In recent times, the
marketing has changed and so does its techniques. Though global economy is
struggling with the dearth of jobs and business, India still stands a chance
among them. The latest trend in the marketing scenario is Social & Digital
Media Marketing. Online or Digital marketing in simple words means promoting of
products and services over the internet. Digital marketing gave birth to ECRM
(Electronic Customer Relationship Management), Email marketing, SEO marketing,
banner ads, viral marketing, etc. It new, in vogue, misunderstood by some but useful
to most type of types of businesses. The creativity of this platform is the
real time interaction one can have. Direct word of mouth that can be tracked by
the companies themselves through their Facebook pages or/and twitter accounts. Social
media has found its roots in India since last five years. If you talk about
brand, transparency and trust are two most important ingredients to build up
the image of a brand. Now-a-days the trend of excelling in one area has caught
up rather than stepping in ten different dimensions. One needs to focus on the
key areas and maintain the core competency. With higher internet connectivity
and increase in awareness level of the consumers, online marketing is a rage
among the marketers. Undoubtedly, it’s rather new to India and the consumer
base is still trying to understand this part of marketing.
The benefit of
digital marketing is to utilize the STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and
Positioning) approach. The companies now know how to segment their potential
customers, who their targets are, and how to position their products &
services to extract the best result out of it. The online communication landscape
is to be painted in such a way that the consumers and the marketers both are
benefitted. Tracking the brand reputation through digital media has been an
integral part of the branding and promotion. The future of digital media lies
in the idea-led planning. Though India and China are laggards in adopting this
technology driven market, but with internet gaining presence in India where
Facebook, twitter, YouTube, etc. are used 2 hours daily on an average, the
reasons of getting your brands in the eyes of your potential targets becomes
imperative. There are 80 million digital consumers in India which includes
students, working professional, housewives, businessmen, etc. who use internet
as part of their daily routine. The powerful technology these days allows you
to tweet your experience from your mobile, bank on your mobile and even locate
a place on your mobile through GPS.
The world has become such a small place
that a news might spread within seconds of its posting. The digital media
includes mobile marketing (also called viral marketing), social media
integration, email marketing, geo-targeting and localized marketing, etc.
Marketing combined with media gives strong valued Public Relations to the brand
and its presence in the minds of its consumers and potential users. Using
of Facebook to display your products, using of online sites for customers to
buy your products and services online, making your customers aware of the new
products & services through personalized emails or better than ever
Facebook and other social media tools. The rate at which this industry is
booming states that in coming 5 years it would be equivalent of the traditional
form of marketing. It continues to bomb in coming years and is now a prominent
part of marketing mix. Thus the brand managers need to understand the
effectiveness of digital & social media initiatives. The six key areas in
this domain are necessary to know: Reach, Architecture, Content, Conversion, Integration
and Measurement. All this determines the ROI of you’re the budget that you’ve
put in. It is imperative to keep a track of your outflow and what benefits are
you gaining out of that.
As previously mentioned that
India is far behind in terms of using Social Media & Digital Marketing as a
platform, both by the marketers and the consumers. But now people have started
using online buying portals and have also used facebook as a source of their
information. If you see the Facebook pages of famous brands like Tata Docomo (my personal favorite), Surf Excel,
Vodafone Zoo zoos, Axe Angels Club, MTV Roadies, etc. you would notice that
each one of them is different adopting different techniques to increase traffic
on their pages. Surf Excel needs no mentions every detergent powder is surf for
common man. From telecom to television, everyone is using Facebook and twitter
as a medium of interaction to the general public. The most crucial thing is
engagement. If you cannot engage the fans or followers to your page you would
be soon disliked or unfollowed. The need of the hour is to put up the relevant
information that is useful to the readers and draws attention in the midst of
several me-too brands in the market with similar pages. To conclude this
article, would like to mention that though digital marketing has a bright
future but it cannot replace traditional print and TV/radio ads that are still
going strong in comparison to digital media. It is also speculated that by 2020
there would be 10 lakh jobs to cater the digital media requirements. Within 5 years Social Media would hold 30% of marketing budget and would be considered as a major marketing tool. Waiting for India to take this medium serious and learn to utilize it soon.
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