Future proof your marketing efforts by leveraging the power of CX
By Anubhav Sonthalia, CEO, dentsu CXM India & Merkle Sokrati India.
Promoting overall employee wellbeing:
The past 20 months have been tough on our employees, owing to the increased client expectations and deadlines. From the agency’s standpoint, it gets tough as we may work long hours to accomplish certain goals and may feel disconnected at times. This black swan event has taught us the significance of physical as well as mental wellbeing and our people have very well demonstrated that trust can go a long way. We operate a lot from a zone where we like to trust our people and in return, we like them to take ownership, so that a fine balance continues to remain constant in 2022. A great initiative by dentsu and Merkle, starting 2022 is that every employee is entitled to an additional 3 days off each year for their overall wellness. We encourage our people to constantly learn and grow their horizon & intend to increase our employee engagement activities through monthly/quarterly internal awards, occasional games, etc. which will hopefully bring back the connection even if it’s virtual.
Customer-centric approach:
At MerkleSokrati, we analyze the changes in customer behavior at the early stages of the customer interaction funnel, this positions us well for the long-term market shifts. Keeping a real-time track of customer preferences and their persistently evolving habits is a key aspect of the customer-first approach. By ensuring that customers are taken care of and by maintaining good relations brands can go a long way ahead in the post-pandemic world. Brands need to focus on customer experience, at every step through the customer’s journey. The way I see it when a client chooses MerkleSokrati, they select the best-in-class performance media, analytics and branding solutions for customer acquisitions, CX (Customer Experience) &martech investments for customer retention and LTV (Lifetime Value). With our team expanding and fresh talent coming in, creativity and ideology are improving at a rapid pace leading to healthy competition internally. Marketing teams need to invest in future-proofing their practices to meet the dynamically evolving customer expectations, especially on concerns around rising data privacy. Brands that invest in customer centricity are the ones that win and retain customers today and in the future. It is all about meeting your customers where they are.
Pandemic’s impact on customer behavior and media industry:
The marketing ecosystem has evolved and changed the way we look at Customer Experience Management and Customer Relationship Management due to the pandemic. This profound impact has challenged marketers to create a consolidated experience across every platform. It is no secret that brands have changed their perspective when it comes to digital CX, a new wave of digital automation and technology is on the rise for a better future in the digital CXM industry. Most of 2020 and the whole of 2021, has taught us that superior CX is a major differentiator in the market. A few of these major changes include increasing mobile and social usage, vastly improving algorithms, increasing AI dependency and most importantly rising customer expectations. With advanced CXM solutions, we are looking at a brighter future for our partner businesses and ourselves. Customer Experience is the next big thing in the industry and we are gearing up in the same direction.
Omnichannel marketing:
Customer Experience is the new battleground. Brands need to meet customers at their convenience, hence, cross-channel marketing is vital. Consistent communication with prospective customers or clients matters the most and you need to make sure that you show up when customers are on the internet. Omnichannel engagement strategies have a promising ROI on CXM investment. As an agency, we are evolving our ecosystem to cater to a recognizable tone across all stages of a customer’s journey for all our clients. The teams are on their toes to deliver a delightful customer experience for all our client brands and stitch together extensive campaigns that monitor customer experiences across multi-channels. Mobile usage is on a rise and with cross-marketing, this meteoric rise cannot be ignored. We urge brands with an online presence to infuse in UI/UX as mobile CX is a trend that can make or break a brand. The real impact of the marketing efforts is through linking KPIs between channels and stages of funnels to actual business results. A full-funnel marketing approach is not just limited to a campaign strategy, in fact, it’s a complete shift to how marketing works. Omnichannel campaigns are essential for a brand’s visibility and reputation. In this market-driven customer era, cross-channel marketing campaigns ensure that your brand is discoverable at the customer’s ease and convenience.
Creating a competitive advantage with personalization:
Customers have an ocean of options to select from. Thus, to stand out, we prioritise personalised campaigns for clients brands in the highest regard. With advanced analytics and predictive modeling, we have come a long way ahead of persona-based guesswork targeting. We can now rely on data-driven customer segmentation based on their journey, propensity and loyalty for conversion and LTV (Lifetime Value), to carry out sophisticated personalized campaigns. Customers are aware of their privacy rights and with third-party data slowly vanishing, brands are shifting focus to first-party data. Through personalization based on customer trends and behavior, the positive output in CX has increased. Personalization is a game-changer in the media industry, brands are trailing CX personalization on a granular scale. It plays a pivotal role in driving long-term customer value and helps in catering to customers in a better way. It is important to segment customers accurately to identify the value triggers and facilitate personalization. Experts at our company commit to an improved CX for brands as well as ensure higher ROI. With great talent joining across marketing, data science, tech and management roles, we are ready to strike 2022.
