July 20/27; Retailer’s Guide to Digital Marketing
By Ken Ryan
It may seem futuristic, but 2020 is only five years from now. If executives are correct, the digital world will have undergone more change in the next five years than in the previous 15. Here are some predictions as to what digital marketing will look like in 2020.
Cash is no longer king
In five years there will be an estimated 2.5 billion smartphones in use. A study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center predicts that by 2020 mobile payment will make all other payment methods obsolete. According to the survey, in which 1,021 Internet users participated, 65% of respondents believe people will have embraced and fully adopted the use of smart device swiping for purchases they make, nearly eliminating the need for cash or credit cards as people will come to trust and rely on mobile phones for handling monetary transactions over the Internet as well as in stores. However, 33% aren’t buying it, citing hacking and other privacy concerns, while 12% were just not sure.
Transparency
The continued adoption of technology will make the world even more transparent. Consumers will be acutely aware of which companies are doing well and which aren’t, meaning they will demand better service as a result. Instead of simply comparing companies with the competition, customers will see how these entities stand up to class-leading businesses. This will raise the bar considerably and will require more attention to online feedback.
For an increasing number of people, social media is the first place they turn when they experience a problem with a business. According to Nielsen’s social media report, 47% of users engage in social media care and one in three users prefer to contact brands using social media rather than via telephone.
Despite this, research by Gleanster shows only 41% of companies actively respond to consumer complaints on social media. What’s more, the average response time for inquiries through social media is more than 24 hours. When considering 92% of consumers have switched businesses to which they are loyal at least once in the last year because of poor customer service, there is still work to be done in this department.
Selectivity
The Internet will become even more effective at shielding consumers from commercial messages in the years to come, according to Steven van Belleghem, a Belgium-based trainer, speaker and blogger on topical issues in social media and digital marketing. He predicts new media will enable consumers to be particularly selective about to which companies they will be linked. Consequently, gaining access to the 2020 consumer will prove extremely difficult. A score of 7.3 out of 10 will not be enough to win the heart of this shopper; only extreme customer centricity will guarantee success.
Selling without actual sales
Five years from now snagging consumers will become increasingly difficult. Today, consumers typically seek interaction with no more than five brands, and technology is making it easier for consumers to block out commercial messages and focus on more valuable content. Being exceedingly relevant is the only way of keeping the consumer’s attention.
The first dimension of this change includes the rise of inbound marketing. ING Bank recently reported that 95% of customer interactions originate with the shopper herself. In other words, the pull model has already replaced the push model.
Content is still king
Content tells a story and gives people something of value. It’s less about your own goods and more about what consumers can do with them. The new sites for Kraft and Coca-Cola, for example, already deliver that message. In both cases the product itself has been pushed to the background while the sites look more like a digizine (digital magazine) than a website.
Van Belleghem noted that content should be relevant but, more than anything, it should be well designed. “There’s a phenomenal difference in impact between a classic story and an engaging story. Web designers will become increasingly important in the years to come.”