Martech Leaders: 14 Visionaries to Read & Follow
Martech Leaders: 14 Visionaries to Read & Follow
Bright Minds of Martech: 14 Visionaries to Read & Follow
Marketers have always needed a diverse skill set to be effective. We need to be creative but analytical, persuasive but helpful. We must be equally at home writing a blog, running a PPC campaign, and presenting results to the C-suite.
With so many skills already in our utility belts, there’s no need for marketers to fear the coming advances in marketing technology. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, programmatic advertising, voice search: All of these tools will only make marketers more effective.
There are dozens of brilliant marketers who are blazing a trail to the future of martech. Even better, they’re sharing what they have learned to help their peers make it to the next level.
The following martech experts are regularly putting out useful, informative content about the future and present of marketing technology. We’ve picked recommended reading from each, and highlighted some of their most quotable content. Read on to get informed and get inspired.
14 Marketing Technology Thought Leaders to Follow
Michael Brenner
CEO at Marketing Insider Group
Michael is at the forefront of developing the future of content marketing, including using marketing technology to personalize content at scale. His book The Content Formula is an extraordinarily useful guide for creating better content to get better results.
Recommended Reading: Enhance Personalization with Artificial Intelligence
AI will tell us what to create, but our best storytellers are our existing employees from across the business. Every company needs a strategy to activate these employees as both creators and as the most effective distribution channel to share that content.
Michael Brenner
CEO at Marketing Insider Group
Scott Brinker
VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, Editor at chiefmartec.com
No list of martech thought leaders would be complete without Scott Brinker. His website is a trusted resource for the entire industry. His annual State of Martech infographics are a go-to resource for marketers, tech folks, and anyone making a year-end trends report. Scott is also working with HubSpot to help create the future of marketing technology.
Recommended Reading: The New Rules of Marketing Technology & Operations
We want to ‘find the human in highly efficient automation.’ This means looking for anomalies, exceptions, and feedback signals that can alert us when an automated process is diverging from the needs of the constituency it is was presumptively implemented to serve.
Scott Brinker
VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, Editor at chiefmartec.com
Robert Burns
Digital Marketing Strategist at Gnooko Digital Marketing
Robert is a B2B digital marketing specialist who has worked in business development for more than 30 years. He shares his expertise on LinkedIn, and curates a Twitter feed chock-full of well-curated articles on digital marketing, search marketing, and more.
Recommended Reading: Taking a Business Approach to Digital Marketing Strategy and Planning
Senior Partnerships Lead, Mar-Tech Platforms at Google
In addition to his work with promising tech start-up Google, Noah served for 8 years on the US Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce and is a member of the IAB Mobile Video Task Force and Digital Media Certification Board. He’s also a thought-provoking author seeking to maintain humanity in marketing as technology continues to evolve.
Recommended Reading: Despite All the Data, Empathy Is Still the Greatest Tool in a Marketer’s Toolbox
After all the CPMs are calculated and the analytics interpreted, empathy is still the greatest tool in a marketer’s toolbox.
Noah Fenn
Senior Partnerships Lead, Mar-Tech Platforms at Google
Randy Hamilton
Managing Partner at Clutchgrowth
As part of the founding team at Match.com in the 1990s, Randy was involved in some of the earliest days of digital marketing. Since then he has branched out into venture capital, account-based marketing, growth hacking, and more. He shares his expertise with a weekly curated digital marketing and growth hacking newsletter.
Recommended Reading: Digital Marketing & Growth Hacking
Kevin Hillstrom
President at MineThatData
The future of marketing is data driven. Kevin is helping CEOs make the best use of their data to connect with customers and drive revenue. He shares in-depth, practical advice on the MineThatData blog, an industry-leading publication with over 10,000 monthly subscribers.
Recommended Reading: Renting Sales
The smartest companies tend to have low ad-to-sales ratios. In other words, the smartest companies do not need to rent attention, they generate their own attention.
Kevin Hillstrom
President at MineThatData
Sam Hurley
Managing Director at OPTIM-EYEZ
Sam is a gifted search, social media, and influencer marketer who is dedicated to using his skills to help people. His ability to connect with people and lead with kindness enabled him to go from zero to an internationally-recognized marketing influencer in less than two years.
