Trends in Digital Marketing Indian Context

Digital Marketing is a part of a Digital Economy. India is a fast moving nation towards digital economy and this movement has been accelerated with the demonetization of the Indian Currency in the last quarter of year 2016.With it various government digital payment promotion schemes has been launched.

Digital market requires digital promotion and marketing strategies. The telecom sector is also playing an important role in the digitalization movement. Recent launch of reliance telecom Jio with the free & unlimited internet facilities has played a revolutionary roll. The other prominent companies like Airtel, Idea, Vodaphone & BSNL are also offering attractive internet plans. Indian banks are also providing more customers friendly & secure money transaction services.

Now Indian consumer is spending more time on social media and internet surfing. Thus the visibility of any product is more through digital medium than traditional marketing techniques. Digital marketing techniques includes Content Marketing, Marketing Automation, AdWords, SEO, Social Media, Email Marketing and Website Design. The key players role players and infrastructure providers in Digitization of an Economy are government, banking system, Shopping Portal in India, Internet Service Providers and Software Service Providers.

Digital Marketing is the term most frequently used today, so that is the term we focus on. In simple words we define digital marketing is “Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies and media”. So, digital marketing is about utilising digital technology to achieve marketing objectives. There is no essential need for digital marketing to always be separate from the marketing department as a whole, as the objectives of both are the same. However for now it remains a useful term because digital marketing requires a certain skill set to utilise the digital technology effectively. As the recent Developing Digital Skills 2015 report showed, many marketers are now spending > 50% of their time on digital marketing activities and two of the three top job roles in marketing are digital, so clearly digital skills are needed for the marketers & managers.

Effective Ways of Digital Marketing In order to achieve success one suppose to move in the following manner  Plan – Create a structured plan and roadmap by reviewing your current weaknesses and the opportunities to boost online leads and sales.  Manage – Review your marketing activities, so that you know where to focus to get the Quick Wins which will make the biggest difference  Optimise – Learn the best practices and success factors to help you compete to get better results

It is no exaggeration that you live in a digital world and from that perspective it is imperative that your business has an impressive presence in the digital space.In essence, digital marketing is the future of marketing in the world with the added advantages that it is cheaper than traditional marketing and is measurable. Let‟s list the different ways you can use the digital medium to popularize and drive conversions for any startup or business.

EMERGING TRENDS IN DIGITAL MARKETING IN INDIA

(a)  Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In layman‟s terms, Search Engine Optimization or SEO is essentially tweaking your website so that it comes up naturally or organically for search results in Google, Yahoo Bing or any other search engine. Google updates its algorithms regularly so that only the relevant results come up. From that perspective, many experts say that SEO is dead and the effort is futile.

(b) Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is the comprehensive strategy to drive traffic to your business, primarily through paid efforts. Hence it is also called Paid Search Marketing. The universe of SEM is diverse and complicated. Based on your business structure, you may choose PPC (pay-per-click) or CPC (cost-per-click) model, or CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) model. There are different platforms for SEM. By far, Google AdWords (on Google Network) and Bing Ads (on Yahoo Bing Network) are the most popular.

(c) Content Creation

Content can be presented in different formats, including blogs, white papers, e-books, case studies, how-to guides, question and answer articles, forums, news and updates, images, banners, infographics, podcasts, webinars, videos, or content for microblogging and social media sites. All recent changes to Google‟s algorithm – be it Panda, Penguin or Hummingbird – point to the fact that content is the most important metric while filtering search results.

(d) Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing or SMM is an offshoot of your SEM efforts. It involves driving traffic to your sites or business through social sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Linkedin, etc. As we mentioned above, good content is shared and liked.So create and customize content for different social media platforms. Remember to be prolific and original; you need to engage with users on a daily basis, at least four to five times a day. Your SMM efforts can be especially helpful for branding and driving sales.

(e) Digital Display Advertising

This again is a subset of your SEM efforts. You may use a variety of display advertising formats to target potential audience – be it text, image, banner, rich-media, interactive or video ads. You can customize your message based on interests, content topics, or the position of the customer in the buying cycle.

(f) Retargeting and Remarketing

Essentially, Retargeting or Remarketing is a strategy to target customers who have already visited your website. It is based on cookie technology. Retargeting has emerged as a preferred strategy as you target customers who have already shown interest in your business; and hence the conversion rate is high.

(g) Mobile Marketing

The website, apps and content is being customized for mobile devices. The mobile users are growing day by day and it is the most effective way of marketing.

(h) Interactive Marketing

Make sure your advertising strategy engages the potential customer in a conversation. According to a survey by ExpoTV.com, 55 percent respondents preferred to have ongoing communications with the companies they buy from; and 89 percent felt more loyal to the companies if they were invited to provide feedback.

(i) Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing is a strategy where a unique content spreads exponentially online, because the content is appreciated, shared and liked immensely. This is a great way to brand and drive traffic to your website. The content can take any format; all you need is to be creative.

(j) Email Marketing

When you send a commercial message through email to a list of potential customers, the strategy is called Email Marketing. With an effective email marketing software, you can maintain email lists that are segregated based on several factors, including customers‟ likes and dislikes, and spending habits. Remember to send personalized emails; this helps to develop trust.

(k) Digital Media Planning and Buying

When a media agency researches and makes a comprehensive strategy framework, we call it Digital Media Planning. Be it in driving sales or conversions, launching a new brand or promoting an established brand, or changing customer behaviour, the media agency plans different platforms and formats to reach the desired audience. It studies reach and frequency of different web-based and mobile applications. The agency works with different partners and buys relevant space and ideas. This is called Media Buying. In essence, Media Buying and Planning entails all the strategies that we have discussed above.