Have you ever wondered what a marketing tech stack is? Are you currently looking for the best marketing tools your startup needs to start using this year? If the answer to these two statements is “yes,” then this is the article for you.
As the marketing sector continues to adapt to the changing technological landscapes, marketers and start-up owners like you face many challenges. Choosing the right tools for your business from the thousands out there can seem like a challenging task.
Not only that, you also need to make sure that the tools you use are cost-effective, can be used for different platforms, and can be integrated with existing tools. It sure sounds like a lot!
Fortunately, in this article, we give you the lowdown on how to build your startup's marketing tech stack. Plus, we also recommend some of the best tools out there to help you get started.
What is a Marketing Stack?
Before we dive into the how, we first have to answer the key question: What is a marketing stack? A digital marketing stack, or a MarTech stack, is a collection of interconnected tools, technologies and software solutions that amplify your marketing efforts.
This stack includes tools that cover a wide range of functions, including email marketing, social media management, analytics, content creation, customer relationship management (CRM), and more.
Each company has a unique marketing tech stack, depending on the type of business, their niche, goals, audience and brand.
By choosing tools that complement your business and your brand, and integrating them into a cohesive system, you can gain incredible insight into customer behavior and interactions to optimize your campaigns, and ultimately, reach your marketing KPIs.
Essentially, your marketing stack should serve as the backbone of your business. A well-curated stack should not only help you connect the dots across all the various marketing platforms your startup uses. It also needs to be agile, scalable, and adaptable to the changing needs of both your market and your audience.
8 Steps to Build the Ultimate Digital Marketing Stack + Tool Recommendations
1. Assess your startup's needs
It's easy to get lost in the maze of all the amazing marketing tools there are out there. To avoid this, you need to start by assessing your startup's unique needs. Ask yourself and your marketing team questions like:
- What are your marketing objectives?
- Who's your audience?
- Which areas of your marketing strategy need to be optimized?
- Understanding your requirements can help narrow down the options and find the tools that will actually benefit you.
2. Focus on integration
An optimized digital marketing stack is all about having tools that integrate well with one another. Therefore, make sure you look for interoperable tools that allow you to transfer data and results without much effort.
In addition, opt for platforms that not only offer robust APIs, but also offer third-party integrations and regular updates. This ensures they're compatible with your existing tools and – most importantly – will remain compatible.
Recommended tool: If you're running an e-commerce startup, Shopify integration is next-level. This is because it integrates with a wide array of tools, enabling you to view performance analytics, manage automation flows and customize your checkout experience.
For example, it integrates with GA4's web analytics and automatically sends customer data to Google Analytics, enabling you to analyze website data with Google Analytics without having to create additional code.
3. Prioritize AI-powered automation
It's no secret that AI-assisted tools are the future. Therefore, incorporating AI-powered tools will not only speed up a lot of repeat processes but also help you with tasks such as predictive analytics, personalized content recommendations and lead scoring.
By opting for these types of tools, you not only manage to free up precious time and resources but also future-proof your startup.
Recommended tools: Ubersuggest is a versatile SEO tool that allows you to take control of your SEO strategy without investing in a ton of different tools.
It offers a wide range of features, including keyword research, website SEO audit, competitor research and backlink analysis. In addition, it also includes an AI-powered writing tool, AI Writer 2.0, which helps polish your content so that it's more SEO-optimized.
ZillionDesigns’ Free AI Logo Maker is another user-friendly tool that helps businesses create unique logos with the use of AI (powered by ChatGPT). By answering 3-4 simple questions the logo maker gets to work and provides you with an original design that encapsulates your brand image based on your input.
4. Embrace omnichannel marketing
Digital marketing in 2024 is all about providing seamless experiences across multiple devices and channels. Irrespective of whether you're building a B2C or B2B marketing tech stack, your solutions need to support omnichannel marketing.
This allows you to connect with your current audience and potential customers via email, mobile apps, your website and social media at various points of the marketing funnel. Not only that, but it also allows you to analyze integrated data from all these different channels and make informed decisions, rather than relying on guesswork.
