DIGITAL MARKETING

Article Review – CIA I Component 1

ADHYA CHANDAK
1620240
6BBA-B
Topic - Digital Marketing and the Financial sector (Rural & Urban)

Article - Impact of digital marketing on financial inclusion and stability

Introduction

India’s urban-rural internet divide is set to come to an end soon. According to a Boston
Consulting Group report, by 2020, 50% of India’s internet users will be from rural areas.
Currently, rural India contributes to over 60% of the country’s GDP and with the
staggering increase in internet usage, there is expected to be a significant uptick in digital
commerce. But are rural Indians ready to go digital? Apparently, yes.

According to Accenture Rural Marketing Research, 50% of respondents expressed their

willingness to use digital channels, while 38% say they could be motivated if they were
trained to use digital media. It’s clear that banks cannot afford to ignore the digital
opportunity that rural India presents. Digital can play a pivotal role in helping banks
identify the needs and pain points of rural customers to provide them with
products/services when, where, and how they want.

Digital literacy rates in rural India are witnessing a strong uptick due to government-
driven program such as PMGDISHA that are aimed at imparting digital literacy to rural
citizens. Under the scheme, candidates will be trained on the use of computers,
smartphones and tablets for sending and receiving emails and browsing the Internet. This
makes email marketing a must-use channel for banks looking to strengthen their rural
operations. Direct mailers targeted at educating the rural population about basic financial
services, their usage, and benefits can play a huge role in encouraging adoption of digital
finance. Interactive videos that show how to operate an ATM, make a deposit, etc. can
also be embedded in emails to drive greater information retention. It’s important to design
and optimise email campaigns for mobile as smartphones are most commonly used by the
Indian rural population to access digital media.

India’s rural population is nearly 2X that of urban. With development picking up speed
in rural India, coupled with increase in rural purchasing power, this consumer segment
has a tremendous potential to bloom into a robust commercial opportunity. But rural
customers are a heterogeneous lot with varying needs and understanding of digital media.
Effective digital marketing strategies should focus on right sizing and customer
segmentation to improve ROI of marketing campaigns. As rural marketing is largely
mobile-driven, optimising advertising campaigns for mobile search, local languages,
responsive layout, easy navigation, and user-friendly content should be key focal points.
Brands should also focus on promoting other value-added services such as weather data
and prices of commodities that matter to rural folks. ICICI bank’s Mera iMobile, India’s
first mobile banking app specifically designed for rural customers, provides 135 banking
services in over 11 Indian languages, in addition to value-added information such as
mandiprices.

Rural India has surpassed its urban counterpart in terms of growth in social media usage
– rural regions witnessed 100% growth in the recent past, compared to 35% in urban
areas. Social media marketing is therefore critical to banks in deepening customer connect
by projecting a human image. Monitoring real time social media conversations and
leveraging techniques such as sentiment analysis can help marketers identify gaps and
pain points of rural population and devise personalised campaigns to address
them. Bank’s hugely popular Digital Diya campaign that was promoted aggressively
through its website and social media properties around Diwali 2017 was an excellent
move in this direction. The campaign aimed to impart financial literacy to 50 villages by
highlighting the lives of India’s rural population. For every digital diya lit by visiting
YES bank’s website, the bank contributed an equal amount of funds towards spreading
digitalfinancialliteracy.

Analysis

Financial companies are slow to adapt the Digital Marketing change. There are numerous
insurance companies and banks following the set ways to do things. This is because initiating
any action will require a lengthy process and more time. Therefore, many companies drop the
idea of integrating Digital Marketing to their strategies. So, the current scenario is they are way
behind the ones which are digitally equipped.
As the digital world is growing faster every day, new technical advancements mean that all
companies that are reliant on customer retention, acquisition, and developing great customer
relationships need to keep up. This is especially useful for financial institutions which are
heavily dependent on retention rates and referrals.

