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Dotdigital is aiming to revolutionise how businesses across Southeast Asia communicate with their customers.

In a recent interview, Matt McClelland, Head of Growth for Southeast Asia, and Chanel Lee, Account Executive, outlined the company's two-decade journey in marketing automation, its commitment to sustainability, and how it's helping clients achieve rapid growth through smarter engagement.

"Dotdigital has been enabling merchants to have human conversations with their customers at scale using digital channels for over 20 years," said McClelland. At the core of the Dotdigital offering is its Engagement Cloud, an all-in-one marketing platform that gathers customer data and translates it into actionable insights for campaigns across multiple channels - from email and SMS to live chat and social.

Lee explained, "It empowers merchants to have insight into their customers, what they're doing, what their shopping behaviours are, and then use that insight to drive different communications across channels." With some 4,000 clients worldwide, and several hundred now across Southeast Asia, the UK-headed firm is making a determined play for regional dominance.

One of Dotdigital's primary differentiators, according to McClelland, is the speed and simplicity with which e-commerce merchants can integrate its services. "Merchants are able to just switch on Dotdigital. There is no need for additional coding and no need for any additional external integration services," he said. "Your e-commerce contact subscribers and catalog images and data can be just synced up in a few clicks."

This streamlined approach is compatible with major platforms like Adobe Commerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce. "It frees up time for retailers to do more strategic work and plan for revenue growth rather than fuss about with ground-level tactics and technical difficulties," added Lee.

Another significant strength is Dotdigital's emphasis on ongoing client support. "To maximise the possibilities with our Engagement Cloud, Dotdigital has a team of customer success managers…who will help merchants extract the most value out of the platform and achieve the specific growth objectives that they set," Lee said. She highlighted a 97% customer satisfaction rate, attributing it to the dedicated experts who help clients get the most from the system.

Over the past decade, Dotdigital has evolved rapidly. Where once it was simply an email tool, it now bills itself as a leader in cross-channel marketing automation and analytics. The company's focus has shifted to delivering comprehensive intelligence that helps merchants consolidate data and anticipate consumer behaviour.

"We're able to see a single view of their contacts and get insight into who will buy next and what they will buy next, and this is something that merchants have been asking for years," said McClelland.

The move to multi-channel communications has been critical, especially in markets like Southeast Asia where messaging preferences vary widely. "As we come out here…there's other SNS channels, social plays a big part, especially in Japan for B2B conversations over Facebook," he noted.

Sustainability is also a key pillar of the Dotdigital brand. Since 2020, the company has been the world's first and only carbon-neutral marketing automation platform. "Using green technology and offsetting our carbon usage is our commitment to counterbalancing our carbon generation and shows our focus on the environment," McClelland added.

On the question of results, Lee cited several striking case studies. Dotdigital helped a well-known footwear brand triple its repeat purchases, while a performance cycling apparel brand multiplied its Black Friday revenue nearly fourfold. "Another example is a 300% increase in revenue for Trapo, one of Malaysia's leading automotive accessory brands," she said.

She highlighted that Trapo's Chief Marketing Officer, Jonathan, faced significant growth roadblocks. "He was facing a roadblock in his growth due to increasing industry competition as well as not having the right technology that he needed to access his customer data insights," Lee explained. After adopting Dotdigital, the company could run targeted personalisation and automation campaigns, with direct support from their assigned customer success manager, Emily.

"With fantastic results like tripling their revenue, as well as increasing their loyal customer segment by 23% for the Malaysian market, they're now actually looking at expanding their programmes to other markets including Singapore and Indonesia," Lee said.

Looking ahead, Dotdigital's executives believe that omnichannel selling is no longer a luxury but a retail necessity. "Customers now are more digitally savvy than ever before and they will be interacting with your brand across a blend of both physical and digital touch points," Lee said. This means brands must be present across all major channels or risk losing customers.

The rise of live commerce and social selling is another trend the company is tracking closely. According to Lee, live streaming is being used by disruptors and established retailers alike to peddle everything from cosmetics to food, similar to home shopping networks but reimagined for the social media age. "In 2020…the Business Times reported that gross merchandise volume from live stream shopping in Southeast Asia was up 306% year on year," Lee said.

Social commerce, where products are bought directly on platforms like Instagram or Facebook Marketplace, is growing fast but presents challenges. "Merchants have to look at having a good balance of both. Even if you're doing social commerce, don't forget to check your other channels or have them all set up well," she advised.

For brands weighing their next move, the Dotdigital team is clear. Being agile across platforms, focusing on sustainability, and leveraging direct human expertise is the new playbook. As Lee concluded: "It's this winning combination of our platform and our people that the merchants really benefit from."