The new citizens in the world of MarTech
When we say ‘no-code’, we’re referring to a method used to develop software. No-code platforms are designed for people who have little to no programming skills. These types of tools have proven to be quite useful to professionals in the marketing industry, who often lack the coding abilities required to create apps and mobile solutions for their companies. By using no-code platforms, some of the skills necessary for the creation of agile tech solutions are transferred from the hands of developers to those of digital marketing teams.
All this is possible thanks to the use of technological solutions that digital marketers can easily edit and work with, known as ‘drag and drop’ services. Today, business users can take advantage of tools that give them the ability to realise creative projects, analyse large data sets and build predictive machine learning models. More specifically, within the MarTech industry, one important area where this method is being applied is the automation of marketing strategies and customer journey orchestration.
We can say that the aim of low-code and no-code systems is to free the marketing team from having to rely on corporate IT teams to launch new products or implement campaigns. In a digital world, the wants and needs of consumers change so quickly that traditional IT development structures struggle to properly manage them. This is especially true of requests focusing on clients and consumers, considering that not only do needs change, but so do expectations, depending on the channel through which they come in contact with the organization.
What makes this new way of doing things so revolutionary is that it gives employees the ability to be more reactive and productive thanks to the democratization of technology, hoping to reduce the need for IT support and project timelines.
No-code development is so important that today individual marketers are often called ‘citizen developers’. It’s a valid way of doing things precisely because it disrupts the bubble created by the inability of the marketing and IT teams to communicate.
Scott Brinker has defined this movement as the ‘democratization of MarTech’, as the technical expertise of IT is increasingly within reach of business users.
But what are the main applications of these tools and the advantages of using them?
According to Forrester, currently the main areas of use for no-code are applications for company processes and workflows, web and mobile front-end development, and data analysis. Experts predict that low-code will end up expanding to ever broader fields of application, such as the re-engineering of tech stacks and ecosystems.
In conclusion, the use of no-code/low-code tools within a company is a big step towards a future that will give professional developers more time to concentrate on more interesting, stimulating projects and simultaneously give digital marketers more independence as they come up with and plan targeted, creative strategies.
So, even if the benefits of low-code/no-code development are clear in terms of potential cost savings, shorter time-to-market phases and error reduction, the use of this method doesn’t exclude the interaction and involvement of IT. Instead, the support of industry professionals will always be necessary to guarantee adequate levels of cybersecurity and to scale, maintain and integrate applications with other platforms.
Sources: https://chiefmartec.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/martech-2030-brinker-baldwin.pdf https://www.gartner.com/en