Trends that Indian digital marketers should focus on

With almost 500 million active internet users and more then 200 million active users of social media in 2017, India is rapidly growing into a massive digital marketing opportunity. In this article i list some of the trends that will help marketers engage with their audience

Few important trends for Digital marketeers

Social Media

A very high percentage of online time is spend on Social media platforms with Facebook leading the roost followed closely by YouTube. We follow and broadcast more to people in 1-2 degrees of separation and love watching videos on Social platform

Video

It is the most popular content with the highest rate of retention. So if you are planning to grab some attention you better get serious about video. Interestingly, Live videos have a higher rate of engagement then prerecorded videos -“So stream away to glory”

Chat bots and Messengers

Cahtabots and messengere are taking the conversation to where your audience is. They are already quite popular amongst millenials. There is no such thing as the perfect social channel so you have to go where your audiences. Many businesses in India now use Whatsapp for customer services and engagement just for this reason. It was no surprise when Facebook announced Whatsapp for businesses and now i heard they are bringing payment to the platform..NICE!!

Email marketing

This is still one of the highest conversion rate so make sure you start building your list. Never miss an opportunity to get the email id of your customer. That is the key to all other channels

 

Influencer Marketing

This has slowly risen to become a marketing channel that matters. Research shows that conversion rate for influencer driven campaigns is almost on par with email marketing and i wont be surprised if it overtakes email marketing in the near future

Digital Marketing Automation

you can’t do everything and there are a lot of smart people making smart tools that can make your life easy. So leverage the hubspots ( CRM ) and hootsuites (SMM) out there so that you can focus on things you are good at.

Personalisation

Today customers buy more from businesses that address them by their first name , remember their past purchases and recalls their details. Personalize the communication to build better relations with your audience.

 

Simplification

The best example of how to simplify the experience would be Amazon stores – They store my address, my payment preference, they recommend books and products to me based on my purchases. Did you know they have the ‘One Click’ purchase flow patented. Amazon has made the whole experience friction less (a complete no-brainer). Can you do the same for your business.

Voice Communication

is getting big real fast as the technology becomes better and smarter with every passing day. Devices like Amazon’s Alexa and google assistant are gaining popularity. These days i hardly type my searches on YouTube or on google.

 

Experiential Marketing

Immersive experiences using Augmented & Virtual reality is another tech that should gain traction in coming times. Businesses are spending big money to create engaging experiences around these technologies. You can  read my article on how to maximise returns on your experiential campaigns

It will be interesting to see how these trends shape the Digital marketing space in India. I strongly recommend that Digital Marketers should leverage these to find interesting ways to get their brands and products in front of their audiences.