In a world where customer needs & wants are rapidly evolving, Marketers must constantly adapt and be flexible to the changes to match the customer’s expectations. The growing consumer power in the digital age which predates the turn of the century has been fuelled by the rise of the Internet, and reignited by social media.

Considering immense amount of power in the hands of consumers in today’s competitive markets, and the need to provide quality experiences for today’s connected consumers, at any stage in the path to purchase, last year’s Continuum was based on the following theme:

 

“The Age of Less: Brands and Brand Management in Digital Age”

 

The following dignitaries participated in the Marketing Continuum 2016 on August 7th, 2016 at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay:

The Marketing Continuum 2016 had the following sub-themes:

BRAND IMAGE DEVELOPMENT USING DIGITAL MARKETING

Milton Friedman, in his famous work "Free to Choose", talked about the significance of freedom of choice for consumers in a free market economy. Internet has brought this dream to life and transferred the bargaining powers to consumers, who can now go online and select from millions of options available across the web, all just a click away. In such a noise prone and cluttered digital market, brand has become the last resort of marketers. Branding as an exercise starts and ends with the customer.

Speakers talked about the significance of the new channel to promote brands and develop brands. Has internet enabled marketers to project same brands differently to different set of consumers? Has more and more consumer-to-consumer interaction made job easier or trickier?

UNIFYING BRANDS FOR SEAMLESS CONSUMER EXPERIENCE

Organizations are adopting a more unified approach to improve customer experience. Despite efforts within marketing, lack of internal coordination elsewhere means that customers are suffering from a disconnected experience, prompting 89% to switch brands [1]. Most efforts towards unifying different departments and breaking down silos have gone into the marketing department, where companies are urged to coordinate the efforts of all the individual channel owners. However, the customer experience isn't just the responsibility of the marketing department anymore. It requires the coordinated efforts of the sales and service teams as well. A more seamless customer experience requires technology strategies to evolve from building a “marketing cloud” to building a “customer experience cloud.”

BRAND BUILDING LESSONS FROM YOUR COMPANY

Speaker is expected to talk about trends and innovation that are happening at the current organization regarding brand proposition enhancement. They can share their personal experiences and learning over the career. They can also share the skills that young managers should impart early in their career which will help them in the career, later.

THRIVING IN A CUSTOMER-CENTRIC WORLD: OPTIMIZING THROUGHOUT THE CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE TO ACQUIRE, ENGAGE, AND CONVERT

An emerging transformation is observed in the way organizations perceive customer growth. Focus is shifted from ‘finding the customers’ to start creating them. With growing control over collection and use of customer data, new metrics and optimization strategies have become instrumental is creating customer value. Growing mesh of devices around the customer has enabled multiple touch points and ways of approaching customers. Thus, it is imperative to rethink the strategy across channels in order to provide an integrated experience for the customer.

VISUAL STORYTELLING TO CREATE ENGAGEMENT ACROSS DIGITAL CHANNELS

The increasing internet connectivity and overall development of channels of connecting with customers serves as a great opportunity to get creative with your brand. Generating interesting and memorable content is the key objective of digital marketers. Visual storytelling with purpose is a proven success. Creating content that goes beyond aesthetics to deliver a lasting experience and humanizing your brand through visual builds connect with that is lasting. While competition grows dense across all markets, maximizing the impact can only be achieved by using an effective media strategy to back up the content.

STRATEGY IMPLICATIONS OF DIGITAL MARKETING

The wide and deep penetration of internet and mobile technology has equipped marketer with increasingly effective yet complicated tools like digital marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, etc. Over the past decade, the increase in data has been phenomenal and this has provided a greater insight into consumer behavior and expectations. The lifestyle and choices of consumer are also changing more rapidly than ever. With such a dynamic environment to deal with, the task for creating effective short term and long term strategies is expected to be a dynamic one as well.

DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING FOR PERSONALIZATION AND TARGETING

In a recent survey conducted in U.S. & U.K., by digital marketing agency AgilOne, more than 70% of consumers preferred personalized experiences with their desired brands and products. In order to enhance the overall customer experience, marketers today are making use of big data analytics to reach the customers. The day is not far when the level of personalization of a brand will be considered as one of the metrics in measuring its success. Big data being the buzzword, can help marketers a long way in marketing only those products in which the customer is interested in. With the use of data, marketers can get a much better idea about specific customers’ inclination and hence target specific customer groups for their products.

SOCIAL & DIGITAL INTELLIGENCE: BANKABLE INSIGHTS TO ACTION

Data forms the base of most of the strategies of marketers in the world today. Such is the utility of data that marketers are now starting to use data to predict future course of action by inferring from the insights they receive through predictive data analysis. Use of digital intelligence in marketing helps managers strategize to create a positive customer experience. The field is still beset with a number of challenges and marketers need to make a positive impact on the minds of the customer by leveraging data while interacting with the customers. Various tools have also been developed to analyze the insights. These tools provide marketers the right opportunity and means to use analytics and improve customer experience.

EMOTION VS. DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING: THE CURRENT CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Modern day customers are emotionally driven in making their decisions to purchase any brand. In such a situation, it becomes extremely important for marketers to analyze the huge amount of data created and understand what strategy works best for the company. In today’s marketing world, where everything is measured, monitored and analyzed, companies increasingly aim to grab the right side of a customer’s emotions. With the use of data driven metrics and optimizations, marketers can make really creative ads that appeal to the customer’s emotion and hence will attract the customer to make repeat purchases.