Whether you're focused on growing your mailing list, improving your customer service or increasing sales, it's a flexible and scalable option that can be tailored to your business needs.
Recommended tool: Hubspot is a complete CRM platform and a one-stop marketing platform. With six hubs – Sales Hub, CMS Hub, Service Hub, Marketing Hub, Commerce Hub, and Operations Hub – it's an end-to-end solution for every marketing channel.
5. Prioritize data analytics
Data-driven decision making is crucial for any business' success. Therefore, opt for advanced analytics tools that can analyze campaign effectiveness, monitor audience behavior, and track KPIs.
In addition, prioritize platforms with advanced reporting and predictive modeling capabilities. These features allow you to visualize data and gain actionable insights that you can implement immediately.
Recommended tool: Hotjar is an analytics and feedback platform that goes one step ahead of what the typical analytics platform does. This is because it helps you visualize and understand each user's interaction with your website. Tools include:
- Heatmaps (visual representation of user interaction data)
- Session recordings (real-time recordings of user sessions on your website)
- Conversion funnel analysis (visualize the user's journey through conversion paths on your site) and granular analytics into user behavior.
6. Ensure scalability and flexibility
As your startup flourishes, you need tools in your marketing tech stack that can stay with you at every step of the way. Therefore, make sure you choose solutions that can accommodate an increase in audience volume, employee numbers, website traffic and engagement without compromising quality and performance.
Ensure that these same platforms offer some degree of customization. You don't want to get stuck with a marketing tool that can't adapt to your business' growing needs!
7. Consider your budget and ROI
While it's tempting to invest in that one cutting-edge (but super expensive) tool you've been eyeing on social media, you need to make sure you get all the tools you need and stay within your startup's budget.
Before opting for a tool that's a bit more expensive than you'd like, do a cost-benefit analysis to determine its return on investment. This way, you can identify which tools you simply cannot live without, and ensure that you get the best value for your money.
8. Keep up with the latest trends
Building the ultimate marketing tech stack doesn't happen overnight. Rather, it requires hours of research, price comparisons and adjustments.
To ensure that your MarTech stack remains competitive, keep up to date with the latest trends and technologies. Ask your team to identify areas for improvement and keep an eye on new tools that can benefit your startup. Keep an open mind and be willing to adjust your stack as your startup grows.
Level up your marketing game!
It's safe to say that creating the ultimate marketing tech stack is a multi-faceted and ongoing journey. As the digital landscape continues to change and evolve, marketing tools can make or break your business.
From keyword research to analytics, your digital marketing stack should cover all stages of your startup's marketing funnel. It also needs to help you make informed decisions about the future of your marketing strategy, and ultimately, your business.
By investing in the right tools, your startup can harness the full potential of all the great tools and technologies on the market and drive growth not only in 2024, but also beyond.
Power of SaaS CRM in 2024
As a new company, you want to keep costs low, and paying for business software monthly is a better way to do it.
All you have to do now is pay to subscribe and get the most out of your WordPress CRM plugin.
However, this is only the tip of the iceberg; SaaS CRMs provide a slew of other advantages, especially if you’re a Startup.
Five Ways SaaS CRMs May Help Your Firm Run Smoothly
Here's a quick rundown:
SaaS-based CRM Industry Overview
The market for SaaS CRM software is fiercely competitive.
This is beneficial to anyone looking to purchase a cost-effective customer management product.
Because of the high level of competition in the market, any prominent software provider you pick will supply you with high-quality CRM systems.
As a result, this is practically a buyer's marketplace, and with so many possibilities to select from, you may find the best one for your business needs.
Because the market is so dynamic, you can find the suitable organization to offer long business solutions in a single package if you choose wisely.
If you have selected the correct SaaS CRM firm, they'll most likely provide a wide range of CRM-related functions.
This can significantly lower your entire work time while greatly improving your overall performance.
