Yet another marketing term!

Okay let’s be honest whenever we hear the term ‘Marketing’ we think about the beautiful Yami Gautam in ‘Fair & Lovely’ is now ‘Glow & Lovely’ ad or ‘2x stronger hair because you are worth it’, so and so. Now a question arises, when the base is same in all kinds of marketing then, why is there a need for hordes of names to confuse us? Well, just as we need names to identify different kinds of dishes made from a single ingredient, say Popcorn is a corn but, it popped so got its name Popcorn, similarly names are provided based on different areas of application.

For e.g. while watching a daily soap on TV, an ad plays showing the unique features of a Water purifier and how it can save us from drinking unhealthy, bacterial water until now. This is a type of Television Marketing, an offline category of Digital Marketing.

So, the term Digital Marketing is a form of Marketing used to promote the features of a product or service, the only difference is with the application. First, we need to know about how it all started. The first use of Digital Marketing lies way back in the 1896, no it’s not a mistake in numbers! Digital Marketing is way older than you think!

It was when Guglielmo Marconi first demonstrated a ‘Public Transmission of Wireless Signals”.

This guy invented the RADIO! It didn’t take the creators long to realize that they can monetize it.

Now, we will look into more professional definition provided by Wikipedia, “Digital Marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.” But here’s the catch, Digital Marketing is not limited to internet and online based digital technologies only (we will discuss them later in the article).

Let’s dig deeper into the two major kinds of Digital Marketing with real life examples.

First goes the Online Digital Marketing type that requires an internet connection and a suitable device to connect.

Another example- 

Savita is a full-time employee at an IT firm, working 5 days a week from 9-6pm. She lives alone in a rented flat, cooks her own meals and enjoys being an independent woman. Living on her own, she is a little bit picky on her expenses, which is absolutely normal for her group of people. It was her routine to check the online shopping platforms on her way home to kill the traveling boredom. She logged into one of the biggest online shopping (e-commerce) platform, Myntra and saw some beautiful winter collections. She browsed for a while but, the price range didn’t interest her to ‘make the purchase’. However, she added the dress to her ‘Private Wishlist's in hope of getting it later in case the price drops (you know the end of season sale, festive sale, garage sale, blah..blah..blah!). She really wanted to buy that ‘one puffer black hooded jacket’ but, the price was too high for her, she used to check her wish-list to see if there’s any sale going on. She even looked for other platforms but, couldn’t get the desired brand in the price range. There were times when she used to get recommendations on winter fashion trends on YouTube or on Facebook or Instagram (Myntra page with the price label of the ‘Puffer Black Hooded Jacket’ along with other items from her wish-list or recent searches with a buy now option). Days went by and she stopped looking at the jacket and indulged herself with her work, suddenly around noon, she got a text message from Myntra,

Special 10% Discount Up to Rs.500!!

On Purchase above 2000 | Valid between 6pm-10pm | Hurry!!!

She checked her wish-list, the price was now Rs.1800 after the discount with free delivery but, she thought to wait for better discounts. A week went by, and she got another ‘Push notification’ from the Myntra that read,

!!! FLAT 50% OFF!!!

Redefining Epic offers | Drop everything and shop on!

Choose from over 10k Styles | Till Midnight only, Hurry!!

She checked the time at it was 10:34 pm, she had only one and a half hour left. She immediately opened the app, went o her wish-list and it showed- ‘Hurry, only 3 left!’ that made her panic so, she hurried to add in the cart then click on ‘Buy Now’. She got the necessary details and made the payment, received the confirmation message after some time.

