Tag: marketing

User-Generated Content: Transforming Customer Reviews into Marketing Gold

User-Generated Content: Transforming Customer Reviews into Marketing Gold

November 2, 2023

Most businesses understand the need for cutting-edge marketing in an increasingly competitive environment. This is where user-generated content can be a veritable game-changer. With evolving consumer behaviour, tried-and-testing marketing playbooks are changing rapidly. Social media usage has increased exponentially, making digital marketing a vital component of the overall strategy for companies. India had around 755 million users of social media in 2022 while Statista has also estimated that this will go up to 1.17 billion users by the year 2027. Another disruptive aspect is performance marketing, giving more freedom in terms of tracking brand reach and coordinating marketing initiatives to sustain bigger campaigns. This focuses majorly on profitability and revenues.  Now in this context, it is worth mentioning that brands have realised how essential it is to scale up their overall visibility, especially in the eyes of modern-day consumers in order to build that coveted connection with them. With user-generated content, brands can offer customers a unique chance to contribute actively towards the growth of the brand without sitting back and watching the action. UGC marketing strategies have become vital in terms of influencing the purchase decisions of consumers while enabling brands to scale up their visibility and market reach while achieving their desired growth objectives.  What is Meant by User-Generated Content?  User-generated content is also called content generated by consumers. This refers to brand-based and original content from customers published throughout multiple channels including social media platforms. UGC marketing strategies encompass various aspects including videos, images, reviews, testimonials and even podcasts.  Customer reviews or user reviews in marketing campaigns contribute immensely at every stage of the buyer journey, spurring higher engagement and driving conversions accordingly. Customer-focused content can be used extensively throughout social media platforms, checkout pages, landing pages, emails and many other strategic locations.  How Does User-Generated Content Help?  User-generated content like customer reviews and videos can help considerably in the following ways.  It can thus be said that UGC is here to stay and how. Most buyers today look for customer reviews before making a final purchase decision. Hence, more brands will look to leverage user reviews in marketing campaigns in order to connect better with their customers. The multifarious types of UGC can be used at every buying stage for enhancing not just conversions and sales, but also engagement levels and the overall ROI (return on investment). Authenticity is the need of the hour for brands along with originality. UGC is what ticks the boxes on both these counts.  It also contributes positively to the overall reputation and progress of the brand, since consumers get directly involved in the brand’s journey. They turn into unofficial brand ambassadors and play vital roles in fostering the growth and development of their favourite brands. This contributes to deeper relationships that have a positive spill-over effect and rub off neatly in terms of attracting newer people to the community. Brands can thus leverage these communities to not only make them feel more involved and a part of their growth stories but also to garner steady traffic and responses to their campaigns and launches.  FAQs What are the benefits of incorporating customer reviews and testimonials into marketing campaigns? There are several advantages of incorporating customer testimonials and reviews into marketing campaigns. People trust reviews provided by actual customers and these contents also work as proof of the brand’s promises and claims regarding the benefits of its product or service. User-generated content is more authentic helps establish brand loyalty and drives higher conversions and traffic.  What strategies can companies use to encourage customers to create and share user-generated content? Companies can harness diverse strategies to encourage customers to create and share user-generated content. These include launching contests, asking for valuable feedback, creating customer engagement programs, creating ambassador programs, offering rewards, and giving customers a launch pad to be more visible across multiple channels.  Are there any ethical or legal considerations when using customer-generated content in marketing materials? Some of the legal and ethical considerations include safeguarding the privacy of the user and his/her personal details. At the same time, brands should obtain legal consent before featuring any user-generated content. All information shared should be accurate and non-misleading in any case.

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Effective marketing strategies for the pharmaceutical industry

Effective Marketing Strategies For The Pharmaceutical Industry To Achieve Growth

December 19, 2022

Growth marketing for healthcare is an area of focus that often goes neglected. Every pharmaceutical business requires a strategic and dedicated marketing blueprint, one that keeps evolving with the growth of the business as well.  It should have sizable flexibility for staying in sync with market circumstances and other disruptions as well.  The key objectives of healthcare marketing strategies would be scaling up brand engagement and awareness, building a reputation for reliability and trust, communicating information about new treatments and pharmaceutical product launches, and so on.  Of course, the end goal is also higher visibility, revenues and sales, along with ROI.  Here are some best practices for pharmaceutical or medical marketing which may be followed for enhancing growth across diverse channels/verticals:  Have Your Audience In Mind Are you marketing for doctors? Or are you marketing for a retail consumer base? You should first define your audience before embarking on pharma and healthcare digital marketing drives.  Set Your Targets Clearly What are your core objectives? Is it penetrating deeper into the market? Is it the promotion of existing treatments and drugs for a newer market? Is it the introduction of new treatments or drugs? Is it otherwise diversifying, i.e. retailing newer treatments or medicines for a wider audience? Chalk it out before starting off.  Have your USPs Listed Out Once you build your USPs, selling and marketing products will be easier. Create differentiators based on product quality, service, and overall track record, pricing, fulfillment timelines, and other parameters.  Do Some Market Research Ask questions to your target audience. Get their insights to learn more about their needs and preferences. Also do your homework on the communication platforms used by your target audience, the emerging trends in the market, the experience you wish to build for this audience, and differentiators from your rivals.  Have Your KPIs (key performance indicators) Clearly Laid Down These metrics may include average revenues, non-prescription sales, overall profits/revenues/sales, and more. Marketing Activities That May Help You  Update and maintain your website which showcases your company in the best possible manner.  Your site should be mobile friendly.  Make it easier for your target audience to access vital information online.  Have resource sections and guides that might help.  Invest in SEO, blogging, and forum activity.  Connect with doctors through online communities worldwide.  Build your company presence across social media channels.  Use CRM for garnering data about all leads and use it for relationship building. Use this data for send personalized greetings, messages, after-sales support, customized email and other marketing campaigns, free samples, offers, and more.  Build posters and other visual interfaces which can attract a higher number of prospective customers.  Optimize your network-building activities by participating in online discussions, professional events, and more.   Target every audience segment differently.  Always focus on the patient and try to offer solutions to varied needs.  You should have measurable KPIs including the new contract figures, monetary values, number of leads qualified/engaged, net sales figures, revenue growth, operational cash flows, retention figures, and percentage of market share.  Other indicators include traffic to your website, SEO rankings, rates of conversion, and overall engagement on social media.

