Cloud Computing Today recently had the privilege of speaking with Act-On’s Chief Marketing Officer Atri Chatterjee about his predictions for marketing automation in 2015. Chatterjee predicts that 2015 is likely to witness the expansion of marketing automation over and beyond a platform that enables an expansion of revenue. Specifically, Chatterjee envisions marketing automation as becoming a key part of customer relationship management and management of the customer lifecycle more generally. From a technology standpoint, Atri asserts that the industry will increasingly demand “marketing automation platforms to be open systems” that interoperate with other cloud platforms and products as noted in his three predictions below:
3 predictions for the ‘Future of Marketing Automation’ by Atri Chatterjee:
1. Marketing automation will not just be categorized as a lead to revenue platform and instead leveraged throughout the customer life-cycle; for communication programs beyond acquisition and through retention and expansion.
2. Marketing automation will be the front end technology for customer relationship management. Marketing is currently the first touch point for customers and it will also continue throughout the relationship. A marketers role in the customer experience will continue to be more pervasive as the use of marketing automation expands to other initiatives.
3. Marketers will require their marketing automation platforms to be open systems that empower them to customize their solution with other third-party cloud services to enhance its overall use. Doing so will allow marketers to differentiate their digital marketing experiences and be able to augment campaigns using data from other systems such as ERP, HR, CRM and others. Think of marketing automation as a trains locomotive and the cab cars as the eco-system of apps.
About Atri Chatterjee
Atri is responsible for all things marketing at Act-On. Although he didn’t join until 2012, his association with the company as an adviser and an early customer goes back to when the company was founded. He wasn’t satisfied with helping the Act-On revolution from the outside; he had to jump in!
His over 20 years of experience span marketing, product management, business development and engineering at high-growth innovative companies ranging from start-up ventures to large public companies. Most recently, he was Vice President and GM of the User Authentication business at Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC). Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President of Marketing at McAfee, Inc. (now part of Intel) and prior to that was the CMO of Secure Computing Corporation until its purchase by McAfee.
Atri was also the first VP of Marketing at Responsys, where he helped create the first business plan, raise several rounds of funding and establish that company as a pioneer SaaS application for email marketing. He has also held senior marketing roles at other category-leading companies including CipherTrust, McAfee, Netscape, and Clarify.
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