She experienced the few of the following categories of Online Digital Marketing:

1. Search engine optimization (SEO) - a process of optimizing your content to show up as a top result in a search engine for a certain keyword. Have you noticed while browsing through your Facebook/Instagram/simple google search, you see ads of that same 'chic black puffer jacket' you were searching for in a shopping app?
2. Search engine marketing (SEM) – promoting websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages majorly through paid advertising/channels.
3. Content marketing - creating, publishing, and distributing contents in the form of words, for a certain segment of audience online.
4. Social Media Marketing (SMM) – promoting products or services over social media platforms, which includes e-posters across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter, Reddit, Quora, LinkedIn, etc.
5. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) – advertisers have to pay each time their ad is clicked.
6. Affiliate marketing – a kind of partnership between two physical entities to promote a product or a service in exchange of rewards or commissions.
7. Email marketing – sending a mass commercial message which typically involves an advertisement or requesting for a donation from a certain group of people, over the email.

Second goes the Offline Digital Marketing type that only requires a digital media to perform the task. The 4 big categories of Offline Digital Marketing are:

1. Enhanced offline marketing- upgraded existing marketing type. For e.g. light emitting diodes (LED) at the Times Square, New York, have enhanced the traditional billboards. Other examples would be the use of digital menus provided at the restaurants or eating outlets.

2. Radio marketing- advertising a product/ service at the beginning of shows (Since social media is a hot marketing tool these days, it wouldn’t be hard to find a local radio station nearby to get on a show, be interviewed or crack a deal with them. Also don’t forget to get sponsorships for a prime airtime possible).

3. Television marketing is like “baa” of the famous Smriti Irani daily soap- ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’, who never agrees to rest even when the 6^th generation is there. The Water Purifier ad explained above would be the best example of this type.

4. Phone marketing- over 80% of internet users’ stream through their smart phones as compared to the desktop or laptop. Cold calling is used by companies to directly reach out to their customer base whether existing or new and it still helps in securing a good number of connections.

1. Increasing brand loyalty and driving online sales.

2. Targeted audience can be reached in a cost-effective and measurable way.

3. A hassle-free use of technology for reaching a large pool of people.

4. The ease of application anytime, anywhere at your comfort.

5. Full control over the customer base for increased customer satisfaction. 

Don't be a dumb chap, upgrade yourself with the time. We have plenty of resources and platforms to gobble up the data from. Some restaurants are hiring "Yellow Robot Waiters" while others are still stuck with manual bills! Create a food for your mind and think, "Do we really know what Marketing stands for?"

Mr. Manoj Rawat has been running his Family Store, by the name Rawat General Store, for more than 5 years now. He sells at a wholesale price which attracts a good amount of local customers, majority are his loyal to his products. You can find items from stationary to grocery which defines his variant customers. It was a sudden seal on his business when the Lockdown was announced which made people afraid to leave their homes for anything. They did panic shopping and limited their consumption to avoid going out. There used to be a time when the 'Rawat General Store' employees had no time to sip water until it was closed and now the shutter has been down for a month. Mr. Rawat was getting worried comparing his savings with his expenses when he suddenly realized about his now 'unemployed staff'. How are they going to survive in this pandemic? He needed to do something fast but, the question was- what and how?

His elder daughter was a second year college student, she saw her father's dilemma and thought of an idea. She suggested her father to go digital in this era of technology. At first, Mr. Rawat was little hesitant as he does not know anything about the online world but, after a little persuasion from his children and wife, he agreed for an alliance.

To make it easier for her father to understand, the elder daughter drafted few steps to begin with:

1.   First- we need to register our shop in the "Local Business Directory". It will make our shop's details appear on a digital screen whenever people search for a local general/ kirana store on Google or any other search engine. We will mention our shop's name, address and contact details to make them aware of our presence.

2.   Second, we will sign up with ''Google Know my Business" and mention our opening hours, variety of the items we sell and the additional services we provide. We are doing this as our target segment is the local customers who are looking to buy general items used on daily basis.

