Power of Martech and Salestech in the Digital Economy

Marketing and sales are fundamental to any business, especially in today's technology-driven economy. Since the internet's integration into business practices, these areas have undergone significant transformation. The latest evolution involves the application of Marketing Technologies (Martech) and Sales Technologies (Salestech). We strongly recommend our clients adopt these technologies to remain competitive and enhance their operations in our increasingly digitalized industries.

A common challenge we face with clients stems from a simple question: "Have any major companies implemented Martech and Salestech yet?" In over half of our cases, we've had to present case studies to demonstrate that our clients are no longer potential pioneers, but rather followers who need to adopt these technologies to improve operational efficiency and keep pace with competitors.

In this blog, we present nine compelling case studies showcasing how leading companies across various industries have leveraged Martech and Salestech solutions to achieve remarkable results in the digital age. These cases prove that Martech and Salestech are neither a bubble nor a passing trend. Instead, they testify to the incredible transformations these technologies have brought—and continue to bring—to companies. Moreover, these studies offer valuable insights to help improve your marketing and sales strategies right now.

1. Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" Campaign:

Coca-Cola is a worldwide company producing carbonated beverages. Artificial Intelligence was used to scan social media to determine the most popular names and trendy sayings with customers. Then they put those names and sayings on their Coca-Cola bottles and get their customers to take pictures and post them to social media just by using the hashtag #ShareaCoke. This created a nationwide wildfire movement bringing tons of brand awareness and sales with it. Coca-Cola says tens of thousands of bottles were shared in the success of the “Coca-Cola Summer Love campaign”, working in partnership with Macys, which saw sales rise 19% along with a 7% increase in young adult consumption. Drinking Coke is very personable to people and Coca-Cola realized that, How? By using artificial intelligence on which names were most popular on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The use of geotargeting further enhanced the campaign by include local names for local people.

The "Share a Coke" campaign was a major success and social media played a role in that. There were over 500,000 photos shared on social media, a 2% increase in soft-diet sales reversing a decade-long downward trend in sales since 1997, a 12% increase in followers on social media, and a 7% increase in positive sentiment about the Coke brand. By using AI and personalization Coca-Cola created an emotional connection, generated buzz, and ultimately drove business.

2. Sephora's Personalized Beauty Experience:

Leading beauty retailer, Sephora revolutionized the customer experience by leveraging Martech solutions in their mobile app. Using AI and machine learning algorithms, Sephora’s mobile app used to Martech to deliver personalized product recommendations based on customer’s skin types, preferences, and purchase history. The mobile app also leverages AR-based virtual try-on tools and a loyalty program to increase engagement and value. Sephora’s Martech has resulted in a significant increase in mobile orders and sales overall, by creating a seamless beauty experience.

Sephora’s Personalized web experience was so successful that the retailer saw a 75% increase in mobile order revenue and a 20% lift in overall sales. Their try-and-buy feature was also met with very high engagement, with shoppers spending an average of 10 minutes per session trying on different makeup looks, and a loyalty program integration with the mobile app saw members spending 2.5 times more than non-members, aimed at boosting customer retention. This is a perfect example of how a company can successfully put Martech at the heart of their business to create a truly customer-centric experience that brings true value to both the customer and the business.

3. Marketo's Marketing Automation Success:

Marketo, a popular marketing automation platform, is proof that its technology works. They used their own solution to overhaul the way they generated and nurtured leads and used Martech optimally to deploy AI-powered lead scoring, a full-featured email campaign platform that supported personalization at scale, a data warehouse and BI platform connected to their CRM, and Account-based marketing. Part of their process included implementing an efficient onboarding process for new clients (called their ‘Secret Sauce’) designed to get them into market-up and driving ROI as quickly as possible. Result: Marketo almost doubled the size their sales pipeline and fast-tracked their way to much faster revenue growth.

The use of its own platform, helped Marketo see a 60% increase in its sales pipeline and a 25% increase in revenue. Marketo’s AI-powered lead scoring system helped them to determine which leads were most valuable, resulting in a 30% increase in conversions from leads to opportunities. They also saw a 50% increase in open rates and a 25% increase in clickthrough rates with personalized emails versus generic emails. Not only did their personalized emails perform better than the generic emails, but their account-based marketing strategies also outperformed, with target accounts seeing a 40% increase in engagement and a 20% increase in deal size.

4. Cisco's Salestech-Powered Sales Enablement:

During Dreamforce, Cisco showcased the power of Salestech in relation to its world-class networking technology. Cisco was able to integrate its CRM system with a marketing automation platform. This allowed their Salesforce to enable sales reps to have a unified view of the interactions and preferences of their customers. AI-powered algorithms analyzed the data to bring real-time insights and recommendations to the sales reps. By using AI-powered chatbots, Cisco was able to further the enhancement of support to their customers while allowing the sales reps to focus on the higher value interactions. The deployment of these Salestech solutions for Cisco resulted in a significant increase in their sales productivity and sales revenue

The software was a success story. It achieved 30% better conversion rates on the leads generated using time-tracking software and full process automation. It also recorded a 20% uplift in hunting deals and a 15% uplift in average deal size. The artificial intelligence features built into the software helped sellers identify up-spend and cross-sell opportunities, achieving a 20% uplift in revenue per customer. Cisco further increased customer satisfaction by turning to customer service chatbots. Satisfaction increased by 60%, even as costs fell by 70%.

