Digital Marketing: An Essential Tool for Banks to Increase Visibility

Digital Marketing (also known as data-driven marketing) is defined as “marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as personal computers, cell phones, tablets and game console to engage with customers. Digital marketing uses technologies or platforms such as websites, email, apps (web and mobile) etc.

There was a time when traditional marketing (i.e. newspaper, magazines, radio etc. were the most popular medium for a marketer to promote, spread awareness and generate leads for their products. But now the trend has changed and digital media has taken its place.

The way in which digital marketing has developed since the 1990’s and 2000’s has changed the way brands and businesses utilize technology and digital marketing for their marketing. Digital marketing campaigns are becoming more prevalent, as digital platforms are increasingly being incorporated into marketing plans as people use digital devices instead of physically visiting shops. There are several ways brands can use digital marketing to supplement / enhance their marketing efforts.

The use of digital marketing in the digital era not only allows for brands to market their products and services but also allows for online customer support through 24/7 services to make the customer feel truly supported and valued. The use of social media interaction allows brands to receive both positive and negative feedback from their customers and determine which media platforms work well for them. This has become an added advantage for brands and businesses to leverage upon. It is now common for consumers to post feedback online through social media sources, blogs and websites on their experience with a product or brand. It has become increasingly popular for businesses to utilise and encourage these conversations through their social media channels so as to have direct contact with the customers and manage the feedback they receive appropriately.

While digital marketing spends in India still accounts for only less than 10% of the total ad spends, spend on digital marketing is growing constantly. Ad spends on the digital medium is seeing the highest growth. If we take the example of top companies, digital marketing is now a must for these organizations. Digital marketing is growing at such a rapid phase that even large FMCG brands have joined e-Commerce players in investing about 15-20% of their marketing budget towards the digital medium. Greater social media activity like people sharing a company’s content and therefore creating more traffic to its website can help the company do significantly better than competitors who do not have an active social media presence. Most advertisement campaigns these days are primarily targeted at the younger generation and for them, the digital medium is the most friendly and attractive.

Digital marketing ecosystem consists of internet marketing and social media marketing.

Integrated channels of Digital Marketing ecosystem

• Search engine
• Displays
• Social media
• Mobile marketing
• Email
• Video
• Websites

1. Search Engine– Search Engine optimisation (SEO) is the art of getting a website to work better with search engines like Google, Yahoo etc. and to look for achievable, profitable, ranking opportunities through keyword searches.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a broader term than SEO and is used to encompass different options available to use a search engine’s technology; including paid ads. This is often used to describe the acts associated with researching, submitting and positioning a website.

2. Displays– This is a type of advertising that typically contains text, logos, photographs or other images, location maps and similar items.
3. Mobile Marketing– This is used to refer to any marketing efforts on or with a mobile device. It involves planning, creating and implementing a mix of initiatives to bring together sellers and buyers via mobile devices. Mobile ads, mobile websites, apps and games are some examples for mobile marketing.
4. Social Media Marketing– Social media refers to any software tool that enables and encourages engagement in conversation or sharing. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and Google-Plus are popular forms of social media. Now a day social media has become a widely accepted platform for marketer to make conversation with the customers.
5. Email marketing– It is a type of marketing that involves sending personalised, targeted messages to specific customers. Email marketing is easy to use, low cost and effective.
6. Videos– Marketers are now using video to make customers aware of brands and to make sharing the experience of other customers. YouTube ads are quite popular in video ads. In social media platforms also brands are sharing video.
7. Websites– Marketing on the Web is an old game with new rules. This type of marketing is comprehensive and costlier too. A dedicated web portal is created on the internet in the name of company. All the information about products and services are listed there and also updated regularly. The website interface should be user-friendly and the outlook needs revamping from time to time. There is always need to make innovations to attract visitors to the site otherwise, the site will struggle in cyberspace.

