3 Forces That Will Change Marketing Forever!
With the advent of digital, social, web, mobile, the way we market has changed a lot. Customer acquisition wars are now fought on search engines and social media. Customer engagement, reach-out and brand reputation management has become key to brand’s survival.
But where is this all moving. Are customers going to be turned into mere numbers on excel sheet? Or can we do something intelligent to add some real value to their lives? Can we control and manage virality or the brand managers are going to get appraised only on the number of likes they get on facebook, or how many clicks to website, CTR (Click Through Rate) etc. CR (Conversion Rate)? Well imagine a simple thing: Industry average CR on google is around 1-3% now this means every 100 people who come to your site, only 1 to 3 end up buying. That’s pathetic! What is missing here? With all the advances in technology why are we not able to get relevant prospects and why are we not able to convert them to long term loyal customers?
Marketing needs a sea change in approach and thought process. Lets see where are we heading to and how some current and some future evolutions are going to change things:
- Systems are going to become more intelligent: Imagine you are on your morning jog and google knows from its GPS Data that you do around 10K per day and love music. Are you not a better prospect for it to send a display banner of the 10K music run on your google glass (or on your phone while you browse) that is taking place this Sunday?
With Internet Of Things, Wearable technology, brands will get more and more data real time. With intelligent and high bandwidth data churns happening, marketers will be able to make intelligent decisions and offer more relevant offerings to prospects at the moment of truth. With IOT, your AC can order for a due service when it is, it will be able to order replacement of a part if something goes bust! Your Fridge will be able to order milk when needed and the coffee maker can order coffee, send you up-sell and cross-sell opportunities at the moment of truth, i.e. when you need coffee replacement! Its Marketing subtly applied and delivered without fuss, at the right moment.
2. Personalization is going to be the key: Google has already started doing it to a certain extent (I and you doing the same search will see different results) and many companies are incorporating personalization as a strategy (especially in eCommerce). Web pages are going to be different for me and you. Color combinations, communication will all be customized to you. The information visible to the user will have to be bucketed, shared differently and personalized to every person’s tastes, preferences, history, demographics and many other factors. Everything, from landing pages, to UX of the site to product recommendations, site content, communication and pricing as well can be personalized. Companies who will use this are going to be the winners in future.
Now this is no small change, this is a paradigm shift in marketing thought. The whole focus is changing from Company branding, logo, colors, communication, positioning To ‘You’, The real individual Customer!
3. Advent of Neuromarketing: This is an interesting topic and a huge revelation! Neuro marketing is a field of market research, which deals with the inner factors, those innate reasons that prompt a customer to make a buying decision. Now this is not a result of psychology, marketing or technology… it has its roots in the tenets of Biology!
Human brain is build up of three parts.. The Rational Brain or the Neocortex, which is the most rational part of the brain, it is the most recently developed part (around 5 million years of evolution of mankind). The middle one is the emotional brain. But Science has discovered that the biggest contributor for a customer in any buying decision is the third one.. The Reptilian Brain! Which is the oldest (500 million years old!) brain and that rules the roost, this part of the brain is more sensory, image driven, subconscious, instinctive and very fast in making choices! This is where Gut decisions come from. And inability of marketers to talk to this part of the brain till now has costed companies billions of dollars and a dumb Spray and Pray industry thrived! All this is set to change!
The whole language of speaking to the target audience will have to change. Marketing will need to start talking to the inner self, the ‘You’, with the stimuli that the reptilian brain understands and deciphers! Success will lie in how well and soon marketers understand this and incorporate it in every element of their marketing communication.
The beauty of neuroscience and perception is that it doesn't have to be complex to be effective. Some companies (Like McDonalds, Adobe, Google) are already using it.
Incorporating some of the above is going to involve not only a change in thought process for maketeers, but also a lot of re-skilling and hard work. At the end of the day change is the only constant in this world, right?
Good Luck, Happy Marketing!