Editor of B&T’s sister site www.which-50.com, Andrew Birmingham, says marketing tech is fast catching-up with its customers’ own tech and the sector is set to sizzle…

Just because it’s hype don’t for a moment believe that marketing technology is all sizzle and no steak.  After all, there’s a reason for all that excitement. Martech has emerged as the key software battle ground in recent years as business has shifted to adjust to newly empowered and connected consumers.

And like all technology it’s adoption takes longer than anticipated and will probably have a much bigger impact than expected – as Bill Gate’s once famously observed.

Earlier this year Gartner released one of its famous Hype Cycles for marketing technology identifying five key trends and this week the Chatterati caught on, making it one of the biggest digital conversation starters of the week.

Each week Which-50 studies the global social stream to identify most influential social chatter triggered by industry research from the likes of Gartner, Forrester, McKinsey and Bain (to name but a few). This week there were just over 16,000 mentions of the terms we track with Gartner and Forrester once again dominating the chit chat. The level of chatter is down significantly on recent weeks as tweeters taper off for the long Christmas hiatus.

As to the five trends themselves, you can read about them hear in Heather Levy’s blog which Gartner has kindly given us permission to reblog, but to whet your appeptite, here’s the headlines;

1. Focus on cross-channel strategy, campaigns and data
2. Automation to boost speed and performance
3. Yearning for 1:1 customer relationships
4. Engagement aligned to daily activities
5. More responsibility for digital commerce

Perhap’s the most interesting point the researchers make about marketing tech and marketing hubs in particular is their assessment that their impact will be as great on business as the ERP upheavals of the 80’s and 90’s when companies like SAP, JD Edwards, Peoplesoft and Oracle made out like bandits.  (SAP has mostly missed the marketing technology revolution – although it is well placed to exploit analytics with HANA. And JD Edwards and Peoplesoft were both swallowed by Oracle which is itself now a global leader in marketing tech.)

Gartner for Marketing Leaders clients can read more in the full report called Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing (Subscription required)

Two other retweets resonated with the digerati.

Forrester tweeted that “Privacy will become a valued strategy rather than an afterthought in 2016” linking through to a blog by analyst Heidi Shey where she notes that “…privacy considerations and strategy augments all of the 10 critical factors to drive business success in the next 12 months”

According to Shey, “In the Age of the Customer, privacy strategy, culture, and capabilities can no longer be an afterthought. Privacy is a game changer; it will be to organizations in 2016 what websites were to companies in 2000. Regulators, business partners, and consumers will increasingly expect businesses to address privacy – and so they must. But those who do it well with privacy-led business mindsets will stand out from their competition.”

And finally, Gartner hit the mark again with a blog by Chris Pemberton about content marketing where he offers “Three Ways Content Marketing Can Fuel Digital Commerce”

His bon mots include;

• Offer informative content
• Showcase products in context
• Deliver engaging context at the moment of truth

All of which is easier said than done.. unless you have a marketing hub… and assuming you believe the hype.