Digital Marketing; why it is so Important?

The pie share for digital spends in India is increasing day by day! Its speed, agility and audience engagement give it edge over rival conventional media vehicles. Each of the brand manager is working in their brain storming rooms to work out a digital strategy to gain the market share. The companies are spending  in huge numbers to increase their digital presence. In fact everyone is looking to maximize the brand equity through online presence via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram or Pinterest.

In one of the recent interview a senior official from coca cola mentioned that  the ROI on digital media is quite less as compared to the conventional media. However still they are transforming themselves to be a digitally communicating brand.

So what does it make companies to work on digital strategies? When out of 132 core population only  34% use internet then why do companies are intending to spend so heavily on the digital marketing. Why do a smart phone is exclusively launched through a website?

Why there are so many digital start ups? The answer is the speed with which people are converting to digital mode and it's engagement capabilities with customers.

As per an estimate in 2010 there were around 92 Mn people were connected to  internet and at the  end of  Year 2015  around 350 Mn people were connected to internet. It is expected that by 2020 , 730 mn people will be connected via internet. Hence the companies are preparing themselves to be at right place at right time.

No doubt digital is fast, things get viral in friction of a minute, and it has a wide engaging effect on audiences.

With conventional media it is a one way traffic. The brand communicate it's side of story and rely on word of mouth to move on. Or else it has to keep spending in huge amounts to gain the recognition in customer mind.

On the other hand the digital platforms tends to engage the audience by story telling. The companies encourage audience to like,share and talk about the brands. The companies like RedMi or Xiaomi used digital platforms extensively to sell their smart phones.  Companies have specialised teams to create posts and then using strategies to engage audiences. And no doubt the phones, sold exclusively in digital platforms were out of stock within the hours of it's launch.

Besides being fast and it's engaging features,  the digital platforms also ride on young Indian population. Today India is one of the youngest country and its youth are not scared of exploring new opportunities and adopting new technologies.

The digital marketing has definitely given an opportunity to marketer to reach to millions in one go and in a quantitative way. It helps in easy classification and segmentation of market and thus in making focused efforts. The consumers can be segmented and classified as per the requirements and then can be targeted. The effect can also be measured by quantifying the impression , clicks and post share.

The digital marketing helps in creating a fast effect on audiences by giving an opportunity to marketer to  repeat their messages at relatively low cost. The low cost helps marketer to fix their budgeting problems.

Although conventional means also helps in limiting your messages to a targeted geography but digital efforts can be ultra-geo targeted. Today you have possibilities to monitor the movement of your target and accordingly modify your message geography. By using beacons one can actually deliver a discount or mega sales message to customers when they are inside a market compound and can significantly influence their buying behavior.

No doubt digital marketing has edge over the conventional media and hence it is going to be future marketing. It would be an important vehicle to carry the brand stories and would be used by companies more as compared to their conventional media vehicles.

www.thinkmukesh.blogspot.com

REFERENCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users

http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/india/

Brand Managers: LIFT your marketing

In the Digital Era: LIFT You Marketing Tools

Digital Marketing has offered a number of tools to reach to customers. The tools like Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Periscope, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Direct mail system, and many more, helps to reach to customers. However, other than Website, which of the 5 tools most of companies employ. They use LIFT You tools for most of Digital marketing efforts.

LIFT a word we all are familiar and whenever we have to move vertical we use LIFT . So in marketing brand managers need to elevate their brands, they use various conventional & digital tools. Add You tube to it and make it LIFT You. So how do we LIFT  our brand digitally

Company Website- the ultimate information adda, 

Twiter- Mouthpiece of company, 

Linked In - a tool to connect with prospect employees, 

Instagram- Tool to share pictures, 

Facebook- share anything, 

Youtube- online video broadcasting service

Direct Mails- Share information with subscribers

Each of the above mentioned tools helps to reach the customers. Website and direct mailers are used for a long time, however in recent past social media has taken lead role in digital marketing. Companies are spending huge amount in LIFT You model.

Each of LIFT You tools serve a unique purpose and provide a unique way to increase the brand reach to audience. 

While Linked In has become a favourite source of connecting with new prospective employees and Informing the brand developments. Instagram helps in converting text messages in pictures and pictures are known to speak better than words. Instagram is often used to broadcast the messages in graphics and images. Instagram is increasingly becoming famous and brands are using this platform to convert words in pictures.

