Looking through the Looking Glass - Digital Marketing

When most us read or write about marketing predictions, it generally revolves around the penetration, usage, or suggested innovation and adaptation to existing model/behaviour. But, here, I wanted to focus more on the tec(h)tonic shift in terms of usage and patterns in Digital Marketing. Why I call it tec(h)tonic shift is because there is going to be a large-scale impact as we go along, these shifts are continuous, and these shifts are not overtly visible.



The 4 major shifts are:

  • From Information to Emotion
  • From E-commerce to Experience
  • From Email to Mobile
  • From Perennial to the Ephemeral 

From Information to Emotion:

The Internet has always been about sharing & searching for information. In fact, till about few years ago, Internet was know as Information Superhighway & in most organizations website and other digital properties were in the purview of IT (Information Technology) department. Social media, nay, Facebook has changed the usage of the Internet from just a medium of information to a medium where emotions are shared. The developments in technology (video, tele-presence, etc) all are driving to make the Internet a medium to exchange emotions. 

From E-commerce to Experience:

One of the main reasons why shopping malls and street shopping are still thriving is because of the ‘shopping-experience’. While the growth of E-commerce is phenomenal, it still lacks the ‘experience’ factor. Most e-commerce companies survive on the consumer need and want factor, coupled with low prices, free delivery, and other values additions here and there. Now-a-days, E-com companies are adding ‘social’ to their websites, by incorporating plug-ins. But what’s missing is near-real-life shopping experience. What makes the real-life shopping experience different from online is: stories; The stories you share with people you go out with for shopping, the unexpected that you experience and capturing the surprise & delight; and many tiny other such stories gets associated with buying a product that makes it a wonderful experience. For E-commerce companies it is going to a challenge on creating such experience online. To start of with, they can start creating product stories rather than just product description on their website

From Email to Mobile:

Honestly, how many of us actually open our email inbox (not the official ones) and just select all and mark them read. In my case, more than 90% of the mails I get would be considered spam/junk/unwanted.
The ubiquitous platform of Email that we have grown up with, the way we stuck with ‘that one’ email ID (hotmail, yahoo, or gmail) will soon be a blast from past. With cloud based folders, sharing bigger files have become easier. With SMS and other IM apps on the phone, 1 to 1 communication is convenient. And with mobile number becoming identity of the person and with other things like mobile number portability, almost equal pricing, companies improving the service and reducing churn; mobile (number) is soon becoming the ubiquitous mode of authentication too (which was previously done through email)

From Perennial to the Ephemeral:

What goes out on the Net will remain for eternity. This quote, while still holds true, need not be the future. Popularity of application like Snapchat is a classic example. We, Humans, are not wired for anything perennial. Be it the food availability (depends on season), weather, resources... all these are available, but in limited measures. It is because of these limited measures that we have evolved. We have and will always prefer to live in scarcity. We will wontedly make the net and access to information scarce, so that we give importance to the online interactions. 

All the above mentioned shifts are occurring. Some are happening in the background, through technology improvements, and some in the foreground, through the end product or feature.

Cheers

Santosh


image courtesy: roambi.com

Comments

Joey1058 said…
You mention the mobile number becoming the ubiquitous mode of authentication. That's something I never considered, but you are absolutely right.
3:03 PM
mycysphere said…
Thanks Joe! Digital is getting consolidated by devices & platforms having clear role definitions. In this scheme of things, Mobile phones have a major role to play. In near future, the only technology that can displace the position of mobile phones is wearable 'smart' technology (repeat - 'smart' :) )... Cheers!
9:18 AM
Hill said…
Great and simple post you shared. Digital marketing has such a mythology about it, but it really is just making a common sense! Thanks for pointing that in your post.



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6:45 PM
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