Since the nature of financial institutions is rigid, they can be unwilling to change but the fact
is that companies that adapt to these changes will thrive and those that don’t will have to fight
for survival

Undoubtedly, the availability of potential customers online is more than anywhere else. With
the help of online discussions of the prospects on social media forums or network, you can
know which prospects are more likely to respond or reply to your offer and then you can target
them as per the data available.

The knowledge of what clients think of products and services is very crucial for surviving in
the market. One can definitely take surveys but traditional marketing research is a gone thing
now! With the growth of social media, customers post numerous feedbacks, opinions, and
reviews about your products and services, without even being asked to do so. Therefore, digital
marketing is an important aspect in understanding the views and sentiments of your company.
This data could later be used by businesses to design a new product and improve their current
services.

The importance of Digital Marketing is rising in the financial services industry and is bound to
rise. In the past, the finance industry has been painfully slow in adapting to the changes of
digital marketing. But with clients moving to online platforms to cater their needs of banking
and finance, many finance companies are now changing their online behaviour.

The following digital marketing trends area shaping the finance industry:

1. A Strong Online Presence

An engaging and consistent social conversation can help elevate the customer experience. For
that, you need to get your basics right. There should be a clear approach to digital experience
online. They should take advantage of data insights to enable real-time contextual relevancy,
accelerate the customer journey, and contribute to the community. Social media is one the best
places to connect with audiences in new, educational, and personalized ways.
2. Understanding of Regulations

Finance, being one of the most regulated industries in the world, the digitization can pose risks
in terms of legal threats and data security. Therefore, it is important for banks to set up teams
to keep informed on policies and use the channels wisely to minimize risks. For instance,
finance industries can use these channels exclusively for managing social media, customer
queries compliantly alongside resolving issues on social media platforms and building genuine
engagement. The only way is to look ahead to technology advances and future innovations to
strengthen security and regulation compliance digitally.

3. Time for Customer Personalization

In order to be ‘front of mind’ with customers, the finance industry is avoiding the impersonal
feel and the approach is to have a friendlier connect with their customers via social media.
Banks and finance companies can use digital data to monitor clients and market trends to
provide personalized, value-driven, and tailored customer services to each individual client.
Adopting such a measure helps the finance industry to listen to their audience and engage with
them in meaningful two-way conversations.

4. Mobile loving apps

To stand out, transforming a customer experience online will be the guiding force. The
tremendous growth in mobile use and the accessibility of social media via smartphones are
providing banks and other financial services with an opportunity to connect with their clients.
Therefore, if you are belonging to finance industry and still haven’t invested in mobile friendly
apps, then start doing! This will make it easy for clients to conduct banking transactions without
any hassle. These key Digital Marketing Trends will help finance industry with a continuous
rollout of mobile technologies to create deeper, interactive, and real-world engagement with
clients.

Conclusion

Interaction with a customer has the potential to be either an opportunity for you to earn
customer loyalty or your competition to sneak in and capture customer’s interest. Studies show
that customers are buying more products and services from financial companies but not
essentially from their current providers. 39% of the consumers cite competitive pricing, 34%
of quality customer service, and 32% of the customers quoted good value for their money as
the key drivers behind switching to another financial institution.

In conclusion, the finance industry has to take the lead to earn and retain customer loyalty. To
do that, they need to give excellent service, for instance, prompt resolution of any issues, along
with substantial value. This definitely doesn’t imply that your products have to be cheaper than
your competitors. But it means that your clients should have the feel that they are getting a lot
of other benefits out of their relationship with you when compared with competitors.

Since content is the primary driver of basically everything around us, content marketing is one
of the easiest ways for the finance industry to deliver more value to consumers.

. The finance industry can adopt high volume, low production cost video that can significantly
boost a firm’s social marketing success. Given the fact that online video is effective and
searchable, therefore, with the right video content, firms can leverage their marketing analytics
to target the right customers with the right video message.

References

 K.Ozil, P. (2017). Impact of digital finance on financial inclusion and stability.

 Singh, S. (2018). IMPACT OF DIGITAL MARKETING ON INDIAN RURAL

BANKING .