CLICK…..TICK, BUT DOES YOUR MARKETING KNOW TECHNOLOGY

Anyone who grew up in the 90s in India wouldn’t have missed the television commercials of brands Amul, Cadbury’s Dairymilk, Titan and Fevi kwik. These are still fresh in our minds, aren’t they? As conventional as it may be, those were the days when marketers developed a compelling message, used mass media to broadcast that message to large audiences and grew market share. It was that simple!Fast forward to today, when everyone has quick, cheap and instant access to a piece of the digital action. Digital touch points currently permeate every aspect of consumers’ lives — how they watch movies on Netflix, how they research new products on Youtube, how they check their balance on PayPal, or how they book a flight on Makemytrip.Today, we live in an “attention economy”. With an ever-connected, empowered and digitally savvy consumer at the helm, grabbing the mindshare of a consumer who spends more time on mobiles, tablets and laptops is a 40 million dollar question for every marketer! And the dilemmas don’t end there – How do I connect with customers through all the devices in real time? How do I create campaigns that work across social media, display advertising and e-commerce? How do I generate more leads and nurture them through the decision making funnel?So, in essence, marketers of today – myself included, need to ask ourselves the fundamental question – What does the merging of technology and marketing mean for us?I strongly believe that consumerization of technology has impacted the way marketing is done. Here’s a quick take on the 4R-impact that marketers need to focus on:Reputation – Brands today are more vulnerable than ever. The recent instance of Amazon’s wonderful reply to Flipkart is a classic example of how the technology can make or break your brand!Relevance – Just go to booking.com and search for a few hotels. Now login to your facebook account and you will be shocked to see the number of deals popping up on your feed! Highly relevant personalized experiences at every touch point is a norm.Reach – the reach of new-age marketing campaigns has increased greatly. With so many different ways that customers access media, whether through social channels, YouTube, news websites, via mobile or tablet apps, a sticky idea can quickly gain huge scale.ROI – the shift in technology enables marketers to analyze, report, and act on data from customers and prospects to make every touch point count, warm up cold leads, and better enable sales to sell. Gone are the days when marketing just threw leads at Sales teams – today it is all about nurturing a buyer through a journey that begins with a click or a footfall or both!“No prizes for guessing that companies that excel at extracting business value from marketing technology beat their peers in targeting customers, generating leads, building revenue, and measuring and achieving real return on their investment.