The Digital Era has brought on critical challenges for companies to meet new consumer demands for marketing. Digital Marketing is undergoing transformation at an astounding rate. There is a radical shift towards “on-demand” marketing, where marketing is becoming consistent, pertinent, and receptive to customers’ demands, delivering heightened experiences literally anywhere with ease of access along the consumer decision journey.
On-demand Marketing is being driven by the constant growth of technology and consumer expectations. Today, product information is available to everyone instantly through efficient search engines; social media inspires consumers to communicate and appraise their user experiences; and mobile devices provide the digital environment a ubiquitous element. In On-demand Marketing, consumers assess brands by their proficiency to judge expected growth in consumer demand and deliver improved experiences. These experiences are “ever-present” interactions that offer high value and are radically customized and easy to access across the entire consumer decision journey.
The war to provide heightened consumer experiences between brands is sure to get even more intensified with time. To prepare for the future and to cope with consumers’ on-demand challenges, marketers will have to keep themselves abreast with customers search habits, continually improve their search positioning, employ innovative methods to positively influence consumer experiences, and utilize sophisticated tools to gather the right data across the Consumer Decision Journey.
Likewise, companies will be needed to integrate people of various departments to understand consumer decision journeys driven by their positive experiences, line up the senior leadership around a well-defined data strategy, and revisit the delivery processes related to every customer touch point. This aids in a deep-down analysis of Consumers’ Decision Journeys and designing Customer Experiences that match the consumer’s demands.
With the evolving digital technologies, consumer demand will potentially grow in 4 areas:
- Omnipresent Interaction - 24/7
- Ability to do new stuff with the ever-increasing data pools
- Accurate usage of consumers’ data to fulfill their needs
- Ease of use
1. Omnipresent Interaction - 24/7
The consumers today require omnipresent, always-on, and prompt interaction. Marketers are getting cognizant of this, and are developing more personalized services for the customer. The newer digital technologies will help further integrate data on all interactions a consumer has across the decision journey. This is the essence of Omni-channel Marketing.
2. Ability to Do New Stuff with the Ever-increasing Data Pools
With the huge and multiplying reserves of data, the consumers will need to do amazing new stuff in new ways to generate value. Today’s digital ecosystem is able to economically integrate unique sets of information for various new disciplines. The current pace of technological advancement would make digital interaction an exceptional experience. It is time businesses foresee future consumer interface and interaction requirements, and revisit their offerings.
3. Accurate Usage of Consumers' Data to Fulfill Their Needs
Latest mobile apps help perceive how a product—e.g., cloth or eye wear—will actually look like on a particular customer. In future, the demand for more personalized apps will grow drastically. Through each of their interactions, the consumers create new data logs that add to their existing digital description, helping in perfecting their potential impact. Consumers are eager to provide more data provided it is used to offer helpful feedback, deals, and services.
4. Ease of Use
Consumers always prefer to choose quick and simple interactions over complex digital interactions. Many organizations have started approaches to streamline their processes and make customer experiences more engaging. Evolving technologies will surely help redesign and simplify disjointed customer interactions and experiences.
To influence consumer experiences, organizations should work on restructuring the marketing function to foster collaboration across departments and start building on-demand marketing capabilities sooner than later to reap benefits in the long term. To build On-demand Marketing capabilities, companies will need coordinated efforts across the board to shine at 3 levels:
- Create Interactions across the Consumer Decision Journey
- Make Data and Discovery a Continuous Cycle
- Deliver New Skills and Processes
Interested in gaining more understanding on how to build On-demand Marketing Capabilities? You can learn more and download an editable PowerPoint about Building On-demand Marketing Capabilities here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
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