The Changing Face of Marketing

22nd November 2011
The Changing Face of Marketing
Srishti Sofat General Manager of Responsys Business Solutions India ( left) and Antonio Casacuberta, CTO and VP Engineering, Responsys Inc in Bangalore, November2011 ( IndiaTechOnline Photo)

Marketing is now a multi-dimensional challenge, spanning channels like email, mobile phones, social media and the Web which are slowly encroaching into the space occupied by old ‘power channels’ like television and print media. To help understand these new marketing dynamics we spoke to a leader in this field of interactive marketing -- Responsys --  and met their visiting CTO, Antonio Casacuberta, during his recent visit to Bangalore. The company is, we discovered, crafting many of its global solutions, in India.

 The Changing Face of Marketing

Welcome to the revolution. Old school marketing is fading. And a New School is on the rise. Why? Because consumers have changed. They fast forward through TV commercials. They’ve put down the newspaper. Old school marketing was one-way communication. The old power channels were TV, radio and print. Today, consumers have more options. They can choose which marketing messages they receive, when, where, and from whom. They expect, even demand, interactive communication. The new power channels are the consumers’ channels — email, mobile, social and the web. Companies that understand this evolution are now carefully moving digital interactivity toward the centre of their marketing strategies, rethinking their priorities and budgets, and substantially reshaping their processes and skills. Let’s these companies New School Marketers
With the marketplace becoming more and more consumer driven and consumers actively seeking out like minded individuals to connect with, the old channels of marketing like TV, Print, etc. which used to often offer one-way communication is slowly losing its relevance to the new interactive communication power. According to Forrester’s Interactive Marketing Forecast for the next five years, it estimates social media marketing to grow at an annual rate of 34 percent – faster than any other form of online marketing and is estimated to grow to $3.1 billion in 2014. The forecast cites “renewed focus on email due to its low cost and increased efficiency of the channel”.
Enterprises today have to listen to who is talking about them on the Twitter, Face book, Blogs, etc. Word of mouth has taken an entirely different shape, to which the business has to listen to. Companies like Dell, Toyota, IBM, Samsung, Honda, etc. (and many more) aware of this changing phenomenon of interactive communication have already changed and re-designed their marketing strategy, to focus on the newer channels of marketing.
Responsys, an interactive marketing technology company headquartered in San Bruno, Calofornia (US), has pioneered the concept of the New School of Marketing with its “Responsys Interact Suite” software. The software provides customers the roadmap, marketing platform and expertise that enterprises need to increase revenue, customer engagement, cross-channel coordination, automation and efficiency.
The latest in the offering from Responsys Interact Suite is the unique solution “ Display retargeting” which leverages the web and CRM data and aids enterprises to reach customers and prospects across the Internet through highly targeted, real-time display ads.
Responsys with its Interact Suite redefines and provides marketers with a powerful, comprehensive set of integrated applications to design, define, execute, manage and refine Cross-Channel Lifecycle Marketing campaigns across all key digital interactive channels — email, mobile, social, display and the web.
In January this year, Responsys opened a development centre in Bangalore – its first outside the US. The centre is focused on developing enterprise solutions in the areas of distributed computing, high volume transaction processing, and large scale system design. Hardly 9 months on, the centre has already developed its first product within the Interact suite – a solution for distributed marketing, says Srishti Sofat General Manager of Responsys Business Solutions India.
Explains Antonio Casacuberta, CTO and VP Engineering, Responsys: “Companies are having to increasingly engage in relationship marketing across the multiple interactive channels customers are embracing today—email, mobile, social and the web. They need to execute, and automate highly dynamic campaigns and lifecycle marketing programmes if they are to grow their revenue, increase marketing efficiency, and ensure customer loyalty.”
Link to resources on new age social marketing: http://www.responsys.com/resources/download_request.php  
November 22 2011