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Digital Marketing in Indian Context

Article · April 2016

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Rajiv Kaushik
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Digital Marketing in Indian Context

Rajiv Kaushik
Prof. Department of Management Studies
Vaish College of Engineering, Rohtak, Haryana(India)
[email protected]

Abstract
Digital marketing is rising in India with fast pace. Many organization. This gave impetus to new way of conducting
Indian companies are using digital marketing for trade and commerce.
competitive advantage. Success of marketing campaign
cannot be solely achieved by digital marketing only. In 2015 e-commerce activities get boost up with rapid
Rather for success of any marketing campaign it should expansion, multiplicity of campaign, deals based user
fully harness the capabilities of various marketing acquisition and more. This shift in e-commerce become
techniques available within both the traditional and modern more noticeable with higher focus on consumer knowledge
marketing. Startups who use digital marketing many times and retention, improvement in experience, and depth of
got failed. This study shows precautions to be taken for assortment across an ever wider range of categories. E-
effective implementation of digital marketing to reap commerce players are focusing on retention on existing
tremendous potential to increase in sales. customers and acquisition of new users.

Keywords: Digital marketing, social network, ecommerce, To enhance loyalty of customers towards e-commerce as a
online retail, start up and commandments. category they are differentiating in leveraging data and
assortment trends to finally move towards one to one
1. Introduction marketing principle. Customers are rewarded for their
loyalty with better experience across delivery, pricing,
Digital Marketing is any form of marketing products or exclusive offer and return policies
services, which involves electronic devices. It can be both
online and offline. According to institute of direct Early e-commerce trialists and adopters have clearly
marketing "the use of internet and related digital understood and experienced the immense benefit of e-
information and communication technologies to achieve commerce. Therefore companies are scaling down mass
marketing objectives." media advertising description of e-commerce targeted
early trialists and adopters. Main digital platform such as
According to CAM Foundation – “Digital Marketing is a Google, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube etc. are rolling out
broad discipline, bringing together all forms of marketing more advertiser friendly products that are allowing smaller
that operates through electronic devices – online, on as well large players to market with high efficiency to
mobile, on-screen. Over the years, digital marketing has early adopters. This is resulting in increase in digital
developed enormously, and it continues to do so.” marketing spending. Due to innovation of digital media
coupled e-commerce players system is moving from
Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing or application download and visit metrics to user metrics
Pay per Click Advertising, Social Media Marketing, instead.
Content Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Web Analytics,
Marketing Automation, Content Writing & Rate Investment made so far to generate early adopters of e-
Optimization are the popular and most-demanded areas in commerce are rotating into targeting late adopters through
digital marketing. regional and vernacular offline media. Advertisers have
finally accepted that there will be end of long form of
It is the creative use of management information system advertisement and branded content will rise. Digital video-
(MIS) and technology which supports customers advertising even started issuing advisories asking
interaction with e-marketers. Marketers need to use consumers to keep edit length short. Brand are
technology and information and intuition to set brands and experimenting, to large extent, with expressing themselves
grab opportunities. E-Commerce has unleashed the through digital and youth content. This has driven wider
revolution which is changing the way of doing business. In choices of content, sharper entertainment propositions, and
1997 U.S. govt. allowed use of internet by commercial increase in the smart phone viewership dividend. Sustained
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advertiser investment depends on how fast the emerging commerce, digital advertising and so on. Latest trends in
digital content industry adopts scientific measurement tool. digital marketing in India in web usage, mobile and search,
Innovations in the core products are generating big impact social networking, shopping and online video are shaping
on user acquisition and retention due to digital store and the Indian digital marketplace and what it holds for the
service experience. The players who are delivering gaining years to come.
more consumer friendly products and service improvement
are gaining more. Fig 1: India is now world third largest internet population

2. Some facts about Indian Digital Marketing

Industry

 As per a report by IAMAI and Boston consulting

group, India has one of the largest and fastest
growing populations of Internet users in the
world—190 million as of June 2014 and growing
rapidly.

