Consumer behavior has changed significantly thanks to new information technologies. Understanding the habits of these new consumers has become essential for companies. Following four key characteristics to consider for a successful marketing strategy with your consumers:

• They behave as a community: With social networking, consumers reunite by affinities. They share their experiences on products and services and make recommendations. They are real promoters and detractors of your products and services and most importantly your brand. The presence and especially the interaction with these communities to build brand engagement are essential in your marketing strategy.

• They are hyperconnected: The customer is always connected and reachable everywhere and all the time in a unique way with the unique device ID number. Currently there is so much to discuss about mobiquity i.e the ability of a user to connect to a network at anytime, anywhere, with any device. This hyperconnection allows companies to collect data on the consumer behavior which can be used to adapt the marketing strategy and customize solutions through omnichannel platforms. Digital solutions like EGain provide an effective support to handle all customer interactions.

• They lead companies to customize their offerings: The CRM has changed customization. The segmentation is done taking into consideration data collected from cookies. These behavioral data help the company implement effective action plans. The challenge related to Big data is not to collect data but to give them a sense, to understand each customer expectations.

• They are a distinct media: The client can now publish its own content, reviews which can be a support or denigration. This freedom of speech leads companies to utilize empathy as they communicate with the customers while bearing in mind that the customer experience must be aligned to the brand promise.

The digital has changed the behavior of consumers and definitely the way you do business. New marketing strategies should now -from start- include the customer journey mapping with a clear objective of answering immediately and consistently to customers requests across all channels, and last but not least considering every contact as unique opportunity to engage the customer... That’s why we believe that we are far from Marketing Mix basics.