According to the Adobe-CMO Council Asia Pacific Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard report, Indian marketers are found to have the highest level of confidence when it comes to their digital abilities, in compare to their Asia Pacific (APAC) counterparts. Indian marketers have 42% confidence in digital media followed by Australian and Singaporean who have 37 and 29 percent respectively. Besides, this could be supported by estimates that by 2015, 35 percent of tablet users and 40 percent of smartphone users will be residing in Asia Pacific.
This study by Adobe also revealed that more than 50% marketers in India believe going digital will make their organization more customer-centric and responsive and that it is a must. 45% of them think it not only creates brand differentiation but also greater customer affinity and attachment. This figure however was less than 20% in 2012. Over 42% marketers in India believe digital marketing improves value and competence of marketing programs, while 60 per cent believe it has the ability to better engage and stimulate audiences. Just a year ago only 19% of marketers in India believed that digital marketing is pretty good in engaging and activating audiences.
More than 22% marketers put more than half of their marketing budget in digital media with a majority putting in more than 70 per cent. If we compare it to the last year, only 2% of marketers did this. Even when we talk about the percentage of marketers who put in less than 10 per cent of their marketing money in digital, it was 55% last year while is only 25% this year.
Social media has become the top priority for marketers, followed by increasing and improving paid search and online display advertising, and customer listening, feedback and community. As far as spends are concerned , 75% of marketers have been giving out digital marketing funds on their website( that includes content development and performance optimization), search engine optimization, social media marketing, email marketing and search engine marketing.
When the years 2012 and 2013 were compared at an Asia Pacific level, it was found that there is an augmentation in the number chief marketing officers or the dedicated heads of marketing who are now also working as the leads of digital marketing, evidently signifying that digital marketing is slowly peeling its image of being seen as an subsidiary of overall marketing. Almost 40% marketers get their digital marketing strategy developed and executed from their global head offices while 20 % do it locally in Asia Pacific at their country level.
However, everything is not so smooth with digital marketing as according to one in four respondents, they are unable to find right digital marketing professionals with the right digital marketing skills and that Asia Pacific still lacks skilled digital marketing professionals. Besides, almost 34 % respondents say their agency potentials are also lacking, curbing their ability to implement effectively.