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Attribution Metrics and Performance Marketing in Mobile

February 26, 2018

Are you reading this article on a mobile device? Going by statistics, insights and the scene at any dining table or college cafeteria, you most likely are. We live in a mobile-first world. In an average day, at least one out of four people with access to the internet, only use a smart phone. Moreover, we freely move back and forth between devices to get things done: Over half of this demographic rely on more than one type of device in an average day, with 1/5 of them using another device while concurrently using a computer (Google Insights).  Due to the stupendous role mobile phones play in our lives enabling us today to conduct all operations on the move, consumers now have the flexibility to develop curiosity, interest, attraction, and craving for a product, even compare it with similar products and place the order, within moments of viewing its ad on Instagram! But, there is an acute dearth of conclusive data on what determines online consumption today. With the advent of Marketing Attribution, we are closer to solving the mystery of what makes up effective digital marketing. Attribution Metrics is the way in which marketers assess ROI of the strategies/channels that connect them to potential customers. These tools simplify the retailer’s understanding of what it takes to make their products marketable, in the absence of any direct communication between the consumer and the seller (save for review forms and online surveys). To learn which marketing strategy is paying off, which chess piece needs to be moved around to generate better results, Marketing Attribution brings you the best system to standardize and monitor consumer behaviour. Why is accurate attribution so important for your business? The holy grail of media measurement is to analyze the impact and business value of all company-generated marketing interactions across the complex customer journey. Settling to remain in the dark—or worse, working under wrong assumptions—is akin to driving without a navigator. Inaccurate attribution will not only hamper your growth rate, it can also throw you off the right track by generating false impression or sketchy information about the complexities involved in online retail. Various marketing channels combine and permute to convert leads to sales, and the number of such channels is increasing every day with each new feature getting added to social media-verse. Facebook Explore, Instagram Live, Snapchat stories, Twitter buttons and Pinterest redirects are constantly revamping themselves to make it easy for businesses to attract and improve their presence for prospective buyers. This also makes it more difficult for these businesses to generate an actionable analysis of which channel is ultimately responsible for their success or the lack of it. With new agents (for mobile online payment like PayTm or Apple Wallet) being constantly introduced to the cycle reaffirms how important it is for marketing attribution to be constantly vigilant about the newest developments in the field. According to Matt Voda writing for The Make Good, “With accurate attribution comes not just more confidence in the strategies and tactics in place today, but most importantly, better decision-making, improved efficiency and effectiveness, and higher ROI. Accurate attribution helps you confidently zero in on your next best moves.” Attribution will be the biggest challenge marketers face this year Besides facing the perennial challenges of piecing together the product’s lifecycle complicated by dynamic ads, there are privacy and customer trust issues which makes tracking every step of the way difficult, unethical, unprofitable and counterproductive. One aspect that attribution metrics have not yet been able to solve is how offline advertising affects the online purchase. This offline to online transition has made one thing difficult for sure: it is now much harder to estimate the impact of your campaign, especially when it comes to mobile marketing. Developers are still struggling to come up with ways in which cross-channel influencers affect the performance of online ads. The rapidly changing scene today demands granular ad-level analytics to drive day-to-day activities of branding and marketing teams. Different Types of Attribution Models : 1. Single Source Attribution: First or last touch-based attribution takes into account only the channels engaging target audience with the product in the very beginning or the end. Upper Funnel Distribution registers the beginning of a customer’s purchase journey as in the case of programmatic display ads, while Bottom Funnel Attribution makes note of an ad’s ability to close the deal, like run search ads. 2. Multisource attribution: Since both touch points work together in driving conversions, most businesses prefer a model that generates insights on all levels of lead engaging. Multisource attribution credits each channel for their contribution to the final conversion; it includes everything from ads and social posts to webinars and e-newsletters. Also known as equal attribution, this accounts for every involvement in attaining a final sale. “It brings a sense of equality to the process, but at the same time doesn’t take into consideration the idea that certain aspects of the conversion have more weight than others – for example, the first time an ad is shown could arguably have played more of a role in the final conversion than duplicate impressions.” In such cases, weighted attribution proves to be more effective because it facilitates and substantiates these insights with by filing the hierarchy of the roles played by each channel in converting leads to sales. 3. Post-view attribution gives conversion credit to the visibility, reach of the ad. However, this is highly unreliable and quite useless at the end of the day, because while a lot of ads are shown to users, not all of them are necessarily seen. This is why post-click attribution is more useful in eliminating unnecessary data, taking into account only those ads which have generated clicks or redirects to the next stage of purchase (to the company’s website or shopping portal, for example). After the initial touch and before the final touch point before the sale, it doesn’t account for any prior website visits and is thus unable to shed little

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The Big Debate : Are Big Data, Predictive Analytics & Social Media at odds with Basic Marketing?

