The current market environment is impacted by economic stressors and hectic pace of emerging technologies.. The key to business resilience and efficient growth is to build high-value customer relationships through digitisation and the intelligent use of data. Accelerated digitisation that is in sync with evolving customer preferences is at the core of future-focused investments and marketers play a critical role in this process. They use the right tools and technologies to effectively connect brands with customers, and balance personalisation and privacy to enhance the customer experience, optimise costs and increase business productivity.
The 8th Salesforce State of Marketing report surveyed 6000+ marketing leaders globally, including 240 from India, to identify the role of marketing in driving improved, lasting customer satisfaction. The report revealed the evolving focus areas of marketers and how it is leading them to realign priorities and challenges.
Indian marketing leaders identified their top priorities and challenges that are shaping new, customer-centric marketing trends:
Marketing trends that are set to re-define customer experience in India
The State of Marketing report highlights that marketers today have better technology and the power of data at their disposal.Therefore, even as companies relook at budgets and fine-tune their tech stacks, marketers are optimistic about their role and the value it provides.
Let’s look at how marketers are evolving in the face of external and internal challenges.
Balancing personalisation needs with privacy concerns
Engaging effectively with customers throughout their journey calls for knowing their needs and motivation behind buying your product or service. You need to collect as much data as possible for ensuring personalisation in your messaging and offering and also post-sales service. But you have to make sure you do so without infringing on their privacy. By striking a balance, you can win both customer attention and trust. To achieve this, marketers leverage tools and technologies that can collate, compile, analyse and present data efficiently, letting organisations create holistic customer profiles and implement personalisation at scale.
13% of B2B and 16% of B2C marketing budgets in the Asia-Pacific region have been allocated towards data-related tools and technology.
Leveraging new ways of data gathering in a cookie-free future
Marketers unanimously acknowledge that data remains at the centre of hyper-personalised customer experiences. An integrated, real-time approach to data is needed throughout the customer journey to drive high-value interactions and create positive customer sentiment.
With a cookie-less future looming, marketers are exploring newer ways to get first-party and second-party data with consent. These include using intelligent data tools like CDP and tactics like location-based marketing.
Apart from delivering an enhanced customer experience, these data-gathering methods significantly impact campaign optimisation and spending efficiency, critical factors in the current business environment.
Leading customer experience initiatives to create long term value
Dedicated customer experience initiatives are only set to grow as marketers look to create that ‘wow’ factor for high-affinity relationships. 92% of marketers said that the marketing function leads customer experience initiatives across the business, coordinating efforts across marketing, sales, service, and commerce.
To ensure the success of these initiatives, real-time performance data becomes crucial. 79% of respondents said they could analyse marketing performance in real time.
However, successful campaigns require data-driven marketing strategies and data management in the face of operational silos remains a hurdle.
As shared in the report, with the average number of data sources set to double from an average of 6 in 2021 to 12 in 2023, marketers might need help to tap into valuable cross-functional data sets.
33% of marketers said unifying data was a challenge for their organisation.
However, with the help of an integrated, customer-centric CRM like Salesforce Marketing Effectiveness Bundle, marketers can easily collate data from various sources and manage, store and analyse it effectively to meet the moment for every single customer.
Marketing is transforming to navigate a changing world
Businesses are looking to their CMOs and marketing teams to deliver on consumers’ digital-first expectations, do more with less in the face of economic challenges, and adapt to changing data privacy rules to get ready for a world without cookies. Meanwhile, marketers are optimistic about their roles and the value they can add to an organisation with smart tools and technologies and an in-depth customer understanding.
