Salesforce released its latest State of Marketing report. The report surveyed over 4,800 marketing leaders across 29 countries, including 250 from India——revealing that 79% of marketers in India are already experimenting with or fully implementing AI into their workflows.
The report highlights that improving the use of tools and technologies is the top priority for Indian marketers while building and retaining trust with customers is their biggest challenge. Despite these challenges, 92% of marketers in India say they clearly view marketing’s impact on revenue.
While 28% of marketers in India are fully satisfied with their ability to unify customer data sources, 66% have access to real-time data to execute campaigns. However, 59% still require IT department assistance to access this data. Full personalisation remains a work in progress, with high-performing teams in India fully personalising across an average of 6.0 channels, compared to 5.0 for others.
As AI implementation becomes a point of differentiation, high-performing marketing teams are 3.1 times more likely than underperformers to have fully implemented AI within their operations. The three most popular AI use cases among marketers in India are performance analytics, content generation, and programmatic advertising and media buying. However, marketers are also concerned about security as they adopt AI.
Account-Based Marketing and Loyalty Programs Gain Traction
Companies are increasingly turning to account-based marketing (ABM) and loyalty programs for better acquisition and retention. However, only 58% of marketers in India say loyalty data is fully integrated across all touchpoints, and 50% say loyalty program functionalities are accessible across all touchpoints. B2B marketers in India use ABM primarily for customer acquisition, with less than half using it for upselling and cross-selling.
“Data and AI hold the promise of helping marketers reach customers in new, more engaging ways, but they are far from reaching their potential,” said Nishant Kalra, VP – Digital, Salesforce India. “As marketers in India prioritise AI and data capabilities, building and retaining customer privacy and trust poses a significant challenge. Insights from the report are valuable to marketers across the country to help them outdo their competition by embracing AI and data, to drive loyal customers, while mitigating trust, privacy and security challenges.”
