Organizations are struggling to keep up with changes in technology, especially with the rapid digital transformation that has been accelerated by the pandemic. The world of marketing is no exception; it has undergone tremendous changes over the past few years, especially in the area of martech transformation.
Here are the key Martech trends that will help businesses in Asia Pacific get ready for 2022.
1. Contextual personalization will become a basic requirement
While contextual personalization has been embraced and practiced by many businesses worldwide especially in recent years, we will see a sharp increase in this area, if not full adoption by the remaining players who have not done so yet.
Providing contextual personalization will no longer be an option or a nice-to-have feature in an e-commerce strategy or overall customer experience, but a necessity if businesses want to retain customers and increase satisfaction.
Considering that 69% consumers across Asia Pacific expect the brands they shop with to offer a rewards program tailored to their preferences and 64% expect relevant recommendations based on their purchase history and preferences*, we are reaching the maturity point for contextual personalization.
2. Humane content marketing will be the gold standard
With most of us working from home over the past two years, the lines between personal and professional lives have blurred and we've seen many businesses communicate more humanly with customers about their products and services.
Especially for those in the B2B and tech industries, with Apple paving the way years ago, the need for a message so simple that our grandmothers could understand it was a must.
Additionally, with webinar fatigue being very real, businesses can no longer afford to rely on the traditional hour-long webinar, full of technical details and jargon, to get their message across to customers.
A case in point is what my team started doing here at SAP Customer Experience APJ, where we break down an hour of content into short series of no more than 20 minutes* and make those easily accessible on-demand instead of expecting the audience to attend LIVE.
What we're seeing is that when we make it convenient for our audience to consume content, they actually get better information.
3. Customer data management will be your new best friend
GDPR has certainly been a game changer for global organizations in terms of how they deal with privacy and data management, especially with non-compliance carrying a 4% fine on a global turnover. Many countries have since followed suit and imposed similar regulations.
This enforcement has led businesses to look for technology to help them ensure compliance with the latest data regulations and that they can fully optimize their use of customer data.
Because the problem most companies face today is not a lack of data, but an inability to fully optimize and exploit that data. This is where technology like the SAP Customer Data Platform serves as the backbone that enables true personalization, especially when combined with a personalization engine like Emarsys.
4. Less is more (technology fusion)
Another big phenomenon that we are seeing and will continue to see is businesses that are doing what is called home cleaning technology largely due to the pandemic.
The pandemic has been a stress test for businesses, and many have been found to be failing to deliver what we consider to be the basics. This is particularly evident in the areas of supply chain and digital marketing, where on-time delivery, responsive customer service, and the right product (or promotion) being delivered is a hit and miss.
The root cause is often a lack of integration of their technology. Most organizations run on multiple solutions to manage different business functions, and while it may have been working before COVID, the sheer and sudden increase in demand has caused systems to shut down and many businesses to fall into disarray.
In the future, we will see major efforts around technology overhaul.
5. The Rise of New Digital Marketing
I foresee that with the massive rise of digital marketing, especially on paid search and paid media efforts, there will be a real need for new channels and platforms to run these campaigns instead of the traditional channels we are using today (Google Search, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook/or Meta).
Especially when many of the current channels are so congested and saturated, with everyone targeting the same audience and posting similar content.
Original post: Five Martech trends in 2022 – SAP Southeast Asia News Center
Translated by: Phan Cong Duy
