When it comes to or marketing technology, knowns as martech, Jennifer Manocchio said during a Cucalorus Connect Conference session Friday, marketers can be overwhelmed with the number of platforms currently available.

Manocchio, president of Sweeney, a Cleveland-headquartered marketing agency with a location in Wilmington, led a talk Friday on martech, what some examples of it are and how marketers and businesses should use them to deliver a better campaign.

“Martech, in general, has exploded. There are more than 7,000 martech out in the market, and that is overwhelming,” Manocchio said.

Martech is any type of technology that can be used to accomplish marketing goals, she said. That includes simple software programs such as Emma, an email marketing platform, Google Analytics and more advanced ones like Salesforce, a customer relationship management software.

 “Some programs are actually free, and you are probably already using them in your everyday marketing, whereas something like Marketo is much more sophisticated so the scale of martech is pretty broad,” she said.

While there is a pretty broad spectrum of what martech is and the types of martech that are out there, she said, it is important to note that martech platforms can’t replace creativity and strategy meaning those technologies cannot replace the work that marketers do.

“The exciting thing about our industry in the marketing space is that digital has changed the marketing landscape so greatly," Manocchio said, "not just how we communicate with our audiences but also the technology that we can use to reach our audiences.”

Later in the conference, one new item on the lineup was Idea Bounce, a session where Wilmington residents got 30 seconds to present their business idea to a panel and audience.

The panel included Tobin Geatz co-founder and general partner at Sea Hawk Innovations, Ann Revell-Pechar founder of Fluent PR and Kevin Carlson, vice president and chief development officer at Wilmington Housing Authority.

Ideas presented ranged from development of software that allows county emergency operation centers to engage in interagency communication during natural events such as hurricanes and another to establish a business program for senior citizens in the country to be able to make money through making and selling biscotti.

This updated story corrects Kevin Carlson's current title.