How is Digital Transformation changing Marketing?
I would like to quote “George Westerman” (Principal Research Scientist with the MIT Sloan Initiative on the Digital Economy) to began my writing on Digital transformation of Marketing.
“When the digital transformation is done right,
It’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly,
but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar.”
In this rapidly growing digitalized world, not just technology but also digital media will have some profound effect on our lifestyle. Few predicted that technology would make life easier but few predicted rightly the combination of technology, digital media & internet will change the way we perceive the product, services, organization or brands.
When it comes to marketing, digital technology & digital media has had massive consequences. The property of digital media like accurate insights of customers, combined with both way interaction technology & platforms have created whole new marketing opportunities for organizations & brands. So there is no doubt that digital technology & media can play a powerful role as a marketing tool.
Unavoidable Transformation:
During this global pandemic, we are confined to new normal like virtual interaction, work from home and many more. The prediction of through leaders’ gone haywire, who use to predict that a nation like India would require an army of Gen Z and at least couple of decades to bring India at par with global digital leaders. Not all of it but most of the transformation happened at an accelerated pace during this lockdown.
If I talk about the need for digital transformation at an individual level, it can be as effective as electronic health record made and stored at the central repository level. During this unexpected situation such as Covid19, the health care professionals and wellness industry can access the information and act upon it would be much easier. Central health repository can bring much more dipper understanding of each individual health level and on which a prompt decision and actions can be taken by a health professional and in some cases by Govt of India.
Let’s me back my individual digital transformation with proven scientific facts, if we consistently do a particular action or task for 21 days it becomes a habit. During this lockdown, a large set of users stated interacting virtually, started buying daily essentials online and many more things, according to Dr.Amit Nagpal (Co-Founder & President Bloggers Alliance) if this becomes a habit the user will still use the same mode even post lockdown.
Now, let’s consider at an organization or industry level. Few of the organization have adopted the digital culture and showcased to the world, what can be done or achieved through digital adoption. Companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Ola, Uber and many more taken the traditional business like retail and transport and applied technology & digital media that has left their competitors behind and elevated ahead.
I’m not against traditional or offline marketing, the whole idea is to build a parallel marketing or communication channels to enhance your business acceleration. So those organizations are not left behind their competitor.
Digital Funnel:
Every one of us has heard the term Sale Funnel, in a traditional marketing methodology through which, companies use to map the potential customer. Before the introduction of digital technologies & digital media, the funnel used to be straight forward and comprise of five unavoidable stages: 1. Awareness, 2. Interest, 3.Consideration, 4. Intent, 5. Decision and only possible way to interact with a potential customer is salesperson availability at point of sale.
But after introduction digital technology & digital media, organizations have more control over these stages with accurate insights of customer data and interaction with potential buyers at each stage. In some cases making personalized selling as possible through Digital funnelling model.
Customer Journey & Touchpoints (Source: econsultancy.com)
Personalizing is Possible:
The biggest evident of digital transformation is the personalization of content according to an individual user. Due to a combination of metrics and interactivity at various levels of the digital funnel a clear understanding of customer behaviour can be obtained through various data points, which results in a personalized digital marketing solution.
Keeping track of customer purchase pattern or search of products/services across search platforms can be one used case and all the above data points can be bundled into one metrics. In other case understanding user interest patterns through various digital media platforms can
be other data point. With the combination of all the above data points, a personalized mail can be drafted and send to the potential customer even before making any purchase.
Data at Every Point:
The biggest challenge for any marketer or organization is not to have the right insights of market & customers. Before the introduction of digital technology & digital media, traditionally organization use to depend on third-party data or need to spend huge budgets on market research. Now with the inception of the digital platform, the process has become hassle-free & cost-effective.
A used case scenario if an Ad run on Television and digital media, in the traditional way it use to be very difficult to track the viewership but in case of digital media it can be easy tracked the number of views on that particular Ad, along with that even we can track the number of viewers liked it or disliked it and the biggest advantage of all “Call to Action”. Instantly at the same point, a marketer can convert the viewer into potential buyer and even in some cases buyer.
In other words, the marketers are more empowered to make précised decisions with the support of digital transformation. The availability of data at every point makes them optimize their marketing plans to get the optimal result and in some case, if the marketing idea not working according to their plan, they can stop, tweak or recreate the entire plan without losing much of their efforts or marketing budgets. Also with the help of data marketers can precisely target customer base depending on age, group, gender & geo-location etc.
Convince of Interaction:
Unlike traditional media, digital is a two-way communication platform. It empowers users to introspect, understand and analyse the information available on the public domain. Even before making a purchase, they can choose over what they want to purchase, how much they want to purchase or at what point they want to purchase.
With the support of own digital media organizations can interact with customers and vies versa. User can post a quarry, read the reviews, rate the product or service and much more. Now with the support of features like “live streaming” and “Chat Bots” have made the interaction even more convenient. There is no or almost zero delay in the response time, even in the near future, the technologies like ML & AI will make the interactions more feasible with almost negligible delay time.
Conclusion:
As a fact, digital transformation has impacted every aspect of the business, either it might be operations, administration or marketing. At the same time, it empowered both organizations and users at various levels and improved efficiency. Digital marketing has given the edge to marketers with the support of multiple data points also reduced the marketing spend.
The organizations adopted digital has seen or started seeing the benefits and results of it, the once who wants to adopt it this is the right time to do it. According to one of the report(s) published by Deloitte-India, the organization(s) who is not adopting digital transformation regardless of the size will become obsolete by the year 2025. The organization with longer vision and working towards solving the problems of the society must adopt digital without any further delay. I would like to conclude my writing by “Jeff Bezos” (Amazon Founder) quote.
“In Today’s era of volatility, there is no other way but to re-invent. The only sustainable advantage you can have over others is agility, that’s it. Because nothing else is sustainable, everything else you create, somebody else will replicate.”
Inputs from: Dr. Amit Nagpal
Author: Bharadwaj Adapa
