Marketing 4.0 – A Mix of Digital and Traditional Marketing
As digital technology continues to advance, individuals and communities alike will change the way they engage with digital media, hence calling for a change within the marketing approach used by businesses. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states that digital advancements play a large role in aiding countries in various sectors; such as health, social, education, and transportation to name a few.
However, with these advancements in mind, it also introduces more disruptive technologies within different sectors. Although disruptive technology may be seen as a way to force businesses to innovate and adapt to the change in trends, it may also be the downfall for many. Disruptive technology significantly alters the way businesses or industries operate, often forcing companies to change the way they approach their businesses to ensure they remain relevant or keep their market share.
Marketing 4.0 is a new marketing strategy based on Philip Kotler’s book “Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital” published in 2016, in collaboration with Hermawan Kartajaya and Iwan Setiawan. Marketing 4.0 addresses the changes of conceptual marketing strategies found in “Marketing 3.0 – From Products to Customers to the Human Spirit” that states businesses had been using a human-centric approach to marketing towards a new, digital age of marketing. In essence, Marketing 4.0 emphasizes the importance of both online and offline engagements between sellers and buyers and authenticity in brands, in order to find a balance between devices with human contact to strengthen customer engagement.
Kotler’s approach can be expanded into four main points:
- From “Segmentation and Targeting” to “Customer Community Confirmation”
Traditional marketing begins with segmentation, where the market is grouped based on geographic, demographic, or psychographic attributes to find the generalized characteristics to ensure that the marketing campaign will fit the markets’ preferences. Afterward, marketers focus on targeting which helps determine the potential and commercial attractiveness of each segment.
Through this marketing approach, the potential customers within the market have little to no input to the insight drawn from the marketers. Furthermore, without interconnectivity between the business and customers, customers have a higher chance of perceiving advertising as irrelevant or spam.
In order to avoid this, brands need to penetrate communities to ensure that their messages are accepted. To do this, brands are to enter their communities – not as a marketer or as a business – but as a friend with a genuine intention of understanding the customers’ needs and wants. By ensuring that the process of segmentation, targeting and positioning are transparent between the business and customer, the horizontal communication allows an exchange to be more effective.
- From “Brand Positioning and Differentiation” to “Brand Characters and Codes”
A brand is traditionally identified as a name, logo, or tagline to create an image that differentiates itself with other brands, as well as to represent the product or service and overall experience that a company delivers to its customers.
Positioning is a necessity to generate strong brand equity. Often defined by brands to create a core brand proposition, online value proposition, and brand development to name a few – it can be understood that a brand’s positioning is how a brand wants to be perceived by customers.
However, in this digital era of marketing, brands should be dynamic and flexible in the messages that it delivers and the way they deliver it. Although brands need to acclimate to the era, they still need to ensure that the messages they send are still consistent with the brand’s character and code.
- From “Selling the 4P’s” to “Commercializing the 4C’s”
The 4Ps are identified as Product, Place, Price, and Promotion. The 4Ps in marketing could be seen as a staple to help marketers capture and promote a brand or product’s unique selling point that sets it apart from competitors. Like segmentation and targeting, marketers in businesses set the 4Ps without direct feedback from customers – making it a one-way conversation between the two parties.
The emergence of a new marketing mix, the 4Cs – Co-creation, Communal Activation, Currency, and Conversation – allows an increase in customer participation in the new digital economy.
Co-creation (replacing Product) represents the increase in direct customer interaction and participation within the product development process.
Communal Activation (replacing Place) may also be understood by the Peer-to-Peer distribution model, thus allowing customers to gain access to the products and services they need in closer proximities.
Currency (replacing Price) helps companies to achieve optimized profitability while balancing supply and demand more efficiently.
Conversation (replacing Promotion) refers to the two-way interaction between customers that allow them to communicate their thoughts, opinions, and ratings regarding a brand or a product.
- From “Customer Service Processes” to “Collaborative Customer Care”
In custom services, it’s more common to stick to guidelines and standard operating procedures while attempting to address the issues customers are facing. Whereas collaborative customer care puts more emphasis on listening and responding to the customer’s unique needs and concerns, like finding a solution tailored to one person at a time – not a once size fits all, cookie-cutter solution.
In Conclusion
Marketing 4.0 is a blend of both traditional and digital marketing strategies meant to engage with customers more efficiently. By using both online and offline connections, marketers are able to identify and prepare to build better customer engagement and advocacy.
This article is obtained from various sources
Written by: Hasya Nila Petranto