Jonathon Palmer is the Commercial Director of digital marketing agency, Blueleaf.
For marketing agencies, the one constant in the digital world is change...
Take the roll-out of 4G and the launch of Google Glass as an example. What impact will just these two products and services have on e-commerce and digital marketing? We can take an educated guess but it’s a safe bet that most of us will miss the next big thing that will create the new generation of tech millionaires. Digital technology disrupts and generally makes a nuisance of itself for companies, industries and even geopolitical power structures that don’t embrace change (think Twitter and the Arab Spring).
The empty shop fronts and charity shops on your local high street are all signs of its impact. In fact, e-commerce is changing the fundamental social fabric of towns and cities as consumers change their buying behaviour forever.
Going where the opportunity lies
It’s a simple fact that people will follow the path of least resistance. Amazon recognised this early on and has grown to become a retailing superpower by being obsessive about removing any barriers to purchase. Initiatives such as one-click purchase and its Prime free delivery service make finding the products you want and parting with your hard-earned cash effortless.
Other smart retailers are taking this philosophy across all their channels, making it as easy as possible for their consumers to buy from them wherever (and whenever) they are.
However the irony of digital technology is that as quickly as it makes things more convenient, so it increases complexity. Life for most of us (marketing agencies included) is getting more complicated.
The companies that will win in digital are those that can simplify complexity and make our hectic lives just that little bit easier.
This means thinking about digital very differently. Its role is permeating through every aspect of organisations. Everything from product design, service offering, marketing, sales and customer service need to be considered when developing a digital strategy. This is changing the profile of marketing agencies and departments and in fact the marketers themselves. The idea of having a marketing department separate and distinct from the digital and e-commerce team is living on borrowed time.
Marketers are becoming more analytical as they seek to understand the metrics of which online marketing channels are providing the most sales.
Manufacturers that previously relied on third party retail partners for their distribution are seeing their routes to market decay. As a result they are quickly learning to become retailers and marketers themselves and are embracing a direct-to-consumer online strategy.
Companies are using digital technology to blend these different functions so that each customer engagement point is an opportunity to interact, win loyalty and ultimately sell.
How to stand out from the crowd
Your many competitors are just one click away and your consumers’ expectations have been continually raised to the point where USP’s around service are being commoditised.
To differentiate yourself online you need to create a brand experience that delivers value in a way that helps your customers and solves their problems. The first step is understanding their problems and to do that, you really need to be listening and having a dialogue through social media.
Paradoxically, technology is not the point in all this, as good digital design should be invisible. Users don’t care about channels or screens and the lines are now blurring between mobile and desktop.
Your technical platform should act purely as an enabler that delivers what the user wants in a way that creates a memorable and engaging brand experience they hopefully feel inclined to share. As with the gold rush, for every one miner who struck it rich there were 10 people who made good money selling the picks and shovels. The same is true of the digital industry where there are so many great tools that allow you keep pace with change.
And keeping pace is perhaps the biggest challenge of all. That’s why we're totally focused on our expertise as a digital marketing agency. It’s only by being specialised that we stand a fighting chance of staying ahead of the curve.
