Marketers optimistic despite headwinds: Salesforce report

Salesforce released its eighth annual State of Marketing report. In the report, Indian marketers say their work provides increasing value despite macroeconomic and labor headwinds. The report also reveals how marketers in the countries surveyed are adapting to changes in privacy regulations — all while managing more data sources than ever before.

Ninety one percent of Indian marketers say their work provides greater value than it did a year ago — a 12% point increase from last year. However, they face an uphill battle in an uncertain economy: 42% of Indian marketers cited budgetary constraints and 75% of Indian marketers agreed that customer expectations are more difficult to meet than they were a year ago.

To help meet the moment, marketers are focusing on:

• Balancing personalization with customer comfort levels
• Modernizing tools and technologies

Arun Kumar Parameswaran, Senior VP, and MD – Sales, Salesforce India, said, “Digital transformation is critical to navigating the growing headwinds we are experiencing today. Marketers remain determined about their contributions to the success of their businesses. With automation, intelligence, and real-time data, personalization and investing in the right tools to collaborate, they are able to capture and act on insights across channels, thereby deliver exceptional experience to their customers and deliver business impact.’

The trends revealed in the State of Marketing report were collected from a survey of 6,000 marketing leaders across 35 countries and six continents, including 250 from India. Insights include the following:

• The march toward digitally-led engagement treads new and familiar paths. Marketers are investing in a combination of channels and technologies to reach audiences in new places and build lasting relationships. TV/OTT, Digital Content and Video have seen the largest increase in usage in the last year by Indian marketers. However, email marketing remains dominant, accounting for over 80% of all outbound marketing messages, according to trillions of message sends from Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
• Marketers navigate a complex technology and regulatory landscape. Marketers are adapting to changes in privacy regulations and calls for data transparency.  Seventy Four percent (74%) of Indian marketers still invest in third-party data, 81% say they have a fully defined strategy to shift from third-party data.
• KPIs shift as marketers pursue real-time intelligence. Across every stage of the funnel, marketers are tracking more metrics year over year than ever before. Speed to insight remains a competitive advantage. Ninety percent (90%) of Indian marketing organizations engage customers in real time across one or more marketing channels.
• Distributed teams unite with collaboration technology. Recognizing that remote and distributed work is here to stay, leaders are making investments into new collaboration tools. Seventy Two percent (72%) of Indian marketers say it’s harder to collaborate now than pre-pandemic and are turning to an average of 4.48 collaboration tools to help.