If automation is the core of your next-gen marketing platform, you’re missing the point
Next-gen platforms promise to bring AI and automation to marketing and brand. But if the strategy isn’t right, it’s essentially just throwing muck at the wall to see what sticks. Tanya Hyams-Young, CEO of SourseAI, explains why AI needs to support strategy first and foremost.
It appears the marketing world has a new toy, ‘next-generation marketing platforms’. These are tech platforms designed for ‘next-gen’ marketers who are more likely to embrace the latest technologies and marketing methodologies, in particular AI and automation.
I find the definition of a ‘next-gen marketer’ interesting because I don’t think there’s many luddites in the sector. In fact, I’d say most marketers are quick to embrace new tools, channels and tactics. Maybe even to a fault.
The business case for marketing tech is getting harder and harder to prove, largely thanks to a growing pipeline of projects that fail to impress or deliver true business value. Case in point, customer data platforms (CDPs).
The inaugural Forrester Wave for CDPs revealed firms are increasing investment in the area, but finding that extracting business value is harder than most thought. Everybody understands that customer data is vital, but if CDPs are struggling to generate value, there’s a risk that next-gen platforms could also fall into a long line of martech ideas that sounded great in theory, but hard in practice.
