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Look at How Digital Marketing is Not Just About Technology!
Look at How Digital Marketing is Not Just About Technology!

March 25, 2021

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- By Mr. Vikram Kumar, Co-Founder & Managing Director, SRV Media Pvt. Ltd.

 

Digital marketing has created a paradigm shift in the way organizations do their business and engage with customers today. It has empowered organizations to map customer persona and buying journeys at each stage, create personalized marketing campaigns, and measure the ROI on their spend. It has grown exponentially in the last decade and the COVID-19 pandemic has increased its adoption by multifold. The global digital marketing market stood at USD305 billion in value in 2020 and expected to reach USD807 billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 17.6%. 

Technology has been a crucial enabler of digital transformation. The demand for digital marketing automation software for customer relationship, e-mail marketing, social media marketing, etc is on the rise. Advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Analytics, Machine Learning and Natural Processing Language (NLP) are also continuously unlocking their potential in digital marketing. A global survey has revealed that technology accounts for 26.2% of the marketing budget, the largest proportion compared to agencies, in-house team and media spend.

Yet surprisingly, 70% of organizations fail to get desired results on their digital marketing technology transformation. The reason for this failure is not inadequate expertise or ineffective implementation of technology. Rather, it can be attributed to the inability of the organization to integrate the marketing fundamentals with technology. 

Let’s understand how organizations should focus on digital marketing and not just its technology.

Formulate a Clear Strategy

Did you know that 44% of organizations do not have a well-defined digital marketing strategy? Most of them confuse strategy with technology tactics. For example, a strategy could be ‘drive 30% sales from the new geographical market by increasing online brand presence.’ The tactics could be SEO, PPC, content marketing or personalized e-mails to make this strategy successful.

Understand Customer Behaviour

Unless you know what makes your customers tick and what are their needs and preferences, it is challenging to find the right digital marketing tool to target them. You need to create demographic (age, location, income, interest, hobbies), psychological (perception, attitude, mindset) and social (influence of other people’s reviews or opinions) profiles of your target audience.  For example, Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (AR) user experience on websites and social media will work best if the target audience is millennials. 

Be Well-Versed with 4Ps of Marketing

Product, Price, Place and Promotion – the 4Ps of marketing as very much relevant in the digital age. You should know whether the product addresses customers’ pain points, its price offers value for money, it can be made available at the place of shopping and it can be marketed on the right promotion channels. This exercise if done well will sort out the technology angle easily. For example, if your product serves customers across all age groups and geographies at a single price point, you can leverage AI-powered Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for omnichannel promotion.

Focus on Brand Loyalty and Customer Loyalty

The old thumb of the rule says that new customer acquisition is 5-25 times costlier than customer retention. That’s why organizations divert a chunk of their marketing efforts in enhancing brand loyalty (customer perception about the brand) and customer loyalty (reward points, incentives, discounts to keep them returning to the same brand). If you understand these aspects of marketing, then you can easily make better sense of technology tools. For example, if reward points are driving more loyalty than incentives or discounts, you can leverage Google Analytics to customize the loyalty program across all target market segments.

Foster a Changed Mindset in Internal Stakeholders

Digital transformation and technology implementation is prone to resistance from internal employees. They may see it as a threat to their jobs. So, the leadership team must send across the message that this change is an opportunity for both business growth and personal growth. The top management must assure employees that their roles may change, but their jobs are secure.

Digital marketing is here to stay and technology will only scale its growth further. Nevertheless, it is crucial to remember that technology is merely an ingredient in the recipe for the success of digital marketing, it is not a substitute.

 


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Dr. Vikram Kumar

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