 According to a report, India will cross 500 million

Internet Users Mark in 2020 By adding 17.6 million users in 2013 and exhibiting a
year-over-year increase of 31%, India becomes to be the
 According to Direct Marketing Association, world’s third largest internet population leaving behind
Digital Marketing Industry is worth $62 billion Japan. While in 2012, Mobile Internet grew 111 per cent,
during 2013 the growth was 63 per cent. India registered a
 According to eMarketer, advertising via mobile YoY of 28 per cent in 2012 and a YoY growth of 39 per
phones and tablets rose 180 percent, to $4 billion cent in 2013 as far as the number of internet users is
concerned.
in 2014

 According to a report published in The Hindustan

Fig 2: Growth of Digital commerce over years
Times, New Delhi digital advertising space in
India is worth Rs. 6000 crore and video is Rs.
1600 crore of that. In 2016 the digital ad space
will grow to Rs. 8100 crore and video will grow
faster than search and classified.

According to a research firm eMarketer ecommerce

sales in India are expected to grow from $14 billion in
2015 to $55 billion in 2018. India has seen the fastest
growth in retail ecommerce among Asia-Pacific
countries, surging 133.8% in 2014 and 129.5% in
2015. The combined gross merchandise value, or total
value of sales of country's top three ecommerce places
i.e. (Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal) in 2015 was While in December 2007, the digital commerce market
$13.8 billion exceeded that of the top 10 offline stood at Rs. 8,146 crore, by December 2012 it was worth
Rs. 47,349 crore.
retailers, which stood at $12.6 billion for the same
period. By December 2013, digital commerce in India grew to a
whopping Rs. 62,967 crore.
3. Reasons for rise in digital Marketing in India
The segment witnessed 35 per cent growth between
December 2011 and December 2012 while it grew by 33
Increase in internet penetration in the country has led to a
per cent between December 2012 and December 2013.
substantial growth of other digital industries such as e-

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Fig 3: Online retail is on the rise Pinterest and Tumblr are the fastest growing
networks.
Fig 5: Entertainment and online video continues to grow

60% of web users in India visit online retail sites. Of the

total online market products, consumer durables account
for 34 per cent, apparel and accessories 30 per cent, books
15 per cent, beauty and personal care 10 per cent, and
home and furnishing 6 per cent. Over 50 per cent of sales
in these product categories take place in non-metro cities.  74% of internet users in India visited an
Fig 4: Majority of screen time still captured by Social entertainment site
media  31.5 million viewers watched videos on YouTube
making it the number one destination for videos
 27% increase in the India online video Audience
over a year
 54,025,000 people watched an online video on
their Pc’s
4. Indian companies using digital marketing for
competitive advantage
Nestle's Every Day was facing threat from liquid milk in
North-East. It has taken help of Facebook. Its teams
created a three-second cinema graph- an image with some
moving shots. It targeted women age 21 and above. The
result was five percentage point increase in purchase intent
and 14 point increase in ad recall.
Coca-Cola did a live video for its orange flavoured Fanta.
 86% Indian web users visit a social networking Maybelline did a three dimensional video. Royal Enfield
site shot a 360 degree video for its new bike Himalayan.
 214 minutes are spent on Facebook by an Lakme used a slide show format (its five times lighter than
avaerage user a video), and Cornetto made a three second Cinemagraph.

 There is 28% increase in facebook visitors in the Pepsi Co. Beverages used Facebook during cricket World
last 12 months Cup in 2015 for brand building and generating the sale.
Pepsi's Facebook campaign was the most recognised
 59,642,000 users visited facebook on thier Pc’s brands during the event. Pepsi Co. is using social media in
a big way for building its brand equity.
 Facebook continues to be the number one social
network and LinkedIn as number two while A research conducted by Adobe and CMO Council has
revealed that growing number of marketers in India are

