Digital continues to bring to marketers more questions than answers. Here I would like to share a set of holistic insights on Digital that comes from an academic research.

1. Higher effectiveness of consumer generated vs company created content.

“Online community participation enhances loyalty and influences new product adaptation. Communication originating in online communities has more pronounced long-term effects than firm-initiated communication” (Yadav and Pavlou, 2014).

“Customer-initiated communication is significantly more effective than firm-initiated communication for acquiring and retaining customers” (Yadav and Pavlou, 2014).

2. Personalization of the digital content is a core.

“Personalization of e-mail significantly increases perceived interactivity and clicks rates up to 62%” (Yadav and Pavlou, 2014).

3. Lower consumers price sensitivity in eCommerce vs offline stores.

“Buyers at online stores are less price sensitive than those at offline stores” (Yadav and Pavlou, 2014).

4. Building loyalty in Digital is more fruitful than in offline.

“… [there is a] strong evidence of higher brand loyalty for online purchases compared to online” (Danaher, Wilson and Davis, 2003).

“Loyalty-based price promotions are more effective in online versus offline contexts” (Yadav and Pavlou, 2014).

5. Price promotions in Digital don’t lead to strong consumers loyalty.

“Customers acquired with online price promotions make shorter-term commitments, whereas those acquired with informational e-mails or search engine ads lead to longer-term commitments (Yadav and Pavlou, 2014).

6. Social Listening can provide critical consumer insights to companies.

“Reviews, particularly their dispersion across heterogeneous customer groups, are predictive of new product success or failure” (Yadav and Pavlou, 2014).

“Negative word-of-mouth behaviors are motivated primarily by a desire to address a perceived injustice” (Yadav and Pavlou, 2014).

Overall, marketers can benefit from these insights by focusing on: 1) Digital activities that will trigger consumers to generate content; 2) creative ways to build personalized consumer content; 3) creation of strong price mix between on-line and offline trade channels; 4) enhanced loyalty programs specifically created for Digital channel; 5) Social Listening programs for new product launches and product/brand ‘always on’ monitoring.

Source: https:// aimia. worldsecuresystems. com/ BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=315717

Sources: 1. Danaher, P.J., Wilson, I.W., Davis, R.A. (2003). A Comparison of Online and Offline Consumer Brand Loyalty. Marketing Science, 22 (4), pp. 461-476; 2. Yadav, M.S., Pavlou, P.A. (2014). Marketing in Computer-Mediated Environments: Research Synthesis and New Directions. Journal of Marketing, 78, pp. 20-40.