Keeping up with the latest trend, there would hardly be a marketer who may have not considered Influencer Marketing in their mix. Given the paucity of visibility in organic marketing and noise in paid marketing, Influencer Marketing seemed like idea that was clutter-breaking. Like all media, it comes with its pros and cons. The ROI from using this channel has been under severe scrutiny and skeptics think this is all hoo-ha and no moolah. The 2018 Mediakix survey predicted that Influencer marketing will become a $5-10B industry by 2020. Let’s share a quick background on this medium of outreach and how you can check for the pros and cons for your brand and industry. Influencer Marketing From celebrities to micro-influencers, influencer marketing is a way for brands to communicate via a third-party influencer whose opinion resonates with the brand’s audience. The medium, as such, isn’t new but the emergence of social media has distributed the power and given everyone an opportunity to become an influencer if they garner a good following. It’s one thing to see Bournvita talk about being the best health drink for a child. It becomes more personal and believable when “mothers like me” says how the chocolate-filled sugary powder with some nutrient content has helped her child. It instantly induces trust, becomes personal at some level and makes the brand believable. It would make another mother eventually add Bournvita in her list of consideration when buying a health drink for her child. There is no direct way for Bournvita to attribute their influencer campaign to the final purchase (unless they do a digitally traceable campaign via a series of coupon codes, contests or hashtags). But the final impact on the revenue is undeniable. Choosing mothers as their micro-influencers works well for Bournvita. But other industries don’t have it so straight. Let’s continue with our pros and cons debate Pros 1. Reach the right audience If you can identify your target audience well and the influencer who can sway the opinion of your audience and if the influencer has a sizeable following, the reach for an influencer marketing campaign can hit the bullseye. As you will see, there are a lot of ‘ifs’ in the sentence which makes the medium experiment-worthy. Let’s say that you want to promote your hill-station hotel during a low-occupancy period. Right before the period begins, your influencer campaign encompassing of travel bloggers and writers can start seeding in content that gives away titbits about your destination. Once they do this, contests and hashtags can be used as a more direct way to generate interest. Here, we put our trust in the influencer blogger’s relationship with his audience and how much they’ll believe what he says on the destination and the hotel. Will it drive people to come? That one you’ll have to wait it out. 2. Build credibility Building trust in a brand can take years. Taking the influencer route consistently is like receiving positive word-of-mouth with built-in amplification. It sounds like a dream come true for any brand. Influencers here have done all the heavy-lifting of creating content over time that people follow and like. Even with a single post that doesn’t overly advertise but sounds more like a first-hand review can do the trick. 3. Expand your audience Organic communication cannot control who you reach. Paid advertising can allow you a certain degree of control, especially with targeting and lookalike audiences. But influencer marketing takes your reach to a different level. Zoe ‘Zoella’ who tops Forebes’ Influencer list along with Michelle Phan and Huda Kattan has a multimillion fan following and a bank balance that is in the millions too. She reviews a $3 moisturiser from the local store or a $30 brand from a beauty store with equal ease. View this post on Instagram I didn’t know what to caption this, so @poppydeyes said “SPLISH SPLASH I WAS TAKING A BATH” so there you go ? What are you currently loving in your bath routine? This @herbivorebotanicals scrub is INSANE! A post shared by Zoë Sugg (@zoesugg) on Aug 1, 2019 at 11:58am PDT It makes her believable and trustworthy. Women from 18 to 50 follow her everyday to see if the product she is reviewing matches their tastes and wallets. Reaching such a diverse audience with a single or series of posts makes it well worth it to try steering your brand communication via an influencer and get to say things that you wouldn’t say directly. 4. It isn’t as expensive and saves time While celebrity influencers do tend to cost a lost, going with micro-influencers can be more cost-effective than other channels. Some influencers can work for barter when you give your product away. Others can work on a mix of barter and a small fee. This post by Shane Barker helps you see what the market looks like for the cost of a sponsored post. Also, an influencer is then given the responsibility to create quality content. Be it a blog, a vlog, a post or a video, the content quality is responsible for the eventual reach and engagement. 5. The statistics tell a story The 2017 influencer marketing report by LINQIA said a lot of marketers think it worked for them. 77% of marketers use influencer collaborations to drive engagement. 89% of marketers use it to create authentic content about their brand. 56% of marketers use it to drive traffic to their websites. 43% of marketers use it to reach younger audiences who detest traditional ads. Now that we’ve built a case on why you should be trying it out, here are a few cautionary points. 1. Measurable ROI? Marketers often like to live in a world which is surrounded by words like creating brand pull, increasing positive sentiment, increase visibility, reach, engagement and creating brand recall. Talk about sales numbers and all these words tend to