Recommended Reading: 3 (Data-Backed) Digital Marketing Trends You Must Prepare For in 2019
It’s going to pay your business dividends to 1) Visually show up in search engines, and 2) Provide an owned visual search component wherever relevant, especially at a time where the product is somewhat fresh and market penetration is low.
Sam Hurley
Managing Director at OPTIM-EYEZ
Douglas Karr
CEO, DK New Media
Why is Douglas Karr’s beard so big? It’s full of marketing knowledge. Douglas has nearly two decades of experience with marketing and technology, and generously shares what he has learned in podcast, newsletter, and video formats. His unique combination of thought leadership and humility make his content compelling as well as informative.
Recommended Reading: The Martech Interviews Podcast
The most profitable brands don’t compete on price. They are focused on speed, value, and availability to customers.
Douglas Karr
CEO, DK New Media
Steven Krohn
Founder at Krohn Media
Steven is an advisor in digital marketing, blockchain, and cryptocurrency, helping companies through the ICO (initial coin offering) process. He combines digital, influencer, and social media campaigns to produce amazing results for his clients. Steve’s book, The Tempting World of Cryptocurrency, is available on Amazon.
Recommended Reading: Blockchain Trends to Look for in 2019
Blockchain began as a decentralized ledger system to record financial transactions. It would not be surprising to witness the most useful implementation in fields as diverse as A.I. and IoT.
Steven Krohn
Founder at Krohn Media
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief, Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, MarTech Today
If you’re a marketer looking to keep up-to-date on the latest news and trends, you likely already have Ginny Marvin’s blogs in your bookmarks. Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, and MarTech Today all feature thoughts from leaders in the industry, updated at least once a day. Simply put, Ginny curates an indispensable industry resource.
Recommended Reading: What Amazon Advertising’s big 2018 advancements will mean for 2019
Tom Pick
Independent B2B Digital Marketing Consultant at Webbiquity
Tom is an industry-leading marketing consultant with more than a decade of experience in the field. His Webbiquity blog is a valuable industry resource, featuring Tom’s thoughts along with other marketing thought leaders.
Recommended Reading: Six Big Productivity Hacks to Get More Content Marketing Done
Emotionally, people want to feel special. And practically, for business buyers, they want relevant content. Combining message personalization with targeted content saves buyers time and helps marketers cut through the clutter.
Tom Pick
Independent B2B Digital Marketing Consultant at Webbiquity
John Santaferraro
Research Director at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)
John is an expert in big data and analytics, two crucial areas of focus for marketers in 2019. His independent consultancy handled marketing communications for a Fortune 5 company, managing a $3 billion product line. John shares his knowledge as a keynote presenter and author on the EMA blog.
Recommended Reading: Tableau Sets the Tone for Business Intelligence in 2019
Most organizations face two major barriers in their journey to become driven by insight. One, they lack the data analyst resources necessary to serve the entire business community. Two, they have not successfully embedded analytics in their business processes.
John Santaferraro
Research Director at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA)
Travis Wright
CMO/Chief Marketing Technologist at CCP Digital
Travis is a blockchain and martech advisor. His Bad Crypto Podcast helps marketers and tech folks alike make sense of cryptocurrency and other emerging technologies. His articles about martech, content marketing, leadership, and more have appeared on sites like Inc. and CMO.com.
Recommended Reading: CMOs: ‘Nurture’ Marketing Tech, then ‘Demand’ and Measure Results
Success metrics need a makeover, and it’s up to CMOs to make that happen. You can’t just buy the technology and hope for (or expect) the best. The value of technology requires the right approach, starting with demand-generation strategies.
Travis Wright
CMO/Chief Marketing Technologist at CCP Digital
Adelyn Zhou
Growth Advisor at SignalFire
Adelyn is a leading industry expert in both blockchain and applied artificial intelligence for marketing automation. She led growth efforts at Amazon, Nextdoor, and Eventbrite. Adelyn is also a sought-after public speaker, appearing at CES, Inbound, SXSW, and DLD, and co-author of Applied Artificial Intelligence: A Handbook for Business Leaders.
Recommended Reading: Key Qualities to Look for in AI and Machine Learning Experts
The martech landscape is evolving faster than ever before.
These 14 thought leaders can help keep you up-to-date on the latest developments.
To learn more about how martech will change in the coming year, see our guide to martech trends in 2019.
