Alpha Gamma Solutions shares advice for building a marketing strategy fit for the future

Technology is transforming the role of marketing like never before and Alpha Gamma Solutions shares their advice for building a marketing strategy fit for the future.

About Alpha Gamma Solutions: http://www.alphagamma.co.uk

Alpha Gamma Solutions look at the importance of marketing and keeping up with technology. Technology is transforming the role of marketing like never before. From the rise of the multi-screen population and expectations around multichannel to the growth in smart homes and the shift towards the sharing economy, brands need to continually update their capabilities if they are to keep up with today's consumers. If a company fails to keep up it will subsequently miss opportunities and allow competitors to achieve larger market shares.

Alpha Gamma Solutions offer advice on building a marketing strategy to suit 2015 and beyond, looking at companies that are outperforming on this front:

Digital direction- For Direct Line Group the latest chapter in their continuous reinvention has most recently meant 'Complete Digital Transformation'. Few elements of the marketing or business function remain untouched by digital technology so it is crucial to find leaders who can inspire digital collaboration within the organisation to harness the latest innovations."It's easy to focus purely on the technology, but at DLG we are trying to focus on much more than that: the right outcomes include developing and attracting the right people with the right skills and mind sets," explains Roots, who has spent the last two years building in-house capabilities. "My ambition was always to build a highly talented digital team in-house who can take insight through to highly performing digital experiences and this is what I have now done." In order to enable specific digital working practices to be conducted, his team quickly adopted agile methodologies including test and learn, data driven testing and iteration and scrum.

Crafting change - Argos provides another example of how making fundamental changes can help future-proof a brand. Last year, Stephen Vowles, marketing director of Argos, spearheaded the re-launch of the dated-looking catalogue brand, repositioning it as a digital retailer with attractive unique selling points: 20,000 items available for immediate pick up and fast delivery. Termed 'Get set, Go Argos', this initiative signalled a significant shift in the retailer's approach.

Customer-centric - If any business wants to grow in the hearts and minds of its potential customers it needs to perfect a deep understanding of those customers and deliver the things that are going to better satisfy them. In today's world of digital, mobile and social media, this means developing a deep understanding of that customer and a sophisticated, agile approach to connecting with them, effortlessly and in real-time.Transport hub Gatwick Airport has a strategic intent to be London's airport of choice. As a central part of that goal, Alex Authers, head of market research and insight at Gatwick Airport, works with a complex range of data sources, sifting through the most important metrics to find those ones that unlock the key to customer satisfaction. If successful marketing begins and ends with the customer, it stands to reason that a superior customer insight capability is a competitive advantage. "Our separation from BAA [in 2009] means we have been freed up to think about things more from a passenger-centric point of view," says Authers. "It is like going from production orientation to marketing orientation: it is starting to do things differently because that is what our passengers want of us."

Staying informed - This focus on using insight better is also a key concern of Jane Frost, CEO of the Market Research Society, who sees it as vital to marketing's place in the corporate hierarchy. "In creating a knowledge base founded on an understanding of the customer that is both deep and dynamic, marketers can own something that is incredibly valuable to all aspects of the business," observes Frost. "This balances the increasing trend for IT/technical to own the outputs known as big data, just as finance historically 'owned' the money."

Alpha Gamma Solutions is a leading sales and event marketing firm based in Leicester. As a small business themselves the firm also experienced accelerated growth in 2014 due to an increasing demand from their clients for more personalised and targeted marketing solutions. This growth allowed the firm to start 2015 on the right foot and they are now looking into future expansion opportunities to widen their market reach for their clients. Alpha Gamma Solutions specialises in direct marketing meaning they take their campaigns directly to customers and tell them everything they need to know about their product/service. People are more interested and engaged when they can see a product in front of them and can experience how passionate somebody feels about it and Alpha Gamma Solutions are incredibly passionate about their clients' businesses.