'Integration' lights up the way for marketing

You can book travel tickets over your mobile phone or the Internet. You can
use SMS to pay the bill at a restaurant or a departmental store. The Internet
and the cellphone are packing more functionality and ease into your life. And
the ad spend going into Internet advertising in India is climbing as it is doing
the world over. By 2008 it will generate about $19 bn worldwide, say
Pricewaterhouse Coopers. This is the era of digital marketing. When combined
with traditional marketing devices such as print, TV, radio, offline sales
strategy, integrated marketing-as it is called-can redefine the rules of
marketing.

Take for instance, Best Buy, a chain of technology stores in the US. In just
one quarter, it has seen an 8.4 percent increase in in-store sales and a 30
percent revenue increase in one of the stores by employing innovative e-mail
marketing campaigns. From their e-mail surveys and online sign up service, they
were able to profile four types of customers who would buy, and could weed out
those with a history of returning sold items repeatedly. The stores were
redesigned to help the four types of customers browse through them. And of
course, the sales staff was retrained to handle them.

Another example is Yahoo. It has managed to deliver a successful marketing
experience for retail and consumer packaged goods companies by integrating the
TV show-The Apprentice-with a web campaign. In one of the episodes, for
instance, the competing teams had to whip up new flavors of ice cream for the
company Ciao Bella Gelato. A call out at the end of the show urged the viewers
to go to Yahoo! Search and look for 'Apprentice ice cream'. The portal's
local site listed out the stores selling the ice cream and had maps to reach
them. The Apprentice ice cream sold out in 24 hours, along with which went other
flavors of Ciao Bella. Yahoo managed to repeat this success for other brands
like Levi's, Nescafe and Dove.

Closer home, Coca Cola's myenjoyzone.com won appreciation for managing to
connect extremely well with its consumers. It used movies, sports, jokes, music,
games and contests to keep the consumer engaged. At every step, it offered gifts
and prizes. For example, in its 'Coca-Cola Khara Sona' contest, you have to
enter the number printed under the crown or closure of the Coke bottle to win a
prize. Pepsi too won awards for its 'Toss ka Boss' campaign for having
managed to run a successful multi-level campaigning though the press, TV, the
Net, SMS, and direct contact in schools, cinemas, etc. Zee's DTH initiative
required a prospective consumer to SMS his/her pin code to solicit a buying
enquiry. Based on the pin code, the Zee DTH official would have a dealer from
the area contact the person.

All these are examples of the net and the mobile getting integrated into the
marketing plans of companies. Digital marketing has a higher utility value in
the Western market due to high penetration of the Internet and mobiles. Compare
this: With 26 mn Net users, India has barely 3.6 percent Internet penetration
while the US has 68.5 percent and European Union 48.1 percent.

Hence comes the next question: Is it the right time for Indian companies to
take up digital marketing in a big way? The answer lies in the type of products
and services offered, the geographical area targeted and the profile of the
consumer. Even with limitations of Internet penetration there are areas where
digital marketing can play a very significant role. But it is obvious that a
smart mix of digital and traditional marketing techniques is very much on the
way.

The net, emails and the mobile offer simply too many benefits to be ignored.

(The author is Editor-in-Chief of CyberMedia publications. He can be reached
at shyamm@cybermedia.co.in)