Month: September 2019
Linkedin vs Facebook :How to Use This Platform for Business Purpose
Let’s start by clarifying that aren’t stating the obvious. Both channels are traditionally used for very different purposes. Facebook is used to share photos from vacation and connect with friends and family. Linkedin is used by businesses to share updates while staying update What we would like to elaborate is how digital marketers can create the right mix to use both Facebook and Linkedin to their advantage. In this blog, we can take you through some of the latest ad formats to try out and case studies on how the same company is using both media differently. The core part is you are communicating with people on both fronts except that they are looking at you with a different lens on each platform. 1. Leverage on UGC from Facebook and on lead generation from Linkedin We will neither claim this to be the right way or the only way as vice versa of the above statement works equally well. In most cases UGC is easily generated on Facebook as people have a way to rate your business and drop visitor posts. For a consumer-facing brand, leveraging Facebook to amplify positivity around the brand and eventually get to lead generation makes sense. It is like your digital word-of-mouth. Running consumer ads on Facebook is also a great way generate leads. Given the basic association of professionals with the medium, ads on Linkedin are more veered towards the generation of leads. From professional courses to connecting with the right people within an organization, lead generation from a business perspective works well on this medium. Let’s take an example where the same product can be used for different types of lead generation. Sahil has been teaching Kickboxing for a while. When he wanted to recruit more people from a particular area of the city, he turned to targeted lead generation from Facebook. When he wanted to start batches for corporate, he targeted HR managers at corporate for lead generations and sales. 2. Individual stories v/s 360 degree PR stories Facebook is a great platform for telling individual stories. It allows you to take each of your users and put them on a pedestal and share their story. Linkedin can work well when you connect all these stories and showcase this from a brand perspective on how the brand is helping users collectively. Again, there is no right or wrong here. Because Linkedin acts as a communication point to professionals, talking about the brand gives it context from a different view. 3. Brand building v/s brand advocate building When you want to say something amazing about your products and brand in a visually appealing manner, Facebooks works wonderfully to a marketer’s advantage. Let’s say your company sells travel packages, talking about destinations in all their visual glory works well on Facebook. On the other hand, talking about the numbers and behaviour around travel, that especially comes from your CXO level brand advocates, grounds your company in a superior level intellectually. 4. Awareness and Reach v/s Penetration When it comes to awareness and reach, Facebook beats most social channels hands down. Because of the sheer user base, time on the channel and engagement, Facebook is a good medium to get visibility. Linkedin is used when your targeting is niche and you can almost identify people by their position in the organization and reach out to them with a clear ask. 5. Linkedin Groups v/s Facebook Groups Both social channels have the groups feature that allow users with similar interests to have conversations within the restrictions and guidelines of the group. The motive of engagement in the groups tend to vary. A company selling a mixer grinder may create a general user community group on Facebook to share recipes. Here the company executives may subtly steer conversations that feature their product once in a while. The same company may have an active group of innovators on Linkedin who take pride in food or tech innovations around the product. With these two channels its never an or but an and. As a organizations, it is important to maintain different facets of your social side on both these channels. Have you done a 360-degree campaign using both channels effectively and differently? Do share your case study with us to be featured in this space. Watch: We are a Content-First Agency
7 Customer Engagement Strategies That Really Work
