A methodology created by Diego Martinez
ToolMarketing turns software, a service or infrastructure into a marketing piece that delivers recurring value, learns from consumer usage data and shapes offers at the right moment.
Tool Behaviour (CEGO)
Cycle. Moves forward in a sequential, predictable way: the tool knows which stages it will activate next.
Click a behaviour to see the simulation.
The concept
Created by Diego Martinez, ToolMarketing is a methodology that turns marketing into a functional value-delivery system based on real utility, recurrence and intelligence. Instead of relying only on persuasion, promises or attention, the brand offers consumers a tool that delivers value before, during and after the purchase.
That tool is a marketing piece: it brings the tactics of attraction, interaction, nurturing, conversion and retention together in a single experience. While it is used, it learns from behaviour, understands the consumer’s problem and shapes the right offer. The sale becomes a consequence of utility.
Nor does it replace any of these strategies: it can work alongside content, funnels and landing pages when it makes sense for the business.
The tool serves before it sells, works before it persuades and delivers utility before any offer.
The tactics are not fixed stages or a linear journey. They are activated by the tool’s behaviour, in a linear or non-linear way.
Brings consumers to the tool, through internal channels (website, store, physical location) or external ones (search, social media, paid traffic).
Direct use of the functionality. This is where consumers receive value and the tool starts to understand their context.
Storytelling and copy based on real use, which educate consumers and bring them closer to the solution.
The offer is built from real interaction data and appears when it makes sense for the consumer.
Intentional return out of habit, value or need, before and after the purchase.
Applied scenarios
The tool can be digital, physical or hybrid. What defines ToolMarketing is not the format but the marketing function the tool takes on.
The tool is digital: a website, app or system consumers use to solve a problem. It stops being just a product and operates as an active marketing channel: it guides behaviour, learns from usage data and converts through utility.
Examples
The tool is a service in the physical world. It can be simple and delivered by a person, or supported by equipment and sensors. What matters is bringing consumers to the physical space by delivering something useful before the sale.
Examples
The tool is a space: an environment designed to be used, which welcomes people, delivers value while they are there and becomes an asset for acquisition, relationship and intelligence.
Examples
Pillars
FIRE answers what makes something a recurring value tool, from a holistic, market view. SPAT answers how that tool is delivered: the technical side of management, technology and traffic.
What makes a tool an RVT
Solves a real pain with practical action.
Has value even without conversion.
Stays useful over time.
Focus on action, flow and real use.
How that tool is delivered
Scenario analysis, goal setting and action plan.
Routines, procedures and paths that lead to conversion.
Websites, integrations and WhatsApp that collect data and guide the consumer journey.
Organic or paid: what brings consumers to the tool.
The core
The RVT is the core of the methodology. It may resemble a free tool or a lead magnet, but it is built for a different purpose: to do marketing on a recurring basis. It can be digital, physical or hybrid and works as an autonomous channel for relationship, utility and conversion.
Principles
The principles ensure that delivery does not depend on the sale, but on an autonomous experience of value.
The journey is a flow that talks with the customer, not just a feature on offer.
First the tool delivers value; the offer follows, inside the flow.
The tool sells through flows of utility, not forced persuasion.
No tricks: triggers used honestly preserve trust.
There is a legitimate problem, solved again and again.
The tool is an active channel of interaction, not disposable content.
Every discipline, technique and model has its own space, and many work very well. ToolMarketing resembles some of them but isn’t the same thing. It doesn’t replace content, funnels, landing pages or paid traffic; it can work alongside them when it makes sense for the business.
ToolMarketing sits at the intersection of several fields: marketing, software, business (management) and design (UI and UX). That is why the methodology covers offer and journey, but also architecture, data, management and experience.
ToolMarketing has aspects that resemble the approaches above, but it has its own system and organization. Just as the approaches mentioned also resemble each other, despite being different strategies and tactics. It is not a free tool, it is not Software as Magnet or a landing app, it is not freemium and it is not PLG: it is a methodology that transforms software, service or infrastructure into a recurring marketing piece, with its own criteria (FIRE, SPAT and CEGO).
Innovations
ToolMarketing adds a new unit to marketing: alongside campaigns and content, a functional piece that works every day.
Marketing tactics can live together inside a single tool, without depending on separate channels.
Beyond the funnel’s linear path: cycles, exchanges, graphs and orbits.
The audience is segmented by the function it uses and the problem it is trying to solve.
The tool learns from what consumers do, not from who they are.
Experience focused on action, not on capturing screen time.
Services, physical products and experiences can also be sold through a tool.
Concepts
The terms that structure the discipline.
