In the past two years, digital has made its way into b2b marketing so deep, that the line between digital and non-digital marketing has blurred. The overlap between online and offline strategies is quite evident and marketers aren’t shying away from recognizing that.

In fact, in a study done by Regalix, over 80% of marketers have said that their digital and traditional marketing activities were already either fully integrated or partly integrated and only 6% chose to keep the two activities separate.

To understand the evolving digital reality, we got in touch with Acer India Chief Marketing Officer, S. Rajendrann who very heartily said buyers want transparency and clear information—something that digital is adept at doing. Resonating with the Regalix survey results he said, “hybrid marketing is the term marketers will adopt this year”.

/ / ‘Digital is the new marketing’. How far do you agree with this statement?

The world is changing fast and it is going digital. Consumers have moved from traditional to social and omni-channel marketing mediums to engage with companies and individuals. Digital marketing offers invaluable opportunities to assess which element of a company’s strategy is working and which is not—in real-time.

Compared to traditional marketing, digital has always been deeply rooted in numbers; nevertheless data now plays a truly pivotal role for two reasons.

First, interpolating data from different sources in real time has become mainstream and easily accessible even to complex organizations where data is usually “siloed”. Secondly, we now have sophisticated algorithms at our disposal which allow us to spot cause-effect relationships among different, often non-homogenous data points.

Such a combination is putting powerful computational power into the hands of marketers and forever changing our go-to-market strategy.

/ / Amongst various digital tools that are available, which one works best for acer?

Technology has evolved dramatically and so have consumers. They are now less loyal, more informed and no single approach can adequately address their pre and post purchase journeys. For marketers, complexity has risen to a point that is not manageable any more with conventional, rule-based marketing approaches. But marketers can setup and control tools capable of managing such complexity on their behalf.

For acer, we feel tools such as sentiment analysis, listening tools, programmatic marketing, re-targeting mechanisms, mobile app based targeting, etc. Work best for us. For instance, sentiment analysis helps us to derive the opinion or attitude of the customer towards the brand. Programmatic marketing gives advertisers a more intelligent way to connect with consumers on a one to one basis. This marketing technology helps us in automating our buying and selling of online advertising, thus delivering stronger business performance.

/ /  How important is automation in marketing?

Marketing automation will become fully real time and will make extensive usage of predictive modeling, reaching an unprecedented level of go-to-market and post-sale sophistication. Content marketing, a huge trend in 2015, will continue to grow in 2016. It will benefit dramatically from real-time multi-variate testing as marketers will be able to fine-tune creative and copy automatically.

Programmatic media will grow significant shares over other digital media and clients will be more in control on how and where the money is spent, lifting a critical barrier to adoption.

"Digital marketing offers invaluable opportunities to assess which element of a company’s strategy is working and which is not in real-time."

/ / What are the strategic steps you are taking to adapt to the emerging digital reality?

Our marketing strategy is completely hybrid. Businesses are increasingly relying on digital marketing to increase sales and make the brand relevant. Most of the big companies have opted for digital marketing campaigns and seen big successes. All brands are trying to do a better job of tracking the return on investment (roi) for their marketing efforts. Digital marketing campaigns are no different. There is a thin line between online and offline which is blurred–and in some ways, have disappeared entirely–digital marketing has evolved into a much larger, and much more exciting space. Now, for any live event we can have more people-reach than ever before. And just as offline events can drive social chatter, digital community insights can inspire real-life promotions.

Digital campaigns create an environment in which the consumers are moved to share what they’re experiencing, feeling, seeing or touching –often via their smartphone or tablet devices. Thus, effective digital efforts today are mobile by design. It’s important to note that digital will continue to grow into its own identity. Forget all the trend words—buzz marketing, engagement marketing, impact marketing, digital marketing —hybrid marketing is the term marketers will adopt in 2016.

/ / What are the challenges you are facing, in terms of people, skill sets, and tech know-how?

The younger sets of employees we have are really tech savvy. They are heavy users of social media and are always connected. It is easier for them to adopt new technology and tools which a company deploys. Due to their regular interaction with gadgets and the internet they come with a lot of tech know-how. We also have training and workshops for employees to improve and upgrade their technical knowledge. It is important for every employee to be equipped to handle the digital revolution and accept newer and more efficient technologies. We are also encouraging company spokespersons to use social media like facebook and twitter to have regular engagement with external stakeholders

/ / From B2B marketing perspective, what do you see becoming strategically critical in the coming year: mobile, social media, big data, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, etc.?

We are looking forward to employing or activating different channels to see how we can get our range of products displayed, how brand values can be portrayed, how to use social/digital media as a powerful platform for addressing the causes of grievance of customers within a short time span. Social media and mobile marketing play a very important role in today’s life. Even in b2b marketing, we are still addressing an individual like an it head, cio or cxo. Hence a lot of consumer marketing tactics are relevant even in b2b space.

Our social media strategy is not confined to simply making it a means of promoting a product, it goes beyond that. It covers different aspects of support, experience with the brand and also increase the potential of refining our products.

Mobile advertising has quickly evolved from simplified sms campaigns, to video, interactive, and experiential campaigns. In today’s marketing environment, marketers must consider all formats when crafting a mobile campaign. Almost all of our b2b target audiences are heavily engaged on their mobile devices. It is important to reach this audience through effective targeting and right positioning of our products and solutions and mobile advertising goes a long way in reaching them.

In our experience, we have found that these platforms have helped us to respond much faster as it cuts through the clutter and brings about an immediate change in the consumer’s mindset based on the experience he gets from the service delivered by acer.

"Digital has turned the marketing world upside down by keeping things simple and getting to the root of the matter."

/ /  Is the digital reality significantly different between b2b and b2c markets?

The categories of b2b and b2c have fallen by the wayside, largely without any fanfare. It was assumed that selling to corporate accounts involved larger deals and longer sales cycles. It was sales and marketing’s job to generate leads, build the pipeline and grow relationships. Conversely, selling to consumers was believed to be more transactional in nature, with shorter sales cycles loaded with impulse purchases. Consumer marketing was less about relationships but a higher focus on loyalty to the brand.

These separate tracks led to complicated messaging and convoluted buying paths as marketers started to plan different tactics and strategies to address each segment. So much time wasted. This artificial dueling banjos approach of the past ignored that both groups were simply buyers. There was always a common denominator. Simple is smart. Here are some universal truths about all buyers:

# buyers want to feel like they are in control of the buying process

# buyers seek the best information

# buyers want transparency

Digital has turned the marketing world upside down by keeping things simple and getting to the root of the matter. Digital has put all buyers in control of the buying process. Information is instantly available.

Thoughts about the digital world which will drive roi and revenue without false dichotomies:

• All sales start with a personal connection. It’s important to be unique and personal with customers so you stand out amongst the noise and your competitors online.
• Create easy access to information that is simple to understand and easy to use, so that buyers can research and inform themselves. If they stay on your digital properties, you can convert them to revenue.
• Invest time and money to get smart on what your customers actually care about.
• Figure out how to be immediately responsive wherever you exist. Customers have always had a choice, but now that choice is seconds away on their phone.