Artificial Intelligence in B2C Marketing at a Nascent Stage in Middle East, Says Survey
Manthan, a customer marketing and experience solutions provider today released findings from its ‘State of Customer Marketing Maturity in Middle-East Report 2020’. It reveals how B2C enterprises in the region assess themselves on critical marketing parameters.
Key Findings
Hyper-personalization initiatives are picking up, with 19 percent of marketers reporting they personalize for a segment of one.
Customer data usage is still basic, with 57 percent of marketers working with demographics data only. Leaders (5 percent), however, have successfully realized a “Golden” customer record.
Use of AI is at a nascent stage when it comes to predicting customer behaviour. Around 10 percent indicates they can predict what customer will buy next, who is likely to churn.
Customer segmentation still relies on broad demographics (43 percent), while another 43 percent use RFM models.
According to the survey, most firms don’t classify themselves as leaders in customer marketing, despite widespread usage of data management and marketing automation systems. Discussions revealed the lack of executive mandate as one of the reasons for this disconnect.
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Who Were the Participants?
The participants invited were from various B2C verticals, including food & grocery, fashion & apparel, restaurants, airlines, and other retail conglomerate businesses, and were drawn from across the Middle East. A range of functions was included: e-commerce, digital, customer engagement, CRM, analytics, marketing and communications.
“We need to balance the long-term vision of building a customer-centric business with the daily rush of achieving sales numbers. These two should be seen as complementary objectives, and requires the right data and technology strategy, along with executive mandate”, said a respondent from a large retailer.
Manthan is a leading cloud analytics company pioneering applications for consumer-facing businesses. Headquartered in Bangalore with offices in Santa Clara, Dubai, Mexico City and Singapore, Manthan’s footprint spans 22 countries.
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