HP Offers Its Own Digital Marketing Hub
One thing you can pretty much be sure of these days is that basic analytics are Digital Experiences 101. That doesn’t mean every organization has the basics down and are ready to move to the next step. Far from it. But for those who are looking for something less than the basics, HP is attempting to answer the call.
It’s called the Digital Marketing Hub and it is HP’s entry into marketing analytics (and then some).
The Digital Marketing Hub is a new product but it integrates a number of existing technologies within HP, including HP Autonomy (IDOL, Marketing Optimization), HP Vertica and HP Labs. And, it leverages the HP Converged Cloud.
The idea here, according to Gabriele Di Piazza – Vice President, Marketing, Marketing Optimization, HP Autonomy, and Sunil Menon – Chief Technology Officer, Marketing Optimization, HP Autonomy, is that the Hub is the central of your digital marketing system.
So what is this Hub all about? It’s about what many other enterprise vendors in the customer experience market are trying to achieve – the next wave of real-time, predictive analytics that will take your marketing efforts to a new level.
It’s about pulling in all the data you take the time to capture and use it to drive high end marketing workflows.
Think IDOL’s capture of unstructured data, mixed together with Vertica’s structured analytics. Then layer in HP Labs in depth mathematics and research. Use all of this machine learning to identify individual and segment behavior, and leverage that to drive campaigns, content and offers to customers and potential customers.
It’s interesting to point out that HP transferred the IP, personnel and algorithms developed from HP Labs into HP Autonomy to help develop the Digital Marketing Hub.
And it’s not about an all in-one solution either. HP has developed partnerships with a number of ISVs such as BlueKai, ExactTarget, hybris Software, Marketo, Rio SEO, and Experian Marketing Services, to create a best of breed environment for digital experiences, in addition to some key agency and consulting partner relationships. These ISVs will take data from, and feed data back into the Marketing Hub. Menon explained that there will be a services layer that can be consumed by any application that can make a web request, so more integrations will happen as the solution gains momentum.
Another key point for the Digital Marketing Hub is that it’s not just about digital experiences. HP has also included print/customer communications integration with HP Extreme. The idea, Menon noted, is that the Hub will allow you to understand what the best channel is to help you convert prospective customers into actual customers.
Gartner’s take on the Digital Marketing Hub (not HP’s, but marketing Hubs in general), is that they offer both breadth of capabilities and extensibility:
This convergence unifies collaboration, customer data, analytics and administration so multichannel campaigns can combine all the elements of content, context, history and intent for precisely targeted and timed offers and experiences—and, with practice, continuous storytelling and continuous engagement.
Of course Gartner isn’t necessarily saying you buy a Hub, but that’s what HP is offering.
I don’t argue that a Digital Marketing Hub, whether it’s a product offering like HP’s or something else isn’t a great thing to have. But I do wonder how many organizations are really ready for this level of analytics. I do wonder if in the rush to get into things such as predictive modeling and real-time recommendations, marketers aren’t taking the time to get the right foundation in place (data-wise and understanding-wise). And without that solid foundation underneath, the cracks will show quickly, and all the data may just go to waste.
