South African marketers expect new regulations governing data privacy to have the biggest impact over the next 10 years.
Salesforce’s sixth annual global State of Marketing report reveals that, in addition, an expanded online population as more people get internet access, and wearables, like smart watches, will have a transformation effect on the marketing landscape.
Based on data collected from some 7 000 marketers across six continents, key trends highlighted include that innovation is marketers’ top priority, AI use has skyrocketed, account-based marketing has rapidly become a cornerstone in B2B, and emerging technologies, like 5G, augmented reality and virtual reality, are expected to have a major impact in the next decade.
These trends were also reflected in the roughly 200 South African responses gathered by Salesforce. According to the report, South African marketers say their greatest challenges are unifying customer data sources followed by the need to balance personalisation with customer comfort levels, and innovating (which is both a top priority and challenge).
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. In South Africa, marketers are expected to go from four data sources in 2019 to six projected data sources in 2021. Ninety-one percent are using AI to personalise customer experiences. Other use cases include driving next best actions in real time and improving customer segmentation.
Marketers are increasingly tracking metrics like customer satisfaction, digital engagement, and lifetime customer value to gain a holistic picture of what’s working and what isn’t across the customer journey, the report shows.
B2B marketers have a particularly strong role in business growth through account-based marketing (ABM). In South Africa, 60% of marketers track customer lifetime value (LTV) to measure success.