The digital world has made brand managers’ job a whole lot easier and much more complicated at the same time! Nowadays, Customers have access to tons of information. They are bombarded with hundreds of marketing messages on a daily basis. Take the US market as an example and you will find that businesses have spent around 49.5 billion dollars only on digital advertising in 2014. By 2020, expenditure on global internet ads is forecasted to exceed the budgets dedicated to traditional advertising (mainly traditional TV ads).

How has the Internet Changed Consumers Attitude?

To determine how digital trends are impacting brands, it will be important to take a closer look at different manners in which various digitial technologies have affected consumers’ behaviour over the past decade.

Today, the most trendy phenomenon is found to be the User-Generated content. It is in the heart and soul of today’s digital space, and without doubt, it gives consumers much power when it comes to boosting or breaking brands.

User-Generated content plays a key role in finding the right product/service and its associated purchase process. It is interesting to find that out of 51 percent of Millennials trust User-Generated content more than a company’s website and more than personal recommendations received from friends and family members!

Different research found that Millennials would not consider buying before reading User-Generated content and customer reviews for different products and services. For example: reviews on electronic devices, automobiles, accommodation, credit cards and insurance among many others.

Threats or Opportunities?

If you thought about it, you might conclude that the evolution of information dissemination and technology is nothing but natural. Many successful marketing professionals have modified their plans to include more flexible approach that incorporates possible needs, wants and preferences of their consumers with the presence of possible digital platforms, or you may call them “Digital Opportunities.”

The internet has led to a power shift. Especially the “Bargaining Power of the Buyer” (as mentioned in Porter’s Five Forces). While marketers held all most of the power in their hands before, the situation is now completely different. Power has gradually shifted to be in the hands of consumers.

Our research found that in today’s Buyer-Decision-Process, people are looking at four major areas:

1. Personalised interactions with their brands (could be through the generation of content, social media marketing, direct interactions and beyond)

2. Added value (could be in the form of a convenient online shopping experience or a free ebook containing useful information and beyond)

3. Interactivity that leads to complete dynamic Consumer-Brand relationships

4. Online communities that are based on needs, preferences and interests

It has been found that contemporary Brand Management is closely tied to having admirable customer experience, and a huge part behind Your Brand Online Reputation is heavily dependent on integrating your marketing matrix to include the previous four areas (or dimensions).

Multi-Channel Strategies and Content-Based Approaches

Traditional advertising and routine branding efforts no longer do the trick. Customers have become experts at ignoring promotion. These days, a good branding strategy will require you to opt-in a Multi-Channel approach.

Different inbound promotion strategies found to be tremendously cost-efficient, while at the same time provide much better-targeting options. Each added channel to the marketing mix will lead to further diversification and new opportunities. To win more consumers, you will need to utilise and integrate possible and relevant digital channels to your brand and to associate that strategically with your marketing plan. That can involve (not limited to) a corporate website, a blog, partnerships with content creators, social media marketing and tons of copywriting…and beyond.

People are drawn to useful content, and that could establish proper foundations for stronger relationships between brands and their consumers. Bear in mind that content marketing strategy is found to be more critical than ever before (whether text or multimedia).

Try to engage your target market as much as you can. Try to research and understand the behaviour an attitude of your exact target. Tailor your messages to them. Then you might provide them with useful and unexpected content and information to encourage them to come back for more. That could open the door for more opportunities and better brand-consumer conversation, establishing (or maintaining) your authority in your niche, as well as building your reputation while increasing your brand awareness in the mind of your true consumers.

Related posts:

On Assessing the Effectiveness of Consumer-Generated Advertising Inverting the Archetypal Consumer Reputation Management – 5 Online Mistakes that are Killing YOUR BRAND Tasting with Twitter–Food and Social Media