Architecting a (DNVB) Digital Native Vertical Brand in Consumer Industry — Part 1
You are a Chief Architect in the consumer-oriented industry and you are tasked to architect a (DNVB) digital native vertical brand. Your business is making a shift towards DTC(Direct to Consumer) distribution model and eventually will transform to a DNVB business model. How would you channelize your thoughts, wear multiple hats(of an Enterprise Architect, Domain Architect, Solution Architect, and Cloud Architect) and craft out a solution that is loveable by your consumers?
This post will provide a digital lens for the Consumer industry primarily focusing on how direct to consumer and digital native capabilities should be the foundation for building the next unicorn in the Consumer industry. How companies can delight the consumers to love the brands.
Digital transformation is a consumer-led revolution leading to double-digit eCommerce-led growth. It is now all the more important to know what the consumer is doing as part of their brand journey across multiple channels — from engagement website to social to the store. Over the course of the last few years, the digital native brands have come to life and have touched the consumer's heart without having much media presence, limited to no R&D, a relatively small supply chain, and limited distribution capability. The stellar speed of growth of the DNVBs demands a deeper analysis.
There has been an evolution in the identification of new marketing models, identification of target tribes, the importance of influencer-based brand building, and the content-led brand affinity has worked in tandem to transform the direct-to-consumer forte of the consumer industry.
At the core of digital engagement is the democratization of content building which is formally categorized as content creation via CRM initiatives. It is all about how audiences and relationships are built by turning the audiences into publishers, enabling them to publish content on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook etc. Therefore, turning the digital pipeline into a content factory. It very well highlights the fact that the consumer industry leaders need to move from “doing” Digital marketing to marketing in a digital age.
Typically, a high double-digit percentage of buyers will switch brands if a company doesn’t actively anticipate their needs. It is very important that personalized and targeted content would drive consumer engagement. This applies to the ads that consumer companies publish via various Ad exchanges. About one-third of the general population is Ad blocked. So, building content that engages consumers via bumper ads(the 6-second ads) would increase brand awareness by manifold. Consumer companies should innovate by having a good mix of videos and GIFs, giving an impetus to more visual marketing.
In this new age, consumers love beautiful mobile applications and that love extends to the omnichannel. The ability to win in eCommerce, being data-driven, and reinvented marketing models would be the turning point for consumer companies to be the next unicorn. Crafting consumer journeys in the VUCA(Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world must involve the design and build of patterns and then translating them for monetization.
The likes of Nyx, UrbanDecay, DollarShaveClub — the true DNVBs have proven it and have been acquired by Loreal and Unilever respectively. This allowed the big consumer-focused companies to infuse innovation and changing not only their brand building and acquisition mechanisms but also transforming the HR functions.
The DNVB Consumer Engagement Platform(a.k.a a DCE platform) should provide the ability to serve consumers via multiple channels and should be able to respond to consumers within minutes.
67% of consumers claim to use a company’s social media channel for customer service and 72% expect a brand to respond within an hour. However, five out of six interactions go unanswered by the brand. When companies do engage and respond to customer service requests over social media, those customers spend 20% to 40% more money with the company than other customers do(source: Bain Consulting).
To summarize, the journey of Audience acquisition and conversion of prospects to consumers to building brand loyalists involves the following key capabilities:
•Content rich engagement websites focused on specific brands
•Omni-channel eCommerce including order anywhere, return anywhere, and subscriptions
•Efficient consumer care enabled with intelligent call routing, self-service capabilities, and next best actions(NBAs) for cross-sell/up-sell
•Consumer personalization with real-time analytics at each layer making their journey ubiquitous — enabled with a combo of DMP and CDP.
•An equally modernized and nimble retail execution and trade promotion platform
All of these amalgamate to create a cohesive yet configurable digital engagement platform that can scale and perform to serve billions of consumers worldwide complying with global and local legal regulations, and ensuring hyper-personalization catering to hyper-local demand.
CONSUMER JOURNEYS
When consumer-focussed companies follow the consumers through every step of their journey, consumer engagement and delightful experiences will be the culture of a consumer-first-oriented company. The culture and organization setup of an enterprise reflects on the IT architecture!!
The discovery of a brand or product needs to be supported by well-rounded consumer acquisition strategies and techniques. This includes active optimizations as per the current trends in fashion, news, and social media. The education via rich content would enable an enriching guided trial experience. Supported by eCommerce faster deliveries during the trial phase would act as a differentiator against the competitor brands. Consumer purchases need to be supported by an advanced selling process with discounts and subscriptions as consumers are increasingly seeking shopping that is tailored to their preference and direct delivery to their doors. When consumers have bought the products, consumer experience will not be limited to the product usage but should be driven by the consumer product companies via engagement — activity-based engagements, such as, sharing, generating content and experiences via mobile and web. The brand affinity increases as consumer care via telephony and virtual chatbots continues to engage with personalized messaging. Consumers turn into advocates as personalized campaigns, vouchers, and loyalty points keep the consumer's incentives as they share positive impressions via channels and word of mouth.
Follow on to the second part here
