media update’s Adam Wakefield was at the 2018 IMC Conference in Midrand on Thursday, 8 February, to hear what some of South Africa’s leading marketing minds had to say.

1. Marketing cannot be separated from AI and Big Data

Pierre Fouche, head of marketing and communication at IBM South Africa, told delegates that AI and Big Data cannot be divorced from one another, and emerging technologies are now making available data that previously was not accessible.

“What we are witnessing today is that companies are now entering the fray and differentiating themselves on the ability to utilise data. The guy that is winning in the business space is the guy that can harness data to solve specific problems for his business and society as a whole,” he said.

CMOs are the most affected by this change in terms of their ability to handle data, make sense of it, and apply it. As a result, the CMO’s role has and is changing. They are now working with the CFO to forecast where the business is going based on the data they are able to gather and analyse.

2. You need both offensive and defensive strategies to utilise AI 

Katherine Madley, product marketing executive at Alexander Forbes, told delegates that AI’s increasing influence within the marketing industry is helping the industry focus on higher value work and decision by saving time on repetitive tasks.

“Human creative and critical thinking requires hours of hard thinking and work to meaningfully and simply communicate what’s in your head to trigger sufficient emotional rational connections [with consumers],” Madley said.

Madley always has two marketing plans: offensive and defensive. The defensive plan keeps clients, and the offensive plan reaches out to new target markets that are not within her structured data set.  

However, as important as AI is, it is only a tool that can help you grow your customer base. To grow, Madley said you need to be better than your competitor in three pillars in how you apply AI:
  • Attraction – The offensive marketing strategy is brand building, while defensive is sales activation or advertising. AI will play a part in the sales activation in this pillar;
  • Product – Client solutions, value proposition, carefully pricing for value, research and insights, and competitor and market analysis. As a marketer, you need to be the expert on your product to be able to weigh these different considerations properly; and
  • Touchpoints – Make it as easy and comfortable for the customer to buy, and stay with you. Make them think about the difficulty they will have if they had to switch suppliers;
Touchpoints, according to Madley, is the most offensive pillar to attract new customers. Once they become your customer, it then becomes a defensive mechanism. This is because it plays a key role in ensuring the customer continues using your product or service.

3. E-mail and SMS are still key communication channels but will eventually disappear

Walter Penfold, managing director at Everlytic, told delegates that in 2017, SMS marketing increased by 142% and e-mail marketing by 83%. Engagement rates were also up, with average e-mail open rates increasing from 24.85% in 2015 to 25.83% in 2017. Click through rates were also up.

On Black Friday in South Africa in 2017, Everlytic tracked over 10 million e-mails, with 36% opened. This was because customers were being sent relevant content, they were expecting the e-mails to arrive and waiting for it, and people prefer to receive particularly promotions over e-mail rather than any other channel, with SMS’s coming second.

Penfold broke down SMS and e-mail to their first principles, which is where the roots of their success as marketing platforms lay.

Both channels were designed for short to-the-point-messages, to make contacting people easier even if they were not immediately available, and for personal two-way communication.

Instant messaging, such as WhatsApp, is based on these fundamental truths, with Penfold suggesting that WhatsApp Business is a tool that is going to change the way businesses communicate with clients.

He firmly believed instant messaging will make e-mail and SMS obsolete, but it will not happen today, tomorrow or in the near future. Until that day comes, e-mail and SMS are both channels that should receive consideration.   

For more information, visit imcconference.com.

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AI was a major them at the 2018 IMC Conference, and there are compelling reasons why. Read more in our article, Three reasons why AI is a marketer’s best friend.