Tag: Marketing

Why Influencer Marketing is Here to Stay.

Why Influencer Marketing is Here to Stay.

Influencer marketing that focuses on influential people rather than the target market as a whole, identifies individuals who have influence over potential customers and strategizes marketing activities around them. This type of marketing has been around all along. Today, neither does it show any signs of slowing down, nor will it reach its maturity anytime in near future!

The influencer marketing industry has increased rapidly over the past few years. Influencer content is a form of testimonial advertising wherein value-added influencers such as journalists, academicians, industry analysts, professional advisers, or celebrities play the role of a potential buyer themselves. It may, in other words, be referred to as a form of paid endorsement. Influencer marketing is evolving, and it’s quite interesting to learn why influencer marketing is here to stay on.

The Advent of Visual Networking. Facebook is the best known social media network. But, one cannot ignore the power of video. YouTube has grown over the years. The key to being successful on YouTube is working directly with the influencer channels, rather than depending on the YouTube ads. One has little control over who sees their ads, but working closely with a channel, one knows with certainty who will see their content. Brands are discovering that visual networks, such as Instagram and Pinterest provide a more significant opportunity to identify influencers.

Influencers Sharing Content on Behalf of Brands. An important advantage of influencer marketing is that one is working with people who have already earned respect from an audience. How accurate the phrase, “content is king”, holds in this age of daily social media advancement! An average person sees many audios, videos or written items every day; but ignores anything that is irrelevant. But, it needs to be noted, most modern consumers are willing to see or hear a review from somebody they respect.

One may need to decide the story they want influencers to tell on their behalf, and so the companies that work with consultancies have an advantage – they have someone to remind them what type of content may perform well.

Brands Building Long-term Relationships with Influencers. We have seen influencer marketing involve brands traditionally working with influencers on specific campaigns.  However, the trend is changing, and brands are now sticking with their best influencers for a longer period of time. In fact, many brands have started considering their influencers to be their partners! This has resulted in improving the influencers’ attitudes towards the brand they promote, and they associate with an increased enthusiasm.

Influencer Agencies and Platforms Simplify Process. For businesses attempting influencer marketing for the first time, wooing influencers can be a slow process that could lead to unsuccessful results. Advertising agencies have existed for many years, but it took some time for agencies to recognize the importance of online marketing. Influencer marketing began on a small scale, and as the industry matured, businesses spotted opportunities to smoothen the process.

Today, the scenario has changed, there are now quite a few specialist influencer marketing agencies that assist in creating and organizing influencer campaigns. There are also many influencer marketing platforms providing a way to find willing influencers matching the target market.

Cord-cutting over Social Media. Another trend that’s caught up and one of the main reasons for influencer marketing to have taken off is, “Cord-cutting.” The time people spend watching video on digital devices is set to rise. More consumers are now switching from TV to tablet and smartphones, especially the younger generation.

Today, even as users have more power than ever before over their viewing experiences in a crowded space, it is the relentless savviness of creators that promote a brand keeping fans engaged over social media channels. It should be noted that most users engage with their favourite social posts at least once a day! Hasn’t social media changed the relationship between companies and customers from master-servant to peer-peer? Social media is a big boost for influencer marketing – people don’t just watch; they engage by liking, commenting and tweeting in hoards!

Capturing and sharing a product, service or process; over a social media page or post enlivens and inspires a community. Doesn’t that fit in perfectly with a company’s strategy which aims to sign up customers? Indeed, a long-term relationship with an influencer creates a more meaningful interaction with the brand beyond a one-off post.

According to a marketing agency, around three fourth of consumers who were surveyed said that social networks influenced their buying decisions. That proves a point – influencers definitely tap-in by involving users with social content.

Consumers Seek Authenticity before their Buy Decisions. A consumer usually seeks greater authenticity from influencers – they try to look beyond the post to what the influencer likes! The hallmark of celebrity advertising has mainly revolved around conventional methods of endorsement and sponsorship. However, even if they are celebrities in the eyes of the world, where they need to cross the line as influencers is by how they make themselves accessible to people through social media.

Marketers need to note that the two terms – celebrity and influencer, should be kept separate, keeping in mind that the level on which to engage an audience is entirely different.

