Recently, Salesforce released its sixth edition of the “State of Marketing” report. In its 2020 report, Salesforce surveyed nearly 7,000 marketing leaders worldwide to discover:
- Changing definitions of marketing success
- Shifts in engagement standards and privacy practices
- Evolving marketing skill sets and processes
- Unfolding data management strategies and tactics
This report was collected from January 8 through February 11, 2020. It shows that in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, standards of customer engagement are shifting with unprecedented speed and magnitude, and marketers are under tremendous pressure to overhaul their organizational models and use of technology to provide differentiated, digital-first customer engagement.
Also, personalized, and empathetic engagement has become more important than ever. Marketers are shifting how they source and manage customer data and ramping up use of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) that help them make the most of it. They are also increasing in the tracking of metrics like customer satisfaction, digital engagement, and lifetime customer value to find out what is working and what is not across the customer journey.
“Where do we go from here?” For marketers, that’s a multifaceted question. As ambassadors to the public, we must ask ourselves how to best reposition our brands. As a line of communication to customers, we must ask ourselves how we can be more empathic and understanding. As partners to the business, we must ask ourselves how to best collaborate with our colleagues in sales, customer service, and beyond as we seek a return to growth,” said Stephanie Buscemi, Chief Marketing Officer of Salesforce.
Some of the key highlights are:
- Marketers are particularly keen to expand their use of artificial intelligence (AI). Tools that optimize social media, mobile, and video marketing are also increasingly prominent as customers shift to digital channels. Analytics and measurement tools that let marketers gauge what is working and what is not are also being used more heavily. 72% of them say they are aligned with their IT organisations, yet IT leaders rank insufficient business unit alignment as a top challenge.
- Today, customers hop from channel to channel throughout their day. In Singapore, marketers are faced with the challenge of engaging customers in real time. They are meeting the challenge by increasing their adoption of various digital touchpoints. Search engine marketing, customer communities, and mobile apps are experiencing particularly dramatic increases in use.
- Marketers cite data unification and activation among their top five challenges. Today, marketers are turning to even more complex combinations of data management technologies to build a cohesive understanding of their customers. The top 5 popular Data Management Solutions are: Customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Email Service Provider (ESP), Advertising platforms, Data management platform and Customer Data platform.
- Marketers are turning to AI for various use cases, with personalization, customer segmentation, and deep data insights being particularly popular. In Singapore, marketers also use AI for programmatic advertising and media buying as well. The use of AI has surged from 29% in 2018 to 84% in 2020.
- Marketers expect the next 10 years to bring transformational impacts from new technologies and societal developments. In Singapore, they expect 5G wireless networks, an expanded online population, and new regulations to have the greatest impact on their work over the next 10 years.
Read full report here.