3.   Third, we will setup a "Social Media Page", probably on Facebook, for connecting with our target customer base; we will also share about some promotional services that we may provide to our loyal customers. This page will help us to have a two way communication with our customers as we can answer their queries on time. We will also share some pictures of our store, the newly arrived stocks, how the packaging is done for items like Tamarind, Chickpeas, etc. We can also post pictures on Instagram or Pinterest, of cleaning the store area to ensure the customers feel safe and satisfied. We need to create an interactive website with good and interesting contents. There are various sites where we can create our own website at dirt cheap cost; the cost is for buying the domain name only. We need to make sure the website is mobile friendly as most of our customers are mobile users. The 'Title page' of the website plays a vital role in getting the attention of the readers.

*Points to keep in mind:

• Addition of attractive and relevant Title page, extra attention to the font size and style, use of same background image and fonts to save the loading time.
•  Small and low resolution images for speedy and smooth page loading. 
• Interesting and engaging contents in the form of blogs, we may write about the different types of lentils (daal) and their benefits, the 'daadi maa ke nuskhe' for the common illness, etc. 
• We will attach a Google form to get their feedbacks and email address to send promotional mails, which will help us form a better connection with our loyal customers.

 Note: we will use the term 'SEO' (Search Engine Optimization), in layman language, we need to use relevant words or phrases that define our shop's goals and services, and it will help us to appear in the organic search area without spending a penny. We can also bid on certain keywords to let our ads be displayed on relevant web pages, certainly when the right kind of customer visits the right kind of page at the right time. The ad will contain our shop's name, our products & services, a link to our website whether to learn more about us or to make a purchase. Various tools are present in the market to improve the businesses' effectiveness such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Keyword Planner or Bing Keyword Research Tool, and much more (you can learn more in details by clicking on them).

4.   Last but a continuous process: are the observation, analysis, implementation and improvements. This is the most important step as it determines whether the efforts are rewarded or not. We need to observe the patterns of our online customers, if they are spending a specified time at a certain area of the page or just visiting and leaving. This helps to understand their buying personas and set a conversion point to accumulate the success rate. This also helps to draft a plan whether to run a campaign or not, what promotional tactics will grab their attention, how to make them do the purchase, and so on.

As we have also decided to start home delivery services to attract those customers who have limited time for grocery shopping, our conversion point will be the “add to cart” or “Buy now” option. Customers can place order either by calling directly at the shop or using the "adding to cart" option on our website.

Many businesses indulge in launching a mobile application rather than a website without doing a proper research of their target audience. Studies have shown that out of 80% population using internet, 60% access the online sites through Smartphone mostly while outdoors. People tend to search for online presence before taking any action. So, building up an interactive and informing website would be advised for a growing business. 

Conclusion

Coming at the end of this topic, I have lined up few points below to look after:

1. Determine the right Business model- we need to draft a model about our objectives, vision, mission, market place, and much more before going online.

2. Conduct an online market research- as offline and online market have different working modules. We will have to look for the competitors, what platform they are using, how they are driving customers to their business, and so on.

3. Determine the products or services- try to question oneself what problem our product/ service is solving?

4. Identify the target audience- try to identify the people who may benefit from our products/services, they may either be actively searching for our products or relevant to them.

5. Select the most suitable platform- after identifying the business model, we need to choose the most suitable platform/ channel to launch our product/ service. The suitability is defined on the basis of our target audience.

6. Set-up an interactive website- try to make the website device friendly on basis of our target audience. The content of the website’s home page (or landing page) should consist of a relevant title, high quality image, relevant contents, and the loading time should be less.

7. Use relevant tools- there are numerous tools to maintain our business online. We can analyze who are visiting our site, what keywords to use, where to place our ads, what contents to focus on, and so on.

8. Keep updating- the Indian market is a dynamic place with no limitation on opportunities. We must always have a continuous research process to monitor the market changes and tackle them at the earliest.

References

1. The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Google Analytics 

     By: Kristi Hines  

https://moz.com/blog/absolute-beginners-guide-to-google-analytics

2. How to Use Google Search Console for SEO: A Complete Guide.  

By: Anna Crowe 

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-console-guide/209318/#close

 3. The Beginner's Guide to SEO    

      By: Moz PRO

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo