more than ever, it's crucial for marketers to step up and add value, to help differentiate and stay ahead of the fierce competition in the sector. How do you do that? Read our steps to creating a winning marketing plan for your technology company.

Why invest in marketing for tech?

Worldwide IT spending in 2023 projected to total $4.6 trillion in 2021, an increase of 5.1% from 2022. Your marketing plan is more important than ever in securing your market share of that growth. Clearly, marketing plans for technology companies need to develop to take advantage of all the omnichannel tactics available to the…

E-commerce inbound marketing means attracting customers to your online store with engaging and relevant content to increase sales and conversions

E-commerce has rocketed over the last 12 months - and with it, inbound marketing tactics by savvy e-commerce marketers have picked up the pace, competing to attract customers to their site and win that sale. While a healthy e-commerce marketing strategy will always include a mixture of outbound and inbound marketing, with demand and competition peaking in 2021, there's little doubt that now is the time to focus on your e-commerce inbound marketing strategy to increase your return on investment. The numbers speak for themselves with e-commerce purchases accounting for 16% of all sales in the US in Q2. In fact, 9 countries were predicted over 20% growth in e-commerce post-COVID, the Asian Pacific market alone forecast $2,448.33 billion of E-commerce sales. With that in…

Personalization offers great opportunities for retailers to improve relevance across the customer lifecycle

Successful e-commerce marketing today requires consideration of the full customer path-to-purchase shown below across the Smart Insights RACE lifecycle planning framework. The infographic shows the vast number of omnichannel touchpoints across paid, owned, and earned media, both online and offline. Ultimately, a successful e-commerce experience for both site visitor and online businesses depends on relevance. If you connect a visitor with the most relevant products and offers, they will see the value and are more likely to convert. [si_guide_block id="125181" title="Download our Free Resource – E-commerce personalization buyer’s guide" description="Implementing an effective retail personalization strategy can be one of the most cost-beneficial decisions you can make towards increasing your online revenue, improving your online conversion and building a loyal and happy customer base."/]

What is personalization?

There…

Chart of the Week: 60% of marketers say personalization is a key strategy for improving the quality of leads being generated

Lead generation is an important part of marketing, especially now that many companies are getting rid of the internal silos and sales and marketing are working more closely together. However, it isn’t just the number of leads you need to consider when measuring success; you also need to take lead generation quality into account. The quality of your leads essentially tells you how likely they are to become customers, with high-quality leads being the most sought after. But exactly how do you attract leads that are more likely to convert? [si_guide_block id="116978" title="Download our Business Resource – Lead scoring and profiling guide" description="This guide will introduce you to the different ways you can score your leads and how you can classify them against your ideal buyer profiles."/] While there are a huge number…

Looking at what big B2C brands get right can help inform your strategy and show you what the next marketing trends are likely to be.

According to a recent survey, only 32% of B2C marketers thought that they were proficient in what they do. B2C marketing requires thoughtful strategizing and planning. It can also benefit from looking at what has worked for others and what hasn't. In this article, we’ll take a look at some B2C giants and the lessons we can learn from them to improve B2C marketing strategies. [si_guide_block id="57383" title="Download our Individual Member Resource – Website and e-commerce personalization guide" description="This guide is aimed at marketing managers involved with making the business case for personalization, looking to plan a personalization implementation or extend their use of personalization."/]

1. Amazon.com - the power of memberships

There are undoubtedly dozens of lessons that can be learned…

14 ways to segment your target audience for effective e-commerce personalization

As defined by Smart Insights, segmentation shows approaches to grouping prospects and customers to deliver more relevant communications and offers. The result is to give better response rates to these communications. In the marketing arena, personalization is a term often misused for segmentation. Personalization and segmentation, while both valuable tools for marketers, couldn't be more different. [si_guide_block id="140972" title="Segmentation and targeting workbook template" description="Review techniques to increase relevance and response across paid, earned, and owned media with our easy-to-use segmentation and targeting template."]

The personalization v segmentation debate

Segmentation is grouping customers together according to identifiable characteristics. Often, these are demographic characteristics such as age, geography, gender, favourite brand or AOV. Personalization is the optimizing of experiences and messages to individuals themselves — not the group they…

Personalization stats for 2018 and 2019 show that brands can stay competitive only through a personalized approach to every customer

Today more than ever before, customers are critical of the experiences they get. They want brands to treat them as personalities both online and offline. They no longer accept average offerings and consider customer service as a part of the product they purchase. The Salesforce State of Marketing research showed that in 2018 84% of customers required a personalized approach. [si_guide_block id="57383" title="Download our Individual Member Resource – Website and e-commerce personalization guide" description="This guide is aimed at marketing managers involved with making the business case for personalization, looking to plan a personalization implementation or extend their use of personalization."/] Behind the vague concept of personalization stand efforts of multiple departments and considerable investments. So how do you approach personalization the right way? How much to invest and in…

"There is nothing more important than understanding the customer journey and delivering personalized experiences to your customer" Michal Szaniecki, Managing Director SEAT and CUPRA, Volkswagen Group

The future of marketing is personal. Brands are looking to create an in-depth understanding of the customer journey and how they can offer personalized interactions. Knowing your customer and their journey is down to effective use of data, and with more touchpoints and levers available to marketers than ever before the opportunities to engage are ample. As we get ready for the Brand Marketing Summit Europe, we spoke with three leaders and summit speakers to discuss how to successfully engage your customers and the innovations that will shake the way you work up. Incite Group has brought together key figures from Aon, Volkswagen and Spark Networks to discuss the key issues affecting brands marketing strategies and where they see the big, exciting opportunities…

Take a look at some of the best personalization examples to help shape your web personalization strategy

In our last few posts we discussed that despite personalization being demanded by consumers, brands are facing some significant blockers when it comes to implementing full-scale personalization campaigns. We also discussed how the solution to the problem was to start with ‘essential personalizations’, which work around the blockers rather than try to solve them outright, but still deliver significant value.

In order to achieve the above, essential personalizations:

Require only the simplest integration with current systems, often just requiring the addition of one line of code. Are tried and tested by businesses in many sectors and have already proven their value. Enable the quickest return on investment, helping validate personalization for business and secure further investment. Require a minimal skill set to implement and present a simple and structured way for a team to gain…

Take a moment to recall the last time you received truly exceptional customer service

It’s probably not that easy to remember, right? Most businesses strive to give good customer service, but very few stand out above the rest for providing great customer service. If you do happen to remember such an occasion, the thing that probably makes it so memorable is the very fact it stood out as being extraordinary (i.e. not the norm). That check-in staff member who remembered your name. That shop assistant who went above and beyond to help you find the best product for your needs. That hotel manager who took the time to ask for your feedback and then gave you a voucher for your trouble (this one happened to me just months ago, and I now talk about it often). …