The author
Creator of ToolMarketing. Strategist, designer and developer of functional marketing systems.
He combines business administration, marketing and technology. Trained in Business Administration and graduated in Systems Analysis and Development, he has worked at companies such as MSC, IBM, GPTW and Itaú.
After several unsuccessful attempts to sell online, he realised what was missing was a channel that delivered value before the sale. That pain became a method: the first tests with functional tools began in 2023 and, since then, he has been structuring and spreading the discipline.
Author of “Marketing de Ferramenta” (MARTTENZI, 2 December 2025, ISBN 978-6598960001) and other titles on Amazon.
At HackTown 2026, an innovation festival, Diego presented ToolMarketing in the talk “Marketing de Ferramenta: what to do when content stops being a competitive advantage”.
Published research, the author’s academic ID and the open repository with the method’s foundations.
Try a tool by MARTTENZI, the company that applies ToolMarketing in real projects.
2016
In his final university project, a football app collected match information to offer products. It was just a way to monetise the app, but it was the first contact with something that today resembles ToolMarketing.
Sep 2023
First experiment of the method: a team picker with an affiliate banner outperforms ads in engagement.
2023-2025
Dozens of tools tested across niches: the theory emerges, with pillars, principles and behaviours.
2025
Preprint published on Zenodo and the methodology starts to spread.
Dec 2025
Launch of the book “Marketing de Ferramenta” by MARTTENZI, on Amazon.
2026
Talk at HackTown 2026, in the Society and Behaviour track.
MARTINEZ, Diego. Marketing de Ferramenta: Uma nova estratégia baseada em ferramentas de valor recorrente. Zenodo, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15165196
See the book on AmazonFrequently asked questions
It is a methodology created by Diego Martinez that turns software, a service or infrastructure into a marketing piece. That piece, the RVT, delivers recurring value to the consumer, brings together attraction, interaction, nurturing, conversion and retention, and converts sales as a consequence of utility.
No. Marketing tools are the systems a team uses to do marketing: CRM, email automation, ad managers, analytics. ToolMarketing flips the logic: the tool itself is the marketing. It is used by the consumer, not the team, and it is the tool that attracts, builds the relationship and sells.
Because lead capture is only the front door and, in many strategies, it is the end goal. That works, but ToolMarketing looks at what comes next: the tool keeps working after the first use, observes behaviour, understands the problem, shapes the right offer and drives the sale inside the experience itself. The main metric is sales conversion and recurring use, not only the number of contacts.
In the digital scenario. Both use software as an acquisition asset: a calculator, a simulator or a diagnostic that attracts people through use. That is why a digital RVT can use Engineering as Marketing techniques in how it is built.
Because Engineering as Marketing focuses on software and acquisition. ToolMarketing also works with services and infrastructure, sells products and services that aren’t software, and has its own criteria for the tool (FIRE), for delivery (SPAT) and for consumer behaviour inside it (CEGO), going from attraction all the way to retention.
Not yet. On its own, a free tool works as what we call Software as Magnet: it attracts through immediate use. It becomes an RVT when it gains recurrence, understands the consumer, shapes an offer and drives the sale by applying the AINCR tactics.
No. A landing app is a landing page with a function: people use something useful, but the page only serves as a landing spot, receives the visitor and captures the lead. It is a market term with no single author, and it describes the typical form of Software as Magnet well. In ToolMarketing the tool is not a landing spot: it builds the whole recurrence structure, stays with the consumer over time and has to sell, not only capture contacts.
In freemium and PLG, the product itself is the tool and the growth engine, and both work very well for selling software. An RVT is not the product being sold: it sells something other than itself, such as a service, a physical product or an experience.
No. It is a methodology of its own that can complement what the business already does: content, funnels, landing pages, paid and organic traffic. An RVT can be the destination of a campaign or the reason for a consumer to come back after a purchase made through another channel.
No. It can be software, a service or infrastructure, or hybrid, like a digital tool launched by a QR code in a physical space. It can even be something simple, like a bike shop that leaves tools available for free use. What matters is the function: solving a real problem repeatedly and operating as a marketing piece.
Behaviour, not identity. The tool observes use, it doesn’t watch the consumer: it relies on anonymous tags and local storage to personalise the experience without collecting sensitive data. That intelligence is what makes good offers possible.
Implementation is tailor-made with Diego Martinez. Use the “I want to implement an RVT” button or any contact button on this page.
The RVT is implementation
Understanding the concept is the first step. Designing, building and running an RVT that sells requires method: strategy, processes, automation and traffic. This implementation is tailor-made, directly with Diego Martinez.
Send a message to learn more about ToolMarketing