I always look forward to the annual Martech 5000 marketing technology landscape report. With the 2020 edition just released last month, it provides an insightful barometer into the dizzying, almost intimidating array of solutions that marketers need to consider, understand and select in order to create their ultimate martech stack. Interestingly, the number of providers included in the report has long surpassed 5,000 – this year’s list is at 8,000!

Two things stood out for me in the new edition:

1. The growing focus on data as well as the tools that help marketers use it. This product category grew a whopping 25.5% year over year. The reason it is skyrocketing is clear: businesses are struggling to effectively mine, manage and utilize internal and external data to drive their marketing initiatives, such as new customer acquisition campaigns. When data is prioritized, it can be a competitive differentiator, so the incentive to double down on data initiatives is strong and growing.

2. It’s more important than ever to stand out from the crowd. The Martech 5000 report serves as a good reminder that today’s marketers are overwhelmed with the volume of technologies out there. Associated with that is the massive amount of marketing information and sales pitches coming at them. Imagine if each of the vendors on the list contacted you once every day – by email, phone or otherwise – to make their pitch.

My point is, when you get ready to create your next marketing campaign, it’s critical to find a way to stand out from other businesses. And when it comes to standing out, there’s nothing more important than reaching the right decision makers – the people who are most likely to buy. Today, intent data has opened up new opportunities to make that possible. It is based on buyer intent signals that are uncovered by monitoring online activities, such as website visits, content downloads, product reviews and more. However, because these signals are only associated with the company IP addresses that are looking at your content – not the individual executives within the companies – many business leaders are now looking for ways to drill down further into the data.

What we’ve come up with at OMI is to marry intent data with our high-quality business contact data. Bringing these two data sets together allows you to identify individual contacts who are warm leads – people who hold high promise of becoming your customers. With those warm leads in hand, you can save sales time and costs and achieve higher ROI with your campaigns. It’s a data strategy that’s well worth exploring: you can find out more here. We’d also welcome the opportunity to connect with you one-on-one to discuss it further.

As the Martech 5000 demonstrates, data is king today, and it’s power will only grow stronger as the world becomes more digital. Those businesses that prioritize the way they mine it, manage it and use it will come out on top.

Outward Media’s proven data cleansing services and targeted, accurate email data can enable you to achieve better email marketing ROI and, ultimately, convert more prospects into customers. Take a look at our case studies to find out more.