Hot takes from the 2016 Marketing Technology Landscape

Scott Brinker continued his annual pilgrimage to the brink of insanity by producing the fifth Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic.

Figure 1. “WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…!”

As he’s done for the past five years running, he’s tackled the frightening complexity of a dynamic, exploding space and turned it into pithy and incisive commentary about marketing’s evolution into a tech-driven discipline.

Both the supergraphic itself and the post that accompanies it will no doubt be on the desktops screens of the most forward-thinking marketers and marketing technologists this morning. So here are some of our reactions to the ’50,000 foot overview’ of the current state of marketing technology.

Content Marketing is a noisy, noisy space

In addition to his usual breakdown of ‘number of logos’ – mind-bogglingly, ~3500 unique vendors in total this year – Scott also shared his breakdown of the distinct categories with the most vendors.

Unsurprisingly, content marketing was way up there with the fifth most logos in its category – a stunning 160 vendors. That’s exciting, because it speaks to the increased investment in our space.

Or more specifically, it speaks to the increased investment in content marketing technology that improves content production workflow and scale.

One part of me looks at that and thinks, “Jeez. Look at all the cool ways there are to scale and manage content production.”

Then the other part of me goes, “Crap. If B2B content marketers are optimizing this hard for scale and production cadence, there’s never been more pressure to produce great content.”

The content marketing deluge has never been more real.

In a multi-platform world, you need an integration platform to win

Whenever the new landscape comes out, we like to indulge in a game of ‘spot the client’ here at Velocity towers*.

So when we saw that Scott had called out the category for iPaaS and Cloud/Data Integration in his post, we got super excited for two big reasons.

First, because we found not one, but two of our clients deservedly included in this space (LiveRamp and Informatica).

Second, because it validates our view that data integration is now a priority for marketers.

Integration used to be something IT did and no one else worried about. But as marketers adopt more cloud apps and marketing channels, it’s quickly becoming clear that the real magic lies in connecting everything.

The stack is increasingly distributed. The platforms are increasingly varied. And the marketer is increasingly stretched between different screens.

We used to think ‘consolidation’ was something vendors and markets did. But it’s starting to look like something marketers are going to have to do with their data too.

*Monetate, Engagio, Sitecore, Citrix, Informatica (three times) and Salesforce (god-only-knows how many times)…but who’s counting?

Account based marketing makes the cut

We’ve written in some detail how we feel Account-Based Marketing is the next big paradigm shift for B2B marketers.

So it’s really exciting to see ABM make it in to the landscape for marketing technology – with our client Engagio in prime position.

It’s still a young and, refreshingly, small collection of vendors but they’re going to have an outsized impact on the way B2B’s done — especially if the marketers managing an ABM approach can integrate all the different pieces of their stack.

Digital has relegated print to a tiny corner

Speaking of small spaces…

Almost hidden in the bottom left of the supergraphic, was a tiny little box dedicated to print.

Of course, we’d never expect a supergraphic about marketing technology to be over run by print technologists but it’s great to see.

A lot’s been said about the shrinking of print as a medium. But the way we see it, it actually makes for a really interesting opportunity to surprise and delight B2B tech content marketers.

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There are really only two ‘annual round-ups’ I actively look forward to whenever the New Year starts: Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report and Scott Brinker’s Marketing Technology Landscape.

As he’s done for the past five years running, Scott’s totally knocked this one out of the park. So again, give the post and the supergraphic a good read. You won’t find a better overview of this crazy-interesting space.