Marketing has always been about establishing
a relationship with customers and opening up channels of communication so that
well-crafted messages can be delivered to the right demographic. The marketing
approach of yesteryears has evolved quite rapidly from time and resource
intensive productions to nimble and dynamic campaigns. The art of reaching
customers has added new dimensions, making lives for businesses more demanding
and dynamic.
Today’s marketer is expected to be
on top of all the latest trends if they want to influence today’s customers who
are savvy and well informed. It becomes all the more critical for marketers to
ensure that they have a clear understanding of how their consumers are
accessing information and how they are influence in their purchasing decisions.
Marketing is about creating the near perfect experience for customers. The new
4Ps must find a place and in fact form the pillars of any marketing strategy
aimed at the consumer in new age.
Power of Data – Everyone has data, but only the progressive
organizations harness the power of data for business success. Many
organizations overwhelmed by data because they haven’t figured out the right
approach to manage it in a way that makes it their greatest asset. The
experience business hinges on channeling a wide range of data ranges to provide
insights that can help make intelligent, data driven decisions on how to reach
and retain customers.
Personalization – Marketing campaigns must aim for personalization that
reaches out to customers with messages that are most interesting and relevant to
them. The messaging must extent to cover multiple media channels and devices in
a consistent manner. Omni-channel marketing is based on the fact that customers
interact in a variety of different ways with a brand, whether someone is online
shopping, wandering through mall or flipping through TV channels, their
perceptions of a particular brand have to be consistent and appealing. The
power of data gives us the ability to tailor content to match customer’s
interests, which in turn increases engagement, revenue and ROI.
Phygital – Our world is evolving from a physical one to an
increasingly digital one. The experience business must bring together the best
of both into Phygital approach to marketing. Data is not always digital and
many organizations have amassed legacy data that can provide a wealth of
customer insights. Phygital provides the opportunity to combine the physical
and the digital, thereby converging data from different sources in a productive
manner.
Platform – It is where all efforts especially those around the earlier
Ps, converge. It is crucial to choose platform carefully. The right marketing
platform can handle all data, automation, metric management and measurability,
execution and is the most important weapon in a digital marketer’s arsenal to
engage customers from initial contact all the way through to the sales funnel.
It
is believed that Future of marketing settles solidly on these 4 Ps: Power of
data, personalization, Phygital and platform. The nature of the experience business
will continue to evolve. Many tedious tasks will be automated by a rich and versatile
platform and the creative aspects will gain prominence. Numbers and data driven
intelligence will continue to become increasingly important as will the ability
to visualize data as an extension of our customers. Even as market dynamics
shift, the 4Ps will continue to serve as a sound basis for keeping in touch
with customer and their changing preferences and succeed in the experience
business.
