What are some digital marketing challenges in small towns ?
As Digital marketing making inroads into our daily life, there are still roadblocks that may be hindering the digital acceptance.
1. Psychology — People in general are resistant to change until it is not forced upon them. Being less exposed to an external fast moving environment also seems to strengthen their belief systems. Hence, even if they are exposed to the digital platforms and well adapted to it, but they prefer the traditional set up.
2. Smaller cities are geographically less challenging to move around and hence traditional marketing is still a force because of people’s exposure time to their activity is more. The increase in traffic will change this scenario sooner than expected.
3. No matter what, the penetration of smart phones are less compared to bigger cities and people still turn to the nearby stores for information about products and services.
4. Many seem does not interested in researching about offerings from companies going on-line. They want a quick exchange of value i.e. sell and purchase.
5. One of the reasons is also because of low penetration of Net-banking. As ultimately one will visit the nearby store for purchasing, then why go online even for information.
6. Education does play a role as inadequate knowledge does make people less bold to do new things.
With people spending an increasing time on the web, marketers are leaning more towards digital marketing platforms to showcase their offerings. The statistics for global ad spend also seconds this theory. However in countries like India the marketers are showing a less urgent intent to embrace the change, especially in smaller cities. They are to an extent correct. But it may change, may be faster than one expect or react.