12 Fast-Growing MarTech Niches

[MarTech Special]

Fast-Growing MarTech Niches
Author: Tomas Fransson

What's most important when selecting your target market?

Choose a growing market! Get that part right, and finding new clients will become easier.

Here's an opportunity to consider!


The US MarTech sector has grown year-over-year by double digits since 2011, and it's now up to 7,040 companies.

This sector was as small as 150 companies just eight years ago.

Talk about growth! ;)

What is MarTech?


MarTech is the SaaS apps that marketers use to set up, run, and measure marketing campaigns. Two of the best known MarTech apps are Hubspot and Mailchimp.

MarTech contains a myriad of niches.


The 7,040 apps mentioned above only refer to "general purpose" MarTech.

There are also apps built for specific platforms (e.g., Shopify apps,) or industry-specific solutions, for example, ChurchCRM or LabWorthy in the dental industry.

There might be as many as 50,000 MarTech apps. Of course, there are many orders of magnitude difference in scale between a marketing platform company like Hubspot and a WordPress plug-in such as Thrive Leads (a list building app from ThriveThemes.)

If you can land three to five clients in a growing niche, you have the foundation of a solid freelance business. As a freelance designer, developer, or copywriter, you only need a handful of clients every single month.

However, whom could YOU target in the MarTech space?


You could support customers of a particular MarTech app.


Some opportunities:

Hubspot has over 60,500 customers in more than 100 countries. There is a whole ecosystem of agencies and consultants specializing in supporting Hubspot customers.

Mailchimp has grown to around 11 million active customers. ActiveCampaign, a "minor" Mailchimp competitor, surpassed 50,000 paying customers last year (2018.) More than 88,000 customers have already bought Thrive Leads, the plug-in I mentioned above.


All these MarTech customers need marketers who can set up, run, and analyze their digital campaigns. They need web and graphic designers that make their content shine.


For example, Blueprint Media Studios are specializing in custom Mailchimp templates. Dennis Ethier at ThriveMate only builds websites with plugin-ins from ThriveThemes.

Fast-Growing MarTech Niches - Blueprint Media Studios - Mailchimp Design Experts
Fast-Growing MarTech Niches - ThriveMate - ThriveThemes Web Designers

All these MarTech customers need marketers who can set up, run, and analyze their digital campaigns. They need web and graphic designers that make their content shine.


For example, Blueprint Media Studios are specializing in custom Mailchimp templates.

Fast-Growing MarTech Niches - Blueprint Media Studios - Mailchimp Design Experts

Dennis Ethier at ThriveMate only builds websites with plugin-ins from ThriveThemes.

Fast-Growing MarTech Niches - ThriveMate - ThriveThemes Web Designers

MarTech customers need copy that sells and educates. Could a "Hubspot Copywriter" be a thing? Maybe. It's a good sign that Chief Martech Office is hiring one (PDF) right now.

Potential clients of all sizes continue to use more MarTech apps, and they mix-and-match apps across an endless array of vendors. 69% of US marketing executives are using at least six MarTech apps, and 31% rely on more than 10. These guys need people who can connect and customize their apps. Integration services and custom development, anyone?

Can you feel it? We're talking massive business opportunities for designers, developers, writers, and marketers.

Of course, you could target the MarTech industry itself.

The 2019 Marketing Technology Landscape (Martech 5000) divides MarTech into 42 sub-categories.

Some of the sub-categories are still quite small. As a rule of thumb, a freelancer need at least 200 fair-sized companies in a niche to be viable.

You also want the niche to be growing, so it has room for new players (we're looking at you ;).

So what MarTech sub-categories are BOTH big enough and fast-growing?

We've done the legwork for you.

12 Fast-Growing MarTech Niches with 200 or More Companies

Pick one or two sub-categories that spark your interest! Use Marketing-Mentor's Pick a Niche Kit to decide if they're right for you.

MarTech

sub-category

Fastest-growing company*

/ founded

Companies in sub-category

Nr. of companies listed on Inc. 5,000

Avg. 3-yr growth

(firms on

Inc. 5,000)

CMS & Web Experience Management

Acquia

2007

205

1

66%

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

220

7

290%

Display & Programmatic Advertising

248

7

772%

Optimization, Personalization & Testing

213

4

1770%

Marketing Automation & Campaign/Lead Management

292

6

1166%

Content Marketing

239

4

808%

E-commerce Platforms & Carts

228

3

120%

Mobile Marketing

317

5

1227%

Sales Automation, Enablement & Intelligence

507

15

295%

E-commerce Marketing

212

7

875%

Social Media Marketing & Monitoring

Soci

2013

334

6

996%

Business/Customer Intelligence & Data Science

234

1

182%

* These MarTech companies are the fastest growing in their respective sub-category. (according to Inc. 5,000, 2018)


Fast-Growing MarTech Niches