- Fujitsu and Robert Walters use the Martech Spine™ as the foundation of their marketing technology strategies

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Clevertouch, Europe’s leading marketing technology consultancy, has today announced the 2021 Martech Spine™, a framework to help Chief Marketing Officers articulate and deliver their marketing technology strategy.

Clevertouch was the first company to identify the Martech Spine™ back in 2016 as a way of simplifying the confusion brought about by the proliferation of vendors in the martech landscape. By acknowledging that certain marketing technologies are more important than others, CMOs have used the Martech Spine™ to articulate their vision for marketing technology. This includes how it supports the organisation in showing marketing’s contribution to revenue and profit growth, all while delivering exceptional customer experiences.

As organisations look to move away from excessive vendor adoption to coherent platform integration, the Martech Spine™ has become more relevant than ever. Last year, Clevertouch included Sales Enablement in the Martech Spine™ as key technology to drive marketing and sales alignment and integrate the two departments. Placing Sales Enablement as equal importance to CRM can improve efficiencies and contribute to the wider sales process. This ensures that large sales departments are on brand and on message, and provide a greater degree of customer insight than was previously aggregated by just the integration of Marketing Automation and CRM.

Adam Sharp, co-founder and CEO at Clevertouch, commented: “The team is excited to announce the new 2021 version of the Martech Spine™, which places Customer Data Platforms (CDP) at the heart of a successful marketing technology strategy. Our research earlier in the year found that nearly three quarters (74%) of marketers don't have a Martech Spine established, but for marketers to develop a seamless digital and physical experience that customers now expect, it is essential for marketing departments to have a true 360-degree view of the customer. While this has often been talked about, it has frequently been nothing more than a pipedream. However, with technological advancements it is now possible for marketers to genuinely deliver on that vision.

“The adoption of customer data platforms to ingest, unify and activate customer data – triggering tools such as Marketing Automation to send the right communications at the right time – will enable marketers to create B2C style customer experiences in a B2B world.”

Dozens of organisations have adopted the Martech Spine™ as the foundation for their marketing technology strategy, including information technology giants Fujitsu and leading recruitment conglomerate Robert Walters, and the top four consulting firms, such as PwC.

Sharp concluded: “With Adobe announcing updates to Adobe Experience Platform at Summit in April, and Salesforce announcing the release of Salesforce CDP in mid-May 2021 – developing a Martech Spine™ with each of these vendors is now possible. However, it is up to marketers to create their own nuanced version of the Martech Spine™ to help them deliver their strategic marketing objectives.”

To understand more about the 2021 version of the Martech Spine™ and how the framework can help you simplify your marketing technology strategy, click here.

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