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leveraging digital marketing to increase their competitive marketing delivery tool, can substantially hurt their overall
advantage. marketing success.
According to the study, India leads in the confidence in For success of any marketing campaign it should fully
digital marketing as a driver of competitive advantage. harness the capabilities of various marketing techniques
available within both the traditional and modern
Ninety-six per cent of the Indian marketers have high marketing.
confidence in the ability of digital marketing to drive
competitive advantage. It is among the highest in Asia- Activities like push marketing, lead generation, launch
Pacific APAC with only Australia leading with 97 per cent, events and trade shows, television and print media can be
the research said. used to integrate with social computing, customized
content and control budget etc. to effectively reach the
However, while Indian marketers believe that the key identified market segments and convert them into paying
driver to adopting digital is a growing internet population consumers.
(70 per cent in India against 59 per cent in APAC), their
belief that customer preference and digital dependence With the rise of social media, changing business
drive the adoption of digital, and that digital can engage landscapes, and introduction of more educated customers,
the audience, is lower than the APAC averages, it added. the businesses need to rethink about their marketing
strategies and lay out a multi-channel marketing plan that
According to 2014 Adobe APAC, India is an emerging carefully lays out an optimal mix of both the modern and
leader in Digital Marketing, it has dipped in its own traditional techniques best suited for the business.
performance in 2015 as compared to the previous year. It
is important to note that India scored much higher than the 6. Reasons for failure of digital marketing in
APAC average in 2014. startups
Customer preference and digital dependence would Probable reasons for failure of digital marketing in startups
increase along with the increase in penetration of internet are as follows:
in the Indian market.
Measuring the Cost per Acquisition: A large percent of
The study revealed that compared to their APAC business owners fail to define key metrics and don't put
counterparts, Indian marketers are receiving lesser support relevant structure including using relevant tools to measure
from channel and sales teams for increasing digital spends. the progress of their digital marketing campaigns. Entire
However they are doing better as compared to 2014 focus of measurability is on increasing reach in terms of
suggesting that departments that have a customer interface views and visitors. While reach is necessary but it's not
are realising the importance of digital marketing in sufficient. Imagine if your website receives more than
augmenting their efforts. double the traffic of your competitors but if your website
conversions are less than half of your competitors - you
5. Impact of technology growth on traditional would still be having lower returns than your competitors.
marketing In addition to pay attention to increasing your website
Due to technologies advancement at an exponential rate, reach, pay attention to the entire customer funnel so as to
the marketing paradigm has shifted to newer more meet your ultimate objectives is the key to success in
customer and content centric approaches being delivered leveraging digital media.
on the digital platform. Believe that Digital Marketing belongs to Technology
Traditional marketing like advertising, public relations, Department: A large number of startup founders don't
branding and corporate communications, lead generation believe that digital marketing is a marketing function. But
etc. broadly relies on television, radio, telephone, and print they treat it as a technology piece. Although digital
media and telephone as a delivery medium. Contrary to marketing leverages technology for reasons such as
that modern marketing techniques leverage the power of measurability or scaling up, it's still a marketing function.
Internet and social media to reach to a more targeted set of Expecting from technical team to create success of digital
audience. marketing is an obvious recipe for failure. This problem is
not limited to startups even large corporations are also the
Modern marketing techniques provide cost effective victims of such treatment of digital marketing.
marketing platform with ability to reach millions of
customers in a very short span of time. Businesses which Think that outsourcing is the solution: Assuming that
invest heavily on only on digital marketing as their outsourcing will take care of end-to-end execution is one
of the reasons for high failure rate of agency-client

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relationships. This problem is bigger with the large content or end up giving up their digital marketing
corporation which are using outsourcing. By educating campaigns.
clients about the appropriate approach to leverage digital
helps them restructure their thinking and processes related
to digital marketing. 7. Commandments of Digital Marketing
Hired a Digital Marketing professional on your Consider Digital strategy as a part of Brand Strategy:
ignorance: Hiring one or more digital marketing Generally for brands, digital strategies are created in a
professionals without having clarity on overall digital complete vacuum from the overall brand strategy, or
marketing strategy is almost similar to outsourcing digital worse, no digital strategy is crafted at all. Since digital is
marketing responsibility to an external agency. Whether the glue that ties the entirety of a marketing plan and
startups or marketing professionals they have to realize tactics together, anything that happens online needs to
that they have an important role to play in creating digital ladder up to the higher objectives of the brand. An
marketing strategy, whether they want to work with an effective digital strategy is typically composed of a group
external agency or build an in-house team. of sub strategies to effectively plan and account for owned,
Doing Social Media because everyone else is doing: Like earned, shared, and paid assets.
in other business functions, our decisions in digital Innovating the Brands: Majority of brands have some form
marketing are largely influenced by what others are doing of goal around innovation. And that’s important because
or what's popular at present. innovations drive the business forward But innovation
Just because Social Media is the talk of the town is not a mean better not new. Your strategy should help you select
sufficient reason for a startup to invest in it. The choice of your tactics, not the other way around. If you are seeking
a digital media platform should be based on business to use a tool or platform because you think it is innovative,
objective and target audience rather on the popularity of a and can’t identify how or why it works for your audience,
medium. Social Media may be useful for brand promotion you’re worshipping the shiny object and are destined to
for a large organization while Search Engine Marketing fail.
may be more appropriate for a startup if lead generation is Put Interest of the Consumer First than their Own: Too
the primary objective. often marketers approach digital from the mindset of their
Expect overnight Success: Influenced by mind-blowing own (or their brand) objectives. Users crave value, utility,
statistics associated with digital media platforms and by and having their needs met. This is especially true online
ever growing number of online businesses, every where fractions of a second can make or break a potential
organization who embark upon the journey of digital engagement. Instead of focusing on your needs, try and
marketing believes that it's a magical wand, which will determine what your users want and how you can insert
solve their sales & marketing objectives overnight. your brand or your content into their lives in a way that
makes sense.
Although digital media is a powerful weapon to accelerate
business growth, a sustainable success in digital marketing Don't Imitate your competitors: Just because your
normally takes few months if not more and this journey to competitor is doing something doesn’t mean you should
success would have involved few failures. Digital too.
Marketing avenues such as Search Engine Optimization Acknowledge the Importance of Smart Phone and Tablet:
(SEO) require couple of months before a business can see Usage of mobile phone and tablet has increased
good results. Expecting quick results normally leads to extensively. About 85% of HCP’s are using a tablet in their
giving up on the not-so-visible but real progress practice and 1 in 3 people in the US now own a tablet as
campaigns, which would have produced desired goals if well. Increasing use of smart phones means your brand had
given the time it requires. better be ready to provide mobile optimized content, tools,
Underestimate the importance of Content: Digital and resources for your users.
marketing campaigns relies mainly on regular flow of high Understand the Difference between Metrics and Analysis:
quality, relevant content, the requirement for which is There is difference between metrics and analysis. Metrics
highly underestimated by a large percentage of small are just data. Metrics are just numbers. Analysis tells you
businesses. what to do next. A common misunderstanding is that they
When faced with scarcity of content, either these are one and the same. Google analytics may be free, but
businesses end up compromising on the quality of the can’t give you any insight into what the numbers mean or
where to go from here. Too often marketers collect (or

