This year, we’ve been celebrating our 25th anniversary – a milestone that is no easy feat to reach in the competitive, fast-changing world of marketing operations.
It’s been heart-warming not only to celebrate with today’s CRMT Digital team, clients and partners, but also to reconnect with former colleagues and clients, many of whom have continued to support us in the new roles and new businesses they’ve joined.
Marking 25 years of marketing operations
Our 25th Anniversary Celebration event, which took place at the fabulous Select Car Leasing Stadium (home of Reading FC), brought this mix of past and present together.
The afternoon showcased the successes we’ve had since our foundation in 1999, recognised the challenges we’ve encountered along the way and acknowledged all of those who’ve helped CRMT Digital become what it is today – with the help of plenty of champagne and cake, of course!
“If it wasn’t down to the people we’ve employed in the past and currently, we wouldn’t be anywhere near where we are today.”
We were also delighted to welcome Joel Harrison, Founder, Editor-at-large and influencer at B2B Marketing, to host a fireside chat with our founders, Andrew Freeman and Tony Sprague.
Marketing technology evolution
Charting the evolution of both our business and the wider marketing operations industry, the discussion highlighted the turning points that have led to where we are today – and, critically, the exponential growth of marketing technology.
From our beginnings in recognising an opportunity and a shortcoming in what was then the CRM space, the chat shared some anecdotal insights about the growth of marketing operations that are a must-hear for anyone in this space.
It also highlighted how many of the core challenges that marketers faced over two decades ago remain – and how we’re all still striving to achieve personalisation, targeting and data perfection!
“Certainly there are some things that haven’t changed [in marketing]….the challenges are similar. But what has changed is the whole technology base.”
AI as a marketing operations tool, not a buzzword
Never a business to rest on our laurels, we’re hard at work with new marketing operations initiatives, product enhancements and service developments that will continue to drive success for our customers. It’s this customer-centric approach that has underpinned our ethos for the past 26 years and that continues to do so.
“It’s been our customers that have driven the service development, the product development – because they’re trying to be at the forefront of what they do. It’s all customer-driven.”
AI is a perfect example of this. As organisations are slowly getting to grips with what they can and can’t do with AI, we’re enabling them to harness core AI capabilities by adding relevant, useful AI features to our platforms. This will mean they serve a clear purpose, delivering tangible benefits – rather than just paying lip-service to the AI buzzword.
For us, this pragmatic, needs-driven approach is what will ensure we continue to support our clients and deliver real ROI for them well into the future – hopefully for at least another 25 years!
You can watch the full fireside chat now by clicking on the link below. We’d love to hear your thoughts – do get in touch if you’d like to discuss the marketing operations challenges you’re looking to solve!