Alterian opens office in Singapore

Global marketing analytics company, Alterian, opens office in Singapore

Singapore - 21 December 2009 - One of the world's leading international integrated marketing platform providers, Alterian, has strengthened its commitment to the Asia Pacific region today by announcing the opening of a full-service operation in Singapore.

With offices throughout the world, including Sydney, Australia and Bangalore and Mumbai in India, Alterian will begin hiring local staff to work alongside partners including newly-signed RAPP Singapore. This new partnership builds on an existing relationship between Alterian and RAPP in the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia.

"We are delighted to be expanding into Singapore and consolidating our relationship with RAPP in this region," Chief Executive Officer, David Eldridge, said.

"Singapore is a very important market for us. We believe the Asia Pacific region is a dynamic marketplace for the continued of growth of our business and Singapore is the key location to give Alterian a base from which to operate.

"Alterian is committed to providing the technologies for companies to increase the performance of their bottom line.

"The recession has hit hard - not just in America but throughout the Asia Pacific region - and it has been the catalyst for highlighting the importance of online monitoring and analytics for marketers," he said.

RAPP Singapore CEO, Valli Lakshmanan, said his organisation would initially be partnering with Alterian to utilise its recently announced web behaviour analytics software, Web Journey, together with other elements of the Alterian platform including analytics, email and campaign management to optimise the online sales of a local retail operation.
"RAPP's strength has always been in providing smart, simple and empirical solutions to client challenges. Now with Alterian, we hope to take the data driven solutions to a whole new level" said Mr Lakshmanan.
"I am glad to extend Alterian's partnership with RAPP in Singapore. I am very certain that our clients will benefit immensely with this association. Alterian comes with a big reputation and I hope it's an association where they get access to some wonderful clients in Asia."
 

Alterian looks to 2010
What are the Global Trends for the next 12 months?
Alterian (LSE: ALN), a leading international integrated marketing platform provider, has released its 2010 forecast into the changing marketing trends for the year and beyond.

1. Social media will move towards ubiquity:
IDC survey data shows more than 50% of worldwide workers are leveraging the free, public social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for business today. Rather than being hype it will simply become normal and part of the everyday mix that works alongside email as a principle form of communication online.

2. Companies will have a social media policy:
As social media continues to integrate into the marketing and business mix, formal rules of engagement will become more widespread. Many companies are likely to come up against conflict when they try to extend their social media efforts across the board. There will be a need for a significant culture shift in order to overcome these barriers. As social media continues to raise its profile amongst corporate divisions, more companies will invest in Social Media specialists to guide their efforts both internally and externally.

3. Doing more with less:
This has been the mantra for all businesses throughout 2009 but will continue through the adoption of analytics and marketing software. Marketing departments are under increasing pressure to improve effectiveness and efficiencies with marketing campaigns, and also to achieve more, all with decreased budgets. 2009 was about how to make your business machine run harder and faster in a bid to stay competitive in a downturn, where consumer spending is in decline or being replaced by reason to buy at all.  This will now convert into the need to not only prove the value of your products to consumers but also the value of your marketing strategies as a whole.

4. Data analysts will become hot property for marketing departments:
Introducing analytics, or better analytics means empowering marketing with intelligence about their customers and prospects, so they can more rapidly, and more accurately, identify the hidden value in their customer and prospect databases. Analyzing the operational efficiency of every marketing department and taking action as required also means a marketing dividend can be realised. This can either be used to increase marketing spend or to maintain marketing spend if budgets are reduced; in essence, doing more with less.

5. Measurability of marketers/measuring ROI:
At a time of economic uncertainty, more companies look to uncover cost savings or serve customers more effectively through leveraging social technology. However, the increased pressure from the boardroom to justify marketing spend, or time investment, means that marketing departments have to show value by measuring ROI.

6. Getting access to customer data:
This has become more possible with the introduction of social media platforms, but gaining access to the right data, the right channels and the key sentiments about your brand requires effective online monitoring software.  Social Media offers the perfect opportunity to revolutionise CRM tools and build true customer engagement programmes tailored for each individual consumer, thus helping to deliver ROI. 

7. The necessary technology for effective marketing:
Companies without the right monitoring, reporting, analytics and execution software are companies without a future. With the increasing importance of the internet for businesses, online marketing and monitoring allow effective one-on-one engagement that shape successful and focused marketing campaigns.

8. Integration of platforms and processes will be critical:
There is a proliferation of things to monitor, measure and manage, making it very difficult and time consuming for marketers to pull together the overall picture for integrated campaigns. There will therefore be a move towards single integrated software platforms so that campaign planning and management are integrated with web and email.

9. Recalibrate marketing for engagement:
Brands focus on content but with publishers desperate to protect revenues by charging for content, brands will increasingly look to develop content strategies that bring value to their customers.  Social Media Monitoring will be the key weapon for brands building these strategies.

10. Consumer empowerment:
Brand value will be influenced more and more by the consumer, making it more important than ever for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will aid in brand differentiation and consumer engagement - you can no longer rely on your brand name as you once did. Organisations are being increasingly judged by their actions and willingness to involve customers, visibly.

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About Alterian
Alterian (LSE: ALN) empowers organizations to create relevant, effective and engaging experiences with their audience that help build value and reinforce commitment to their brand, through the use of the Alterian Integrated Marketing Platform. Alterian drives the transformation of marketing and communications, making it practical and cost-effective for companies to orchestrate multichannel engagement with the individual.
Alterian's unprecedented integration of analytics, content and execution through industry leading tools, such as the Dynamic Messenger email platform, SM2 Social Media Monitoring platform and the award winning Content Management solutions, enables companies to build integrated communication strategies which create a true picture of the individual.
Alterian works with marketing services partners, system integrators and agencies who recognize the need to plan and deliver coordinated customer engagement services in partnership with their clients. For more information about Alterian, products within the Alterian Integrated Marketing Platform or Alterian's Partner Network, visit www.alterian.com or the Alterian blog at www.engagingtimes.com.