 "Digital Marketing Might Merge CIO-CMO KRAs")
Caught in the middle of the social media blitzkrieg, the significance of digital marketing is a key talking point in all C-level discussions. Lines and boundaries have been re-defined and CIOs and CMOs all over India are beginning to see the need to work in tandem or risk stepping on each other’s toes. Udayan Bose, Founder & CEO, NetElixir, in conversation with Biztech2.com, explains social media strategies and the crucial CIO-CMO relationship in this scenario.
Is simply having a social media presence enough for companies to build brand value, gain potential customers and retain existing ones?
Social media is hyper sensitive in nature and needs to be managed accordingly. Our experience shows that there need to be a long-term goal, clearly defined strategic insights and measurable tactics to make social media really work for any brand. A brand is a sum of all conversations around it. The company plays the role of a curator and an active listener. The company regularly measures through sentiment analysis where the social brand is progressing and checks whether the said brand is tending towards the same stature that the company wanted it to progress. Considering all these elements, the company then comes up with necessary strategic shifts for achieving its long-term goal. So, just having social media presence means nothing until you know how to leverage it.
The CIO and CMO together need to have a clear cut vision for a good social media strategy. What are the areas both these C-level executives can work upon to improve the maturity in this relationship?
The line of demarcation between the CIO and CMO roles in the ‘new media industry’ is getting increasingly blurry. As digital marketing grows in importance in India, many companies may seriously look at the possibility of even merging these roles. In any case, the level of collaboration between CIO and CMO will need to increase manifold.
Although there might be several ways in which a CIO and a CMO can effectively collaborate, I believe that there are certain items in the ‘must do’ list which both the C-level peers should follow in order to impart meaning into their relationship. For example, as a part of their ‘induction program’ the CIO will need to spend a week working in the marketing department and CMO will need to do likewise with IT. Also, a checklist of key decision-making areas needs to be developed where both CIO and CMO need to be involved in decision making. An example here can be the purchase of marketing automation software.
How does analytics play a part in the digital marketing domain, especially in Indian context - amidst volatile economic scenario?
Analytics plays an extraordinarily important role in digital marketing irrespective of the volatility of the environment. Digital marketing comprises of regular testing of hypotheses and without analytics it will be impossible for any firm to conduct these effectively thereby nullifying the importance of digital marketing. Also, like traditional marketing, measuring consumer behaviour is imperative for digital marketing and that too will be very difficult without analytics.
In a cost-centric market, what are the key business benefits that companies will see after adopting search marketing SaaS offerings?
There are three key benefits of adopting these kinds of search marketing SaaS technology even in a cost centric market The first is an increase in campaign management efficiency: Our product, i.e., LXR minimises the time spent on time consuming campaign activities by end to end workflow automation. The time saved can be more productively invested in other digital marketing tasks. There is an increase in campaign performance: LXR uses 27 different performance optimisation algorithms to deliver a higher return on marketing investment. The third benefit is an increase in process scalability: Using LXR, one search marketer can manage multiple campaigns. Also, LXR enables quick and easy campaign scale up.
From the technology standpoint, how different is your SaaS offering from the others in this domain?
Our LXR technology was built by search marketers to solve our own team’s campaign management challenges; namely, efficiency, performance and scalability.
Since the technology is built by search marketers, we are able to constantly innovate and improve the functionalities as well as adapt the technology significantly faster than other competitors to maximise the short term opportunities presented by the dynamic digital marketing space.