Marketing 4.0 – Moving from Traditional to Digital

The new book from Phillip Kotler (Hermawan Kartajaya & Iwan Setiawan) Marketing 4.0 is a great road map for the new digital marketing reality. It’s the best marketing book I’ve read in years, both insightful and practical. It gives an excellent snap shot of the current trends and highlights the need for offline & online to coexist. Including some great insight into the modern informed vs distracted customer and introducing the f-factor (not that F!) – Friends, family, fans and followers.

They define Marketing 4.0 “as an approach that combines online and offline interaction between customers and companies. In the digital economy, digital interaction alone is not enough. In fact, in an increasingly online world, offline touch represents a strong differentiation. Marketing 4.0 also blends style with substance. While it is imperative for brands to be more flexible and adaptive due to rapid technological trends, their authentic characters are more important than ever. In an increasingly transparent world, authenticity is the most valuable asset. Finally Marketing 4.0 leverages machine-to-machine connectivity and artificial intelligence to improve marketing productivity while leveraging human-to-human connectivity to strengthen customer engagement.”

Some of the new insightful (and more scientific elements) include:

• The new 5A’s that re-define the customer path – Aware, Appeal, Ask, Act, and Advocate. Including how that process now loops and transforms the customer journey.
• An excellent review of modern marketing metrics, including the introduction of BAR (Brand Advocacy Ratio) and PAR (Purchase Action Ratio). The science behind the art.
• A great over view and update on content marketing – including some great insights on content amplification and Googles ZMOT. The amplification part is probably one of the most over looked of element of any content marketing strategy.
• It also highlights the often overlooked aspect of social – ‘Listening’.

It’s a fantastic book that will challenge any marketer to rethink how they approach and solve the current challenges. It’s a must read for all marketers. It has that WOW factor!  (P.S – There’s also more to that video than meets the eye!)