The Digital Marketing Revolution. Is Sri Lanka Ready?

What is your answer? Yes or No. If somebody asks this question from me, it’s difficult to give any direct answer. My answer may be both. Why would I say like that?

In 1978, Sri Lanka introduced open economic policies. After that Sri Lanka connected with the world and involve with new technologies. Sri Lanka went through the stages of different technologies and media such as Radio, TV, Internet, Mobile phone etc.

First of all we should know what Digital Marketing is? “Digital marketing is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smart phones,  cell phones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners”. (From Wikipedia).  Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.

When I say YES for above question, there are some facts to prove it. Computer literacy in Sri Lanka is about 35% and the main objective of the government is to increase the computer literacy up to 75% by the year 2016. And also internet users in Sri Lanka are 15.1% (2011) of the population. There are nearly 1.2 million users’ accesses the internet weekly or more often. When talking about Social Media in Sri Lanka, Facebook come to a major position. Currently, there are 1.21 million Facebook users in Sri Lanka. According to TRCSL, the total mobile subscription as of 2012 was 20,324,070. That’s almost equal to the current population of 20,869,000.Approximately 46% of internet users access the internet through their mobile phones. These all facts are saying the current position of Sri Lanka in the digital world. So now a day’s lots of companies try to do their promotion through the digital marketing campaign. And also some companies sell their product online. Moreover there are some online shopping malls such as anything.lk, kapruka.lk, wowmall.lk, gadget.lk, tickets.lk etc. Considering these factors we can say Sri Lanka is ready for the Digital Marketing Revolution.

But, is this enough to say Sri Lanka is ready? Above mention facts and data are collected from the entire country. But we should analyze these data according to the geographical areas in Sri Lanka. Percentages of the computer literacy and internet users are high in the Western and Central province. When we consider the other provinces, their percentage is low and these rural area people are not aware about the digital medias. If some companies want to reach their brands to the rural area customers, digital marketing is not the ideal communication method.

Sri Lanka is still developing. So in another 5 years time these all data and facts will be expired. And also digital marketing will get the highest proportion of the promotion budget of the companies and other Medias will be vanished.