Marketers should focus more on digital contents
The industry should concentrate more on quality digital contents as the market of this segment is booming to cater for the increasing number of smart customers, analysts said yesterday.
Digital marketing is witnessing a lot of changes in Bangladesh of late, said Asif Iqbal, executive director for marketing at the Meghna Group of Industries.
“Here we need to create more and more innovative products (contents) to bring smart customers on board.”
The traditional market platform and contents will not work in this digital era, he added.
The growth of Bangladesh's digital market is much higher than that of India and most Asian countries, he said.
“Here we need to bring new innovations to maintain this growth.”
Iqbal also urged the government to set a policy for digital contents so the agencies which create the contents get proper revenues for their produce.
His comments came at the opening of the fourth Digital Marketing Summit at the Le Meridien Dhaka hotel.
At the event, experts from home and abroad shared their knowledge on how to do marketing with the help of digital platforms.
An initiative of Bangladesh Brand Forum, the summit was presented by Meghna Group and was organised in association with The Daily Star.
Starting in 2014, the event has been a central platform for marketing enthusiasts, advertising experts and creative professionals where they learn and share the best and latest digital marketing practices.
Creative agencies and brand managers should not replicate Western ideas at the time of formulating a campaign, said Zaved Akhter, director for marketing transformation at Unilever for South Asia.
“Most of the times, companies do that and fail.”
For a digital campaign, the most important segment is content generation, where local ideas and thoughts should get priority, said Akhter. Knowing the customer is the most important part, and if one cannot understand the customer all the initiatives will be gone in vain, he said.
Hashmi Rafsanjani, country marketing manager of Google, said they can find the customers' location, needs and their thinking, and companies can use the info and develop their products with the help of Google.
“Digital content is the next frontier and I am amazed to see how Bangladeshi youths are embracing the changes,” Sanjay Vaghasia, chief digital officer at Banglalink Digital Communication Ltd, said in his keynote speech.
“Thus I believe if we are to stay relevant in the market we all need to change ourselves as per the customers' demand.”
“Mobile phones became the most powerful vehicle for digital marketing and we are using it,” Mukit Ahmed, head of e-marketing at the country's third largest telecom operator Banglalink, said at a panel discussion.
At the event, Md Azim Hossain, head of digital media at Pran-RFL Group, shed light on the present condition of the country's digital market.
Hossain said Bangladeshi YouTube channels got three billion views only in June this year.
The technology has evolved but there are still some challenges on the total ecosystem, said Aman Ashraf Faiz, managing director of private satellite television Gazi TV. Bangladesh now has around 13 crore active mobile connections but smartphone penetration is less than 30 percent in the country, he said.
So, 70 percent of the customers will be out of reach if companies take plans only for the digital platforms, Faiz said.
Less than 1 percent of the country's population use plastic money for transaction, and no market can get success with the use of digital platform if the proportion does not reach 20 percent, he said.
He said he has plans for both digital and traditional channels.
“Mobile operators are sitting on huge customers data but they cannot use it. They have to take some responsibility for innovation.”
The daylong summit was followed by the first digital marketing award where 50 of the most successful digital campaigns of 2016 were awarded in 13 different categories.
Comments