Netcore's Bothra, on the role of marketing as a business driver

Veerchand Bothra, Chief Entrepreneur & Evangelist, Netcore Solutions, writes about how brands are increasingly relying on Martech insights to deploy personalised campaigns. 

Marketing is one of the leading business functions that has been able to demonstrate the varied advantages of deploying new age technologies. Marketing technology has proven to be a trusted and efficient means of capturing the attention of the increasingly distracted and complex customer. From identifying objectives related to business goals, sieving customer segments and being present and visible with apt content, marketers have golden egg to address their daily woes. 

While compelling creative marketing and storytelling remain key for attracting new customers and differentiating the brand’s story, the role has undoubtedly expanded to now include more strategic planning, which is provided by insights from Martech. In fact, it has enabled the marketing function to don a new role as a business driver, change agent and customer experience champion. Marketers are increasingly turning to technology to focus more on improving individual campaigns that eventually contribute to broader revenue optimisation. 

Customers are drawn to relevance 

Brands need to be distinctive, not just by being different, but work on being both personally relevant and emotionally important to people. In the current competitive market scenario, it has become imperative to move beyond the traditional parameters – where can they be found, where to get their information from, what are their needs, choices and preferences – that only engage customers at the beginning of the sales funnel. Brands require a holistic approach to design a better customer experience, which must be able to track and measure the effects of every interaction a customer has with a brand at every point from window shopping, surfing, and adding to wish list to final purchase. 

While marketers remain fixated on differentiation, customers are drawn to brands that communicate with relevance and believe they care for them. Ashish, a 40-year old male, scouts for the best medical insurance for himself and his family every year in the month of June. A brand that stays away from bombarding him with products throughout the year and reaches out to him emotionally and at the right time strikes a chord with him. From the enormous data we collect, if we can target people on a very personal level, and focus on creating value for them, we can then create meaningful relationships towards building a loyal customer base. 

Marketing automation is changing the game for marketers 

Marketing automation connects the dots of 4R’s (reaching the Right person at the Right time using the Right channel with the Right content) to ensure measurable impact of campaigns. 

Recently, Go-Air on their flight-booking platform observed a drastic drop-out rate and were facing hindrances to bring these users back to the website to complete the transaction. The existing method of nudging the customer to return to the website via an email had a lukewarm response as travelers didn’t want to spend time filling all details of their requirements again. A personalised campaign integrating its website data, channel data, and CRM data (a unified view of a customer) and using multi-channel (Email, Browser Push Notification (BPN) and Web Message) addressing their concerns encouraged them to return to the platform to find that Go-Air had remembered their last searches, speeding up the booking process. With this integrated cross-channel marketing automation campaign using actionable analytics, Go-Air was able to re-target the dropped website users to increase booking conversions. The Attribution Dashboard of the marketing automation & analytics platform helped to understand the exact effectiveness of each of these journeys across different channels, enabling optimisation across various levels. The cross-device personalisation and frequency capping helped deliver the excellent customer experience. The campaign witnessed overall 10x increase in website traffic and saw a phenomenal 8x growth in ROI. 

Data continues to be one of the most essential assets for marketers. Once it is gathered, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning aid the marketers to categorise the data as per their requirement, making it possible to better engage with customers in real-time and determine best next-actions. Taking personalisation one step further, it not only targets specific messages to specific consumers but also waits until the precise moment to pull in other relevant data points to determine what content is served. Brands have been able to modify sales pitches and processes to optimise activities such as predictive lead acquisition, understanding customer behaviour, and personalised recommendations. 

Marketing automation is helping companies build a corporate culture with utmost customer focus, and help optimise marketing goals making more accurate predictive analyses, and saving time on finding and converting leads. 

With tools and analytics to gain insights into customers’ interactions, transforming them into rich customer intelligence and personalising campaigns –brands have been successful in winning loyal customers who purchase again and again, also share their positive brand experiences with others. 

As the marketing industry – or rather the entire digital world – continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, the best marketers are ones who are willing to learn and experiment, driven by their curiosity to explore new ideas and rethink old ones.

Disclaimer: Views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of Adgully.