Sri Lankan marketers need to spice up with HTML5

Marketers throughout the whole world are now compelled to have skills in technology and related products and services to serve the current and potential level of customer interaction and experience. We can now notice that this is taking place in Sri Lanka with the marketing profession demanding IT skills more than ever and with the marketing department compelled to integrate and work together with the IT department like never before.

HTML5 as we all know which is the upgraded version of HTML4 is the latest platform for web development and this will excitingly make web surfing much more interactive and highly rich in terms of media. HTML5 is said to be glamorous especially due to mobile browsers which is on the increase with smartphones predicted to dominate the whole mobile market and data predicted to surpass voice and SMS in the near future.

Why I am talking towards techie is that we as marketers should start to realise and act about the practicality and its implications of this new experience as this will change the way users (who are your consumers) consume content on the web space.

The experience on mobile

As of December 2010, Sri Lanka experienced a total 17.4 million mobile subscribers out of the 21 million population of the country, according to figures from the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka – many say that it reached 18 million users as of the mid 2011 – now that’s over a three quarter of Sri Lanka’s total population. It’s closer to surpassing the population itself, just think about the potential in mobile for brands and organisations.

It further states that ‘this growth is exciting along with telecommunication players providing fast internet more than ever, creating many mobile applications, using mobile as a medium of advertising (of which you must have heard on the radio, noticed on the billboards, seen on the newspapers, or seen the banner ads in local websites), as well as subscribers becoming more self-expressive and adaptive to all these offerings here in Sri Lanka’.

So it is critical for marketers to halt and think about the fact how HTML5 will completely change mobile users surf on their mobile handsets and smartphones. This is going to be the next big thing here in Sri Lanka.

Get spiced up

Do your own research and find out about HTML5, and I would tell that it’s worth it – glance through some of the best technology news sites, join their conversation, stare at those big debates, learn the perspectives, and keep your knowledge up-to-date.

This is the core problem of marketers in Sri Lanka – they do not move beyond their old business schools hence they lack these skills and knowledge a modern marketer requires and posses. I have come up with some takeaways that you could just take to your desk with a glance.

With this new emerging platform in the digital world, it’s really exciting to start explore the online space which succeeds to continue its experience and integrity. HTML5 will definitely play a major role for brands and organisations; you could either be a part of it or lose this massive opportunity.

Quick takes

1. We all have heard about those traditional email marketing – this has just being started to be practiced in Sri Lanka in an efficient manner. Ever thought about in-email video marketing? HTML5 video is a massive step in the world of in-email video marketing. Those big direct mailers and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems need to realise and integrate this enhanced functionality that gives a rich user experience.

2. Analytics in the online space is very critical for brands to track and monitor data and it has now become a ‘must’ to show the Board in many Sri Lankan organisations. With the new HTML5, there is improved tracker compatibility usage metrics such as usability analysis. What’s more exciting to this is that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) manipulators are going to find it harder more than ever to trick the algorithms of search engines (which normally is practiced unethically by many agencies and organisations) and, the positive side is that users and consumers will find more relevant content than before (they cannot be bombarded with fake tags).

3. I trust you have come across many news sites in Sri Lanka with advertisements (that looks like a cluttered classified) all over their site. HTML5 has advertising animations as part of websites which cannot be blocked (hence have made it compulsory for the web user). I don’t know whether you will agree with me or not – those animations are really annoying when I visit a site (for worst those Sri Lankan news sites) but things have been taken to another new dimension in display advertising – the revamped world of HTML5 is a platform for marketers which holds a huge opportunity for video and animation all over the entire page of the site. Keep in mind that this does not mean leverage – as it could be the ‘next’ big annoying thing that you could do!

4. Mobile advertising has picked significantly at global levels with revenue models of mobile network operators transforming and heavily relying more on data Average Revenue per User (ARPU) – I love talking about these as I just did my journal article on telecoms and data ARPU and the marketing opportunity back in early 2010 as part of a postgraduate assignment. 



Mobile sites (known as m-sites or mobisites or .mobi) with integrated ‘assisted GPS’ will show from where the user is accessing from, and then provide more relevant date based on that location on a ‘real-time’ basis. Isn’t this superb? Adding the coolness to the above point, mobile sites will have improved ‘cache’ storage through HTML5 – this simply means that you could still access those flyers and brochures on your favourite brands and organisation via your phone even if the internet is disconnected.

5. You must have noticed by now that everything is becoming an app on the web space. This was written on a blog which impresses me: ‘Instead of thinking how a brand can live on a Facebook, Google+ and Twitter page?’ think, ‘How can Facebook, Google + and Twitter live on my brand page?’

Conclusion

The quick takes are some of them – explore more of them. The structure is becoming more adaptable along with flexibility and user-experience becoming richer than ever and, within the next two year period, web-surfing experience is going to be even richer, creative and more glamorous. These new platforms will take out the “middlemen” of media placement in the digital space which is critical for marketers and strategists such as ourselves as we need to be efficient, responsible and effective. This is exciting and brands and organisations as well as their internal teams will have to work more closer more than ever – that’s the spirit!

(Thanzyl Thajudeen is Chief Executive of Marketer Pulse and an evolving strategist and marketer. He can be reached via [email protected] or tweet him via @thanzyl at any time.)