The consumer of today is smart and can tell the difference between an advertisement and a personal recommendation. Influencers add a dimension of credibility to a brand. Instead of just providing exposure to a brand, influencers lend their credibility to it. That’s what influencer marketing relies on. It finds the right balance between the two in order to retain authenticity among its audience. And this type of influencer marketing that recommends via advertisements can hardly go out of fashion, but will stay on for ages.

Drives a Higher Return on Investment. A large number of marketers use influencer marketing to grow their social media following and engagement. Most marketers use it to drive more sales. Some use it to drive traffic to their websites. And the major benefit of influencer marketing is the higher Return on Investment that it generates in terms of earned media value – a value that can be attributed to such parameters like social sharing and publicity as well as exposure to digital media.

Now we understand why brands are investing more of their time and money on influencers. In a recent study, it was found that more than half of the marketers surveyed, increased their budgets for influencer marketing in the year gone by. The massive followings that the influencers have, it’s obvious that they smartly help in reaching a bigger audience for a brand they endorse. Influencers facilitate increasing positive brand sentiment; it can yield a better return on investment.

So, it’s quite clear now, why brands choose influencer marketing as a weapon to overcome marketing challenges. Influencer marketing helps marketers stay ahead of their competitors and authenticates their brands with the target audience, along with delivering higher returns on investment.  With most marketers drawing exceptional results with influencer marketing, can anyone think of ignoring it? Definitely not. Influencer marketing is always going to be there – and continue to stay for a long time!

This blog was originally published in website: Digital Doughnut

5 steps for start-ups to run a marketing campaign.

5 steps for start-ups to run a marketing campaign.

Marketing is self consuming, once we get in there is no way we feel we have had enough of it . We always want that additional few likes, Extra viewership, Extra Reads, Extra Leads and such. While we may be right in wanting the ‘extra’ and the ‘additional’ it requires  an exceptional campaign to get there. While not all exceptional campaigns require resources, most do. It is therefore important to attempt to create a good clever campaign without the need for resources burning  us out. Here are few things to consider

Step 1.  Identifying the right audience. Knowing whom we are selling to i.e.  the target market whom we want to address is first most important thing. It is important that we understand the profile of the person/s we want to target our campaign to. For example –  In a B2B scenario a campaign targeted for Purchase or vendor Management teams could be different from  a campaign targeted to CEOs of companies for the same solution, product or services.

Task : List down the profile of the desired audience in a simple excel sheet. (Hints: What type of Companies, Who within the company, His Level of Experience etc.)

Step 2.  Messaging.  Once we have got the profile of the audience, identifying and creating the right message, for our audience inline with what the audience wants is key. Often times, we get carried away by the exceptional product that we have and focus on it ‘more’ that what our audience wants. A simple example would be our desire to talk about the great underlying technology of our product while the problem that our audience wants addressed is maybe just a simple and secure way to share data over the internet. While technology is important, we would lose crucial attention seconds to technology tidbits which we would rather have for the audience to figure out how to reach us.

Task : List down the simple problems we have set out to solve. It could be technical if the audience we are going after is technical or simple life problems or business problems if the target audience is such. (Hints: Improve data crunching for higher data throughput in a cloud transaction or simple way to identify stock-outs in a retail store).  It is important to keep in mind that the same message can be represented in multiple ways. Once we have the messages listed out, brainstorm on them till we arrive at one or two most powerful messages (keeping in mind the delivery mechanism- for e.g. a message for a mail campaign with the reader’s own interpretation could be different from a print message where we could have visuals guiding the message)   

Step 3.  Getting the delivery mechanism/vehicle right. This is what, which generally takes away the resources. Marketing campaigns are run through expensive media Ads, Print Ads to downright and significantly inexpensive email campaigns. Generally a right combo of multiple delivery mechanisms work. In our case of Start-ups and SMEs, a combination of email campaigns alongside a well designed website and a dose of social media could help create the visibility and therefore the perception of availability. It would not serve the purpose if we reached out with a good email campaign and we did not have a good (within our means) website to support our claims in a campaign email.

Task : As a takeaway a from the step 1 derive the best and the 2nd best possible hang-out where the audience is available ,  Once we have identified  that, the decision of choosing the Delivery Mechanism is a function of the budget and resources . It is important however to know the trade offs in going for the 3rd best hangout due to resource and budget constraints. However, in a IT service/product business the most economical delivery mechanisms may often be the best delivery mechanisms.