August 10, 2017

The way people have come to use various smart devices, and the rate in which smart devices are getting even smarter thanks to cloud computing, AI and IoT, Big Data is getting bigger than it used to be. As each device continues to contribute to the data pool, valuable consumer behavior patterns lie hidden in this unending sea of data. To be frank, Big Data is quite unmanageable, and difficult to use, without the right tools and techniques. Big Data has given companies access to market patterns that were previously undiscovered and inaccessible, thanks to Predictive Analysis tools. Social media usage too continues to add to this ocean of data, which can prove to be a double edged sword. One has the option of using Big Data to understand and predict market outcomes, or one can choose to ignore it and continue engaging in outdated marketing techniques. Marketing techniques are not static; they’ve always been dynamic As any marketer worth his salt knows, promoting, selling, and distributing products and services follow a certain pattern. Yet, marketing has always adopted technology as science has evolved, though the basic premise has always been to promote, sell, and distribute. In the olden days, marketing involved the town crier screaming out new products for a certain price. When printing technology became more accessible, businesses started to hand out leaflets and put up posters and banners in easily accessible places. With time, computers began to be used, and analytics and measuring slowly entered mainstream marketing processes, which helped to understand market trends. Just a few decades ago, companies were busy analyzing trends using Microsoft Excel sheets, and sometimes using basic statistical tools to translate basic demographic data into something that would help in creating marketing and sales campaigns. There were naysayers back then too, claiming there wasn’t much to understand or use, with the results that analytical tools fetched. With the advent of social media marketing, there were naysayers again, who claimed social media is a fad, and that it was pointless to include social media marketing in traditional marketing processes. Today, even the most conservative marketing department is scrambling to communicate with its audiences on social media, and use that data to come up with better ad, marketing, and sales campaigns. In short, you can clearly see how marketing structure hasn’t changed at all, even after hundreds of years. It has always been about understanding and communicating with an audience with the purpose of promoting, selling, and distributing products and services. This basic marketing premise has never been static though. It has always been dynamic, and has employed innovative techniques, strategies and technologies to address a market creatively, and understand it better. How Client X sold travel insurance certificates in an unfamiliar market The problem : One of our clients, let us call them X, wand to enter an unfamiliar market to promote and sell their travel insurance product. As the client did not possess any prior experience or knowledge about the market, it was difficult for them to develop a culturally-appropriate marketing campaign to promote, sell, and distribute travel insurance certificates. The solution and the process: Our development team helped the client to understand various cultural factors, buying behaviors, market and industry trends, and social conversations with respect to insurance purchase, in the specified market. Social conversations were meta-analyzed to match with existing Big Data, using predictive analysis tools, to translate disparate data into understandable statistics, which were interpreted finally. Statistical insights provided by predictive analysis tools helped the client to get an all-round picture about the market. This customer intelligence, drawn from various data sources, including social conversations and Big Data, helped the client to hotlist prospective customers who could be contacted. High quality prospects and leads were profiled based on their psychographic and demographic variables, and marketing campaigns were tested before going live. Again, predictive analysis helped to predict the outcome of tentative marketing campaigns that were tested. Prospects that seemed to drop-out eventually were shortlisted too, and the campaign focused on bringing travel insurance certificates to only those who were most likely to purchase it. What Predictive Analysis found: The said market had a tendency to travel in a certain pattern centered on specific holidays, specific weather patterns, and specific political events that took place. For example, the target audience traveled more often during periods when there were political arguments, probably to escape the negative atmosphere. Similarly, Predictive Analysis helped to predict when extreme weather condition like intense heat waves, and heavy rains occurred, periods during which the target market saw an increased number of flight tickets being booked. Results: Predictive Analysis helped to automate marketing campaigns during many such situations, when people would be more likely to travel, and in turn purchase travel insurance certificates. A concerted effort to bring social media conversations, Big Data and predictive Analysis tools helped the client to enter an unfamiliar market, and consolidate its basic marketing strategy.      Social media is already part of basic marketing Most CMOs are hesitant to even discuss Predictive Analysis and big Data, because these terms still seem like buzzwords to them. There is also a misconception that traditional marketing techniques are at odds with newer tools and techniques such as Big Data and Predictive Analysis. Yet, the truth is in plain sight: we already know that social media has helped us to reach out to our audiences and study markets, better than we ever did before. We also know that consumer behavior has changed in the last few years, with even the poorest of people using mobile devices to access information and to shop. We also use social media alongside traditional marketing practices in such a way that they now complement each other. No C-level executive would now argue that social media is at odds with basic marketing strategies. Social media is now an integral part of any marketing practice Yet, there is a resistance toward Predictive Analysis and the way Big Data is being used in marketing.

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What You Must Know About Agile Marketing?