Types of Digital Marketing

1. Push Digital Marketing- In this marketing the marketer sends a message without the recipient actively seeking the content, such as display advertisement on website and news blogs. Push marketing allows marketer to target demographics and use their marketing skills to promote products to the people who are interested in what they have to sell. Push marketing is more expensive.
2. Pull Marketing- This includes email marketing, social media and other forms of visual messaging and search engine optimisation. Pull marketing can be less expensive to get started as the marketer will only need to hire someone to manage social media and respond to people, leave comments or ask questions.

Advantage of Digital Marketing

Digital advertising is increasingly an inherent budgetary component of many organisations today. Ad spends on the digital medium is seeing the highest growth. We may take the example of top 100 companies. Digital marketing is now a must for these organizations. There are numerous advantages of digital marketing.

1. Accessibility– The geographical reach of the online medium is far greater than that of traditional medium. It is not only cost effective to achieve a wider geographical area but the ads can also be targeted to a specific desired group.
2. Measurement– With various tools becoming available, tracking effectiveness of ad campaigns is becoming increasingly easy. When properly designed, online marketing campaigns generate the desired results and thereby advertisers are encouraged to continue advertising online.
3. Time saving– Through the internet, an advertiser can reach a desired target group or demographic area in a much shorter time frame. For regular marketing campaigns, the total time necessary to complete an online advertising campaign is comparatively less than that of traditional advertising methods.
4. Engaging and interactive– The internet is arguably the most interactive and engaging medium among various other medium. Direct response between end users and advertisers is possible through the online medium.
5. Cost effective– Digital advertising is comparatively cheaper in comparison to traditional forms of advertising methods. Many a time advertisers are charged only when visitors click on their ads.

Leveraging digital marketing

Digital marketing can give substantial results if leveraged properly. Suggestive measures which may be adopted by the banks to harness this potential.

• Today is social media era. Most of the consumers are sharing their views regarding services and products on social media site. So, social media should be given more thrust.
• Consumers are highly information seekers these days. They first conduct a research on internet, go through customer reviews, product rating and features in details then avail the service/product. So, the information on any product and service should be comprehensive and up to date on the website.
• Majority of people give more importance to advertisements shown on TV and internet. So, these two channels should be given more priority for displaying ads on products and services.
• Many of customers are using digital payment modes. So we can use pop-up ads when they are using those applications. E.g. if someone is using e-wallet, after one transaction, a pop up message like HL features in short should flash. Every time the app should flash different pop up messages.
• Banks should utilise face book and Google marketing services to identify customers already looking for similar services by surfing online.
• Videos displaying features of products and services in all Branches/ATMs.
• Banks can introduce interactive ads which on clicking would take the customer directly to the product being advertised instead of the home page of the bank.
• Making the staff who would be sales representatives of the Bank quite familiar with the Digital initiatives of the Bank. A self-convinced member of staff can play a pivotal role in marketing
• A list of customers and customer’s details should be kept on a database for follow-up and selected customers can be sent selected offers and promotions of deals related to the customer’s previous purchase behaviour. This is effective in digital marketing as it can allow organisation to build up loyalty over email.

CONCLUSION

Digital marketing is not only concerned with placing ads in portals, it consists of integrated services. Marketers want to build and use these components in an effective way to reach the target groups and to build a brand. In this digital era, marketer is not the custodian of a brand; people who are connected across the digital platforms are the custodians.

Digital media is the best platform to convert a product to a brand as it is more cost effective and it provides a lot of touch-points to the marketer. Indian consumers are high information seeker and they prefer to do a deep research about a product, especially over the internet, before availing the product/services. So every brand today is ready to provide a platform to the consumers to understand the product/service and to get a real feel of the brand.

Someone has correctly said `A Brand can’t sustain without digital presence’.

REFERENCES

1. https://epaperlive.timesofindia.com
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/
3. News articles published in various e-papers
4. Understand the ecosystem in digital media marketing by Asams V.K

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Author

RAJEEV SHANKAR

ASSISTNAT GENRAL MANAGER (SBIICM), HYDERABAD

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Published : Banking Finance Magazine, August 2018 issue