Top Benefits of Employing A SaaS-Centric CRM Solution for Your Enterprise
Swiftly Manage & Maintain Customer Relationships
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is critical to the sustainability of any enterprise.
They can enable you to conserve time and money by effectively managing client relationships and ensuring your employees are on the same page.
CRM solutions have always aided in the improvement of client relations.
The sales closing rate may be increased by 29%, and overall sales productivity can be increased by 34% with the application.
Forecast accuracy can ideally be enhanced by 42% because of the software's capacity to track a consumer journey and share it with relevant teams.
Timely Updates for SaaS CRM
CRM software for SaaS businesses is updated regularly.
Subscribers receive fresh upgrades that improve functionality and improve the overall experience because they are online on-cloud systems that are periodically enhanced.
Consequently, this will benefit your company tremendously.
You will profit from the CRM as it is developed by the firm that created it.
This is far superior to CRM with a lifetime license because you will always be at the forefront of technological innovation thanks to regular updates.
This is especially true with SaaS CRMs because you don't have to pay for anything other than upgrades.
Organizations want to expand, and their ability to do so depends largely on the tools they employ.
You can get a lot more out of each business day if you have the appropriate technology at your disposal.
This has an effect on the user's overall experience.
A CRM that crashes and disrupts your customer database, for example, is a waste of money and time.
If it is updated with a bug fix, you can expect it to perform reliably.
As a result, CRM specific for SaaS businesses can provide enormous value through periodic updates.
These updates can assist in driving the business forward by removing or addressing any glitches or errors in the system.
Rapid Diagnostics Test
Troubleshooting software performance and functions are essential for utilizing any digital business tool.
It's much more significant with CRMs because it influences how successfully you'll be able to use them.
If you acquire a SaaS-based CRM for your Startup, you should have no problems.
Typically, such software is well-developed and performs admirably.
It's possible, however, that you'll be stranded with some feature or glitch on the CRM.
Alternatively, the CRM may malfunction, in which case you will have to debug it.
Rapid diagnostic solutions are available from most of the leading SaaS CRM businesses.
They have programmers on staff who can typically respond to queries quickly.
Because SaaS-based programmers are always improving their products, they are conscious of the issues that their CRM may encounter.
In contrast, perpetual license CRM providers take a long time to respond to operational challenges or user inquiries.
As a result, your roadblock is quite likely to be fixed promptly when you opt for a SaaS-centric CRM solution.
Maintains Data Privacy
Cloud services are better suited for dealing with adware and malware threats since they are always optimized.
SaaS CRM or systems are often set up using a multi-layered data security process to minimize vulnerabilities.
Highly sophisticated encryption for robust encryption and security against brute force assaults may be available through cloud services.
SaaS CRM or software's data privacy may be overhauled with the newest security updates and patches more often than a traditional PC because of hardware limitations.
Moreover, because cloud services are maintained externally, typically in data centers located offsite from your firm's headquarters, they offer stronger data privacy and security against viruses that may penetrate through other applications on internal networks.
Extensive System Applicability
CRM solutions for the product-led growth industry, as well as most other SaaS-based businesses, are designed to work on a variety of operating platforms.
So, regardless of how old your office computer system is, the application will function as guaranteed and will not cause any compatibility concerns in most cases.
This is considerably superior to other sales software for corporations, which may have particular hardware and system prerequisites.
SaaS CRM program is compatible with a wide range of OS and hardware.
This means they'll run on many outdated operating systems than other apps.
Sourcing hardware is undoubtedly an expensive process for a corporation.
This is especially advantageous for product-led growth entrepreneurs, as it enables them to expand their operations with less expenditure.
Summing Up
In such a saturated market with so many CRM solution providers trying to gain your attention, finding the right solution may seem like a herculean task.
Yet, it is critical to select a SaaS CRM that'll work best for you and help your business development while lowering expenses and improving productivity with so many possibilities.
Any firm may benefit from SaaS CRM solutions, and they can undoubtedly increase a startup's chances of success.