The biggest takeaway for marketers is that understanding customers’ digital behavior is a key tenet of a successful marketing strategy.
Marketers are at the forefront of emerging technologies, constantly learning how to integrate the latest advancements into their marketing strategies. In the early dot com days, they had to create websites for brands, and in Web 2.0, they had to leverage user-generated content alongside digital marketing. With the era of Web 3.0 dawning upon us, we’re seeing an increasing number of marketers pivoting towards digital strategies. In order to thrive in a post-pandemic world, the best marketers will need to stay ahead of the curve. More than ever, they will need to tap on the latest technologies to make digital products the centerpiece of their marketing strategies.
This shift towards digitization is twofold. First, the market as a whole is moving towards digitization. IDC estimates that over 500 million new cloud-native products will be developed by 2023. In Asia Pacific (APAC), it is predicted that at least 65% of its GDP will be digitalized by the end of 2022. Second, based on data from Amplitude’s own platform, people are using digital products more than ever. The future is clear – consumers want and will move towards digital products.
The team at Amplitude analyzed these recent trends and behaviors to see how it impacted product usage around the world. Leveraging insights from more than 6,000 digital products, we were able to gain a deeper understanding on the fastest growing and most engaging products on the market today. These findings reveal fascinating insights that marketers can use to help them better plan and execute their strategies in this new era of marketing.
Product data is king
There is a common misconception that website analytics are a sufficient means to leverage data and understand how customers think and behave. The truth is, analytics have come a long way since first gaining mainstream popularity. Today, every click and every user path by a customer can be used to determine an outcome. A free trial may lead to a subscription and the use of a social sharing feature may lead to increased spending. Today’s marketers need to conduct deeper-level analytics on the product itself and understand which promotions, user paths, or experiences will lead to the desired outcome.
With the democratization of data, marketers now have access to types of product insights they would not have otherwise have had even five years ago. According to our data, marketers today are actually leveraging product data more than data scientists, and we expect this trend to continue to grow as data becomes more accessible. Glints is a prime example of how organizations can leverage data. The online talent recruitment and career discovery platform has managed to grow its number of active users by more than 100% year-over-year by leveraging data to improve its product and retention strategies, and is now one of the five next hottest products in the APAC region.
Personalize the customer experience with different touchpoints
The societal shifts brought about by the pandemic meant that every aspect of life had to be digitized. Our data shows that the daily active use of digital products globally has grown 54% since January 2020. Southeast Asia alone added 60 million new consumers who have used a new digital service since the pandemic started, and they are here to stay.
That said, ensuring a pleasant and personalized customer experience is still paramount. While digital products are permeating every aspect of our lives, not everyone welcomes this change. There is an emerging group of digital nay-sayers, who don’t want to look at menus on their phone or conduct doctors’ appointments virtually. These customers crave the personal, white glove service that you can’t get from many digital products. Thus, marketers must look for opportunities to showcase not only their technology, but their human touch. For example, CoinDCX promotes its 24/7 customer support and its investor discussion boards as a way to bring a community element to its technology product. And it is working – CoinDCX is used by more than 10 million users.
Ultimately, people want the best of both worlds. They want technology that is convenient and easy-to-use, and they want a human available to answer their questions and make them feel at ease. This means marketers need to evolve the way they think about their products and the way they promote.
Customer behavioral differences in APAC
Marketers also need to consider how location and culture can impact consumer behavior and the types of products and messages that will resonate. For example, Koo, one of the top APAC apps in our analysis, provides users with the ability to connect and share media in 13 local languages. This is highly appealing for its primarily Indian customer base, but it may not be as valuable in countries with less language diversity. When thinking about international expansion, it will need to be strategic about where it goes next and how it describes its value to consumers.
When marketers understand how customers across different geographical locations behave, it puts them in a better position to build highly effective marketing strategies and product experiences. Product data is key to pulling this off. Disney+ Hotstar, an international streaming service acquired by Disney in 2019, is one example of an organization who went about this the right way. The service was popular in India with communities in Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States, but the team eyed further expansion. Using product data, they improved their user acquisition and retention strategy in order to successfully expand into new markets including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
Marketers need to remain nimble and abreast on industry trends to create excellent customer experiences. The biggest takeaway for marketers is that understanding customers’ digital behavior is a key tenet of a successful marketing strategy. It is only with an excellent customer experience, can an organization keep its customers engaged and loyal.
