Adgully Exclusive | Connectivity and consumption are challenges in digital marketing: Bill Hunt

Digital marketing, though still fairly new for Indian marketers and advertisers, is definitely a growing market. It is a space where one sees only opportunities and immense potential. Although the digital budgets are small and clients still require a bit of evangelization, everyone involved understands, this is the next big development waiting to erupt in an unimaginable way. Bill Hunt, author of Search Engine Marketing Inc and CEO of Back Azimuth Consulting, and formerly CEO of Global Strategies for Oglivy, discusses this further in an exclusive interaction with Adgully.

Elaborating his views on the Indian market, he said, "It is great, people are very motivated and it is interesting. Europeans are interested in the Indian market because of adoption of mobile, potential growth in the market price in terms of digital and search is significant. I have been here number of times, this time I can see the relative difference in opportunities, while the relative digital advertising is small but it can only grow up. One has to be there and leverage it as it grows."

Integration of platforms is something that he feels is even difficult in the western world. At the moment, in India, it is close to non ' existent, he says.

Clients have evolved to a certain extent and are more willing to experiment. "However there would be couple of arcs in that learning curve, if I had to place them there. One is that they are interested and they need to be more interested. I think as more and more information gets out, people will ask more questions and becomes aware. That is a good sign," Hunt said.

He further stated, "I think they are curious, but will they actually implement it? I think that is a challenge. Where will the money come from? In order to do digital, the money has to be taken from somewhere else. With more case studies, and better information, we are going to see even greater adoption in the future."

Similar trends are seen in the International and Indian markets, which is social. The rapid adoption is social across the globe. "Indians tend to be very curious, they want to adopt. I think social media is going to grow very fast. And the interest in this market is huge," Hunt added.

According to Hunt, connectivity and consumption are the main challenges. "As marketers look for places to advertise, the sites are going to be created. It is going to come from both ends. The more marketers and press people can educate businesses about the benefits about connecting with people in niche environments, the more we are able to grow the market," he stressed.

The metrics for digital marketing need to beef up in India. There are lots of tools that can be adopted and used in India according to Hunt.

Hunt predicts the future of this space to be getting under the skin of consumers. "What is coming next is really getting into the psyche or minds of the people. Try to understand more what people wants through tweets and other such things. My goal is to build tools that allow doing that," he explained.

Talking about his India related plans, Hunt said, "Continue to build up the development centre we have. The benefit of having developers readily available is the prime reason of marketing here. The only dilemma in doing this market is the digital budgets, it is much smaller."

Having a significant global presence, Hunt advices Indian marketers to scrutinize the data carefully. "Look at the data and customer and try to get into what they want. On Google, if you type in a word, you can easily find out, how many people are interested in it. You can identify your market that easily. You can do something small but definitely try and do something," he said. | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]