The changing face of the consumer on digital

Marketing is all about understanding the consumer and tailoring a message that would best appeal to him/her, and digital marketing is no different. While there is a plethora of options available in terms of platforms and formats on digital, the first step should be to understand the consumer behavior.

The digital consumer has immense power like never before. At the same time, the addiction to digital also makes the same consumer vulnerable than never before. This dichotomy has given birth to a dynamic ecosystem, which is a breeding ground for innovation and experimentation. Let us look at some ways in which digital is transforming the way consumers behave :

• Imagine you are a passionate runner. You have two choices for a Sunday evening – Go running, or pick up groceries for the home. Which one would you prefer? Needless to say, everyone likes to pursue their passion than complete daily chores. This insight is what a lot of startups have used. Be it Uber, which makes it super convenient to book cabs, or Bigbasket, which delivers groceries right at your doorstep, you mostly do not mind paying a premium for convenience. Or, take Urbanclap, which connects you to everyone from party planners to beauticians. Today, time is money. And reluctance to devote time to mundane tasks is increasing day by day. Hence, the consumer behavior is to “Outsource chores, while devoting time to Passion”. All because today we CAN, thanks to these numerous apps and websites.
• Studies show that today’s youth is increasingly believing less in investing money in real estate, and spend more on experiences. There is also a desire to experience everything in life, and not necessarily own it. This is the reasons why Uber & Ola are so popular – You have a car and chauffeur ready at your service at all times, without really owning a car. You can rent wedding clothes from the likes of Flyrobe and spend that money on something else, that you might be using for a longer time, or on travel. Frequently changing jobs and cities has made Furlenco quite popular, where you can rent furniture. Today, people rent out almost everything, right from books to toys to apparel. Today, the mantra is to “Own Experiences, Rent Commodities”. Weekend getaways are more popular than ever, and websites providing budget accommodation and boutique experiences are flourishing, thanks to this trend.
• Anyone who has studied marketing would have been taught about the consumer funnel – the AIDA model of Attention, Interest, Desire & Action. What has also been existing for years is the “First Moment of Truth” – the first encounter of the consumer with the product when they physically see it – making visual merchandizing so important in departmental stores, and giving the packaging its due importance. These still exist, just that there is one more layer added to the whole experience – called the “Zero Moment of Truth”. Thanks to the plethora of content available on the internet, the consumer mostly creates a perception of the product/service even before they physically see it, or interact with a sales representative. They have read the reviews online, read something written about it on social media, seen brand videos and tweets, gone through the website – and any of these interactions greatly bias the consumer’s propensity to buy the product or not. Hence, “Consumer Journey is not linear anymore.” It flows seamlessly from online to offline and vice versa. 
• Gone are the days when the entire family would wait to watch that one episode of a TV show. Today, everyone has their own preference and video viewing throughout the day is a norm. With the rise of YouTube and OTT’s like Amazon Prime & Netflix, people can choose exactly what they want to watch and when. The content is highly personal, and there might be multiple shows being watched at the same time across multiple screens in the same home. Hence, entertainment is highly personalized now. This gives marketers a tremendous opportunity to customize communication to each user, based on their interests and browsing behavior. Hence, mass media is a thing of the past, there is a degree of personalization that can be added in the distribution of content, even if the same content has to be served to everyone.
• While customer loyalty programs still exist, brand loyalty is increasingly becoming a thing of the past. Customers are more and more flirtatious, and are quite brand agnostic, especially in the ecommerce space. They will buy wherever they get the best deal, and their exposure to information and various options gives them a variety of alternatives to choose from. A lot of online searches that used to happen with brand names are moving more towards generic searches, where the customer likes to research before making her mind about the brand. Remarketing helps to boost repurchase to a large extent, and this should be exploited by brands to the fullest.
• Seasonal marketing has given way to Moment Marketing. Today, we live our life not in years, months or days, but in moments. We need everything here and now. If we want to buy something, we might not wait till the weekend to go and shop, we will just search online and lost likely buy the best option available. Hence, it has become important for marketers to be present at every point where the customer might be looking for the product/service they sell. Which means that the number of touchpoints also needs to be more, with a combination of platforms and formats for maximum impact.
• The spoken word is taking over typed searches. Youngsters today are very comfortable searching through voice instead of typing it out on the phone. Hence, semantic searches are growing at a very fast pace. This adds another dimension to the content that marketers create, as what people say can be quite different from what they type. Hence, the websites need to be also optimized for semantic SEO. Also, the searches can be more long tail with voice, demanding smarter selection of keywords for content. The searches will also be more colloquial, which again needs to be a part of the content strategy.
• Patience to wait for a response is declining. Whenever a consumer posts a query or a complaint online, the expectation is to receive a response within the next few hours. If that does not happen, consumers have various options to rant out their frustration, right from Twitter to Facebook to Third party review sites. Worse still, this behavior has also trickled down to offline interactions, where a consumer would not like to wait to get their query/complaint resolved. This has given rise to the demand of a more robust CRM in place, and also the rise of automated systems like chatbots & AI, which can decrease the dependency on human factors, speeding up the process.
• Transparency is becoming more important on both ends. With online interactions, it is next to impossible to hide information or bluff about something, as everything is recorded online. Brands cannot hide their flaws for long, there will be some post on social media that will go viral and make everyone know about it. At the same time, consumer information is also available to brands and hence privacy of customer information is a challenge. Customers appreciate brands to be upfront and honest and focus on problem resolution than trying to cover it up.
• Short term memory loss is common among consumers. News spreads like fire on the internet. However, there is so much happening all the time that the information overload takes over after some time. People forget as fast as well, as there is soon something else to focus on. Hence, this has given brands the leeway to experiment more, as people are more forgiving than ever, and believe in “moving on”. The case of Maggi is a testimony to this. People soon welcomed Maggi back into their lives, after a short break, though of course, they are more vigilant than ever about the noodle content. 

Hence, I would recommend that brands keep this in mind : They need to be concerned not just about their customers or consumers, but about every “user”. A user is someone who interacts with the brand at any touchpoint, be it on social media, website or app. This user might or might not buy your product/service, but he/she can play a role in building your brand image. They can share any information about your brand, they can share an article they read about the brand, share any video they saw and also share their perception based on that. People have been known to uninstall apps, just based on a single offensive tweet by an employee of the brand. 

It is imperative that the brand is very conscious of all kind of conversation that is happening about the category as a whole, and react intelligently. Social listening becomes and important aspect of consumer insights, and it is often a more effective medium of finding out what people are thinking about your brand, or development in the category, than visiting the market and talking to consumers. You can dig out rich information about the market and craft your communication accordingly. 

Content used to be the king, now conversation is. Any content that is able to ignite a meaningful conversation is going to win in the long run. It is indeed an exciting time to be a marketer, with all the power of information comes the great responsibility of using it responsibly and intelligently.

This article was originally published in "Markmantra" - the Marketing Magazine of IIFT in their Feb'18 edition.