The Virtual MarTech Summit APAC on 25 May 2023 brought together 22 speakers in 8 sessions, with topics such as MarTech & Business Strategy Alignment, Event Marketing, Revenue Generation, Digital Content, Personalisation, Digital Trends, Content Marketing and Digital Transformation. The summit consisted of a mix of panel discussions, interviews, fireside chats and keynote presentations.
Among the 800+ attendees, the biggest crowd came from the Banking & Financial Services industries, yet we also gathered MarTech professionals from all across the industries.
- Banking & Financial Services – 18%
- Retail & eCommerce – 15%
- IT & Telco – 13%
- Manufacturing & Engineering – 11%
- Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare – 10%
- Hotel & Hospitality – 9%
- Logistics & Transportation – 8%
- Energy & Utilities – 7%
- Automotive – 6%
- Others – 3%
In terms of seniority, 18% of our attendees were Chief-level & VP attendees, with 32% being Directors level, 26% being Heads of their departments, and 19% are Senior Managers & Managers.
Summit Highlights
The summit kicked off with a panel discussion on Maximising Growth Through Stronger MarTech & Business Strategy Alignment. To start the panel discussion, a poll to the audience showed that most attendees (46.7%) ranked their organisation ‘fair’ in enabling cross-functional collaboration, 33.3% of attendees voted that they are getting there, while 15.0% of attendees noted that they are not aware. With only 5.0% of attendees stating that their organisation is ”very good” at enabling cross-function collaboration, the panel discussion served as a good opportunity to hear from the speakers on their personal experiences in enhancing MarTech performance through cross-functional collaboration.
In the next session, an interview with representatives from EventHub on trends, changes and opportunities in Event Marketing in the Post-Pandemic World, the majority of attendees noted that they will are planning to host customer-facing events, with 50% stating that they plan to host hybrid events, 37% plan to host on-premise events, while 23.9% plan to host virtual events, and only 6.5% have no plans to run events in 2023.
Through the session, attendees also shared the percentage of their leads which were generated by Event Marketing in the past 12 months. While slightly more than half of attendees noted that 0-25% of their leads were generated from events, 30.6% of attendees indicated that 26-50% of leads were generated from events.
A question posed in the next panel discussion on relating marketing and sales to the customer journey, on how much technology or digital solutions their team is currently using to reach customers, found that 25.6% of attendees felt that not enough technology is being used, 39.5% felt that the technology used currently is promising, 27.9% felt that it is satisfactory at the moment, and 7.0% think that they are ahead of the curve.
An interesting finding from the fireside chat on the biggest digital trends found that almost half of the attendees are planning on using influencers as part of their marketing plans in the next 12 months.
With ChatGPT being a hot topic in 2023, it was no surprise for ChatGPT to be brought up in the sessions. On whether ChatGPT is a game changer for the audiences’ business, a majority (56.3%) of attendees noted that they love AI tools like ChatGPT, but due to huge security risks, they prefer to wait and watch others.
Key Takeaways
With the wealth of information shared by the speakers, below are some Key Takeaways from the speakers.
Regarding the discussions about MarTech Stack:
Akash Sharma, Group Head, Revenue Management and Analytics, Qoala: “Embracing MarTech and its capabilities can give organisations a competitive edge in today’s digital marketplace. By leveraging technology to enhance marketing efforts, businesses can drive growth, improve customer satisfaction, and stay ahead of the curve.”
Paayal Dharmani, Head of Digital Marketing, Sydney Opera House: “The MarTech world has become increasingly complex, and organisations and leaders in this space should unlock value within existing stacks as a starting point. Spend time decoding complex customer journeys to identify which tools would add value to the ecosystem.”
In the Personalisation session:
Mayur Singh, Head of Customer Intelligence, airasia Super App:
- Hyper-personalisation is a game changer, discover how it can transform customer engagement by tailoring experience based on individual preferences, needs and behaviour.
- Understand strategies, insights and best practices on implementing it at scale.
- Connect with fellow attendees and panellists to exchange ideas, experiences, and insights.
Nik Maricic, Marketing Director, APAC, Ria Money Transfer: “Personalisation means different things to different people; it is used to varying degrees by organisations. However, studies show that companies employing personalisation tactics enjoy a tangible increase in repeat business.“
Marisha Lakhiani, Chief Growth Officer, Mindvalley: “Focus less about personalisation and more about time to value, as customers become used to having things in seconds and minutes.“
For insights on Content Marketing:
Kelferd Hor, Vice President, Investors Digital Experience, RHB Banking Group: “Content marketing is not only about a brand’s product or services. It should be customer-centric and provide value to customers.”
Tanya Luong, Area Head of Marketing & Communications, A.P. Moller-Maersk, Mekong Area: “Building a successful content marketing strategy is all about establishing a strong relationship with the audience, and a crucial part of that relationship is to infuse the know, like, and trust into the content.“
Mayank Jain, Head of Product Marketing, Swiggy: “The perception of your brand is the summation of every touch point where you communicate your brand to consumers, and therefore content strategy plays a very, very important role; Don’t underestimate the power of any touchpoint. Iconic brands are not built overnight, it takes years of rigour, maintaining the consistency, and the quality which will finally make your brand what you want it to be.”
Gita Sriram, Head of Marketing & Communications, Taco Bell Malaysia: “Make sure you invest in getting to know your customers better. Their needs, wants and aspirations evolve over time so keep an ear to the ground to remain relevant in their lives. I believe that a brand community creates momentum for any initiative so testing and learning with your army of fans and followers will be mutually beneficial. Reward them with unique content and recognition to develop an emotional bond.”
On the topic of Digital Transformation, the key points that the speakers mentioned:
Brian Dacanay, Associate Vice President, Tier One Entertainment: “There’s no right answer – be proactive in providing value to your customers and see how they respond. Then find efficiencies after the fact.“
Jonathan Goh, Head of Marketing Technology and Orchestration, Medibank: “Keep it simple! Focus on the customer, start with the right people and streamline your MarTech.”
Richard McRae, Head of Digital Marketing, One New Zealand: “People over technology – doesn’t matter if you have the most groundbreaking technology if you don’t have the right people in place to use it.“
Future Engagement
We would like to extend our gratitude to all speakers, partners and attendees for tuning into the summit.
In case you missed the sessions, you can watch all the sessions on-demand here (link: https://themartechsummit.com/virtual-apac) (available until 25 August 2023).
To watch more sessions from past and future summits – subscribe to our video on-demand platform – BEETc On-Screen
The next upcoming virtual event is The MarTech Summit Vietnam, 19 September 2023! This virtual MarTech summit focuses on the Vietnamese market trends and case studies, with the best speaker line-up of local MarTech experts!
Or if you’d like to join one of our in-person summits, do check it out:
- The MarTech Summit Hong Kong, 6 July 2023
- The MarTech Summit Bangkok, 18 & 19 October 2023
- The MarTech Summit Roundtable Singapore, 25 October 2023
- The MarTech Summit London, 16 & 17 November 2023
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By Vanessa Goh, June 2023
