a step shared by most enterprises who engage in digital marketing games. Approaches of reaching consumers have changed in the digital age, as there were no augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), social media, applications, searching, intelligent recommendation, online-to-offline (O2O) commerce or DSP in the pre-digital age. How to reach consumers based on user profiles will be discussed at length in this section.
• Relationship is the third step. It should continue as a follow-up of Reach, because we found that with only the first two Rs, the efficacy of digital marketing cannot be guaranteed, due to the fact that these two only address the problem of targeting and reaching but leave the question of how to transfer client assets unanswered. The key is whether your digital marketing “sets up the basis of continuous trading.” Many community groups can ensure that enterprises have direct in-depth connection, interaction and engagement with clients in the scenario of “disintermediation.” This is also the currently proposed Enterprise 2.0 and “Marketing 4.0: helping clients with self-fulfillment” pointed out by Philip Kotler during the Tokyo conference.
• Return is the fourth and last step. It addresses the question that “marketing is not only an investment but also yields direct returns.” Many enterprises have set up communities and attracted brand fans, but how to cash in on these resources is the issue to be addressed in this chapter. We propose many operational frameworks to cash in on client assets like commercializing community membership and community values, media coverage of community interests, channelizing community members and marketing community trust.
The above 4Rs form a cycle of operation which is good for CEOs and CMOs to understand, apply, implement and give feedback. On the basis of the 4Rs, we discuss the supporting system of digital marketing in Chapter 3. We believe that digital marketing should embrace data, embrace big data and apply big data to make marketing decisions. For example, for real estate and retailing, consumers’ offline behaviors can be tracked by SDK; what apps have been downloaded in clients’ cell phones can be known by SDK; users can be profiled by modeling and machine learning. Media channels were purchased in the past, but now, thanks to disintermediation, they can be independently set up and launched by a person. Therefore, “content” becomes unprecedentedly important, and “content marketing” becomes another hot topic. We say in China that “a good content editor equals 1,000 salespersons”. Therefore, we would discuss how to undertake “content marketing” in this chapter. Additionally, “disintermediation” and “decentralization” make organizations change. Platform organization and starfish organizations start to emerge. How to adapt to the strategic and organizational changes at the company level and how to maintain resilience and keep “unified will” are discussed in Chapter 9. Last but not least, all marketing investment cannot be made without key performance indicators (KPI) or return on investment (ROI). How to measure and evaluate these components has been an issue. The digital era turns “consumer behaviors into bits”. The dimensions that could not be measured in the past can now be measured. However, evaluation has to be coordinated with strategy, which is discussed in Chapter 10 of this book.
Contents
Chapter 1: Marketing Environment in the Digital Transformation
This is an era when the world embraces digitalization. We have more access to the Internet, share more information online and are more likely to obtain information from the Internet. We switch our life to online activities, like social interactions and shopping, as if we were digital mammals. Against such a background, marketing digitalization is an inevitable trend. We need to know the digitized marketing environment, understand the behavioral characteristics of consumers and learn from leading digital marketing enterprises. We also need to evaluate the maturity of the current digital marketing strategies. This is the first step for us to carry out digital reform.
○ Digital Marketing Layout of Leading Enterprises
○ Auditing the Maturity of the Corporate Digitalization
○ Redefining “Digital Marketing”
Chapter 2: Upgrading Digital Marketing Strategy: Strategic Platform for Digital Marketing
Many CEOs and CMOs ask the following questions: How is marketing strategy in the digital era different from that in traditional times? What has changed in each step of a marketing strategy in the digital era and what has been preserved? Only by starting with the mindset and framework and thinking as that of a CEO and CMO can we make good topdown designs and plans. We need to know the nature of marketing, the most prominent features of marketing in the digital era, the latest developments in segmentation, target market, position and brand strategy with digital technologies and the strategic platform of digital marketing established as such development takes place.
○ Evolution of Marketing: From Marketing 1.0 to Marketing 4.0
○ Upgrading the Framework of Marketing Management
○ Upgrading Marketing Research in the Digital Era
○ Upgrading the Marketing Strategy STP in the Digital Era
○ Upgrading Product Strategy in the Digital Era