EVOLUTION OF CUSTOMER VALUE CHAIN IN DIGITAL ERA

“Technology makes life easy” is a saying that doesn’t stand true when it comes to marketers. A typical consumer value chain looks like: (refer image attached alongside) As the technology grew, so did the consumer expectation and a major impact of it was seen in steps 1 and 2 of the consumer value chain. More and more data was available at the click of a button and not reaping the benefits out of it would render a marketing campaign useless. Gone are the days when a post sales feedback or survey form would define the plan of action. Now emotional quotient holds high importance and its analysis is the key to Brand Survival in digital Era."

INNOVATIONS THAT WILL CHANGE THE FUTURE OF MARKETING TECHNOLOGY

Innovations in technology have continuously changed the marketing industry throughout history, and will continue to do so in the future. New forms of media are being created that have caused the industry to construct new tools and strategies to help brands refocus their marketing mix. Innovations such as video streaming, mobile, and social media are changing the way we market. From consumer analytics to product development, it is possible to know how your consumers are going to react to the change in your strategies. But all that glitters are not gold. On one hand, it helps a marketer fool proof his campaigns, Technology has also granted the consumers the power to express and influence. Their reviews are now public making an organization ensure their campaigns are perceived positively by all.

AGILE MARKETING: HOW TO REALLY MAKE IT THRIVE

Marketing campaign planning and execution is being redefined by the quickening pace of business and the need for executives to respond to larger forces shaping business. Programs that take months to build and budget for can be rendered irrelevant before they even launch, doomed by a sudden shift in market conditions or a new competitor with an innovative business model. The roadmap for a successful transformation may come from an unlikely source: the world of software development. Over the past decade, IT organizations have embraced a framework known as agile software development to overcome the hindrances of more traditional, rigid “waterfall” software development methods. Applying the principles and methodologies of agile software development to marketing can help CMOs move past similar traditionally rigid planning and execution processes – to create teams that are customer centric, have clearly defined roles and responsibilities, are fully accountable for their performance, and can adapt quickly to unexpected changes. Quick responses need to be rooted in a commitment to test and refine marketing messages that enable a cross functional team to move rapidly when opportunity emerges. In a world of rapidly changing customer and market demands accelerated by digital, agile helps teams keep pace.

ACTIONABLE ANALYTICS: CREATING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN GROWING AND MIDSIZED BUSINESSES WITH BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Companies have struggled for decades trying to tie together their disparate software applications to manage their businesses. This has presented a clear and persistent challenge to getting the "intelligent" data required to make key decisions. Growing and midsized businesses also require visibility into all aspects of the company for their day-to-day decision-making, with accurate, reliable and up-to-date information. What is required today is to explore the issues, business ramifications, and solutions for the business intelligence requirements of growing companies.

INTEGRATED MARKETING IN A DIGITAL WORLD

Building a powerful brand has always been about a focused message, continuity and consistency. With today’s highly fragmented digital and traditional media choices, that’s truer now than ever. With so many digital communication and content delivery channels now available, including the proliferation of user generated and social media tools, using a comprehensive and integrated marketing strategy is critical to managing brand image. Integrated Marketing should be part of strategic game plan to help companies monitor and leverage every customer contact point and brand experience to help create a consumer centric brand.

FROM TACTICAL OVERHEAD TO STRATEGIC GROWTH DRIVER: B2B MARKETING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

"In the world of complex selling, where multimillion-dollar opportunities are a slow burn and where buying decisions are made by a handful of people, B2B marketing has traditionally been perceived as a support function to business development. However, it is of equal significance as any other function. Many B2B organizations are yet to see value in doing this, being unable to understand the bottom-line benefits marketing can potentially deliver. But in those companies, that do recognize marketing as having the same level of importance as other internal functional lines, the CMO function can truly embed itself and achieve optimal, customer-focused business outcomes. Through multiple channels and touchpoints, an effective marketing function influences the handful of decision makers that must be targeted throughout the B2B buying cycle. Measuring this influence in B2B marketing, however, has been difficult. Thankfully, this is now beginning to change as we welcome a new era for B2B marketing through digital enablement."

LUXURY BRANDS IN THE DIGITAL AGE – EXCLUSIVITY VS. UBIQUITY

The effective brand communication for the prestigious and luxury brands encompassing their physical and psychological values has been a challenge in recent times, to maintain the exclusivity of the products in one hand and using mass marketing strategies on the other. Keeping in mind the values and utilities for a customer, there has always been a dilemma to place a luxury brand as an Exclusive or Ubiquitous product. IN the current scenario of wide possible avenues like e - tailing and experiential marketing approach for effective brand communication, rather the important question to be thought of is "What is the best approach to leverage the benefits of both?"

THE UNMARKETING REVOLUTION AND THE NEW AGE OF CONTEXTUAL ENGAGEMENT

Data analytics and digital technology are enabling marketers to unleash precisely targeted campaigns with impressive accuracy and content. Unlike, the idea of "Unmarketing" is to stop marketing at people and instead actively engage with them, in context. In this contextual engagement, the marketer should have clear understanding and knowledge of the customer which can be sourced from various repositories. Here the marketer needs to analyze the situation and identify the best possible business case for him in real time, it is about striking the right balance between the customer’s needs and a business’ objectives. In the practical world, the only hurdle we see to materialize the idea is the inability of the today's technologies to analyze the volumes and velocity of data and return the most productive decision about an offer sufficiently fast enough. Unmarketing is still in its nascent stages, future tells us more about the opportunities and challenges for this.

MAXIMIZING SALES THROUGH ONLINE CHANNEL OPTIMIZATION

This is the era where most of the customers are looking for the interactions with their service providers online to attend their queries or grievances. Maintaining balance between the opportunities offered by the sales channels and the associated risks they generate is a critical element of market strategy. At the same time, personal contact through suitable channels also continues to be a fixed part of the customer approach and has advantages, above all in sales. Although the opportunities to provide goods and services in both local and far-reaching markets is empowering, the competitin in going online will be significant. So, optimizing the sales channels has gained greater importance in these days.