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simply ignore) data and give no thought (or budget) into [6] Daniel, Anand (June 10, 2015). Rise of Indian market
understanding it. The digital medium allows you to be places, and what the future hold. yourstory.com/2015/06/
nimble and react to your users with far greater speed and rise-Indian-marketplaces.
efficiency.
[7] Why digital marketing is the need of hour-CSDM
Maintain healthy relationship with stakeholders: Treat your Raipur. csdm.in/digital-marketing-need-hour/Feb.20, 2014.
employees, suppliers & distributors etc. accordingly so that
they feel as a partner. Healthy company – client [8] India overtakes Japan to become world's third largest
relationships are a true partnership where everyone feels internet population. www.dnaindia.com/ August 22, 2013.
comfortable bringing ideas and co-authoring success. Treat [9] Articles about digital marketing-Times of India-
your organization people fairly and with respect and they’ll Economic Times. articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com >
bring results for you. With their help if you succeed, tell collection
them. When they screw up, do the same.
[10] Indian companies using digital marketing for
Share your content with those who need it: Use wants to competitive advantages. gadgets.ndtv.com > Internet >
use contents as per their convenience when and where they Internet news. Nov. 2014.
want. You should take it positively if they decide to copy,
share, link, or tweet it elsewhere. Your contents should be
sharable and videos should be post able. Because your
customers are true amplifier for your brand than anyone
else.
Conclusion:
Digital marketing has increased in last a few years in India.
People have different views about it. But the fact is this
digital marketing has tremendous potential to increase in
sales provided businesses should have knowledge to
implement it in right way. Benefits like increased brand
recognition and better brand loyalty can be gained by
effective digital media plan. Digital marketing campaign
help in reduction in costs, boost in inbound traffic and
better ranking in search engines.
References:
[1] TS, Anoop (Dec. 01, 2014). Digital marketing
communication "mix". www.linkedin.com/20141201185
400-100431809-digitalmark.
[2] Murthy, Srinivas (Jan. 06, 2016). Always keep your
customers close and your loyalist closer.
articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com > collections >
digital marketing.
[3] Chathurvedula, Sadhana (Dec. 16, 2015). Indian
ecommerce sales to reach $55 billion by 2018.
www.livemint.com > customer > research.
[4] Bailay, Rasul & Anand Shambhavi (April 11, 2016).
Japan's Rakuten opens office in Bangaluru; poaches mid
level managers from Flipkart, Amazon. Economic times
bureau.
[5] Why digital marketing is on rise in India? Let's talk
numbers. dsim.in/blog/ why-digital- marketing-is-on-rise-
in-India-lets-talk-numbers. Feb. 18 2014.

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