The evolution under way in digital marketing reflects the fundamental changes in customer behavior. Today, more and more people use the Web - instead of books, the yellow pages, libraries, car dealers, department stores - to search for information and to share views. In doing so, they often become aware of new products or services and begin comparisons. This intuitively leads to ‘BUY’ decisions.
How far will these shifts go?
According to a Mckinsey Survey of Marketing Executives, by 2010 the Web
will play a role in the below mentioned stages of customer decision
making process:
- Product or Service Awareness
- Information Gathering
- Comparing prices
- Buying Products or Services
- Using Services - after sales/customer service
The expectation that most customers (75% in the hi-tech industry)
will seek out new products or services online may be a factor in the
plans of organizations to increase spending significantly on several
digital marketing tools they see as most useful in building brands. A
smaller proportion of customers will use the Web to execute
transactions or access services. Still organizations expect to double
the business done through online channel in three years compared to
today.
Although the hi-tech industry expects about 70% of its customer base to
be influenced by the Web to make a decision or better still buy their
service or product on the Web; only 25% of the organizations are using
online tools or have plans for it.
Organizations, today, need to begin integrating their online and offline marketing efforts and plan for better customer centric approach. Scope of improvement for the industry is large - incorporating a strategy for digital maketing will increase the possibility of reaching a sizable market of customers through successful efforts that could reap benefits offline as well.
Comments