By Paul Sigaloff
India’s festive season has snowballed into a massive opportunity for digital marketers as the action shifts online. That’s over 280 million ‘digitally-influenced’ shoppers filling their carts through a season with serious staying power — from Durga Puja going all the way to Christmas and New Year.
Yet, with so many brands competing for attention in a crowded marketplace, rising prices and greater choice all around, the fear of missing out just became very real for brands. But what if you could make FOMO work for you, to build smarter strategies? Think FOMO with a marketing twist — frictionless omnichannel, measurement and overall-awesome — to seize the season.
Frictionless omnichannel: McKinsey research shows Gen Z consumers don’t even think in terms of traditional channel boundaries anymore.
How do you turn this into a Made-for-India opportunity? Think strategically omnichannel. Create a connected, personalised experience that fits into how people live their lives and shop. Seamlessly tying together experiences that are relevant, useful and fun in the moment for shoppers — and — doing this across channels, screens and locations will amplify results.
Measurement (and metrics that matter): The right DSP can open up valuable insights across omnichannel touchpoints for accurate path-to-conversion reporting, effectively tracking how channels work together to drive the best results. Fine-tune your planning by relying on efficient in-flight sales analysis tools to log campaign performance and conversions during live campaigns more accurately.
Especially during a dynamic shopping season, the flexibility and agility to adjust creative, change supply targeting and optimise inventory in near real-time, across channels is invaluable. The right measurement solutions can make validating the quality of connections efficient, steering smarter decisions that drive return on advertising spend.
Overall-awesome: What shoppers want since the pandemic, inflation and everything awful in between are great discounts and deals to save money, get more for less; relevant, no-hassle experiences; and exciting, immersive shopping.
Which brings us to, what should be on a marketer’s wishlist during festive seasons? Start with hard-working solutions as you work your way through the list above. Take advantage of personalised formats like dynamic product ads to retarget consumers who have shown a high intent of buying a product in the past — especially when it’s gift-wrapped and marked down in a festive sale.
Finally, it will pay to wow and surprise shoppers at every turn. Augmented reality, try-before-you-buy shopping and 360 views of products are par for the course, especially for digital natives, and India is brimming with Gen Z shoppers. Shopping experiences need to inspire and excite like never before — innovative campaigns, interactive games, immersive content and great deals, all wrapped in a seamless journey from discovery to purchase.
The author is VP & head of Apac, Yahoo
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