From Hype to Practicality: Futureproof Your MarTech Stack
Retail marketing teams can optimize their technology, now and beyond, using simpler workflows, unified data, and greater collaboration.
Since the invention of relational databases and spreadsheets, marketing and advertising directors and their teams have longed for the right tools to help them understand (and use) data in meaningful, productive ways. In the 1980s and 1990s, personal computers, easy-to-use desktop publishing software, and PC versions of DAM and product inventory
Retail advertising campaigns require a great deal more than digital replicas of age- old manual tasks.
databases also held the promise of efficiency for retail advertisers. Reality has proven far more difficult. The complexities of retail advertising campaigns require a great deal more than digital replicas of age-old manual tasks.
The promised breakthrough retailers long for is when marketing technology—known collectively as MarTech—is no longer a series of isolated islands or silos but an array of flexible, interconnected “nodes.” These include a retailer’s product information management (PIM) and digital asset management (DAM) systems, an integrated, multichannel production system, AI-based customer analysis, and more. Ideally, these and other systems, like
It is theoretically possible for retailers to connect all these MarTech pieces. But to do so effectively, they must address the fundamentals.
accounting, e-commerce, and customer relationship management (CRM), are all integrated and interconnected into a single, effective entity known as a Tech Stack.
Today, thanks to advances in cloud computing, it is possible for retailers to connect all these pieces in meaningful, practical ways. However, marketers are still experiencing unnecessary complexities with their MarTech Stack.
More of the common problems they face are:
- Data isn’t normalized across systems.
- Tools don’t talk to each other, so everything is manual.
- Some features aren’t needed or utilized.
- Data is outdated.
To connect all the components effectively, resolve these issues, and prevent their MarTech Stack from failing, they must focus on the fundamentals.
It’s All About the Data
Retailers today have access to unprecedented amounts of data—about products, sales history, customer likes and dislikes, and even regional and seasonal variations of almost everything. These mountains of data threaten to overwhelm even the most competent marketing planners and creative
The answer to mountains of overwhelming, unconnected data is to adopt a form of the “single source of truth” model.
teams. And if the data are all stored in separate, unconnected “silos,” then retail advertising campaigns can become expensive, manual affairs.
The answer is to adopt a realistic form of the single source of truth model, where data from PIM, DAM, inventory, sales history, and other data sources are reliably connected. This does not mean creating a single, monolithic database of every piece of relevant information. Instead, it means having a unified, well-integrated array of data sources—such as that provided in Comosoft’s LAGO—and connecting the data to practical workflows for planning and producing campaigns.
Automate the Busywork; Focus on the Big Picture
Automating formerly manual steps will free teams to plan more strategically.
Unifying the data is only the first step. Retail advertising and marketing campaigns are incredibly complex, often requiring far too many manual steps. For example, a “simple” retail catalog or circular can feature dozens of items—or more—each with its own
own product information, images, availability, sale pricing, and other details. Without hiring a larger workforce, it would take production managers and their teams far too long to collect and use all that information accurately—in time to meet every deadline. In addition to that, the need for regional and seasonal versions, plus support for digital and mobile channels, makes the task impossible.
Fortunately for retailers, workflow automation is now possible with LAGO’s integrated ad layout system. Automating these formerly manual tasks will free marketing and advertising directors and their teams to plan campaigns more strategically, even using AI-based customer analysis to do so with greater accuracy and profitability.
Futureproofing One’s Investment
Many of the individual pieces of a retailer’s MarTech stack may seem precarious or dependent on legacy systems developed for other purposes. But the secret to futureproofing those elements is not to replace them with some newer, shinier system. Instead, the secret is to find ways to use them collaboratively.
The secret to futureproofing the individual pieces of a retailer’s MarTech stack is to find ways to use them collaboratively.
Thanks to the web, even legacy databases can be integrated into a simple, effective workflow. With the right tools, internal and external stakeholders can connect to a collaborative retail planning and production process. Planners, creatives, and decision-makers can all see, review, approve, and even customize workflows to the needs of each project.
With LAGO, planners can easily select and assign products to a campaign, which automatically populates the InDesign template.
A good example of this is Comosoft LAGO’s whiteboard collaboration module. The former consolidates data and assets from multiple sources in a central repository for print, e-commerce, mobile, social media, and point of sale. Product managers and planners can easily select and assign products—with all of their relevant information—to a campaign.
Their decisions automatically populate the production team’s InDesign template. And, because the process is bi-directional, changes by the design team are automatically visible to the campaign planners.
Another example is LAGO’s approach to online proofing and approval. At any point where changes require revision or approval, an online version can be made available to the appropriate decision maker—anywhere in the world, using a bidirectional link.
While the technology itself is impressive, real futureproofing happens because the people who use it are given the means to collaborate effectively. With unified data combined with intuitive, time-saving automation workflows, retail marketing and advertising teams will have time to think more creatively and plan more strategically.
When the time comes to add the latest technology into the overall MarTech stack using custom systems integration, the biggest efficiencies will come through the people who have time to understand their data and how to use it.
The real futureproofing happens because of the people who use technology to collaborate effectively.
Ready to clear out the clutter? Find out more about Comosoft LAGO’s unique, data-centric approach to retail marketing technology. Or book a demo to see how LAGO can futureproof your production and make your team more effective.
