Digital Transformation in Marketing: Trends & Technologies in '24

With users getting used to the personalized and timely services provided by brands like Google, Apple and Netflix, businesses need to respond to changing customer expectations to remain relevant in the market. Leveraging digital technologies and embarking on a digital transformation in marketing strategies is how businesses can achieve this.

For example, personalized marketing is a must. Accenture reports that 91% of consumers are more likely to prefer brands that recognize, remember, and provide relevant offers and recommendations. However, customers are also increasingly worried about their data privacy so brands must not only provide amazing service but also ensure that customers’ data is safe and used only in ways that are approved by the customer.

What does digital transformation mean for marketing?

Digital transformation in marketing means integrating digital technologies into marketing processes to enhance the sales of products, goods, and services.

Digital transformation in marketing focuses on

• understanding the customer better,
• personalized, data-driven marketing: engaging with the right customers at the right channel at the right time with the right message and offer,
• enhancing customer experience with personalized recommendations as well as fast and effective services

Why is digital transformation in marketing important now?

Embracing digital technologies in marketing is important because of increased competition and the need for more data-driven marketing strategies considering the size of data gathered from customers.

• Increased competition: Regardless of industry, consumers have more options and better means to access information about products or services than past. This makes businesses to compete not only with their products or services but also with the experience they provide to their customers. Digital technologies deliver businesses the necessary tools to provide a personalized and seamless experience to their audience.
• Rise of data-driven marketing: Companies collect large amounts of customer data from direct feedbacks, purchase histories, websites, mobile apps, or social media. Digital technologies and analytical tools enable businesses to gain insight about their customers’ behavior and to develop marketing strategies accordingly.

What are the key technologies and trends enabling digital transformation in marketing?

Understanding customers

Customer analytics

Customer analytics, or customer intelligence, is the process of collecting and analyzing customer data to gain insights about customer behavior. Customer analytics enables businesses to analyze customer interactions to enhance customer journeys.

Customer data platforms

Given the various technologies collecting customer data like web and app analytics, CRM etc., there is a need to centralize data to ensure ease of analytics and to easily enforce data privacy requirements. CDPs help companies manage customer data in a compliant manner.

Data management platforms

First party data on customers in customer data platforms can be enriched with data management platforms that pull more data on customers from 2nd and 3rd parties.

Marketing automation

The wealth of marketing systems in use, ambitious and urgent goals of corporations lead to a significant amount of marketing work. There are a wealth of technologies that help automate this work. For more, feel free to read our article on marketing automation.

Personalized, data driven marketing

Content intelligence

Content intelligence enables companies to increase the effectiveness of their content by analyzing texts, images, and videos and providing insights with the help of artificial intelligence.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) refers to the process of increasing the rate of customers who perform specific actions that are desirable for the business. Companies can leverage machine learning to increase the efficiency of CRO methods such as A/B testing.

Data-driven Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing website traffic through search results. AI applications in SEO can improve the accuracy and performance of SEO strategies for marketing.

Voice Search Optimization

According to forecasts, half of the UK households are going to own a voice-enabled device and voice transactions are expected to worth £3.5 billion by 2022. Optimizing for voice search is also going to be an indispensable part of digital marketing strategies.

Dynamic pricing

Dynamic pricing enables companies to set personalized prices according to customer behavior. AI-based dynamic pricing allows businesses to rapidly respond to demand fluctuations and set more precise price levels.

Enhanced customer experiences

Augmented reality

Using AR, businesses can let their customers try products before purchasing. For more, check out our article on AR applications that leverage AI.

Chatbots

Chatbots can be used as digital marketers and 24/7 customer support agents that interact with customers without human intervention, provide answers, guide them during their purchasing process, and collect information about their experience.

What are some case studies?

Unilever

Unilever, one of the biggest companies in the consumer packaged goods industry, built its own customer database using online customer registrations, third-party sites, and data from store loyalty cards instead of buying customer data from market research companies. They eventually gathered more than 900 million anonymized customer data records which they leverage for their marketing strategies. For instance, they directed their marketing efforts to relevant customers for Baby Dove in India and the cost for its marketing was €100k per month where the cost of traditional marketing strategies would typically be €500k/month.

BabyCenter

BabyCenter is a website that provides content to soon-to-be parents and helps them through their pregnancy in a personal way. The website’s revenue model is based on advertisements and an affiliate sales program. They used a Facebook Messenger chatbot to drive traffic to their website and provide an alternative content delivery system. According to the developer, chatbot implementation increased engagement by a staggering 14x compared to the email campaign.

For more on digital transformation, feel free to check our other articles on topic:

• Customer Experience Digital Transformation
• Digital Transformation in Retail

You can also check our data-driven, sortable/filterable list of digital transformation consultant companies. If you need help in digital transformation for your business, we can help you get started: