Have a Glance

• How will Digital Marketing help the slowing Indian Economy

• What is the effect on Corporate Spends / Marketing Efforts?

• What are the challenges faced?

• What are the essentials or “MUST DOs”?

• Digitalisation of Indian Economy

• How does it affect India?

• Why choose Digital Marketing as a career?

1. How will Digital Marketing help the slowing Indian Economy

The Indian Economy, worth 2.61 trillion US Dollars ranks amongst the fastest growing trillion dollar economies of the world. It is also an economy blessed by highest ratio of youth population with the youth contributing close to 34.33% of the population.

Yes, we are the fastest growing but we have also been hit by the recessionary headwinds like the rest of the world. We have clocked a 5% growth in GDP in a recent quarter which has been slower compared to earlier quarters.

2. What is the effect on Corporate Spends / Marketing Efforts?

When the situation gets tight , consumers start prioritising or controlling their spending, resulting in lower sales , typically leading to cost cutting , reduction in investments & postponing new investments. Marketing costs also come under scanner, but its worth noting that Marketing cost should not be treated as optional as it will hurt the long term perspective as well. Any drastic change in the promotion plan can bounce back. What it may call for is “realignment” rather than curtailment.

Marketers often find themselves in difficult waters during the down trend, because on one side one has to ensure proper balance of “adequate promotion spend” & the “the ROI” as its monitored pretty strictly as every rupee matters during this phase.

Choosing the right medium, the right promotion mix stands good stead with a Marketer during this phase. One plus point is that this phase also brings out the best creativity out of a marketer. As a Marketer one may need to look for different mediums rather than putting all eggs in one basket. The choice should be for the medium that offers “best value for money”

The decisions have to be judicious, because though cost cutting is advisable, failure to provide adequate brand support can cause long term problems.

3. What are the challenges faced?

The biggest challenge faced by a marketer is the change in consumer approach. Consumers tend to play safe & tend to protect their resources to wade through the difficult times.

Usually we find consumers either putting pull stop to their purchase or postpone “non essential” or “less essential” items. Usually , food , clothing , medicines fall in essentials while others are kept in the 2nd list.

During the downward trend its mandatory that the marketer focuses on retaining the loyal / core customers as they will always give you steady assured growth. Marketers need to change their thinking hats & search for solutions . Each brand , each situation should be treated as a separate case & one may have to balance cost cutting on one side while increasing on another to generate profitability.

Challenge 1 – The mobile network infrastructure needs to be strengthened with deep penetration required in Rural India. Government’s support for startups for last mile connectivity will be highly desired.

Challenge 2 – Digital awareness needs to be developed with education of the next wave of customers which are sitting on the fence, especially in the rural areas or amongst the elderly population.

Challenge 3 – Data privacy needs to be addressed especially the financial or personal data which could severely affect the orientation towards digital economy.

Challenge 4 – A Digital economy is going to call for requirement of skilled manpower.

4. What are the essentials or “MUST DOs”?

Its very essential to track customers , the change in their preferences , their spend patterns & one needs to define the value to the customer as he / she should feel it’s an essential & not a “post ponable” item.

But the biggest challenge is where do I get the spend to do all this & what is the right medium?

Well normal advertising may not help as it will not be measurable. The advisable option is the “DIGITAL MEDIUM” as it is highly targeted , relatively cheaper & the performance is easily measurable considering the various tools available at the disposal of the Marketer. What he / she needs is adequate insights of the analytics & to be able to take properly guided decisions.

The DIGITAL PLATFORM offers MULTIPLE WELL TARGETED OPPORTUNITIES

From cabs to restaurants to education to pharmacy, India is going online.
The sheer numbers speak for themselves:
- 468 million Indians use smart phones [2017 data] , likely to reach 859 million by 2022
- 627 million Indians have access to internet
- 351 million use Social Media
- 270 million access Facebook
- 265 million use Youtube

The Data is huge , but how will it help?

Digital Marketing can help in following ways :
1 Data suggests people are active on Social media , but it will be worth checking if they do purchases on social media
- 23% YOY Growth is being seen in Online shopping in India which is likely to continue till 2021.
- 329 million people are projected to do online shopping in India by 2020
- 48% of people surveyed have reported that their last online purchase was due to a FB advertisement.
2 The Digital platform offers equal platform for a small or big entrepreneur. One needs to be creative , sharp ,analytical define the goal one desires
3 Digital Marketing helps you to be more targeted. In the times of cost cutting, Digital Marketing helps you reach out to targeted customers instead of having a spray & pray policy. For eg; an offline advertisement many help you reach to 1 lakh customers, but will it assure you a X % of conversions. One of the best things to happen with Digital Marketing is that it offers you proper SEGMENTATION across large geographies.
A proper SEO approach can ensure 80% traffic from online search. You don’t need to spend lakhs for the advertisement. All it requires is good creativity, a proper research backed by good clear content.

Similarly EMAIL marketing is a very helpful tool with 72% consumers preferring to do business through Emails. Infact if you send them relevant content, there is every chance that they will repurchase from you repeatedly. EMAIL Marketing can ensure you probably the best ROI with a study suggesting a 38 US Dollar return on 1 Dollar investment.

Content Marketing can ensure 3 times the leads at 62% lesser cost compared to Traditional marketing. Moreover these people are likely to become your loyal customers which can ensure organic growth.

Social Media’s ROI can be indirect at times. A Forbes study found companies using Social media doing 78% better than companies not on Social Media platforms

The importance of Digital Marketing for business is clear. The customers are now online , hence our market space also needs to be online / digital.
It is advisable to be online with :
1. A proper accessible website
2. Invest in SEO & keywords
3. Be active on Social Media platforms
4. Work on reputation management
5. Have an ecosystem which marries / merges all the platforms or offerings into an experience for the consumer

5. Digitalisation of Indian Economy

Digitalisation has contributed significantly to economic growth of India with the Digital economy projected to be 1 Trillion US dollars by 2022. A digital transformation is sweeping government setup , organisations , education , finance , healthcare , even the way we eat along with various other services which are arising day by day. Digitalisation is affecting the way we live enormously. Various initiatives like BHIM APP, Pay TM are making financial transactions easy across various geographies of India. Ease of payment means opening up of avenues for online transactions enabling more openings for digital marketing. Automation, Big Data, AI is further going to impact the digital economy & improve productivity.

6. How does it affect India?

India is a country with a rich pool of educated skilled labour offering immense opportunity for a digital economy which is growing at a fast pace of almost 33% YOY. A digital revolution is happening which is changing the way we live due to cheap data, mobile penetration though infrastructure needs to still penetrate the last mile. This immense growth potential means new business opportunities, job avenues for millions of people. What it will require is adequate skill sets to be developed.

7. Why choose Digital Marketing as a career?

The digital economy is likely to cause loss of jobs in certain sectors, but will certainly open up new job avenues. An economy growing at 33% is going to require people with various skillsets & those who are trained to align with the needs of digital economy. Digital economy is no more limited to a certain class of people & has now percolated across masses as more & more people gain faith on different platforms – be it in online shopping, education, retail, services, healthcare, and travel. Low cost of data , low cost of handsets , penetration of mobile networks is helping this change happen faster. Moreover a larger population now is shifting towards “ease of purchase” , “ease of service” , “comfort of buying anytime , anywhere” making the digital marketing avenues very promising across India. Lifestyle changes & our standard of living have further affected our pattern of consumption.