The Digital Marketing Future in India: A Walk-Through!

Last year itself India recorded an increasing number of 277.4 million internet users and as per a number of studies & researches the figure is expected to grow to 411.1 million in the year 2018. The most remarkable point is that majority of these new internet users are located across a range of towns, villages, mostly using mobile phones while some rest of the devices. Even the brands that had achieved a great reach through the customary mediums of marketing such as radio, TV and print by investing big fortunes have started facing the seem-so-invincible kind of competitors in digital channels now. Consumers always had an affinity for the sophistication and so had the marketers if given an option. While digital mediums have made life all-so-sophisticated for the consumers by presenting them with option 365*24*7, it has made life sophisticated for marketers by allowing them to pay for the performance. In this digital era, a brand needs not pay for a 30 second slot on television that never had an assurance as to whether someone will watch it or not. In its place, if they wish to, they can always buy a 30 second slot on YouTube and pay only for the views that take place. In case of this video marketing platform YouTube, it is views, in case of other platforms it could be something else but whatever they are, offer the same sort of efficiency & productivity for most forms of advertising digitally. In fact, a large part of businesses across the world have already moved their budget to the all-so-targeted and consumer friendly marketing called digital marketing now and are seeing it as a primary channel. If you look at the market scenario and go through the recent researches, you will find how the budgets have shifted from a meagre 5% to even 100% at times from the traditional to digital marketing. And! Why not? Why would a marketers mind paying for a marketing where in he/she has to only pay for performance and that too with a far more effective reach. Digital marketing allows you to market your business to your target audience a lot better now than you ever could.

What does it signals about the digital marketing prospects in India?

Let’s have a quick look to how the marketing in India is going to shape up:

Mobile marketing will become even more aggressive!

In a recent report itself that we published, we talked about how smartphone apps are now making up for 50% of all digital media time that is a rise of 44% in comparison to that of almost a year ago. This is what is making the mobile-first approach crucial to the success of a range of marketing campaigns. Talking about inventory for advertising, for mobile it will consistently become cheaper than that of desktop and if you talk about the other mass media platforms such as print or TV, there will not be any comparison in the difference. In fact, marketers in India are already awake and have realized the worth of leveraging mobile for digital marketing.

Social Media Engagement will offer more specific targeting!

The anyway sophisticated platform for marketing, social media will become even more sophisticated. Marketers will be able to target & reach different demography through different mediums. For instance, while they could target fashion freaks on Instagram, targeting & reaching women will be easier through Pinterest. Offering the actual ‘always on’ opportunity for marketing your business, social media happens to be a great platform for engaging the Indian consumers who have already begun engaging with brands through different social media activities. One of the most striking facts that must be paid attention is you as a marketer can always test social media campaigns before the nationwide launches.

As obviously, Online Video will be valued more!

Something that’s already through the roof, video consumption in India will gain more value than ever. It is a fact that a marketer producing and sharing online video content these days garners much greater engagement with its target audience than any other form of content online. And, anyway before you invest big fortunes in creating a fully developed commercial for television how about creating multiple light-weight commercials and enabling them online? Figure out the one that performs and has the best engagement & of course the sharing factor, and then take it on air on TV to have the ultimate results from your investments. This is how you will not have to take the risk of identifying whether that one big concept tanked or not you paid heavily for and you got the right results you were longing for at the same time!

Afterword

With stronger niche targeting abilities and the effective toolkit, digital marketing has made things far easier than it could ever be.  Brands have shifted from let’s-try-digital to digital first and are now moving to digital only marketing platforms. Indeed, the future of digital marketing in India is becoming even more promising.