July 17, 2017

If you have found it difficult to understand why certain marketing campaigns, despite great analytics and data, don’t actually fare very well in reality, it is probably because these campaigns are not in touch with ground realities. Customers or our target audiences aren’t monolithic forces, and they are not homogeneous, though our data might like us to believe. Each customer or client is an individual, and they are motivated by various internal and external factors to make the purchase decisions that they do. To stay abreast of these disparate individual clients and customers, marketers and decisions makers should abandon the idea of cliched marketing campaigns that run for months, based on data and analytics that a CRM might provide. Agile marketing strategy addresses this issue, and puts individual customers and clients to the forefront. It also reduces the duration of campaign cycles, and ensures that micro-campaigns and hyper-collaborative team efforts bring the flexibility and change required to dynamically evolve our marketing efforts. A little about agile marketing With a focus on end-customer, agile marketing helps teams to work in a highly functional and effective manner, by being iterative, flexible and self-organizing. We must remember that Agile Marketing is not related to Agile Development, and though there may be a bit of inspiration from the way user experience design, agile marketing is an entity that stands on its own. If you wish to bring agile marketing strategies to your team, it is probably better not to use terminologies related to agile software development, as marketing strategies are quite different form software development. Most importantly, developers often follow agile as if it were the New Testament, but marketing teams and CFOs or CMOs need not, and instead, keep evolving their strategies based on changing customer needs and trends. If we look at things in a realistic way, agile marketing is all about suiting marketing strategies to changing trends, technologies, bi-directional conversations, and the unending production of Big Data. In other words, there will soon be a day when we stop calling agile marketing “agile marketing”, and instead, call it just “marketing”.   Here is how agile marketing is usually structured: Agile marketing strategy is often inspired by the Scrum framework, which involves creating lists of priorities. These priorities are taken up by team members or teams in “sprints”. The team or the team member has a very short period of time to complete that marketing exercise, probably 2-4 weeks, instead of 4-6 months in regular marketing campaigns. Teams and members meet each day for short stand-up meetings with the team leader (or the scrum master, if you will), and the various building blocks of the projects (different sprints), are managed to ensure they are right on track, by whoever is overseeing it. At the end of each sprint, a marketing goal or exercise should be completed. At the end of the completion, one reviews the results. Soon after, the next chunk of a marketing strategy is distributed among team members, as different sprints.   Instead of taking it all up as a single and unitary marketing campaign, the agile methodology allows for breaking up of a marketing strategy into sprints, and completing them, discarding them, or altering them based on the results of each sprint. Important values of agile marketing, in simple words Being open to changes in marketing plans As you may have already observed, your customers are not unitary, and belong to diverse demographics and psycho-graphics. It would be foolhardy to reduce an individual to a statistic, and club them under broad categories. Instead, use agile marketing strategy to keep changing your marketing campaigns, as and when your customers’ tastes change. With the proliferation of social media, customers’ tastes, values and needs change almost every other day. Testing and monitoring campaigns rapidly Do not stop at tracking and monitoring customers’ changing needs and trends. Track every sprint that your team undertakes and monitor its success. Each sprint has to teach you something, and should help you move along with your customers. As customers’ trends change every day, you should change your strategy too, just as quickly. Testing opinions and matching them with data Market research and opinion analyses can be taken up as regular sprints, you can match these sprints with the data you have accumulated on your CRM. CRM is quite agile itself, but we tend to look at it as a constant. Using sprints helps you to make sense of your CRM analytics in a more agile manner. Conduct micro-experiments to test larger marketing ideas If you are running a marketing campaign, it has to evolve with your customers. The best way to understand what your customer wants, or how each of one of them is changing every day, is to conduct micro-experiments. These micro-experiments can be tested against your larger marketing ideas, and evolve as you get the results. In fact, these smaller experiments can consist of sprints too. Focusing on individual aspirations, instead of on large markets Agile marketing puts the customer or the client in the center. Marketing strategy itself takes a backseat, and gives more importance to the changing needs and desires of customers. When individual aspirations are given more importance than a monolithic market segment, your marketing strategy is likely to get super-efficient. A radical approach to collaboration Often, collaboration involves various hurdles that exist within hierarchies. An agile marketing framework allows you to collaborate with anybody in your team. Even your most-junior team member will probably be able to communicate with your senior marketing professionals, and your marketing manager may be able to communicate with sales guy better. Of course, as this is a customer-centric model, there will always be collaborations with customers both on social media, and offline, all along the sprints that you undertake. Bringing agile marketing to your work floor To bring agile marketing to your teams, you probably do not have to work too hard. You must remember that this model exists to make things easier, more

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How Beacons and Proximity Marketing Can Enhance Sales at Stores?

