Untapped Opportunities in Digital Marketing Strategies for Standard Chartered Bank in Cote d'Ivoire

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Strategic marketing
Student
Date
Institution

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Introduction
As the number of consumers managing their lives digitally continues to rise, financial institutions
are finding new ways to reach them through digital marketing strategies. Research from Dootson
& Beatson, (2016), indicates that most of the leading financial organizations are increasingly
investing and adopting digital marketing strategies that are capable of supporting personalized
messaging. In 2018, the standard chartered bank successfully piloted its first phase project of the
digital-only retail banks in Cote d’Ivoire. The adoption of the digital marketing channel by the
bank was to make sure that the organization aligned with the customer lifestyle. Through the use
of advanced analytics and modern marketing technologies to the target customers and
personalize experience (Standard Digital, 2019). Besides, being the first bank to become digital
in Africa, the organization has made it easier for its consumer as they can get all the bank
services by downloading the standard chartered mobile application from Google play store. New
customers can carry out all their banking services from their mobile phones. However, Standard
Chartered bank in Cote d'Ivoire is experiencing untapped opportunities due to the late adoption
of digital marketing strategies. Some of these untapped opportunities include:
1. Understanding the target market
Pushing goods and services to prospective consumers may give incitement to the organization
sales for a short period. However, this effect will wear off in the long run. Alternatively, it is
good to understand and know the target market and then develop and modify the firm’s goods
and services. This will effectively boost the consumer’s response. Standard Chartered bank in
Cote d'Ivoire is missing this opportunity of keeping abreast with the latest trends, choice of the
consumers and fashion. For instance, with the aid of digital marketing analytics, firms are able
to determine the percentage usage of different products and services by their customers and their

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opinion regarding the organization's services and products. Firms are able to acquire more
information on the type of topics being discussed by their customers concerning different types
of product (Kumar, et al., 2016). With this information, Standard chartered bank in Cote
d’Ivoire will be able to categorize its product and services users into separate target groups,
hence designing customized offers or solution for consumers depending on their needs and
preferences.
2. Getting to know potential customers
There is a lot of information available in the digital marketing platforms. This helps the firms
with a chance to reach out to the public who are in need of the firm's products or services. In this
case, Standard chartered bank in Cote d’Ivoire will have an opportunity to convert a potential
prospect rather than sending emails to anonymous prospects (Jelfs & Thomson, 2016). The
organization can use an online monitoring tool to determine these prospective consumers and
easily connect with them before its competitors. Organizations that are operating under the
digital marketing strategies get help from the social media debates of the prospects on online
forums. As a result, firms are able to determine which prospects are likely to respond to a certain
or particular offer hence making it easier for the organization to target them accordingly (Killian
& McManus, 2015).
3. Identifying online influencers
Online influencers refer to a group of people who have an enormous number of followers and
they are ever active on social media platforms. Besides, they can easily manipulate the views
and moods of their followers as they enjoy a lot of influence amongst their followers. For
instance, Bradley Leimer is a good social media marketing influencer for the banking industry in