The golden age of marketing is here with MarTech 2.0

Cloud technology has brought about a revolutionary shift in the field of marketing. Referred to as the 'MarTech 2.0' revolution, this transformation is facilitated by seamless access and control over customer data, analytics, and AI tools. These technological strides are redefining the approach to enhancing customer experiences and effective marketing. Rajesh Jain, Founder & Managing Director of Netcore Cloud and author of 'Startup to Proficorn,' delved into these insights during a discussion with Tim Barnes, General Manager of Advertising & Marketing Technology Vertical at AWS. This conversation was featured in SaaS Scions, a web series crafted by Business Insider India and AWS India.

Netcore Cloud, is among the few SaaS companies in India that was born before cloud became mainstream. According to Jain, in the current digital landscape, they are providing a multi-channel approach by bringing all the customer engagement data together into a customer data platform that helps marketers with customer engagement across multiple platforms - simplifying a marketer’s task and enabling a better experience for the customer.

Jain emphasized the importance of providing an omnichannel and personalized customer experience. Post-pandemic, there has been a tremendous growth in the digital landscape, which has brought about a big shift where the engagement with the customer is real-time, showing the right product to the right customers at the right time. The key driver for any marketer is to create customized experiences. Another major shift as per Jain is that along with new customer acquisition, companies have started focusing on building deeper relationships with existing customers because the "CAC on new customers has been rising rapidly."

Speaking of the solutions that Jain's company is trying to build for marketers, especially merchandisers, Jain highlighted an AI-based catalog that can help in creating personalized experiences for their customers. He cited the example of UNBXD, which was acquired by Netcore Cloud and specializes in product discovery and catalog enrichment. Combining the enriched catalog data with customer data will be the "holy grail" for marketers. The key problem marketers face today is how to get their data together for the generative AI engines to work their magic, he added. Many companies still have data siloed in so many different places--offline and online--data across various martech platforms. Changing this could transform e-commerce and digital businesses in the future.

Answering Barnes' query on data privacy and consent management, Jain said they just work on the data provided by their customers. He further added that marketers should move away from third-party data towards first-party and zero-party data. Giving incentives to marketers to provide their data, what he calls "atomic rewards" can bring a transformation in the data revolution as it will not only be the best and most authentic data, but also reduce concerns about privacy.

Talking about recent trends, Jain mentioned that for martech companies, now is a good time to consider buying and merging with other companies. This approach also benefits marketers by reducing the need to handle many different solutions from different vendors, which saves them time and effort. Jain believes that in the future, more companies will combine because managing separate solutions is becoming expensive and challenging.

Barnes and Jain concluded their discussion noting how India is now the leading SaaS factory in the world. Jain added that businesses need to figure out the optimal way to establish a profits monopoly since every industry has a finite pool of profits.

The conversation between Barnes and Jain highlighted the sea-change that the marketing world is undergoing. With cloud expanding the possibilities of technology and delivering tools to enable deeper impact, martech providers are finding innovative ways to meet the evolving needs of marketers. The concept of acquiring and merging companies, as discussed by Jain, reflects a strategic shift that not only streamlines solutions but also maximizes efficiency for marketers, freeing up valuable time and resources.

As the landscape continues to evolve, the emphasis on consolidation and seamless integration is likely to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of martech. The ongoing dialogue and collaboration between industry leaders like Barnes and Jain shed light on the path forward, where the fusion of cloud technology, strategic acquisitions, and a customer-centric approach will drive the next phase of transformative growth in the marketing sector.

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