Step 4.  Creating and executing the Campaign. Creating the campaign is an involving activity and a culmination of our knowledge about our identified audience, understanding the messaging that we want to project, the time we have, tuned for the delivery mechanism we choose. Once we have the above 3 steps in place and we know our budgets, it is a mixture of creativity and resources (that our budgets define) and the available time. Therefore the key here is to assign a budget and identifying the time by when the campaign needs to be executed, for example a holiday season or a Financial year closure. Budgets and time also define the creation of the target pool – the email databases for email campaigns, the Blog topics for Blog campaigns, Phone numbers for Phone-out campaigns etc. (not touching the print and media campaigns which focus more on the content)

Task : This is the most time consuming part of the Campaign Preparation. Our creative team, the marketing Team (Including the leadership) works on developing the content, design and the message. Another team identifies / builds the target market list/database, complete with email IDs, phone numbers, company profile data as required. A plan for running the campaigns is created covering sequential and parallel runs and the plan is executed accordingly.

Step 5.  Yield Management – Measuring, tracking and follow up. Good marketing campaigns always have this step well thought out before the campaign is executed. Lack of preparation of post campaign activities can be disastrous. Imagine not having enough sales force to address request for meetings before a holiday season across multiple geographies. The prospect that responded to our campaign of ‘let’s meet’, if not met, will most likely never respond to our future campaigns.  Also, not being able to measure the number of  responses received , type of responses etc. in mail campaign would deny us of crucial learnings to be accounted for in our next campaign.  Our preparation for this activity could also influence our messaging and the vehicle of choice for our marketing campaign.

In all Marketing Campaigns are involved activities, much beyond sending out random emails and tele-calling and the success depends on how much preparation goes behind. While resources are required, smart and less resource intensive ways of campaigning can also yield desirable results.

Task : In case of email Campaigns, create a simple excel sheet with the number of emails sent, day, time, messages and capture the responses, both negative, positive and neutral and build action items for all responses that require action. Collate the info and use the analysis for the next campaign.

Happy Marketing !! 

Marketing is an Attitude. Sales, is a Culture.

Marketing is an Attitude. Sales, is a Culture.

Marketing is all about building the right perception and Sales is the grit behind this suave perception. While it is critical to have the determination and perseverance needed to sell, a culture that amplifies the values of the organization is what creates differentiated organizations.

It is not just the job of a marketing team or an external agency to create the external hype, which we call Marketing, it is much beyond and actually goes deep inside the core of the organization.

The way the company represents itself, communicates, deals with its internal organization, and its employees behave while faced with their peers in other companies is what represents the company and this defines the marketing Culture of the company.

While it becomes difficult for smaller organizations to create a visible culture, which can be resonated by its employees, certain steps can be taken to ensure that the entire company brings the same face of the company to the outside world. Lot of it is to do with communication.

Going tactical, marketing cultures can be created right from standardizing email signatures to the way MoMs are recorded and circulated. Aligning of websites with marketing collaterals create a perception of seamlessness across other aspects. Uniformity in communications to customers slowly but steadily helps in creating a brand that an organization stands for.

Therefore a facet of Marketing is into spending big on creating visibility and perception, it also has a lot to do with the culture an organization chooses to adapt

While Marketing can be equated with ‘Soft Skills’ of a human being , sales is the actual character of the organization. While sales at the very minimum an exchange of product, solution or services in exchange of money, in practicality the sales is the process that leads to this final act when the exchange takes place. The tenacity with which the organization conducts itself, the perseverance, the innovation in positioning, efforts and investment in relation building defines the attitude of the organization.

A luxury brand can be in demand because of its ‘don’t care for buyer attitude’ while a similar attitude for an organization with a product which has multiple competing products can spell doom for the organization. A services company expecting repeat sales from an organization would do great with dedicated account managers, while an organization with low cost product line would sink with investments if it chose to do the same with all its buyers.

The attitude of an organization would therefore determine how it takes its product/solution/service to the market and the position, in terms of quality, price and value that it commands. In simple terms, this attitude determines, how we negotiate, concede, refuse and win business deals. This attitude defines the nature of not only the organization’s sales force but the entire leadership of organization that contributes to the sales process.