By Diana Patricia Porto and Andres Esteban Marin-Marin
The massification of the Internet and the use and appropriation of technological communication tools has modified people’s habits, changes that are evident in the exponential dynamics of society, which generates a close relationship between the company and its customers.
Customers move faster than corporate strategies. Audience needs are multiple and they consume differently. Dynamics change in the blink of an eye.
For this reason, companies are forced to understand the contexts and move at the pace of their audiences.
Today’s competition is extreme, but necessary. Not only is the implementation of global strategies inevitable, but the model must also be scalable and applicable to other platforms, audiences, environments and cultures.
Little by little, companies have understood that there is a need: to design and implement marketing and positioning strategies for electronic commerce.
It is not an option but a necessity for productive growth. Organizations must adopt technological tools that make a difference in every process (inputs and outputs) of marketing products, services and solutions.
Using mobile applications, email, social networks, e-commerce, chats, forums, instant messaging, websites and other tools, screens, media, channels and platforms that make up the digital media ecosystem, companies try to create strategies to achieve adequate interaction with their customers.
For example, social networks have become “big trucks” of information that enable the encounter between prosumers and the divergent market according to preferences, desires or tastes.
This large flow of customers and information has led companies to adopt strategies that enchant and captivate customers through relational marketing , which seeks, through greater interaction with its customers, to maintain personalized relationships with them, allowing them to know their tastes and preferences in order to, in this way, send them offers that can satisfy their current or potential needs.
Companies must take advantage of the divergence of technological tools to establish permanent communication with their audiences, in order to obtain useful information for the market, customer loyalty or the possibility of doing new business.
Social media has transformed the business world.
This has allowed the company to consolidate omnidirectional communication with customers.
Companies must set clear objectives when creating a presence on the web. One of them is to create trust and credibility in their clients . It is not just about creating content for the sake of creating it, it is essential to add value or deliver useful messages to solve needs.
People have new needs: those of time and space. For this reason, companies have changed many of their procedures and services, perhaps due to policies associated with the optimization of resources for clients (internal and external).
For Ossa (2012), the first thing a company must understand, regardless of its purpose on the network, is to understand that there are three steps for a good commercial strategy: publication, interaction and conversion.
Publishing is sending coherent messages to be processed by users. After this, interaction is expected, which is essential to understand their needs and perceptions. Finally, there is conversion, which allows standardizing and improving applications. (Ossa, 2012)
Ossa (2012) also comments that «when the above is understood, it is when the best mechanisms can be selected and an appropriate strategy can be designed to achieve increased interaction in a digital medium.»
For Vergara (2011), the fact that a company «is on the web and social networks does not guarantee its success, but not being there relegates it to a concept as important as the virtual one (…). Its name is already being heard simply for the fact of being in the virtual world.»
Personalization, the secret to generating great impact
Within the current needs, in the face of a dynamic and changing market, it is essential to make appropriate use of individual customer information, which allows for the personalization of the development of complete tool packages appropriate to each situation, which must use clear, direct and concise language and, in the case of needing additional information, place it in other levels of the structure for understanding.
Likewise, personalization also has a lot to do with segmentation, usability and web accessibility , aspects that make each client unique.
We should not behave in the network differently from the real world, corresponding to the clients’ own languages. We must be aware that behind every machine there is a person. (Vergara, 2011)
Therefore, the language has to be the same in all scenarios (real and virtual), in accordance with its mission, since when the client meets the company in the real world, he will have no problem knowing that it is the same one.
Advertising and public relations
In these same scenarios, strategies can be generated that allow marketing and a good image of the clients to be achieved. «The needs of the public must be detected, and these needs are detected to the extent that I am in permanent contact with the users, which allows an interactivity that leads me to know and identify what is behind each of the comments» (Ossa, 2012).
However, it is important to address other issues to generate participation. The network arises from three needs:
- Entertainment (creating a friendly relationship between the brand and the user).
- Information (extension of the content provided covering topics related to the brand, but coinciding in interest).
- Socializing (you will meet other visitors to talk to or exchange opinions with).
However, it is not only necessary to be there, but if the goal is to use the web as a commercial tool, it is important that brands are easily found . This is where the importance of search engines lies: achieving the positioning of the company through campaigns, whether through pay per click (PPC) or Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
However, we cannot forget that interaction is the key moment to get to know the customer.
Fluid and positive dialogues must be established to allow the focus of strategies to be adjusted.
Online transactions
The digital ecosystem can represent a set of scenarios suitable for achieving business objectives. However, the implementation of transactional elements on the web was born in the 1990s.
Direct sales, auctions or transactions that customers can carry out from websites or mobile applications, loyalty and negotiation (conflict resolution) are essential objectives in the design of content marketing campaigns and strategies.
Fleming (2000) mentions the existence of four fundamental axes for the implementation of transactional digital platforms, which provide the client with the possibility of comfort and value:
- Flow: This is related to the mental state in which the user immerses himself in a website full of interaction and added value.
- Functionality: the navigability and usability of the site where the application or content is located. It also relates to an interface that is attractive, useful and clear for the audience.
- Interaction ( feedback ): constant and fluid dialogue, which allows us to get to know the client and build a relationship based on their needs and personalization.
- Loyalty: which means that the customer stays and remains forever. Positive interaction is the key.
By way of conclusions
Therefore, companies must incorporate digital advertising, relationship and e-commerce strategies for the following reasons:
- The growth of the web: the widespread use of broadband has allowed the growth of web audiences to continue. In addition, there is no doubt that there is an increase in the use of “social” applications on mobile devices.
- Great social coverage: the network allows content to be extended to a large number of people and enables the use of new technologies.
- Ease of segmentation: the tools are suitable for rapid segmentation of customers, through interest groups, taste pages and frequent places, among others.
- The high contribution to the company’s branding : the brand, when in the right places, can have an impact depending on the product or service.
- Transparency, measurement and monetization: It is economical to track activities. They can be monitored at low cost and in real time.
- Informational power: the web allows customers to become familiar with products and services. In addition, customers can make decisions at the time of purchasing them.
- Creative and democratic environment: an open medium with constant development of new applications.
- Interaction and co-creation: omnidirectional communication channel, which allows us to look beyond and continuously improve. The client actively participates.
- Its low cost: Compared to other media, the web allows you to reach other audiences with greater customer reach.
- Global coverage: our brand goes from being local to having a global impact (scalability).