How Netcore helps companies ace new age marketing with AI & ML-powered solutions that hyper-personalise the customer experience

In this era of digitally-driven experiences, the job of marketeers has become both easy and difficult. On the one hand, the number of channels via which businesses can reach out to customers has definitely gone up, the flip side is fleeting customer attention spans. So how can businesses capture a prospective customer’s attention and ensure that he or she clicks on your marketing communication (push notification or email) instead of simply ignoring it?

For businesses today, the answer lies in delivering hyper-personalised and contextually engaging campaigns, which are sure to capture the attention of customers. However, it isn’t as simple as it sounds. Brands need to know how they can reach the right target audience with the right content at the right time and through the right channel. And each of these requirements needs a deep understanding and analysis of customer behaviour.

And here is where Netcore, with its AI-powered marketing solutions, is helping businesses have meaningful and fruitful customer engagements.

Through a combination of solutions based on intricate observation of customer behaviour, such as the optimisation of the subject line of emails, optimisation of the time that the mail or notification lands in a prospect’s inbox and churn prediction, Netcore increases the chances of successful customer conversions.

The 4 'R's that lead to a successful customer conversion

Netcore was established in 1997 by Rajesh Jain who wanted it to “become a one-stop-shop for all enterprise communications and digital marketing needs”.

Today, their flagship product Smartech is doing just that. Smartech is an AI-powered cross-channel marketing automation and analytics suite that helps brand and enterprises create hyper-personalised customer experiences. Smartech helps enterprises listen to their customers’ behaviour across multiple channels and devices (web/app/email) in real time, analyse those data points and converse with them by using the “4R philosophy” – the Right Person should get the Right Content at the Right Time through the Right Channel. By deriving actionable insights from analysing the customer's behaviour, Netcore helps businesses hyper-personalise the customer experience.

Other Netcore solutions include:

• Pepipost- an API-based email service for sending out transactional emails
• Bizbond- an API-based SMS and voice service for transactional SMSs and voice campaigns
• Analytics – to help brands and enterprises get more insights from their customer and campaign data

A key problem that enterprises face is that of app notification delivery, which is a challenge due to unreliable FCM & APNS gateways and some OEMs known for blocking such messages. This results in the average push notification delivery rates hovering around 60-65 percent, resulting in poor customer engagement and lower user retention rates. With their Smartech Push Amplification, Netcore helps customers boost their app push notification delivery by up to 20 percent.

DIY format for easy adoption

“The market response for our offerings been very positive. Today, Smartech is being used by 400+ live customers in India and abroad,” says Group CEO of Netcore Solutions, Kalpit Jain, who has been with the company since its inception and has performed various roles across the board. “We are expanding the reach by coming up with a DIY format for the product, so that brands can easily Discover, Sign up, Integrate and use our platform without any human intervention,” he says, adding that Pepipost, which also sells primarily in the DIY format, has more than 8,000+ customers from over 100 countries.

Their solutions help deliver over 6 billion emails and over 3 billion SMSs a month; create more than 10 billion customer connects on a monthly basis; and handle over 30+ billion events a month.

Today, they have a customer base of 3,000+ enterprises across industry verticals, including Jet Airways, Thomas Cook, GoAir, ClearTrip, HDFC, Kotak, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, UTI, Facebook, Reliance, Vodafone, Godrej, ITC, OLA, Pfizer and OLX along with international brands like Seek Asia, Tokopedia, Blibli, Standard Chartered, FCMB and GT Bank among others.

Kalpit cites instances of how their solutions have made a significant difference to the customers’ business:

• HDFC Life Insurance saw a 30 percent increase in leads from existing customers and increased their Customer LTV by 20 percent using Smartech journeys.
• Thomas Cook saw a 6X increase in lead generation with 50 percent reduction in customer acquisition cost.
• Tokopedia achieved 96 percent inbox delivery by using Pepipost.
• Myntra’s email campaign performance increased by 60 percent with Smartech’s proprietary AI-powered marketing suite, which is twice the average industry standards

Making marketing and technology work together

Netcore is headquartered in Mumbai and its 500-member team sits in offices across India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the US. Competitors include big names like IBM, Oracle, Adobe and Salesforce, established mid-size companies like Emarsys, ActiveCampaign and new-age startups like CleverTap and WebEngage.

When asked how Netcore stands apart vis-a-vis the above mentioned names, Kalpit says, “We are a full-stack player unlike others who operate in a specific domain and technology. Not only do we provide campaign management and journey builder software, we also own the delivery layer to ensure better control over the communication being sent to customers. We also ensure that the right communication reaches the enterprise customers at the right time.”

According to him, their other key differentiator is their team of marketing technology consultants, who ensure that the customers using the platform are benefitted in the right manner. Elaborating on this, Kalpit says, “Today enterprises need marketers who are creative as well as technologists who can drive the next level of change. For companies, finding someone who has knowledge in both these spheres is becoming challenging. Netcore understood this talent gap a while back and built an internal team of people who are not only marketers at heart but also understand the technology space equally well.”

Future growth roadmap

Netcore is working on providing an intelligent platform to marketers which uses machine learning algorithms to understand the customer behaviour, their needs and helps in automating and optimizing the customer journeys and communication. To this end, they have already released features such as Send Time Optimisation, Subject Line Optimisation, Preferred Channel & Smart Segments. Future focus areas for Advanced MLAI initiatives will be in the areas of content optimisation and personalisation.

Kalpit believes that the current marketing technology space is booming. “With the increasing adoption of technology, this is one of greatest times to be in the marketing space. Machine learning and AI (or MLAI as we call it internally) is becoming the fuel to drive the next level of growth for marketers. As a company, we strongly believe that MLAI is the future of marketing,” he signs off.