February 8, 2017

Location-based marketing has been around for a while now. Using the latest in technology, stores can send marketing messages to shoppers’ smartphones when they are in the vicinity of stores. This is made possible by the use of beacons, or iBeacons, which were introduced by Apple in 2013. These Bluetooth low energy (BLE) devices broadcast messages one-way, and can be used to provide information about deals products, make billing easier, etc. Most importantly, beacons have begun to revolutionize the way stores market their products and services. In this article, let us take a look at how proximity marketing makes use of beacons. Quick facts According to an article published on the Forbes:   53% of users are willing to share their location with stores. 57% of users are open to the idea of receiving location-based ads. 63% feel coupons on mobile phones are great. 62% share deals they find interesting with their friends. Certainly, these facts point toward a trend that is likely going to normalise location-based marketing that makes use of beacons. What do beacons do to help drive sales? Beacons help in providing several payment options to customers. Loyalty programs can be shared via beacons when customers are in store. Recommend products based on individual user attributes Broadcast coupon details to customers who are likely to make purchases. Help customers navigate stores and find products they want easily. Here is how marketers can use beacons and proximity marketing to drive sales:  Gain customer insights Beacons help you to understand how your customers are spending money, how long they spend time at your store on average and what they are doing while they are at your store. This information can be further processed to design personalized campaigns that help to drive sales. Boost customer loyalty You can use beacons to reward customers who may arrive at your store repeatedly. The moment they walk in, you can send coupons and if they are regulars, you can ask them to ‘click and shop’ for goods previously purchased. While this a utility for the customer, it drives sales for you.   Kick-start proximity marketing Beacons help you to gain a variety of information based the customer. One of these is their location data. Location-based information can be used to kick start proximity marketing, suggesting information, products and services which may be available close to where your customer is around at that particular moment. Offer discounts and coupons Nothing entices customers more than a good discount or a coupon. If you want to turn walk-ins to sales, you can use beacons to send coupons to users’ smartphones, so that they purchase something, instead of walking away. Geo-targeted messages are known to drive sales, especially if you have a store in a place where footfalls are high. Even if they are in the vicinity to buy something else, a coupon or a discount that flashes on their screen may tempt them to walk into your store. Help customers Beacons are all about the location. If your customer is looking for something, beacons can be used to help them find the right aisle, or the right product. If it is a man that walks into your store, you would probably direct him to the men’s section of your clothing store, instead of him having to look or them himself. The possibilities are endless. Beacons can help you maximize sales by customizing location-targeted messages. Enable cross-channel experience With so many options to make sales happen these days, many stores are opting for online sales. While this takes place mostly on desktops or smartphones, brick and mortar stores are still around. By offering a custom sales experience across all these channels, beacons help you to offer a cross-channel experience. This is important when your competitors are already engaging in multi-channel delivery.   Thwart shoplifting While this is not part of traditional marketing, beacons do help you to thwart shoplifting when they happen. Though it may not directly boost sales, preventing shoplifting helps you to save valuable products which will add up to your bottom-line. Many supermarkets and departmental stores have begun to use beacons to monitor and track customers when they are in the store. Data and analytics Analysis if data that is collected by beacons provides valuable information about the kind of people who purchase your products. This is the target demographic that you should be targeting in order to boost sales. There are several analytic tools available to help retailers drive sales with the help of beacon-based analytics. Business intelligence tools can be customized to integrate beacon data and help you come up with useful insights.   3 Examples of companies using beacons to enhance sales:   Woolworths, a British supermarket chain has successfully used beacons across its 254 stores. Push notifications are sent too consumers when they arrive within a certain radius of the store so that they can ‘click and collect’. Venerable Macy’s installed more than 4,000 beacons to provide an omni-channel retail experience. The store also brought a beacon-triggered mobile game which allowed users to win Macy’s coupons and prizes. McDonald’s used beacons to engage in proximity marketing across its Istanbul outlets. A loyalty app was used to target customers near McDonald outlets and then offer them coupons and try new drinks for free.        Highlights More marketing agencies believe location based data can help them design better campaigns. Proximity marketing campaigns can be weaved along with social media campaigns for a more nuanced approach. Data collected by beacons can be used to improve products. The same data can be used to manage shelves and product locations within a store. Use beacons to push discounts and coupons, which in turn help drive sales. Use analytics for a deeper insight about customers, their behaviour and their needs. Monitor and track individuals to avoid unwanted activities such as shoplifting. Provide an enhanced shopping experience to your store visitors, by combining in-store, social media, online and mobile experiences.

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8 Influencer Marketing Strategies that Work

