Steve Jobs knew quite well that the Internet in general and the key-less SmartPhone in particular is going to change human behaviour & habits substantially and globally. That’s why he was a big backer of the Apple Store, iTunes, and the iPhone itself. It’s not a co-incidence trust me! – Farzan Chishti

Marketing is no longer about traditional channels such as Radio, TV, and Print Ads. It has evolved exponentially in the last 5 years. Digital Marketing is now in the reach of every sort of organisation, no matter how minimal the budget, or how fresh or inexperienced the brand is. Digital Marketing is very cost-effective and the ‘ROI’ or Return on Investment is quite easy to measure especially in Google Adwords and Facebook campaigns. Just make sure to have the appropriate admin account password, and you can easily track how your money is being spent. Within the last few years the loss of trust in advertising/marketing agencies and consulting firms is quite catastrophic, with many organisations hiring in-house creatives to get the job done and reduce bureaucratic processes. Meanwhile increasing employment opportunity, financial, technical, and creative transparency.

Digital Marketing is not applicable for those who behave like dinosaurs, and keep repeating boring and stale ideas. It’s about creativity, and doings things in a way that people enjoy and perceive as leisure. It’s about fun! – Farzan Chishti

Some pointers below on Enabling Effective Digital Marketing

A) Differentiating one’s message (Make sure your content is genuine and does’nt sound lame and cheezy, or sound like something you jacked from somewhere else, you need good taste for this)

B) Grabbing people’s attention with targeted and interesting visuals(Plan ahead and avoid using stock imagery, if you have the budget for a photo shoot)

C) Bilingual or Trilingual content to penetrate potential customers depending on Nationality. (Don’t use google translate, or a hire a ‘legal translator’ by mistake. Instead hire a ‘creative content/copy writer’, who has a passion for writing since an early age, and is familiar with the local dialect and cultural phenomenon)

D) Campaigns based on appropriate brand architecture to suit customers based on age groups etc (Don’t rush in to a campaign, without doing appropriate homework, background research, and knowing your potential customer)

Thus the old rules no longer matter, and digital marketing is evolving on a daily basis with the pulse of the technology industry. The Marketing decision-makers are changing too, they are the younger people, the risk-takers, the one’s who are not afraid to raise their voices and voice their concerns. – Farzan Chishti

The use of email as a means of non-business communication has decreased substantially, as a result, allmost everyone has shifted to methods such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. In order to compensate for this shift in methodology, marketing now includes much more interactive media than ever before.

Further i shall discuss the 3 key areas that management professionals and leadership roles need to place emphasis on. Social Media Marketing, E-Commerce, and Mobile Marketing. You can find some real world examples of these on the following urlhttp://www.behance.net/farzanchishti

Social Media Marketing

Social media is one of the most powerful marketing channels of the contemporary times. In order to ensure penetration and effectiveness. Marketeers must take advantage of creative ideas that save time and ensure proper ‘ROI’ The power of social media is a real phenomenon, it cannot be ignored, and if used in a strategically and tastefully, organisations can reap huge benefits in business and increase sales. All with a great amount of transparency and control.

E-Commerce via Loyalty Programs and Co-Branding

No one is quite sure, when the E-commerce bubble will burst. Since there are a lot of websites that sell things online, but it is hard to calculate how many people actually buy anything. It is easy to set up an online store, establishing business partners is difficult. Secondarily, at times it is difficult to convince the consumer to give out his personal details and make a successful online transaction. This gap that needs to be fulfilled by gaining trust. However E-Commerce remains a good source of marketing since a lot of people do research online, and buy offline from a traditional source.

Moving on, a good way to gain trust is to have co-branded loyalty programs with organisations that the people trust such as banks and telcos. But how much do people trust telco’s is quite questionable in itself. However, almost everyone trust’s their bank to a high degree, and in my personal opinion an sms from a bank about a new promo, is almost always going to be taken with more seriousness than one from a telco.

Multiple Payment gateways are also very important in order to maximise the chances of a successful online transaction. For example some people are more comfortable with a bank transfer than a credit card transaction, others are very confident of a government backed transaction system such as Sadad in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Many traditionalists still insist on door to door payment on delivery methods. The challenge of logistics still remains in E-commerce, shipping goods from one place to another on time is easier said than done.

Mobile Marketing

The proliferation of mobile devices is an an infinitely expansive process in current society. Making the mobile a very effective and important channel of marketing. Within a very short span of time, the way people communicate has changed quite drastically, and it is imperative that marketeers utilise the mobile phone as a channel of communication to boost sales. This can be done via SMS, MMS, Ads in Free Apps, and Push Notifications. It seems that at least currently the usage of mobile phones is growing at a very fast rate, and there is good value in investing in this channel. However you need to be careful that your partner such as a telco or a bank is giving you accurate information about the the specific people that the message will be sent to, otherwise your demographic positioning relative to your campaign and/or brand will be out of alignment.

Conclusion

Overall Digital Marketing is becoming highly important because it allows the ability of tracking finances on a very accurate level. Meaning senior management can easily delegate and adjust the amount of spending between different channels based on real time results quite easily, and be confident that company money is being well spent.