4 Considerations for your Digital Marketing Inception
Last weekend I had the chance to watch the movie “Inception” again. For those who did not watch it, it is a movie about agents that have the power to enter your dreams and plant new ideas that will impact your subconscious which respectively is reflected in your conscious life.
Imagine if this technology/invention is available. Imagine the possibilities such technology in your daily life and of course at work. Imagine how new ideas and new products can be pushed, acceptance of proposals in the business and changes to services in your life, and most important drive change across the personal and professional lives.
But wait, may be in the physical world this is not yet possible, what about the digital world. What about the Social Avatars that digital consumers can create that allows them to live in a virtual world that are of their choice. What about the Digital "Virtual Reality" that allows Holograms of the digital consumer to come up in offices while they are on the beach. What about the live 360 videos available almost in most of sports and events allowing you to experience virtually everything what the person is experiencing in his environment.
People live currently longer hours in their virtual world than their physical one. They interact more, they have more friends and they reach for help, advice, support and engagement virtually more than they ever did in their physical life.
This brings the point out - in the past, the virtual world was the marketing medium for the real world! They have now switched places!
Yes, now digital consumer (of course not all but most of the personas in my previous blog) uses physical stores, physical advertisement and physical interactions are mainly triggers for them to jump on their virtual world to know more about it, like it, share it, love it, order it, and engage with it.
So Digital Consumer marketing is not and should not only be based on digital channels. It should consider the following items:
Distance doesn't matter:
You should market your product in any physical place that brings you most engagement. It's your virtual distance is simply unlimited. Just keep in mind to complement the physical with digital marketing in virtual sites that are most important to your digital consumer persona you are trying to acquire.
Business never stops:
That's the double sided sword. It's great in one place that you are engaging with your consumers 24/7, but also brings the need to have your user experience, user journey and their interaction channels to be best-in class and self sufficient to allow the consumer to feel they can be served, supported and perform their transactions at anytime, place.
There are no second-class consumers:
As a minimum, your digital consumer need to feel engaged with, talked to, cared about without the need for any extra knowledge, status, and access. Of course, I don't mean you should have "premium" services for additional costs but these should be "add-ons" and not essentials. In a way, you should design the site for the Digital Atheist in mind and your add-ons for Digital Prophets.
Data must be everywhere:
Yes, data should be easily accessible for your consumers as well as your company. They should feel they have full control on their transactions, their preferences, their subscription, their ecosystem. You should of course also be able to analyse all of that and identify trends that will help you take your product to or your digital consumer experience and journey to the next level.
So in the next 100 days, analyse if you are using effectively your physical world as trigger for the virtual world and if not, run some pilots to help you define how your physical environment can be used to maximize your virtual engagement.