For a marketer, "every conversation begins and ends with data"
Every conversation begins and ends with data
Data is the fuel of modern marketing. The adage "data is the new oil" must have been heard by the majority of us at some point or another. At TechManch 2023, a panel of experts explained the principles of data strategy.
image source - exchange4media
Panelists Animesh Kishore, Head COE Digital & Analytics, ITC Limited, Ravi Vijayaraghavan, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Flipkart Group, and Nagaraj Krishnamurthy, Chief Analytics Officer, Madison World discussed why marketing needs to be data-driven to be effective and how it allows brands to evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing to improve customer experience for great brands. The session was moderated by Santhosh Srikant, Director and General Manager, Acoustic India
Srikant opened the debate by stating, "For a marketeer, every conversation begins and ends with statistics.
Kishore noted that ITC Limited, an FMCG juggernaut, invested heavily in collecting the proper granular data, underscoring the significance of a solid data strategy. This required us to make significant investments in our distributors' and front-line sales teams' systems and processes, he continued.
ITC's expenditures in granular data were primarily driven by the need to guarantee correctness and obtain it at the proper frequency. We have a sizable field force that travels to the markets, and ITC has made significant investments to support them with digital tools, according to Kishore.
The FMCG behemoth has also made investments in direct-to-consumer (D2C) over the past several years after realizing the value of acquiring first-party information. So, Kishore said, "We made the ITC e store."
Vijayaraghavan said that for a consumer technology company like Flipkart, data is the lifeblood of the entire operation. "End to end, our entire value chain is revealed through data," he continued.
Vijayaraghavan gave the example of delivery speed as an example. The business can determine what demands a faster delivery pace and what requires a slower delivery speed by looking at conversions on the platform.
For us, the user journey is at the center of everything, and we used data to define it, said Krishnamurthy. "The consumer journey starts right from when the consumer perceives the brand to the final purchase, and along the way come the touchpoints through which s/he can be influenced," the author continued.
Krishnamurthy stated that although they are an agency, they do not possess any data and instead collaborate with marketers from businesses like ITC and Flipkart to do so. The issues and approaches for dealing with these businesses and the data are significantly different,
He revealed.
He divided the use of data into three categories: incremental revenue from high-quality data, optimal use of this data, or doing more with the same resources, and how effectively one can assess product-market fit.
Krishnamurthy stated that marketers had to pay greater attention to the third bucket.
Srikant also mentioned how the world might soon become cookie-less and how first-party data is becoming increasingly significant.
It is exceedingly challenging for a traditional FMCG company to obtain first-party data, according to Kishore. This is due to the fact that many sales, particularly in the industries where ITC operates, take place in physical storefronts.
Another thing he addressed was how, in the coming years, LLMs (Large Language Models) and generative AI will disrupt "Search," which was formerly the key to understanding consumers best.
Comments
Post a Comment