5 ways to understand the digital consumers
It is estimated that by 2020, for every person on earth, 1.7 MB of data will be created … every second..
The Digital Consumer of the 21st Century
The focus of every business has always been consumers. But today, the way consumers interact with businesses has evolved drastically. The reason behind this is ‘Digital Revolution’ and how everyone is consuming digital space day in and out.
Today, the consumer market has become very saturated, the credit goes to liberalization. The entire market is competitive which means a brand needs to have a strong differentiation in order to survive. Today, a consumer has more goods and services to choose from than what he had 10 years back.
Thus it is important to reach to your customer where he is most present. As more and more consumers move online, brands are competing not just against their competitors but also against the best experiences in the market. Attention today for a consumer is at an all time low, and its set to continue in the same way.
Given the fact that a consumer abandons your website in case your website takes loading time of more than 10 seconds, shows that having a digital mindset is the key. It is really important for businesses to optimize their customer experience digitally in order to get new consumers. It is also one of the best ways to foster customer loyalty.
According to Teradata, only 41% of marketing executives are using customer engagement data to inform their marketing strategy. But is the data that you share with your consumers, really engaging for your target audience? Here are some insights that a business can follow for the digital consumer:
1. Every business should aim for consumer loyalty
Every business should be omnipresent. By omnipresent, it means wherever their consumers are, they should be. Next and most important, is the message that you want your consumer to know. Every brand has a value and a USP, the brand should make sure that the consumers identify them with the value that the brand possesses. One way of doing this is - Design Thinking. This helps to understand and pursue innovation - in ways that contribute to organic growth, and add real value to your customers.
2. The most important soft skill - Empathy
Researchers have proved a point that professionals who listen and respond with empathy, perform better in decision making. Yet empathy seems to be the last factor for many businesses. They fail to understand that with empathy, one achieves personal connect. Thus, with empathy you will understand what your consumer is looking for, what are the struggles he deals with and what are the added benefits that he is looking for in your product or service.
3. Never miss a negative feedback
Your consumer is very active on social media. Now that you are on social media, you need to make sure that you are in the positive light. A company’s twitter handle might have 100 tweets a day, or 100 posts on Facebook. But what you need to make sure of is, that every tweet/ post is replied to. There are an array of social analytic tools that are available for a company to choose from in order to track on social media where all is the company mentioned. This makes it easier for them to reply to each and every post which has their hash-tag, name, etc.
4. Manage leads effectively
Through all these channels, it is essential that lead management is integrated across different departments of the company. Whether that’s the marketing department, sales team, website administrator or the customer service department. Using an intelligent workload management system, companies will make the most of digital interactions and maximize opportunities wherever possible, making each click count.
The consumer has everything at his fingertips today
5. Don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo
As a marketer, you should question yourself. What works today might not work tomorrow or what works for the majority, might simply not work for you. So question yourself again and again and then come to a conclusion. For this you need to do your research well. Having done your research, you know your audience and you are bound to make lesser mistakes. This gives you an edge over your competitor.
Many marketers make the mistake of using generic demographics for all consumers like age, profession, location to develop buyer persona. But these data points are not really enough information to create messaging that will resonate with your audience at both rational and emotional level. A lot research needs to be done at a micro level in order to approach your audience at a macro level.
The attention span of a consumer lapses within seconds because of the wide data that he is presented with
As per a survey 61% of marketers say growing SEO/organic presence is a high inbound marketing priority. This shows going digital is no longer a strategy today, its a requirement and the need of the hour. It should be noted that as a marketer, you should integrate your marketing message. Every platform that you are present on should have the same message and value, which shows consistency. Hence, track your consumer behavior digitally, but approach them emotionally.
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