After a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the time had finally come again; socoto clients, partners and industry experts from all fields met at the 9th Marketing Management Day in Cologne. They spent a day exchanging information and ideas about the most diverse solutions and application areas of the socoto Marketing Management System. The focus of the presentations and exchange of experiences was centred around the theme: "Designing the change".
In the old reception hall of the historic airport grounds at Butzweilerhof in Cologne, guests were welcomed by the socoto team as well as numerous marketing managers from well-known national and international companies. Participants got a comprehensive look at the current strategies of multimedia communication in sales partner marketing, including how detailed programmatic media planning can support distributors and how individualised offers, media channels and advertising media can be used across the board.
Google presents: New possibilities for omnichannel activation
As a key note speaker, Moritz von Tobiesen, Senior Industry Manager Google Automotive, opened the series of presentations with his talk on "Increasing Sales in the New Normal with Omnichannel Activation" and used practical examples to explain what makes a good customer experience - online and stationary – as well as what retailers should do now for a seamless shopping experience and a related linking of all sales channels.
Best practice: How digitalisation saves costs, minimises sources of error and maximises profit
In his presentation on the implementation of a customer contact programme with socoto’s Marketing Management System, Johannes Fürst, Team Leader Customer Experience at Hyundai Motor Germany, showed how touchpoints in customer communication can be automated and yet personalised. He and René Beszon, Managing Director of socoto gmbh & co kg, impressively co-presented how thousands of different contact occasions can be handled in such a way that firstly no contact opportunity for sustainable customer loyalty is given away and secondly it is also used profitably.
Welcoming Autobahn Tank & Rast Gruppe GmbH & Co. KG as a new client at the Marketing Management Day, Oliver Hopf, Head of Marketing for the group, gave a clear and practical demonstration of how the switch to socoto's Marketing Management System supports the digitalisation and automation of processes in the company for both franchise partners and service providers. The Marketing Management System offers enormous savings, both economically and ecologically, in the retrieval of stock goods and in the creation and printing of individualised print media, as well as in the creation and input of digital content.
Angelika Bober, Senior Portal and Webshop Manager easyApotheke (Holding) AG, explained how POS marketing can be realised for individual pharmacists and highlighted the effects of automation for eA-marketing. The willingness of pharmacists to participate in marketing campaigns has significant increased. She sees the reason for this in the individualisation options and the possibility to flexibly configure advertising materials at any time. As further plus points, she emphasised the central control of the campaigns via the Brand Corporate Identity, the extension via different advertising media as well as the reduction of sources of error.
Outlook: More automation and simplification for better output
Dr. Bernhard Gründer, Managing Director of socoto gmbh & co. kg, concluded by explaining which tools will be in focus in the future and increasingly utilised to check the daily challenges of local marketing functions and be well equipped for the future. In addition to the campaign automat, which was illustrated during a live demonstration using an implementation example, this also included digital content and media packages for each marketing channel, new features – such as watch lists and suggestion lists – as well as the authorisation manager and the new CMS designer and CMS manager suites. A lot of exciting innovations in the pipeline!
Community Management in its own right
As at every Marketing Management Day, community exchange took centre stage. With time and space to network and ask the speakers in-depth questions, as well as to enjoy engaging conversation with leading industry professionals over drinks and an evening buffet – not to mention a fantastic sunset backdrop – Marketing Management Day 2022 was an all-round success! Work on next year’s instalment of the event is already in full swing and we look forward to inspiring numerous guests with exciting updates and best-practice topics about the socoto Marketing Management System again in 2023.