Facebook initially , crafted as a friends messaging service is converted in to corporate messaging platform. Each of major company has their facebook pages and the brand managers are working hard to get likes and the war is ON. Facebook is a unique medium to reach consumers through text, image and videos. It supports all three formats and make it interesting to managers to reach to consumers. Facebook also helps customers to reach to company and appreciate and complaint to brands.

Twitter, the Micro Blogging site is new way to make brand announcement and react/respond to market. The character limit makes it exciting and challenging for brand managers to communicate messages. 

Youtube, an alternative to Television is an experimental video messaging service. The low cost and targeted gives edge over traditional TV medium.

All the abve LIFT You mentioned tools have edge over conventional broadcasting mediums, these tools are agile and provide an opportunity for immediate modifications. The tools unlike conventional medium, are specific, target oriented and easily measurable. Brands are increasing their marketing budgets on digital media. If use efficiently these tools help in reaching the target customers in most effective way.

www.thinkmukesh.blogspot.com

DIGITAL MARKETING & TRADITIONAL BRAND MANAGERS

DIGITAL MARKETING & TRADITIONAL BRAND MANAGERS

Digital revolution has digitalized everything; the shops at nukkads are converted in to digital market places. Markets are open 24X7 courtesy to online market places making Indian Customers experience what they never have seen.

Traditional business who thrived on traditional marketing channels; distributors, retailers are tweaking their marketing mix to lure the digital customers. On other side some of the CEOs are busy in either launching their own  E-commerce sites or negotiating hard with existing market places. 

Inside the board room, strategies are drawn to attract the digital customers. Brand Managers are entrusted to design marketing plan with focus on digital customers. The mandate is to devise strategy to increase the market share on the E-Commerce sites.

The traditional Brand Managers who have studied the Marketing Gurus in late 1990 and early 2000 are in deep discussion with Digital Specialist born in 1990s and try to understand the whole Gamut. What they traditionally studied and practiced are changing.  OTS, CPM are converting in  SEO, PPC, & CPI Digi-words.  The digital agencies are mushrooming in corporate parks, small buildings and even in one room offices. Each of them are convincing the brand managers that they can bring big traffic to the business site, which will lead to revenue generations. The traditional managers are confused about this, what they learn in first week of month changes by the end of next month. It is a challenging task to keep the pace with constant evolving digital market. 

Howe ever the traditional brand managers need to understand  this change and  has to adapt to situation, they need to understand that the qualities required for a good digital brand managers are same as they are for traditional managers. The digital marketing is not the rocket science and is one of the easiest subject to learn and practice. You can always hire an agency who can successfully guide your digital actions. However it is important that you understand the basic requirements of the digital success. The understanding will help you in selecting right partner from mushrooming digital agencies and shall help you to evaluate their actions.

To understand and master the subject, you required to have the some key marketing traits in yourself. 

So what are the key to transform you in a successful digital marketing manager? The key to be successful brand manager in this digital era is AIDA. AIDA in traditional marketing is marketing acronym which a consumer or marketer experience in the buying process. But in Digital world it is different. The AIDA in digital marketing is Agility, Interest, Data Savvy and Act.

AGILITY: The Brand Manager needs to be agile & quick to adept. He must not be rigid to what has planned & wait till the campaign ends. Instead brand manager must evaluate & improve the plan on regular basis during the campaign and keep changing the mix.

INTEREST: The brand managers must be interested to learn and keep himself updated with the rapid changing technology and practices in digital marketing. They must have creative desire to experiment, learn and try new advertising mixes. An internal desire to know and experiment helps brand manager in optimising the marketing campaign.

DATA SAVVY: The Brand Manager must be Data Driven.  Unlike other traditional media which also works on perception, Digital marketing is measurable and data oriented. Brand manager must be good with data analytics and should have ability to draw the conclusion from data provided.

ACTIONS: The Digital Brand manager must be quick to act. He must be able to act upon the learning made from data.  The actions need to goal oriented, specific and measurable.

The AIDA method will help you to learn the digital marketing nuances quickly and shall quickly transform you in a successful Digital Marketing Manager. AIDA will make you execute the digital marketing campaign and will deliver the sales and marketing result. Hence Adopt the AIDA model and break the traditional media boundaries.