January 30, 2017

If you are hearing the term ‘influencer marketing’ a number of times these days, there is a reason behind it. It is one of the most popular strategies for companies across the world, according to few surveys conducted. The process of aligning with those who can influence your target audience is what is called influencer marketing. By aligning with people who can initiate action among your target audience, you will stand to gain more prospects, leads and finally customers. However, there is a method to influencer marketing. In this article, let us take a look at 8 useful tips that will help you to kick-start your influencer marketing campaign. Study your audience Before you begin to choose your influencers, start with your own intended audience. Most companies choose to ignore the specificities of their target audience. Use advanced metrics and Big Data to analyze what your audience likes, who might influence them, what their sub-cultures are, which psychographics they belong to, etc. Use this data to create a map which helps you better understand the kind of influencers that will initiate action. After all, the most important goal of influencer marketing is to get those influencers to initiate action in your favor. And for this, you need to start with analyzing your own audience. Choose your influencers wisely Choosing influencers needs to be done very carefully. Begin to identify the kind of content that your influencer publishes on social media and elsewhere. Identify the media through which they communicate and confirm if this aligns with your own audience. Ensure that their location is relevant to your audience. Finally, do not forget to check the quality of their content. Content needs to be professional. If they are tweeting in poor English language, then they are probably not the right influencer for you. Also, ensure that their opinions align with your business strategy. Analyze influencer content Influencer content could be in the form of text, images or videos. Depending on which media they choose to communicate, one of the other forms of content will be more popular. If your prospective influencer is a blogger, then ensure that they consistently blog about industries, products or topics that align with your products or services. It also helps if your influencer is a thought leader in the area of your expertise. Let us say you sell clothes on a small ecommerce website. An example of your perfect influencer would be someone who shops online, and shares selfies on Instagram or Twitter about their recent purchases. If they are blogging about fashion tips, they could be an even better choice. Analyze influencer audience Once you analyze influencer content, ensure that they have enough audience of their own. This way, you will not only gain access to their content but also to their audience, who will most likely be your intended target audience. Look at variables such as gender, the home situation of the audience (do they have children, are they married, etc), geographical data, etc. There are dozens of variables such as these which will help you to identify audience attributes. If your influencer has a very diverse set of audience, it may actually work against you. Your message may spread itself too thin. Manage influencer relationship Once you identify your influencers, begin to build a relationship with them. Start being responsive to their posts and communicate your expectations with them. If they agree, ensure that you compensate them for their efforts adequately. A disgruntled influencer will cause you more harm than the benefits a happy one might provide. Encourage your influencers to tell authentic stories, guide them with your strategy and help them understand the kind of content you expect from them in return for compensation. Ensure that your influencers’ activity is monitored and tracked, not in a creepy way, but to ensure that their stories align with your marketing strategy. Manage content Now that you have influencers and have identified their audience, it is time to start managing the content they produce for you or the way they distribute the content you create. Learn to repurpose the content that your influencers create. If they write a blog that is helpful to sell your product or service, a part of that blog could be published on your website as a testimonial. Of course, you will need to seek your influencers’ permission to repurpose content if they have created it. It is also important that you manage content distribution properly. Make sure you don’t mislead anyone While all this sounds good on paper, when you begin to engage in influencer marketing, things can go quite awry. This is mostly because companies often do not communicate in a transparent manner with their influencers. When this happens, the content strategy may go haywire, the trust may be lost, influencers may feel disgruntled, or worse, influencers may alienate their audience. For this reason alone, you need to be as clear and transparent as possible. Ensure that you do not mislead anyone, neither your audience nor your influencer’s audience. Most importantly, do not mislead your influencers. Measure performance The most important part of influencer marketing is measurement. You need to quantify the results and check if you are getting what you are investing for. Start tracking posts, shares, tweets and the comments that your influencers elicit. Measure the impressions and engagements and make sure that you continuously evolve your strategy. While you are at it, try to also monitor the emotions and sentiments that these posts generate among the audience. Measuring the performance of influencer content will help you to calculate Total Media Value. Even more important, you will be able to track your ROI. As you can see, influencer marketing is a complex and continuous activity that requires your sustained efforts. Without a proper plan, influencer marketing may not work to your advantage. However, when it is done properly, it will help you achieve your business targets quite easily.

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The Rise of the Chief Marketing Technologist

January 25, 2017

  Five years back, research and advisory firm Gartner had predicted that by 2017, the chief marketing officer (CMO) of an organization will be spending more on technology than the CIO. Today, it’s no secret that there is an increasing influence of technology in marketing. The confluence of marketing and technology (MarTech) has resulted in accelerating client acquisition, enhancing brand awareness, allocating budget for more marketing and technology operations and upgrading customer experience. Over the years, the line between CMOs and CIOs has blurred and a new C -level position has gained popularity: chief marketing technologist (CMT). In simple words: the new hybrid role combines the previous job profiles of CMO and Chief Technology Officer (CTO). He must be hands on with marketing and furthermore have knowledge about capabilities and budget of the IT departments. According to a research by Foundation Capital, martech is expected to grow 10X in 10 years (from a $12B Billion dollar market into a $120B industry).  The rising popularity of martech has further augmented the demand of CMTs. An ideal CMT would be a vital business player alongside being a technology leader, who will be involved in data and analytics, planning, content marketing, product development, digital engagement, marketing automation, sales and web mechanics. He should have the vision to drive both technology and marketing in the digital age, thus helping in the agile administration of the business. As per a Harvard Business Review article by Scott Brinker and Gartner Analyst Laura McClellan, the CMT’s job is to align marketing technology with business goals, serve as a liaison to IT, and evaluate and choose technology providers. Here are 4 key roles of a CMT in an organization: To bridge the gap between CMO and CIO To nurture technology in marketing departments To ensure marketing teams aren’t left behind in terms of IT To keep marketing up-to-date with changing technologies. Also, let’s look at four areas chief marketing technologist must be accountable for: Confluence of marketing and technology to achieve business goals Earlier marketing and technology were seen as separate verticals but today they are increasingly overlapping. Today, marketing is reliant on analytics and other forms of business intelligence. The data that is aggregated from various sources, thanks to cloud computing is being analyzed to derive insights. These insights have pushed organizations to strategize their marketing campaigns, both digital and traditional. Automation of processes has only spurred the growth of big data, and with that, the resulting insights from analytical software. In fact, marketing is so dependent on data that it is impossible to visualize a marketing campaign that is not built around analytics. This convergence of marketing and technology require the decisions of someone (read: chief marketing technologist) who has mastery in both the domains at the same time. Easy communication between IT and marketing teams   Marketing departments have often overlooked technical aspects, but the rise of digital marketing has forced most marketers to adopt technology. At this juncture, CMT joins the organization and facilitates more ventures and correspondence between the teams. He is required to identify the current state of tech ecosystem and craft marketing campaigns to drive business. He also streamlines the planning and execution of marketing technology projects and coordinates with the staff of both divisions effectively and keeps an update of their activities. Development of strategic roadmap and budget allocation in marketing technology According to Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey 2015-2016, 33% of marketing budget go to technology. Gartner also reported that nearly 65% of marketing departments are expanding spending plans for service providers that have technology-related offerings. The CMTs is required to amalgamate the technology and marketing budgets for a common vision. CMTs’ leadership abilities coupled with market and competitive intelligence help in improving the infrastructure of the company with the strategic application of technology.  He also allocates money for innovation, which might include experiments with new innovations and techniques. CMTs also develop the strategic roadmap for the companies on where to invest money to engage with the customers.  Fostering technology-positive work culture The multi-layered role of CMT provides marketing professionals with guidance and inspiration. He additionally encourages a work culture that is innovation positive. In this sense, CMTs not only make decisions, but also help foster environments that nurture technology in places where it is not usually welcomed. Here are some Chief Marketing Technologists, who are active on Twitter Nicole Pereira @Nicca619 – Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Technologist, Campaign Creator Eric Hollebone @erichollebone – Chief Marketing Technologist, DemandLab. John Kottcamp @jkottcam – Chief Marketing Technologist, Tahzoo Hitesh Bhatia @hiteshbhatia – Chief Marketing Technologist, CBREX Andrew Epperson @eppand ‏- Chief Marketing Technologist, PBISRewards Steve Glass @Oinkodomeo- Chief Marketing Technologist, Oinkodomeo Rise of Chief Marketing Technologist In the previous C-level hierarchical setups, the CMO took the marketing leadership responsibilities, while the CIO took the technology and IT-related leadership roles. Now, envision a circumstance where a CIO of a company is not effectively connected with the marketing team. Neither is usually in a position to comment on the other’s leadership vision. A CMT acts as a bridge between a CIO and CMO. A CMT’s combined knowledge of marketing and technology help him to weave marketing vision with technical depth. He will ensure that business is aligned with the right variables, and that there are right incentives and accountability overall. A CMT usually has the background in IT management, and also hold specialization in marketing. Most of them might have an undergraduate degree in computer science or in business administration. To whom the CMT reports to will rely on upon individual associations. The CMT coordinates with both technical and marketing teams, but concentrates on making marketers within an organization cultivate an interest and fondness toward technology and IT. According to a study in 2016, globally, 70% of marketing teams have a person dedicated to marketing technology, and in Europe, 66% of marketing teams have an individual devoted to this role. Now, why there is a rise in companies to employ CMTs? Here are 5 reasons why there is an increasing