5. Airbnb's Personalized Travel Marketplace:

A Marketplace For Hosting And Discovering Holiday Rentals Officially launched in August 2008, Airbnb is a trusted online marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique holiday rentals around the world. Airbnb uses machine learning and AI to analyze data across its busy marketplace to create a personalized experience for each of its users. By offering search results and recommendations tailored to the specific history, preferences, and needs of individual users, Airbnb significantly increases its booking rates and referral revenue. Furthermore, its dynamic pricing algorithms benefit hosts by advising them on how to maximize their listing prices in periods of high demand or seasonality, therefore providing them with a 10% uplift in revenues. Airbnb’s success emphasizes the power of using AI and machine learning to create a more targeted, efficient marketplace.

6. Starbucks' Loyalty Program and Personalization:

Starbucks, a worldwide coffee chain, used Martech to improve their customer experience with their mobile app and loyalty rewards program. By utilizing the app’s AI powered recommendations, mobile ordering and loyalty rewards program Starbucks was able to create a high level of customer convenience, loyalty, and spending. By using Martech to create an easy and rewarding experience, Starbucks saw mobile transactions making up 30% of total sales as well as a significant increase in customer loyalty and revenue.

Starbucks’ mobile app and loyalty program have seen a 25% increase in customer visit frequency and a 40% increase in average spend per visit. Customized product recommendations are seeing conversion rates 50% higher than non-personalized, while 20% of all transactions are now mobile orders. Starbucks’ loyalty program now has 15% more members year on year, with a total of 50% of all transactions coming from members. This serves as a great example of what Martech can do in terms of driving customer engagement and loyalty.

7. HubSpot's Inbound Marketing and Sales Alignment:

Creating SEO-optimized, gated content to attract leads, sending captivating, personalized automated emails to nurture them through to becoming MQLs, using AI for lead scoring to accurately determine when a lead was worthy of being handed over to Sales, and utilizing the integration between their CRM and MAP platforms to ensure a smooth hand-off and experience between departments. As a result of being able to pour their own Kool-Aid, HubSpot was able to: Increase website traffic by 50% — giving a bump in telemarketing names; and Drive a 40% increase in revenue.

Instead of spending enormous amounts of money on marketing, advertisements, and emails with no success; HubSpot decided to take a different route. HubSpot decided to take an inbound approach that allows the customer to reach out to HubSpot only if they're interested in what the company has to offer. HubSpot relied on personal nurturing emails other than general e-mails being sent to customers as well as AI-powered leads scoring to only reach out to the leads with promising results. Through these tactics, HubSpot was able increase the lead generation by three times after using the inbound tactic. The average number of sales made after using the marketing tactic went up by 20 percent. Since HubSpot believed in rapid response time between the customer and the buyer, it allowed the company to score the highest in customer satisfaction.

8. Nike's Personalized Shopping Experience:

This global, sporting brand, used Martech to create a personal, omnichannel shopping experience. They achieved this through Martech by using AI to give product recommendations, creating targeted promotions and displays in-store while using this technology to track every interaction to further develop a customer profile. As a result, online sales rose by 30% and customer loyalty and repeat purchases increased.

There is a suggestion that over 70% of Nike’s users interacted with AI-powered fashion bots on the site, lifting conversion rates by 40%. Meanwhile, geotargeted promotions increased redemption by 25%, increasing both sales and foot traffic. Additionally, interactive in-store displays drove a 20% increase in “time spent and product engagement” and helped customers make “more informed buying decisions.”

More pointedly, those customers who engaged with Nike via personalized recommendations opted to spend 23% more. Geo-targeted promotions led to a 30% increase in spending in-store and interactive displays resulted in customers spending 20% longer in store. The result was also a 15% increase in customer lifetime value with users returning at a 20% clip.

9. Salesforce's AI-Powered Sales Forecasting and Coaching:

Salesforce is a leading global provider of CRM and Sales technology that employs Artificial Intelligence to effectively boost sales forecasting and coaching. Using the Salesforce Einstein AI platform, Salesforce analyzed huge amounts of sales data, which helped to improve sales forecasting allowing sales representatives to enjoy up-to-the-minute accurate forecasts and insights. This in turn allowed them to have the insights to enable them to better prioritize their time and effort on closing opportunities. Moreover, Salesforce used its new platform called MyTrailhead to offer personalized coaching and learning based on individual skill and performance. With the aid of Salesforce AI and MyTrailhead, Salesforce reported a huge increase in sales productivity of 25% and a 20% increase in revenue.

Salesforce’s Einstein AI platform has delivered impressive results — by using AI to provide sales reps with a more complete view of their customers, the company increased sales forecast accuracy by 30%, resulting in more informed business decisions while ensuring that the sales organization has the necessary resources to close deals. Plus, the AI platform identified at-risk deals and delivered critical recommendations to sales reps, helping them course-correct and achieve a 15% improvement in win rates. Recognizing the value of personalized coaching, the company introduced MyTrailhead to better develop sales professionals. Now, reps are 20% more productive and new hires achieve full productivity (ramp-up) at a 25% faster rate. MyTrailhead has also contributed to a 15% uptick in sales quota attainment companywide. Given these results, it’s evident that AI has the power to significantly boost sales performance and business growth.

Success stories of well-known international companies from a range of industries help to illustrate just how much potential Martech and Salestech can offer in terms of business growth and enhanced customer experiences. By creating a strategy and adopting these two technologies in a smart way, backed by a solid knowledge of personalization, automation, AI-powered insights, and seamless cross-channel experiences, you will distinguish your business from competitors, bring people closer to your brand, and achieve impressive results in the digital era.

The ever-evolving landscape of marketing and sales demands that companies constantly keep current on advances in Martech and Salestech and re-evaluating which of these solutions can be integrated into the company’s overall strategy. By taking cues from the successes of industry leaders in the field, and making them fit their needs and their goals specifically, companies can best utilize transformative technologies to gain a competitive edge in an increasingly digital marketplace.

 
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From our book:

Win More Deals in the Digital Era

How Martech and Salestech Improve Marketing and Sales

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