The publishing business is evolving continuously with the introduction of ground breaking technologies. The sheer scale of its impact on a publication, its advertising revenues and marketing strategy, is just breathtaking. Prudhvi Raju Manthena, Director – Technology, Mirabel Technologies, speaks to Team Estrade, on the opportunities in this industry and challenges his company faces.
- Tell us about Mirabel Technologies? About your products and services?
Mirabel Technologies is a privately owned, international software company that empowers businesses to grow. Company President, Mark McCormick, founded Mirabel in 2003 with the original vision to help publishers in a challenging media environment. Drawing from his experience launching over a dozen successful magazines, McCormick introduced Mirabel’s first product, The Magazine Manager, the first web-based CRM for publishers, which now serves more than 15,000 publications worldwide.
Since then, several other products followed suit including Digital Studio, The Newspaper Manager, Flip and Share, and now its newest, most advanced platform, Mirabel’s Marketing Manager. Like all Mirabel products, Mirabel’s Marketing Manager is supported by experienced web developers and software consultants who ensure our clients have a great user experience.
- What is your geographical range? How does the marketing automation business differ geographically?
Mirabel started off serving customers in the US. It has now slowly started to expand into other markets like UK, Europe, and Australia. With the upcoming launch of Marketing Manager, Mirabel will also start business in the India and APAC regions.
There is a lot of fragmentation in this business despite the benefits that marketing automation brings to companies. According to a recent Frost & Sullivan report, the automation business in India is set to grow at a CAGR of 25% from $5M in 2014 to $19.4M in 2020. This growth rate is comparable to that of the global rate. The US and European markets understand the product; in India, the market is in a growth phase.
- Who is your target group? Is the particular business vertical that is of interest to you?
Marketing Manager is primarily suited for B2B companies. Any company that looks at their website as a source of lead generation, runs email campaigns, use landing pages, or need competitor and content analytics could use the product. To start with, we are looking at the ITeS domain. But, we have also been getting enquiries from the education, recruitments, and other verticals.
- What is the size of the market you are currently competing in, both in India and the world?
According to a recent Frost & Sullivan report the Marketing automation business in India will grow to about $19.4 M by 2020, and this is at a CAGR of 25%. This growth is on par with the global market. A recent Markets and Markets report says that by 2019 the Global Marketing Automation software market will be worth about $5.5 Billion.
- What is your marketing strategy for Marketing Manager?
Our marketing strategy involves a 2 step approach.
Step 1: Create brand awareness and outreach – As a part of this we will be taking up advertising campaigns, Media and Public Relations and sharing our thoughts and ideas on the Marketing Automation industry in the public space.
Step 2: Generating leads and business – We will work on building partnerships with key players in the industry, do some on-field marketing, participate in industry specific events and also do some social media and content marketing.
- Tell us about your Marketing Manager Technology platform? How is it a game changer in your business segment?
Marketing Manager is a marketing software that is backed by powerful CRM and Business Intelligence modules. Every business relies on their website for leads. But just getting information about the companies visiting the website does not help secure a meeting or make a sale. Sales teams first compile company names and then start doing research to find a key contact at the prospective customer’s organization/company. This is where Marketing Manager comes into the picture. Marketing Manager’s Business Intelligence feature helps companies identify leads and grow sales through data analytics. This gives the sales team all the information they need at their fingertips and without them having to spend valuable time on market research. Key components of this platform are Big Data, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and NLP running on AWS Cloud Infrastructure.
- Is the ecosystem in India ripe for companies like Mirabel Technologies?
Absolutely. There is a lot of excitement that we see when talking to potential customers. Some of the advantages that companies like Mirabel Technologies offer are flexibility, competitive pricing along with a quality product. We are open to working with existing systems that the customers may have and are also constantly working on building up our capabilities. This will be the key to success in India.
- What do you feel is the future of Big Data, Complex machines, and AI? Are these something that would benefit Mirabel Technologies strongly?
We want to redefine the sales prospecting process by enabling collaborative features across multiple devices. Key components of this plan are Big Data, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence. And this is the future. There will be more and more organizations investing time and money in these technologies. These technologies are something that we at Mirabel see as the future. We are working on building a digital sales assistant capable of helping salespeople become more effective by giving them the information they need in real time. This project will be a combination of these technologies.
- Which product segment is the highest revenue earner for your company?
Mirabel Technologies started in 2003, with Magazine Manager in the US. That has been our highest revenue earner. So far, Mirabel has over 15000 publications in the US that use our publishing software.
- Is the “Make in India” initiative helpful for your company/industry?
A great part of Mirabel Technologies is that all of our products are being developed in our Research and Development center in Hyderabad, India in collaboration with the US team. I think this is a great advantage, as a good number of customers like to work with companies that are locally present and easily accessible. At a recent NASSCOM Marketing event, we also happened to hear this from a few potential customers as one of the criteria when selecting a vendor.
- What is the biggest challenge faced currently by your industry of operation?
The software industry is constantly changing, and newer technologies keep coming up every few years. There is a constant need for organizations to stay abreast of the latest technological developments while also coming up with new products. This effort requires a commitment regarding investment in talent and infrastructure.
- What is your vision for your company, in terms of,
- Near term future, over the rest of 2016 – By the end of this year, we would like to add another 15 people to the team. These additional employees will take our headcount to 90+. We will be looking to hire talent in the Big Data and Artificial Intelligence space.
- Long term, over the next four years or so. – Over the next four years, we plan to invest another $6 Million into the India operations. This funding will help scale in terms of talent, infrastructure and serving more clients. We will also be adding new features to our products that will help improve functionality and deliver greater value to the customers.
All Mirabel products are developed at our Hyderabad’s R & D center