Digital marketing has one significant advantage over traditional marketing. And that is its ability to create a two-way dialogue between customers and the brand. Unlike traditional marketing where brands shove a bunch of information down customers’ throats, digital marketing allows you to build a relationship with your customers; thereby creating a loyal following. Unfortunately, most marketers don’t leverage this unique ability of digital marketing. They continue to use the same one-way technique that traditional marketing is known for even in their digital efforts. As a result, customers end up feeling disconnected from the brand. Forget customer retention and loyalty, even acquiring new customers becomes a challenge. If you’re serious about building a Digital marketing strategy that engages customers in the long run, here are some invaluable tips: Tip 1: Measure, measure, and then measure some more You can’t grow something if you’re not tracking it obsessively and that stands true for customer engagement as well. With analytics tools like Kissmetrics, Mixpanel, and Amplitude, you can easily figure out how customers are engaging with the product. You can find out which buyer personas are engaging more, where users are dropping off, where cohorts are churning, and so on. This gives you major insights into how customers are engaging with your product today, which will become the foundation for the next steps. Also, try to combine qualitative analysis with quantitative metrics for maximum effectiveness. Tip 2: Deliver exemplary customer experience No amount of customer engagement techniques will work unless you focus on delivering a superlative customer experience. Nothing puts a customer off more than a bad experience. So unless you have a monopoly, chances are that a bad experience equals a lost customer. In fact, 42% of brands say that they invest in customer experience in order to build customer retention. As a brand, start by setting up strong metrics around the customer experience that are relevant to your brand — whether that’s time for query resolution, days to delivery, or time for first response. Then track those metrics relentlessly and even link staff bonuses to these metrics if need be. Tip 3: Involve your brand advocates Chances are that you have a small group of customers who absolutely love your brand. These are the people who will give you a consistent 10 on your NPS (Net Promoter Score), organically tell people about how great your product is, and want to give you feedback. Leveraging your brand advocates effectively is a great engagement strategy. You can start off with simple things, like giving them a sneak preview of your new products/updates and asking them to spread the information via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. You can also rope them in to conduct user tests before launching a new product or an upgrade. This will not only keep your loyal customers engaged with the brand but will also help you build credibility among a wider audience. Tip 4: Build a brand people relate to In today’s day and age, you have to work on humanizing your brand. People are much likelier to buy your products if they relate to your message as a brand. And this doesn’t just go for exciting, hip brands like Kylie Cosmetics or Red Bull. It also applies to everyday brands that are usually perceived as “boring”— whether that’s a B2B SaaS product or a supply chain management company. If you belong in the latter category, it’s a good idea to find someone in the company who feels passionately about your product to become the “face” of your brand. It could be a CXO, but it could also be someone from middle management who just loves what the company represents. Position this person as a thought leader, publishing whitepapers, case studies, conducting webinars, and so on. It will immediately make your brand more relatable to your target audience. Tip 5: Build a community The best part about social media marketing is that it gives customers a platform to directly engage with your brand. Use this opportunity to create a community of loyal users, many of whom are likely to have shared interests. While Facebooks groups are a great way to build a strong community, Slack is another upcoming option. Many companies these days use an exclusive Slack channel to build a loyal community of brand advocates. Tip 6: Personalize communication Personalization is the best way to engage customers throughout the customer journey. On average, 36% of customers say they want to purchase personalized products and service and 48% say that they’re willing to wait longer for a personalized product or service. From powerful recommendation engines to a customized email, personalization can take many forms. Using marketing automation platforms like MoEngage and WebEngage can also help you deliver a more personalized experience, through customized push notifications, texts, and emails. Tip 7: Listen to your customers Listening to your customers may sound like an obvious cliche, but the latest digital marketing tools enable you to listen to your customers in new and interesting ways. Every few minutes on the internet, whether you’re aware of it or not, customers are expressing their opinion about your brand. By using social listening tools like Buzzsumo, SproutSocial, or SocialMention,, you can tune into what your customers are saying about you. The negative feedback will help you focus on where you need to improve while you can leverage the positive feedback and incorporate into a holistic marketing strategy. With customer acquisition costs becoming sky-high, retaining and engaging customers is rapidly becoming the biggest factor in brand success. Make user engagement and retention the focus of your business and design metrics and policies accordingly. And do let us know in the comments if these tips help you get there. Watch: We are a Content-First Agency
Rise of new social media channels – Vero, Tik Tok and others you should be aware about
