Digital marketing: Influence on consumer behaviour & its future

Ever since we were introduced to the internet in the 90s, the way we do our daily tasks have drastically changed as we now can do almost everything with our phones. Today, digital marketing has become a pivotal part of marketing as it plays a role in creating brand awareness, customer engagement, customer acquisition and product development. Digital marketing has changed the way brands reach their target customers based on their social media followings, likes and recent browser history.

However, since almost every new brand are implementing the same method of marketing, consumers today are becoming more selective of the brands they choose. Consumers want persistent, personalized messaging that reads the minds of the consumers, giving them what they want at the right place and the right time. Based on a Daymon Worldwide study on millennials view brand loyalty, most millennials stated that they are likely to buy anything they feel like buying at the time, regardless of the brand. These days consumers are emphasizing on the post purchase experience. They strive for value added offers such as free returns, warranties or after sales services like product review requests. With bill paying and food ordering being easily done on the phone, consumers are demanded for the utmost convenience by providing real time delivery notifications.

The consumers of today are demanding more from brands in order for them to make a purchase. They turn away from anything that looks like marketing and have become irritable towards irrelevant brand content and marketing messages. Consumers appreciate a good brand experience or brand story as it allows them to relate to a brand better. Contrary to that, if the experience or product wasn't very favourable, they are often very upfront about their opinions and could potentially harm a brand's image. Nowadays, consumers purchasing decision lies on the influences of their friends or even public figures they look up to such as social media influencers, Youtubers and bloggers.

So what is the future of digital marketing?

In the future, consumer data insights can be more detailed and could be used in digital marketing to create even more personalized and relevant, giving them what they want, when they want to see it. As the technology now might some times be off and I could be getting an ad for something I searched 2 weeks ago. Artificial Intelligence will also be better in allowing consumers to snap and find what they want, thus inquire through an automated shopping assistant. Lastly, storytelling will constantly be the success in a great digital marketing campaign as content that can relate to consumers are content that sells.