The Covid-19 Pandemic augmented the use of Digital platforms in every domain. The impact of the lockdown has undoubtedly changed the behaviour pattern of consumers around the globe. Every mortal around the world lived in isolation which certainly affected buying behaviour. The transformation in the buying behaviour compelled traditional businesses to shift toward Digital Platforms.
What is Consumer Behavior?
It is a detailed analysis of consumers and an understanding of the behaviour pattern. Consumers are human beings, and decoding the likes & dislikes and emotional responses of this complex creature help in creating a better marketing strategy.
Analyzing consumer behavior facilitates a marketer in understanding what exactly influences the consumer’s decision to purchase a particular product. Studying consumer behaviour is always an advantage because it significantly impacts the consumer.
A detailed consumer analysis would clearly understand a consumer’s impression of a particular brand or product. Perhaps a sort of a crystal ball gazing into the psychology of the consumer.
Understanding what influences a person to choose a particular product is always an advantage. Several factors impact the behaviour of the consumer. It could be media, family, or friends.
A marketer would gauge consumer behavior and investigate the purchase pattern to understand the trend. The factors that would influence consumer behaviour are Psychological, Social, and Personal.
The Role of Digital Marketing in Changing Consumer Buying Behaviour:
Capacity to Research and Experiment
The online world is a puzzle of unlimited data, and the availability of information is making the consumer brighter. The Internet is no longer a luxury; everyone has access to smartphones. With plenty of data and internet connection, customers can make intelligent decisions, and the choices are plenty in the online world. There is unlimited content online with a plethora of brands. Indeed, consumers in today’s world are spoiled with choices. They can compare products and then make a decision.
Digital Marketing has removed the middle man, which has eventually helped build a bond between the brand and the consumer.
Storytelling
The world of narratives is quite fascinating. People love listening to stories rather than delving into complicated mathematical & scientific matters. Facts are indeed essential, but fiction attracts a crowd. In digital marketing, storytelling helps in transmitting information to the consumer in a profound manner.
Storytelling gives a human touch to the existing material world of finance and profit & loss. People need to get emotionally connected with the brand and product. Storytelling and a fictional tale help in creating this bond.
Word of Mouth
If storytelling increases the human touch, then word of mouth would indeed take the aspect of human touch to the next level. Gossips are ingrained in our psyche; people generally love listening to others and forming their opinions. Around 90% of customers trust their immediate friends and family members more than in advertisements. Therefore word of mouth is an integral part of digital marketing strategy, and it influences consumer buying behaviour.
What exactly is word of mouth in the digital marketing world?
It is the personal blogs, social media channels, online discussion forums, and other paid influencers.
The rise in E-Commerce and online stores
Imagine the good old days when you had to walk to the nearby grocery store to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Today the Big basket app has changed the way you buy groceries. Consumers have started trusting the internet more than the nearby store. Most brands are online, making it easier to select and purchase. The rise in ECommerce and online stores have indeed transformed how people shop. The pandemic also increased online shopping. In fact, amidst the Covid-19 peak, people were staying indoors, leading to an increase in online shopping.
Personalized Shopping Experience
It is not just enough to identify a prospective customer. The critical aspect of digital marketing is to serve the prospective customer precisely what they prefer. This has led to a remarkable shift in purchasing a product of our choice. Digital marketing has undoubtedly given a Personalized Shopping Experience, and it has compelled brands to create a marketing strategy that would ensure a personalized experience for customers.
Online Advertising
Technology is growing at an exponential pace, and the internet is one single place where all the requirements of consumers are met. Unfortunately, many customers are busy with online activity and ignore various advertisements. Brands use online advertisement strategies and attract customers by providing attractive deals and discounts. Think about all the daily emails from Flipkart and Amazon to Zomato and Swiggy.
Brands are ubiquitous on social media platforms and third-party websites to promote deals and influence consumers. As a result, impulsive buyers are undoubtedly tempted to purchase. Today’s social media platforms have a number of features that aid in product promotion and advertising. Examples of personalized advertisements for consumers include Instagram Paid ads, Facebook ads, and YouTube ads. They are excellent platforms for promoting a certain item or service.
Mobile Focused Digital Marketing
A few decades ago, the Mobile phone was merely a communication device. Today it is everything that one could fathom. Life without an Android smartphone is impossible. It is akin to carrying a mini-computer in your pocket. Approximately 50% of web traffic comes from mobile. Various social media platforms on mobile devices are undoubtedly changing the consumer’s behaviour patterns.
Conclusion
So far, we have covered various ways Digital Marketing impacts consumers’ preferences. It would be an exciting tale for all the future geeks who would analyze the history of consumerism through the lens of Digital Marketing.
Why my business is not getting more sales or how I can increase brand awareness and trust among the potential audience? Are you tired of using all the business strategies but nothing is working to get fruitful results? Now, it’s time to use a new marketing strategy that is called Influencer marketing Specialized for Small businesses.
In this complete guide, you’re going to learn what influencer marketing for Small businesses is, its benefits and how you can use it on different platforms.
What is Influencer Marketing?
A Smart marketing technique used to get a larger audience, more leads, helps to increase brand awareness and trust with the help of influencers is called influencer marketing. An influencer can be a popular public figure, YouTuber, blogger, sportsperson, public speaker or any person who has a large fan following.
Under influencer marketing, an influencer promotes your business to his/her audience and it helps you to reach more genuine leads and trust as an influencer has their audience.
In October 2020, a survey is done by Rakuten Insight which depicts that the majority of male and female in India admitted to purchasing product through influencers as they were convinced by their promotion.
Influencer marketing is a more effective way to digital ads. When you promote your business through digital ads it will not put that much impact on the audience. But when somebody else means influencer recommends your product, service or brand then it influences the audience at a very high level.
Whether you have a new start up or developed business influencer marketing will be a beneficial marketing strategy for your business. It’s a kind of social media marketing and gives amazing results as a trust factor already exists between an influencer and their followers.
Benefits of Influencer Marketing?
- Influencers have their larger built-in audience hence it’s a great way to attract new customers.
- It’s a quick way to build trust with influencer marketing as influencers have a trustworthy relationship with their audience.
- The followers of influencer love their content and when these influencers speak about your brand, product, and business or service these influences them and you will get more leads from influencer marketing.
- Even if your business have no audience then by reaching influencers you can improve the brand awareness because they have a high fan following.
- By reaching relevant influencers in your niche, you can attract a target audience on social platforms.
- Overall influencer marketing is a great technique to get more traffic and sales through the existing audience of influencers which will directly lead to maximize your revenue.
Influencer Marketing on Different Platforms
Now, you know what is influencer marketing is all about and it’s time to look for a platform that you can choose to promote your business using influencer marketing. Every platform has their own uniqueness and top 3 platforms that will help you to leverage influencer marketing is YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn
Influencer Marketing For Your Business on Instagram
Instagram is a leading social media platform with over 1 million monthly active users and most commonly used by influencers. On Instagram there are two effective ways through which influencers can engage with the audience is posts and stories.
A media like photos, videos, and Instagram reels are used by the influencer to promote the brand, product or service.
Media content gets lots of attraction and engagement as well which helps your business to get more targeted leads. For content relevance, hashtags are used on Instagram and you can find an influencer in your relevant niche.
YouTube Influencer Marketing
YouTube is a perfect place for influencer marketing and it is more powerful than other social media platforms. To run influencer marketing mainly five types of campaigns are used to promote businesses such as introductory, maintenance, hashtag, contest, and branding campaigns.
The secret of success of marketing campaigns depends upon choosing the right YouTube influencer. There is several YouTube influencers but every influencer is not for your business. Analyze your audience using different analytics tools and check on which channel your audience is spending time and wisely choose a YouTube influencer to get a targeted audience.
Clearly describe the goal of your campaign means what you want to achieve after promoting the content through an influencer. The YouTube influencer uses a different type of video to promote products or services such as product unboxing, reviews, how-to videos, behind the scene tutorials, and day in the life vlogs.
LinkedIn Influencer Marketing
The next great platform is LinkedIn and it is the best fit for influencer marketing. It’s a great platform to generate direct leads because when a LinkedIn influencer promotes any business he mentions the product or service and it put a direct impact on the audience which leads to sales. To find a LinkedIn influencer you can use the search bar, join LinkedIn groups or use the influencer list that is created by LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a professional platform; it has become a game-changing platform for many businesses. LinkedIn influencers use articles, LinkedIn posts, roundups, live sessions, discounts and offers to promote the services of a business.
How to Measure Results of Influencer Marketing?
Set a clear goal for each campaign: It is necessary to define the clear objective of every influencer program means what you want to achieve whether huge traffic, brand awareness, or more sales for any business.
Specify different parameter to evaluate campaign performance:
The number of followers, engagement rate, number of clicks, number of impressions and brand mentions is a parameter that helps to analyse the performance of a campaign.
Set goals for individual influencer: For the same campaign you can use different influencer so to measure which influencer is giving you results it is necessary to set goals and performance metrics for every individual influencer.
Use the influencer tracking platform: Tracking a campaign manually is time taking and difficult process so you can use different influencer tracking platform to measure ROI such as Neoreach, Grin, and Tap Influence.
Measure the results: Provide unique URL and discount codes to every influencer so that you can easily measure the results that which influencer is referred to a particular sale.
Conclusion
Influencer marketing for Small businesses is another great way to promote your business or brand to get more trustworthy leads from the influencers. Most brands are spending a huge budget on influencers marketing rather than digital ads. So, search for influencers in your niche and negotiate with them to get more sales.
