Three Reasons Why Country Marketing Technology Supergraphics Matter

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11 Jan 2022

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5 min read

73% of the tools in the Marketing Technology landscape supergraphic are US based, which seems a bit much. A quick test lead us to believe there are many hidden Martech gems outside the US waiting for you! Help us find those new tools!

As an experiment, we recently looked up the HQ addresses of the tools on the Marketing technology Landscape Supergraphic. The graph below is the result.

Even more marketing technology tools? Seriously?

It turns out, 73% of the tools mentioned in the supergraphic are US-based. We do not doubt that the US is most likely the global marketing technology leader, but almost three quarters of all tools coming from the US just seems a bit too much.

When I was working in Germany as a VP for a Marketing Technology provider, I noticed that our competitor list included a good number of tools not on the Supergraphic. If that is the case for Germany, the same thing might hold for other European countries.

Taking into account that Europe’s ambition for creating tools might resemble that of the US’s, there might be a lot more European tools to be found. And what about Australia or Asia? Surely, there should be plenty of tools yet to be discovered.

Having established that we can probably can find many new tools, the second question is of course: “Should we?” Well, we think we should, for the following reasons.

Why country marketing technology landscapes matter

Creating country landscape is not merely an act of patriotism. It is much more than that.

The ultimate goal is to enable every marketer on the planet to do a stellar job supported by technology, without being (too) dependant on their IT department.

So any tool that makes the lives of marketers easier should get a podium, right? There might even be tools from, say, Estonia that are largely unknown but actually best-in-class. Perhaps giving them a podium like this gives them the opportunity to grow and expand.

What are these best-in-class tools? By working on the country supergraphics we learned there are three types of best-in-class marketing technology tools out there.

1. Local heroes

There are a number of reasons why marketers are forced to look for local tools. For some business models there is a clear need for local relevance. Not being a local provider can sometimes simply be a knock-out criteria in selecting a software vendor.

Marketers need:

Helpdesk support in their local language.
Helpdesk support in their local currency and payment systems (e.g. iDeal in the Netherlands)
Data enhancement with correct address notation and local customer or household data.
Compliance with local laws and regulations embedded only in local tools
Connection to local e-commerce or price comparison platforms
The ability to settle lawsuits preferably in their own country.

2. Hidden gems

A local vendor can outperform a global vendor in terms of tool features and overall tool quality, without even taking into account the superior local relevance mentioned above.

Many of us implicitly assume huge global vendors are better than local vendors could be.

Granted, because large players have more budget to spend, they usually are better. But not always. In the seventies, the famous football player Johan Cruyff put is nicely: “Why couldn’t you beat a richer club? I’ve never seen a bag of money score a goal”. That point was recently proven once again by the football team Ajax, beating Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Juventus, each having a budget five- to tenfold of that of Ajax. And do we need to mention, the movie Moneyball?

3. Game changers

There might be tools that started an entirely new category of their own. Who knows? Like Salesforce did with the CRM SaaS industry. Or Hubspot with establishing the Inbound Marketing category. Or Thunderhead setting the standards for Customer Journey driven messaging.

Glancing at some of the new tools found in only the Dutch country supergraphics before the crowdsoured-search even started…

Could INDG be such a company, taking interactive 3D product content to a whole new level?
Is DeepDesk the new AI driven bot standard for Customer Services Desks, perhaps?
Will WeTransfer continue to set new standards for file sharing?

We don’t know, yet. But it shows that Holland got talent and so do the other countries!

All we know is that the most revolutionary new products don’t always get the recognition they deserve, because they do not always get the podium they need to flourish and serve the Martech community. Country Supergraphics can list also the smaller, under-appreciated local players, hoping to identify the new Salesforce right before they become ‘the new Salesforce’.

Country Supergraphics planned

If we leave out the US, this is what the Martech landscape looks like.

Our contributors cover some of the countries below. Feel free to join the club and volunteer for countries that aren’t covered yet. Drop me an email to join our Slack channel, where we share the latest martech research, trends and insights.

The same group of Martech contributors that helped to unlock the full potential of the Martech Supergraphic, volunteered for the Country Supergraphic project!