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How to Make Digital Marketing More Human

December 12, 2016

We have heard it all before, and seen it all before, how technology has eclipsed our lives. There is almost nothing that cannot be automated today, and word is spreading over that artificial intelligence will soon take over many tasks that humans previously do. While all this reduces human errors and reduces costs, the most important glue that binds society together is missing. Too much technology reduces human interaction, and the lack of human touch can be a cold and dark experience. This is the reason why certain jobs such as those of a nurse, psychotherapist, healer, religious minister or for that matter, even that of a journalist will never be automated. However, the influx of technology in other areas of life has made people weary of automation and technology. With more and more companies investing in digital media and social marketing, questions are being raised about the missing human factor. Thankfully, digital marketing does not automate everything completely. Instead, it retains a human touch while also using technology to our benefit. This is probably why digital marketing is still one of the more human technologies around. In this article, let us take a look at how you can make your digital marketing more human, so that your target audience does not feel alienated or overwhelmed by technology.   Don’t automate everything   While there is technology that helps us to automate almost everything that we do on social media, thanks to artificial intelligence and chatbots, do not do it. Automate only certain posts and hire social media executives to interact personally with audience. This is very important because if people simply keep receiving automated messages, they will lose interest and move ahead. It is important to insert human emotions and interactions in between.   Take time to engage with your audience   Once you have enough audience on social platforms, take time to engage with them. Do not just schedule posts and let the chatbots do all the work. Spend time talking to your loyal followers and recognize or appreciate when they have something positive to say about you. Digital marketing only works when there is ample communication and engagement between you and your followers. This is something that should be borne in mind.   Share posts about your work culture   People often like to see images that depict human actions. If you are having an event in your office, share those pictures. If your CEO meets another CEO, take pictures and upload them on your social profiles. Use these images tactfully so that they are part of the brand narrative. Ensure that you share content and images with respect to your work culture and employees, as that brings a human face to your company.   Customize marketing messages   Marketing messages should not be formulated in a ‘one size fits all’ template. Instead, explore buyer personas of your target audience and come up with a different marketing message for each demographic. Explore and study different demographics and psycho-graphics of your target audience. Everyone is not the same and the same marketing message will not appeal to everyone. When you customize your messages to suit individual tastes, you will come across as a more human-oriented company.   Do not try to sell constantly   While automating and technology are mostly to blame for the lack of human interactions, aggressive marketing messages can also seem too business-like, and may put off your audience. Do not try to sell all the time. Instead, share informative blog posts that help your audience to understand something unique about your product or service. Try to engage with your audience and seek personal opinions about your products and services.   Answer questions and ask questions   There is nothing that is more ego-boosting than being asked for advices or when one is asked questions. Even if you know something, try and ask questions to your followers, as long as you do not come across as misinformed. Similarly always try to answer questions that people leave online, if you feel that person may be a possible prospect. All this helps in showing that you have a human side to you and that you are not just aggressively marketing your products and services.   Invite and reward loyal customers at offline events   Another strategy to show your human face is to actually meet your target audience offline. Select people who have engaged with you online, and invite them for a retreat or an event organized offline. This will provide you with ample time and opportunity to interact with your loyal customers. Most importantly, this can prove to be an important photo-op session so that the very same photos can be shared online again, as part of your digital marketing strategy.   Remember important life events   Always remember to wish your target audience when their birthdays or marriage anniversaries arrive. Even if you do not have that data on your system, sometimes people voluntarily share these messages online. When they do, use this as an opportunity to build rapport and wish them. It does not have to be just birthdays or marriage anniversaries. You could also wish your target audience when they graduate, get a new job, give birth to a child, or when their pet’s birthday is celebrated. Stay human, start interacting and engaging It is being increasingly noticed that people are not happy with the way we are pushing technology on them. While digital marketing is a great way to drive home our marketing messages, there is an important need to keep things human. Do not try to automate everything and find time to engage your audience. Begin to share posts about your office culture and show that you have a human side to you. Also, don’t sell or market aggressively and instead, customize your marketing messages. Help people to find answers to their queries and also seek their help when you need some information. Reward your loyal customers and remember their

