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Adaptive design ensures that there is only one database and content management system that is used to manage and render data at the back-end, leading to more efficient content management, Karthik Kumar tells Alokananda Chakraborty
What is the No. 1 reason why every business should develop a digital marketing strategy? And, while deciding their digital strategy what is the No. 1 mistake that brands commonly make ? There ought to be many given that digital is still a small part of the overall advertising pie…
The No. 1 reason every business should develop a digital strategy is that the internet is an additional channel for business with the kind of interactivity and ability to engage consumers that none other can offer. This engagement can take the form of e-commerce or it can simply be a means of reaching out to the brand's target audience. However, the No. 1 mistake that brands make is to look at digital as part of their media planning laundry list.
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Second is fragmentation. This is a truly disruptive aspect of digital. Content today does not require a specific device, a specific time, a specific format, a specific consumer, and so on… Any content can be viewed by anyone as long as one is interested in it. Third is technology. Vinod Khosla recently said that the capability of individuals is not a stumbling block, but it is the imagination which is the stumbling block. This is particularly true with the internet. The key value of the internet is being able to distribute content in myriad formats. Unfortunately we are geared to thinking of content uni-dimensionally - print, television, radio, kiosks etc.
Next comes network impact. The totality of the internet ecosystem which makes for digital marketing is a network of diverse assets. Each of these has the capability of propagating itself, leading to an exponential impact on the brand and the company's marketing efforts. Which brings us to the fifth element, media consumption behaviour. There are clearly different segments among the users of the internet. The first obviously is the youth, which almost entirely relies on the internet for their information needs ... information of any variety, whether news and current affairs or information about family and friends. The second are the time-challenged homemakers who use the internet to accomplish their myriad tasks such as getting child rearing tips or satisfying the family's appetite for innovative food.
Websites still play a big role in online marketing. Are there any new trends in company websites?
By and large, players in the financial sectors tend to use their websites well, particularly those in the private and foreign sectors.
The latest trend in website design is 'adaptive design'. This approach to web design essentially ensures that content delivery of the website is consistent across different access devices - computers, tablets, smartphones etc, and also utilises the native functionalities of a device. For example, being able to browse web pages on a tablet using swipes instead of clicking on menu items. While this is on the user-interface side, adaptive design also ensures that there is only one database and content management system that is used to manage and render data at the back-end, leading to more efficient content management. One of the first companies that has used this approach to our knowledge has been Citibank. Citibank Australia was the first to launch its website using adaptive design and very soon nearly all other Citibank sites around the world will be using adaptive design.
Since Dell announced its Twitter sales success ($6.5 million in 2009), companies have started taking social media seriously as a sales generation tool, not just as a passive marketing tool. What are the top three advantages and three disadvantages of using the social media?
Social media has a limited role as a sales generating tool. It would cater to micro markets rather than mass markets. That does not mean that social media is a passive marketing tool. On the other hand, social media has the potential to be able to manage customer service, create brand buzz and crowdsource ideas. But to be able to reap these benefits, marketers have to go beyond the aphrodisiac of the metrics of likeability into the metrics of engagement and perception. More importantly, marketers need to engage seriously with their audience, instead of the typical 'like' and 'follow'.
The advantages of social media are its ability to demonstrate the brand's seriousness about its customers, crowdsource responses to its brands and the activities they are planning. The disadvantages, of course, are the amount of fakery that goes on in the environment. It should by now be common knowledge that 'likes' can be purchased and responses can be faked.
We all want our website to get 'found'. What are the recent trends in search engine optimisation? Say a company has no experience with SEO or content marketing … where should it start?
It should start by asking itself what it wants the website to achieve, keeping in mind the interactive nature of the channel, rather than thinking of it merely as a digital brochure. The next thing is to understand that the website content is not merely about what it wants to say, but to make it relevant to how consumers search for the content. So a critical part of the activity is to do considerable research on how consumers search for content and tailor the content along the consumer search patterns.
Third, search optimisation is part art, part science, part technology and part continuity. Anybody serious about benefitting from the internet would do well to engage the services of an expert in the business, notwithstanding the claims of search engines that anybody can master optimisation. Website owners should decide if they want to deploy their competencies in managing their business or try and learn search optimisation just to save a few pennies.
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The hands-on manager * Karthik Kumar has strong research and digital communication credentials. Starting his career in 1976 at Indian Market Research Bureau (now part of WPP) at an entry level position, he went on to lead the Lanka Market Research Bureau, a joint-venture of the Maharaja Group, JWT and British Market Research Bureau. He co-founded Marketing and Research Group or MARG (now A C Nielsen India) with seven others and worked with the agency between 1982 and 1993 |
* Before joining Rage, he worked with loginads.com as chief executive officer and helped create an internet-based do-it-yourself advertising platform. This involved creating the appropriate assets and databases leading to the creation of the online platform
What new digital trends can we expect to see in the coming years? What excites you about the future of this area of marketing?
Quite obviously 'wearable' technology is the flavour of the season. However, this seems to be very nascent - it is anybody's guess of when it will become large scale. The more realisable trends seem to be in the area of mobile payments and digital printing. These, I believe, will significantly enhance the attractiveness of mobile platforms for marketers. With digital printing, for instance, marketers can quickly and inexpensively test product and packaging prototypes using the crowdsourcing abilities of the internet.