All digital marketers know that there are dime a dozen new social channels emerging every day, all wanting to be the next Facebook and take over the world. What the savvy digital marketer really wants to know is which of these should he or she bet their money on. Existing social giants have changed the algorithm several times to nullify our investment. Most brands went after increasing fan follower count aggressively on Facebook until one fine day it just didn’t matter how many you had as the organic reach was going to be paltry at best. But for other social channels, follower count still matters, and so do metrics like engagement. So, essentially, what we are saying is that an average Digital marketer is living the ‘Fast and Furious’ life with a ‘Ride or die’ attitude. We have to try things out constantly, know how it works, blog about it, educate others, keep learning and experimenting and use the collective intelligence of the hive to see how to use the platform. Let’s check out some of the newbies in the digital arena and how you can find a way to begin experimenting with them. Tiktok Entertaining, addictive and fun are some of the adjectives used to describe this popular app whose meteoric rise to stardom in 3 short years is commendable. By their own definition, they sound like a competitor to YouTube – they are a music and video platform that allows users to create and share videos on any topic. But the two platforms are vastly different. Primarily because Tiktok is for really short vertical videos ranging between 15 – 60 secs in length. Known as Douyin in China, the app is simple to use, loved by the younger audience (especially teenagers), is strongly driven by localized content and has the Apple music library. Claim to fame Fastest downloaded app, challenges, high degree of engagement – much higher than existing platforms and celebrity endorsement. In fact Tiktok really aced on local celebrity endorsement and this was one of the biggest reasons it grew so fast so quickly. It has spawned a new breed of influencers called Tiktok influencers and you see their popularity flowing from online to offline. How brands can leverage TikTok Challenges are an interesting way to get attention on TikTok. Challenges are as crazy as they come. There was the #achoo challenge where people jumped from one character to another after a sneeze. Other challenges are organically, and in this case, literally rolled out by celebrities like the #Tumbleweed challenge by Jimmy Fallon. In eyeballs and engagement is your criteria, TikTok can do the job for you with their target audience. The Har ghoot mein swag challenge by Pepsi had celebrities Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani showing off the #SwagStep and encouraged other users to share their steps. Until date, challenge has over 15 billion views! There is something about a doable challenge that makes people take it up, then circle back and tag friends to do the same – like the Ice bucket one. The premise of such challenges is that engagement with the brand eventually works to a recall and likability perspective. The users of the future aren’t passive but have a point of view and aren’t shy of expressing it. So where is this whole engagement going? It is allowing brands to build a ‘brand community’ of sorts filled with advocates and super users who can maximize the reach. The wait and watch for TikTok is how the platform will shape up to eventually to help marketers reach their ROI at the end of the rainbow. Vero Vero was started in 2015 but it became the “hot new” only 2018. It’s claim to fame is that it is “authentic” by not using an algorithm to determine content visibility. It is also an ad-free platform (for now). That’s how Instagram started, remember? The good part is that people who are dissatisfied of being short-changed by Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm and have worried about their content being lost are now in a more comfortable space with Vero. At least, the organic appeal is not lost. Leveraging Vero Since the platform is ad free, changing this status can mean losing user base. As a brand, this means you get to organically test out your traction with this user base. Since there isn’t a shift of marketing money involved, the adoption by brands may be better justified than another new social platform. On the other hand, we’ve burned our efforts with other platforms like this that haven’t been able to continue their scaling without advertiser money. The other ‘What if’ that you should consider before you jump on the Vero wagon is ‘What if one of the bigger fishes eats this one?’ Lasso Facebook has a simple policy – either buy your competition or make a simpler and better version of what they have to beat them. Since TikTok comes as a threat in the social space, Facebook decided to quietly launch Lasso. It has mostly similar features. What makes it ‘easier’ is that you can user your Facebook / Instagram account to login and also share Lasso videos as stories on Facebook. This will be eventually available for Instagram too. Leveraging Lasso Facebook knows how to make a business out of a product. You can expect them to throw their might behind Lasso too to outrun TikTok. Given the existing platform synergies, it makes it easier for marketers to adopt. However, Lasso currently seems like a late entrant in the short video player game. This one we closely watch on how things can turn out. More information here Caffeine Caffeine is the new Twitch. It’s the social media platform for live streamers. The platform is aimed at gamers and artists. Started by a couple of Apple designers in 2018, the startup came to limelight when it raised $100 million from 21st Century Fox for a content joint venture. The platform