Martech- A Vital Cog For Businesses?

The Indian media & marketing fraternity is going through a revolutionary time, especially for how marketers are looking at investing in best-in-class marketing & technology solutions for advanced business results. Whether reports that substantiate its rising power or marketing veterans venturing into their martech startups or a shift in consumer preferences post-pandemic, the digital economy is only strengthening further. Evidently, digital has emerged as a key channel not only for customer acquisition & engagement but also for conversion & retention.

Martech, as we all know, is playing a pivotal role in automating processes and making marketing easier for businesses. The global martech industry in 2021 spent about $344.8 billion. A recent report by Gartner also reveals how 68 per cent (two-thirds) of the chief marketing officers aim to increase their technology spend on marketing this year, while in the previous year, martech made up 26.2 per cent of the average marketing budget. This signals how marketers wish to expand their martech stack further.

Even according to chiefmartec, the 2011 martech landscape had around 150 solutions. It grew to around 1,000 in 2014, and 2,000 in 2015. And the 2020 edition had 8,000 solutions – a whopping 5,233% growth over the decade. 

"Godrej & Boyce, over the past few years, has been increasingly investing in digital to boost customer experience and build loyalty. In the pandemic, we employed AR/VR across various businesses to attract customers with 3D product previews for our appliances and security solutions offerings that enabled more informed purchases. With consumers today preferring to browse online before making a purchase, Godrej Interio has initiated virtual & hybrid selling, contactless payments, virtual walkthroughs, room planner & product configurators to cater to the newfound trend," informs Mehernosh Pithawalla, Sr Vice President and Head of Brand & Strategic Insights, Godrej & Boyce. 

He further explains how deploying AI chatbots helps in accelerating the decision-making process for customers, increases average cart orders, improves conversions, and drives repeat purchases. They have also been using programmatic advertising to effectively target consumers and businesses and have been experiencing great results.

For Sanjeev Jasani, Chief Operating Officer, Cheil India, the learning curve has been shortened and Indian brands today are fast latching on to these martech solutions. "We have all seen the huge explosion in the start-up world especially digital-first brands. These are the kind of companies who are leading the way in adopting the best-in-class martech solutions as it’s extremely critical to their business. In addition, BFSI, ecommerce, airlines and FMCG companies are well ahead of the curve as well."

Personalised CX to drive martech

Consumer preferences and mobile penetration post-pandemic have clearly accelerated the shift to digital channels, which continue to be a key source for brands for consumer acquisition, engagement and retention. Besides providing a realm of relevance and convenience, technology has opened up avenues to understand consumer behaviour with more clarity and precision. "Being an efficient enabler, the technology allows companies to personalise communication through creative digital automation and deploy tools to analyse data to understand customer needs. Trends such as AI-based marketing, integration of interactive voice channels and chatbots, and play-to-earn (gamification) to build immersive experiences for customers and deliver hyper-personalisation will be in demand in the next few years," believes Devarshy R. Ganguly, Head of Marketing, Magicbricks.

Jasani also agrees that martech solutions that cater to the customisation of products and services will be the key. That coupled with self-service solutions will provide more power in the hands of the consumer and enable them to build their own experiences to interact with brands. For him, these are going to be absolutely critical in the next 2 years.

While martech adoption in the near future will be a necessity, there will be a mix of early adopters and laggards. While it significantly increases our ability to reach audiences, there is an increasing need to balance this with responsible marketing, assert experts.