Five important digital marketing trends for SA retailers

2021 was an interesting year for marketing — more businesses turned to digital to reach new audiences and navigate the new normal as digital media consumption continued to increase, says Dr Ewoudt Cloete, senior manager at Digital Operations at Game. Cloete adds that retailers specifically were required to adapt and prioritise their digital strategies. This was to avoid falling behind in an extremely competitive and fast-moving environment. “We expect to see the world of digital marketing expand and grow to new heights, as this channel continues to cement itself as critical to the success of any brand or business.”

Here are five important digital marketing trends for South African retailers to watch out for in 2022:

1. The rise of the hybrid digital marketing team

In the past, many businesses have taken one of two approaches to their digital marketing — an in- house team or outsourced to an agency. Both of these approaches have their unique challenges. In- house marketing teams can be expensive and creativity can sometimes be stifled. The reality of working with an agency is that your resources are shared and the knowledge of your specific business and industry can take time to come about. The rise of the hybrid approach will be more deliberate, which will see South African businesses having an individual or small team who work directly with the agency to drive their digital marketing strategy.This approach presents the ideal setup to foster the right balance of creativity, affordability and understanding of the complexities of the business and industry in question.

2. The omnichannel customer experience

‘Omnichannel’ has been a buzzword for a couple of years now, when it comes to customer experience. But it has not necessarily come to full fruition locally yet through channels like digital marketing. More South African businesses will prioritise using their customer data to create a single view of their customer that allows them to market to them in the best possible way. This is as digital
marketing continues to establish itself as a critical part of the consumer path to purchase. Those retailers who are not aware of how their in-store customer behaves on digital channels, or vice versa, run the risk of losing market share and customer loyalty almost overnight. Planning for the online push is essential.

3. The Tik Tok trend

2021 saw the rise and rise of Tik Tok as a platform and it continues to expand, grow and evolve — making it challenging for brands to figure out how to establish their presence on the platform. Most local brands haven’t yet figured out how to do this in the right way yet — but that is set to change this year.Content is king on this platform and needs to feel native to the platform and original and entertaining to audiences, while still communicating brand messaging effectively. This can be a hard balance to strike.More brands will be strategising around the best ways to use the platform — be it through influencers or a brand presence — and prioritising their investment in this regard.

4. Monetising digital efforts

Specifically in South Africa, many brands are still using their digital channels for brand awareness

and have not yet figured out how to monetise and track the success of their digital approach. For any business that is serious about succeeding in the digital age, this is going to have to change this year. Businesses need to develop a sound SEO strategy.
Digital marketers need to be tracking the entire customer journey and have a detailed understanding of how each individual channel is contributing to e-commerce conversions. This is pivotal in ensuring digital marketing investment is geared towards achieving optimum results. Another important aspect of this is influencer relations and looking at new ways to track and monetise these brand relationships without it being to the detriment of originality.

5. The growing utilisation of dark social channels

Lastly, it is important that brands and businesses are paying attention to those channels where the user journey is encrypted — such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. There is certainly a growing trend locally where brands are investing in the creation of WhatsApp chatbots, but these are being used as customer experience channels rather than a platform for marketing and community building. This will change as brands look for new and innovative ways to reach their audiences.

In conclusion, customer-centricity is king in 2022 and digital marketing is driving this in many ways. For retailers, it is essential to have synchronicity between marketing, products, supply chain and e- commerce or brick and mortar stores in order to ensure customers are presented with the products, services and experiences they desire and expect. Segmentation is key to success!

QUESTION ONE [25] We expect to see the world of digital marketing expand and grow to new heights, as this channel continues to cement itself as critical to the success of any brand or business.” It is obvious from the article that retailers need to develop a strong online presence to ensure that they remain sustainable.

Explain what Paid, Owned, and Earned Media is and how a retailer can use these mediums to compete in the digital marketing space.

QUESTION TWO [25] For retailers, it is essential to have synchronicity between marketing, products, supply chain and e- commerce or brick and mortar stores in order to ensure customers are presented with the products, services and experiences they desire and expect. Segmentation is key to success! Discuss the 5 common forms of segmentation that retailers need to embark upon.

QUESTION THREE [20] “Those retailers who are not aware of how their in-store customer behaves on digital channels, or vice versa, run the risk of losing market share and customer loyalty almost overnight. Planning for the online push is essential.”
Discuss Vision-based versus Real-time planning and suggest which approach would be most appropriate for the online push strategy

Answers to Above Question on Digital Marketing

Answer 1: Digital marketing is one of the most important ways of promoting products and services by modern day businesses. There are different forms of digital marketing and the three important categories are paid, owned and earned media. Paid media is a form of marketing whereby the advertiser makes payment for doing advertising such as paid such ads, sponsored content etc.

Get answers of all the above questions on digital marketing from the best experts of Student Life Saviour in South Africa at affordable prices.