90% of marketers to use marketing automation tools by end of 2021: Dun & Bradstreet whitepaper

Dun & Bradstreet has released a survey on ‘How CMOs are Engaging with Customers Through Technology Solutions.’ The survey was conducted in the last quarter of 2020 and covers responses from 250 chief marketing officers across eight sectors and six major cities in India.

 

The research found that most marketers will make use of marketing automation tools by the end of 2021. The BFSI sector showed the highest rate of adoption with 70%, followed by the IT/ITES at 67% and retail at 64%.

 

The survey also stated that one in five companies generate 30-40% of their sales through the digital medium.

 

Other key highlights of the survey

 

One in three surveyed companies allocate more than Rs 100 million of their sales revenue towards marketing activities.

 

76% of companies in the retail sector and 53% of companies in the automobile sector allocate more than 20% of their sales revenue for marketing activities.

 

Offline and online advertising (60%), social media advertising (47%) and data analytics (37%) are the three most popular activities pursued by CMOs.

 

Digital platform targetting

 

More than 70% of the CMOs use sales intelligence platforms to connect with customers.

 

73% of marketers use CRM tools, the most popular of which are Salesforce, followed by Microsoft Dynamics and Zoho. 

 

Database management, customer insights and automation

 

42% of  surveyed marketers use artificial intelligence and machine learning tools for data security, 32% for process automation, 25% to improve customer interaction and 25% for data mining. 

 

Google Analytics was most popularly used for customer segmentation by 70% CMOs, followed by SAP Analytics Cloud at 29% and Segment at 19%.

 

The research also revealed that 59% of CMOs have already adopted marketing automation tools, whereas 20% of them stated that they are under the process and that another 11% will make use of automation tools by the end of 2021. 

 

Avinash Gupta, managing director and CEO, India, Dun & Bradstreet said, “As the pandemic continues to reshape our world, the CMOs have a larger role today with a growing number of customers demanding digital experiences. The rapid change in the market dynamics and customer preferences have led 90% of CMOs to leverage data analytics to better engage with customers, gather critical customer information, and effectively manage their customer data.”

 

He added, “Effective management of databases through intelligent solutions has become a priority for CMOs to interpret and improve data quality to reach out to the most qualified prospects.”

 

Arun Singh, global chief economist, Dun & Bradstreet said, “As the business landscape has dramatically shifted during the era of the pandemic, CMOs are spending on digital marketing strategies and deploying intelligent solutions to derive actionable insights from the data obtained through the digital platforms. It has become a priority for CMOs today to access data that is up to date, insightful and actionable to help their sales teams to reach out to the qualified prospects. The AI and ML based automation solutions in marketing and sales will increase manifold globally, in the following years.”