How technology is empowering both marketers and consumers
We are living in a digitized world, with technology being omnipresent in everyone’s lives. This presence enables marketing specialists to do great things for their brands, with the added bonus of empowering consumers. This power can lead to enhanced effects or to quick failures for marketing campaigns, depending on whether you have the appropriate consumer approach.
A vast but personalized marketing approach is just what the experts recommend!
Having a considerable on-demand mix of digital tools and methods of promoting the brands gives the marketing specialist the ability to send targeted and personalized messages.
Focusing the marketing efforts on the proper audience was always a primary concern for marketers. In B2C (Business To Consumer) marketing there are 4 main types of segmentation:
- Geographic segmentation, based on location;
- Demographic segmentation, based on indicators such as gender, age, education level, income;
- Psychographic segmentation, based on lifestyle, values and interests;
- Behavioral segmentation, based on shopping and buying behaviours.
The digital marketing approach enables better segmentation by offering the following mechanisms and techniques, which are quite powerful and fully automatic:
- Geo-targeting: this approach relies on automatically identifying the location of the online visitor (according to the IP, WiFi or GPS data), followed by the display of relevant content (online ads).
- Demographic targeting: based on the information the users provide while navigating on the internet and creating different accounts. Eg: a Facebook age targeted ad will be displayed to the desired audience by using their birthdate information.
- Psychographic and behavioral segmentation are based on a user’s past searches and accessed information or purchased products and services on the internet. Their actions create unique profiles which portray an online behaviour and interests image.
Using the potential of online marketing can save a lot of trouble for marketing specialists in segmenting the market, but it has other advantages too.
For example, one particular digital marketing campaign can be developed for potential customers that have different locations across one country, region or even the whole globe. Therefore the communicated message will reach each and every one of them, regardless of the distance between the company and the potential customers.
Another advantage is that both the messages sent by the companies, and the consumers’ responses are reaching their destinations rapidly as a direct result of today’s advanced technology. Getting a fast response is of utmost importance, representing invaluable and oftentimes spontaneous feedback on the quality of the marketing mix.
Digital world – empowering consumers
Word of mouth can increase awareness and a brand’s good reputation. If a customer enjoys a product or service so much so that it exceeded his expectations, he will most likely become a promoter. Others will hear about this through word of mouth and might give it a thought. In the past, word of mouth had a limited reach. But now things have changed as there are a lot of social media networks where people can share their stories and experiences regarding different brands, as well as forums, blogs and websites where they can post reviews and rate products.
This can become problematic for a brand with low-quality products that don’t meet their customers’ expectations. The negative experiences and stories will be posted on the internet and the ensuing result will be a damaged reputation.
Because of these reasons, marketing specialists should pay attention to any relevant social media webpages, blogs or other websites for customers’ feedback.
Consumers can and should get all the information they need from the vast online resources (both official and unofficial, fan-made sites) we have today, before buying a product or service. It’s great that this behaviour is becoming more commonplace, with each generation wanting even an greater access to digital information.
Therefore consumers have the ability to get informed quickly and easily, whilst at the same time being able to share their positive or negative brand-related experiences with a lot more individuals. Companies should always be aware of these practices and monitor their brand’s online reputation closely. And although the shift to an integrated online marketing strategy can be time-consuming and costly in the short-term, it will bring huge benefits in the long run. As a result, implementing or improving the online presence of a company’s brand should be considered by every marketing manager out there.
Image source: Pixabay
Image source: Pixabay
Tags: Digital marketing performance, Marketing performance, Technology
