In this era, it’s not the big fish that don’t eat the little fish and the fast fish that eat the slow fish, it’s the quick fish that are eaten by the quicker ones. Then what should we do to a further speed up? SCB is ready to walk alongside SMEs in the digital age to inspire their thoughts, upgrade the business and raise their potential in order to hit the sales and reach the finish line earlier by a secret weapon “Untrending Digital Marketing”. Khun Suteeraphan Sakarawat, Assistant General Manager – Marketing, SCB shares an exclusive marketing strategy, especially to SMEs in an online training course called The DOTS Digital Commerce X.

Reveal Marketing Budget in a Year of Uncertainty

Over the period of 2020 - 2021 was the year that a worldwide business faced pandemic COVID-19 crisis and technology challenges. Let’s see how the marketing budget in those 2 years was set for each industry. Khun Suteeraphan discloses the CMO survey from a sample of 400 people. Referring to Gartner Research when comparing 2020 and 2021, the marketing budget of business sectors in general drops drastically from 11% in 2020 to 6.4% in 2021. When viewed as the business segment, the findings are; Travel and Hospitality declines from 10.2% to 5.4%, Tech product from 11.4% to 5%, Media from 12% to 5.8%, and Manufacturing from 12.7% to 5.8%.

Media Penetration in the Era of Uncertainty

When considering the marketing budget distribution in marketing channels and tools, the Gartner survey in 2021 finds that:

• Owned Media ranks first. Over 2 – 3 years ago, many brands shifted their focus to create owned media or channels instead of buying Paid Media. Owned media used consisted of Website 10.1%, Email 9.7%, and Mobile 9.7%. Khun Suteeraphan realizes that Email may not be a popular channel in Thailand but some industries abroad have still used it as a tool.
  
  
• Paid Media ranks second including Digital Ads 11.2% and Search Ads 9.7%.
  
  
• Earned Media ranks third. It’s a super hot trend and likely to be higher than Paid Media in the future. Earned Media includes Social 11.3% and SEO 10.5%
  
  
• Offline Media ranks fourth. Over 10 years ago, the budget proportion of this media was 80% but dropped to 9.9% last year.
  
  
• Partner / Affiliate ranks fifth. Currently, many brands work jointly with partners to affiliate (to do marketing with business partners for product ads or services) with an increasing trend at 9.4%.
  
  
• Events rank final at 8.4%

Communicate with Every Customer Stage by RACE Model

What is RACE Model? 

1. R = Reach Stage: Reaching customers widely or building marketing demands.
2. A = ACT Stage Enhancing customer's brand engagement such as requesting product information, filling the form, etc.
3. C = Convert Stage Encouraging new customers to buy products and services or motivating old customers to repeat sales.
4. E = Engage Stage Maintaining relationships with old customers to build brand loyalty and increase re-purchasing or upsell.

Khun Suteeraphan adds that “In the past, marketers only considered Reach or building Awareness. However, marketing now matters more than that. Marketing has to reach Act Stage to drive for something but that is not the end. We need to turn to Convert to become customers and elevate them to Engagement Stage. And when customers have brand royalty, they’ll re-purchase our products. Therefore, when implementing Digital Marketing, don’t just look at Reach. We must look through whether we can build first-time buyers, build their re-purchasing, convert customers to have royalty, and create their stickiness.
 

2021 Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing

Khun Suteeraphan shares his view on Digital Marketing “Over the past 2 years, nothing comes and nothing goes. In fact, things have increased more and more so we can’t stop learning. When talking right now about Digital Marketing, it’s no longer buying Facebook Ads or doing SEO”. As marketing is not to buy Ads in social media or to implement Search Engines, then what should SMEs in this era study? Khun Suteeraphan recommends that we should find some helpers to create Digital Marketing in the age that the future is unpredictable as follows.

• Multi-Channel Marketing Hub A tool to consolidate marketing channels so that we’ll be able to see the whole picture of the business whether which channel or social media gains top performance. And then marketers can adjust channels, key visuals, and content to fit the right target group.
  
  
• Social Analytic An analytical tool to know how a brand has been talked about, who is the real Fan, who is KOL (Key Opinion Leader), and who generates the most sales once content is shared.
  
  
• Influencer and Advocate Marketing To use Influencers to present products and services to grow sales and to build Brand Advocacy leading to long-term relationship.

5 Master Keys from 99 Recommendations

Recommendations for SMEs to do Digital Marketing

1. Ads Optimization: Develop online Ads efficiently in Target Audience, Budget, and Performance in order to find the perfect mix to produce suitable Ads for customer groups. SMEs should look for helpers to understand customer context and see the clear picture of which channel that customers know our brand, where they find us, why they buy, and why they re-purchase. It’s also recommended to create brand royalty to understand and know customers better through the 3 following tools for developing a Customer Journey more effectively.

a)  AB Testing: To create 2 types of Ads and over, and consider which type customers like best. Those Ads will be presented to customers who have similar characteristics and the test will be given to them at the same time.

b) Customer Personas: To analyze and explain customer characteristics in different dimensions by qualitative data to know lifestyle, decision making, and customer behavior in depth.

c)  Customer Journey and Content Mapping: To catch up on customer behavior and study each customer journey, starting from knowing products to buying them, and knowing what type of content should be created for each journey. 

2. VDO Content: Create video content for social media such as TikTok and Reels as they still gain high popularity and connect to a new generation. It’s shown that 27% of Gen Z follow Influencers from social media.
 

3.  Big Data & AI: Analyze Big Data for business marketing such as customer engaging time, timing to recontact old customers, upsell or re-purchasing, etc. 
 

4.  Digital Marketing Transformation: Adjust and develop technology for marketing in proper ways. SMEs should clearly study their own businesses and realize what content they should target because there’re abundant dimensions of Marketing Technology. 

5.  PDPA: When the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) is set out, SMEs must study and understand the essence of that law and request approval from customers. SMEs will be charged under legal punishment if they breach the Act. The matters that customers can be asked to provide personal data are; get a discount, help solve problems in a timely manner, be the first to get wanted product, introduce a product that meets their interest, etc.

Finally, Khun Suteeraphan advises SMEs about the key of technology adaptation to be used in Marketing that “SMEs don’t need to invest everything but be specific insignificant parts that generate value and benefits to both customers and the business. It’s not to sacrifice for investing and buying everything to own technologies for your business”.

 

Source: The DOTS Digital Commerce X Online Training Course conducted by Khun Suteeraphan Sakarawat, Marketing Executive, SCB, October 28, 2021