#AsiaeCommerceAwards spills: Insider's secret sauce to winning the marketing race

The year 2020 has been a whirlwind for all companies, with many shifting to online and trying different creative ways to engage with their consumers. While the pandemic created obstacles, it also created opportunities for companies. Insider, an AI-powered platform, doubled down on efforts to help clients raise the bar on their personalised experiences last year.

With eCommerce and the rise of digital here to stay, it is even more imperative for clients to cut through the clutter with interesting and personalised initiatives. To this end, Insider is confident that it is able to help companies wade into the uncertain waters of the future. In an interview with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Ankesh Sagar, vice president of marketing, Insider shares how its clients' marketing plans has shifted since 2020 and the type of trends it sees carrying on post-pandemic.

This interview is done as part of MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s winners and finalists’ interview series for Asia eCommerce Awards 2020. To find out more about the awards, click here.

What are some of the expectations your consumers now have for your brand?

Sagar: Customers expect coherent and consistent experiences. They want to move beyond clunky marketing automation tools and have a single source of truth. One centralised platform that enables them to manage their individualised, cross-channel customer experiences. As digital-only becomes the new norm for most businesses, our customers expect to see the latest channels like WhatsApp Business, Facebook Messenger, and RCS in our platform, to start more personal conversations.

Our customers want a nuanced understanding of customer behaviour, where they are in their lifecycle, and what they're likely to do next. That’s why we invest in AI technologies and always-improving algorithms that help them segment, acquire, nurture, and retain their customers.

We've also seen a rise in demand for local expertise in every region we’re present in. We’ve invested in building our local customer success teams that enable superfast onboarding with near-zero IT involvement and helps businesses realise faster time to value. We are focused on developing a solution that simplifies complex, lengthy implementations, and on average, gets Insider integrated with our customers' websites in less than an hour.

How has your marketing/your clients' marketing plans shifted in 2020 or 2021?

Sagar: COVID-19 was beyond what any of us could have predicted. It created obstacles, but it also created opportunities for companies willing to experiment and invest in digital. We've seen a massive migration from offline to online buying.

New customer acquisition is on the rise, with brick and mortar customers pivoting to digital. Some of these digital-only (or digital-mostly) behaviours are temporary shifts, but many of them are here to stay.

We've seen many companies across industries feeling the growing pains of scaling up their digital businesses. Now there are more users, more channels, and more segments to consider. With all these new variables, the need for cross-channel orchestration backed by AI-based automation is one of the most significant spikes in demand we've seen this year.

In 2020, we focused on raising the bar of personalised experiences through our flagship event, RESHAPE, and regional events such as UPLIFT, which have become synonymous with excellence in our industry. In turn, these extraordinary events have spawned multiple marketing communities across Asia.

What are some of the trends you see carrying on post-pandemic, and how are you readying your workforce to be ready with these trends?

Sagar: Online buying is here to stay. We're also seeing a greater interest in designing one-to-one experiences that make customers value their time with brands.

We're also seeing many companies ramping their digital transformation projects and exploring marketing segmentation, AI, personalisation, and targeting to increase their ROI and drive growth across the entire funnel.

We recently introduced Insider's all-new experience. Working with our customers, we completely redesigned the platform to be more intuitive. We believe enterprise martech doesn't have to be a dull eyesore. Marketers deserve a consistent and easy-to-manage platform that helps them do their jobs faster and smarter, so they can have the headspace to experiment and grow.

Our digital growth consultants have their pulse on what's ahead and work with our customers to prepare for planned and unexpected shifts. It's one of the many benefits of a strategic partnership with Insider.

Despite the curveballs, we couldn't be prouder of the 16 Asia eCommerce award winners including Watsons, Domino's, Digi, and Lenovo, who trust us as their growth marketing platform.

What do you think makes for great marketing these days?

Sagar: The most successful brands are those whose vision and values resonate with customers. They grow and win together.

The brands that people love focus on creating personalized connections and captivating and magical experiences for their customers. Brands are listening to the conversations happening around them on social media and in the news. They're becoming more aware and inclusive, integrating diverse customers into their narratives and product roadmaps.

AI is the hot topic in virtually every facet of marketing and life, so it's no surprise that machine learning and self-correcting algorithms will continue to be a focus for eCommerce.

Insider will be at the forefront of supporting these brands, and we'll continue to evolve our own AI technology to anticipate consumer demands and emergent behaviors.

How are you planning for 2021?

Sagar: The year 2021 is marking the staying power of the digital-first trend. ECommerce will continue to attract new customers and will need to double-down on technologies that can nurture, retain, and increase each customer's lifetime value.

Businesses will strive to stage perfect customer journeys and respond to consumer's microdecisions in real-time. The demand for unified customer experiences will magnify as physical and digital lines blur. And there's always taking scattered data locked in different locations and bringing it together someplace where it's actionable. At Insider, we help marketers act on customer behaviors, predict their next move, and proactively build experiences around them.

The most successful software companies aren't the biggest or the most profitable ones; they're the ones that listen to the people who use their products every day and build new features that answer customer needs without losing sight of the future.

With enhancements to Insider's entire product suite, new UX, plus new features for emerging channels such as WhatsApp Business API and Facebook Messenger — marketers now have unmatched capabilities to create one-to-one customer experiences and keep testing, learning, and growing with confidence.