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Why Brand Activation that Fosters Engagement Is Important and How to Do It?

December 9, 2016

Every brand needs to have a compelling story behind it to support itself. Without a narrative, a brand is all but marketing noise to the target audience. If you want your target audience to take you seriously, you will need to support your brand with a story that touches the hearts and souls of your target audience. When you combine this narrative in a visual manner with personal interaction, the brand comes to life. This process is known as brand activation. What is brand activation? Brand activation integrates different media, communication platforms and creative tools to stimulate interest, trial and loyalty. So far, we have only focused on advertising, which communicates the existence of a product or a service to the audience. It may also persuade the buyer to purchase or to be informed. However, brand activation stimulates the act of buying. It encourages, pushes, cajoles and inspires the buying process. It is for this reason that brands need to have a compelling story that strikes the note with your target audience emotionally and cognitively. When a brand is thus activated using various forms of media and a solid creative basis, people will begin to find you relevant, convincing and important. Why is it important? Brand activation that fosters engagement helps in: Boosting brand loyalty Fulfilling buyer needs Appealing to senses Satisfying market needs and demands Enhances sales However, the goal of brand activation shouldn’t necessarily be focused on the buying process like most authorities and academics would tell you. Instead, it should focus on fostering engagement. In this article, let us take a look at how we can activate a brand to foster engagement. What a good brand activation routine looks like A good brand activation program follows a multi-channel approach. You will need to combine social, digital and real life engagement in order to activate emotions and behaviors that are desired. In other words, brand activation ensures that certain behaviors and emotions are activated each time a prospect encounters your brand. To ensure that this happens, you will probably need to create inspiring content, events, activities and other experiences which inspire the customers to act. All this requires you to study consumer behavior closely and personalize the entire experience. It is important to remember that brand activation does not follow a format, and you will probably have to create your own model to chart success in these kinds of programs. However, you can follow certain general rules that help in creating brand activation that foster engagement. The more you make these branding experiences interactive, the higher your chances of creating an engaging experience that translates to brand loyalty. Thus, you will have to focus on making experiences interactive and tie these experiences with your brand’s story. Support your brand with a compelling story The most important aspect of any brand activation exercise is to connect with the target audience. This can only happen when you create a compelling story with which your target audience can relate. In other words, make your products or services accessible. This helps the target audience to interact with your content, events and experiences. Tie all these together with your brand, and ensure that you reinforce desired behavior. The story should act as a glue to connect the target audience with your behavior, so that it activates longing, desire, inspiration and other positive emotions. Use social and digital tools to enhance Engagement One simply cannot look away from social media, if one were to enhance engagement. It is then no wonder that social media and digital platforms are an integral part of brand activation. Infuse the story or the narrative into your social posts and digital marketing campaigns, so that there is always a shadow of your brand in everything that you communicate. Whenever there is engagement, allude to your brand narrative directly or indirectly. Inspire, nurture and influence your audience Your brand activation exercises should be first and foremost inspiring. They should inspire your target audience to take interest, try and then keep coming back for more. Secondly, nurture those who show interest in your branding exercises. Continuous activation leads to hard-wiring of a particular behavior, and this is neuroscience. So, nurture those who engage so that they become hardwired to respond to your brand narrative positively. Thirdly, influence your audience with expertise and quality. Weave these qualities into your brand narrative and ensure that you reinforce engagement when it happens. Create experiences, not just branding exercises Brand activation is inherently tied to branding exercises, both online and offline. However, remember to create experiences that take the brand narrative into account. Always remember that the purpose of the brand activation is to promote or inspire a desired behavior while pairing your brand narrative with something positive. For this to happen, create experiences that are unique and that which are tied to your brand narrative. Use every creative media to weave the story with events, content and experiences, so that there is more engagement. Make brand activation a part of your overall marketing strategy Brand activation is not a onetime exercise. It needs to be an ongoing and year-round activity whose success is measured and analyzed. For this reason, you will need to start quantifying your brand activation exercises. Analyze the success, growth and goals that are met with the help of brand activation. Accordingly, make changes to the strategy so that there is more engagement. Focus on engagement Indeed, the focus of any brand activation strategy should involve engagement. Engagement is one of the most important ingredients of brand activation. Your target audience needs to engage with your brand narrative when they are exposed to visual, sensory, auditory or other forms of stimuli. Only when they feel inspired to act and engage, and then take action will your branding activation be successful. So, always bear in mind that along with creating a compelling story, you should also focus on boosting engagement.

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