Tag Archive for 'Interruption-Marketing'

Why Should Brands Embrace Social Media?

Quick Summary: Brands should embrace social media because social media will soon be the only cost effective to reach consumers.

- X – X – X –

Question: Why should brands embrace social media?

Answer: Brands should embrace social media because social media will soon be the only cost effective to reach consumers.

I have noticed two trends both as a marketer and as a consumer –

Trend 1: The cost of interrupting people with advertising is increasing.

Tired of the over-clutter of things in their lives, people are going “off” consumption. Tired of the bombardment of commercial messages, people are learning new ways to block out advertising. At the same time, media consumption has become more fragmented. Therefore, it has become more costly to interrupt people with advertising.

Trend 2: The cost of engaging with people via social media is decreasing.

“Listening to” consumers, “engaging with” consumer, and “touching” consumers has always been the holy grail of marketing. For the first time, social media allows marketers to “listen to”, “engage with” and “touch” people, both as individuals and consumers, in a cost effective way.

Why Should Brands Embrace Social Media?

Today, it’s still more cost-effective (in terms of time + money + goodwill) to interrupt people with advertising than engage with them via social media. That equation will change tomorrow.

Very soon, social media will be the only cost effective way to reach consumers.

If you don’t learn how to listen to people today, you’ll discover that you are blocked out of their lives tomorrow.

Published on March 17, 2008 in Tags: , , , , , , .. View Comments

How to Use Digital Media: Ten Tricks for Brick and Mortar Marketers in India

Photo by dejay181

In an earlier post I talked about why marketers should not approach digital media (online/ mobile/ DTH) with the ‘interruption’ marketing paradigm so prevalent in traditional media (TV/ print/ radio/ outdoors): because digital media is very good at engaging with a million customers one at a time, but very bad at reaching a million customers at one time. This is especially true for India, where mass media still hasn’t peaked in terms of either reach or credibility and digital media is still extremely niche and fragmented.

In another earlier post, I talked about how most marketers and agencies in India are still clueless about the basic principles of digital media. I’m sure that most Indian marketers are present on digital media on the basis of the 5% rule: during a campaign, 5% of the budget should be allocated to digital media. As a result, even when marketers flirt with the digital media, their digital media initiatives are almost always ad hoc, mostly ineffective and often quickly abandoned.

In my new ten-post series on how brick and mortar marketers in India should use digital media, I’ll describe ten small, but smart, tricks that you can rely on to fully leverage the potential of digital media –

- Trick #1: Your website is your most important tool. Before you spend a single rupee on online advertising, make sure that your website works both in terms of user interaction and search optimization.

- Trick #2: You can measure almost anything on digital media. Make sure you are measuring the right things and put in a plan to improve these metrics over time.

- Trick #3: Digital media allows you to flesh out your prospects into real people. Convert your visitors into registered users as early as possible and increase the richness of the user profile over time.

- Trick #4: All visitors are not the same. Build capability to allow your visitors to interact with you at various ‘permission levels’ and escalate them to higher ‘permission levels’ over time.

- Trick #5: Your website is only the first step. Build linkages between your website, your call center, your ERP/ transaction system and your CRM system to track your prospects/ customers on an end-to-end basis.

- Trick #6: A few relevant impressions are better than a lot of irrelevant impressions. Minimize wastage in ad spends by tightly targeting the right visitors using context-sensitive or social banner ads.

- Trick #7: Search keywords are a declaration of people’s intents. Use tightly targeted text-based search ads to allow your visitors to self-select themselves. What’s more, pay on the basis of actual clicks by using the CPC (cost-per-click) model.

- Trick #8: Digital media is great for developing a community and building buzz. Learn from and leverage social networking sites to turn your prospects/ customers into advocates for your brand.

- Trick #9: Mobile and DTH are both very small in India but will scale up quickly. Use the lessons you have learnt online (how to measure the right things, how to track users on an end-to-end basis, how to use tightly targeted ads, how to develop a community and build buzz) to build competencies on mobile and DTH.

- Trick #10: Your prospects/ customers are not limited by the medium. Build linkages between different digital and traditional media and your own internal systems to communicate seamlessly with your prospects/ customers.

In my next post in the series, I’ll focus on the starting point of your digital footprint: your website.

Published on November 1, 2007 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments

Digital Media, Permission Marketing and Proof of Concept

Quick Summary: Read about how marketers in India are under-utilizing the power of digital media by relying on interruption marketing rather than permission marketing.

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permission-marketing

In the last few weeks, I have had some interesting debates with friends who work in the digital media space (online/ mobile/ DTH). While the specifics of the discussions have varied, the underlying theme has been the same.

My friend X wants me to include online/ mobile/ DTH in my regular media plan. X makes a pretty 100 page presentation to me on the different types of ads I can show on online/ mobile/ DTH. X points out that online/ mobile/ DTH is more measurable than TV/ press/ radio/ outdoors on which I spend a few crores without even thinking about it. X then very tentatively presents the budget slide and suggests that since I’m anyway spending a few crores on TV/ press/ radio/ outdoors, I shouldn’t hesitate in spending a few lakhs on online/ mobile/ DTH. At this point, I totally shock X by telling her that my budget for online/ mobile/ DTH is unlimited, but I’m not interested in doing any of the activities she has suggested to me.

I’m not a big fan of traditional media, because it is based on the “spray and pray” or “interruption” model of marketing. You basically spend as much as you can and hope that you’ll cut through the clutter of a million other brands doing exactly the same, interrupt your customer in the middle of whatever she is doing and tempt her to whip out her cheque-book and walk into your showroom. You don’t know how well it has worked, you don’t even know whether it has worked at all, but you still do it month after month because you know no better.

Digital media works best when you abandon the “interruption” model of marketing and move to a “permission” model of marketing. In the “permission” model of marketing, you still interrupt the customer, but you do not ask her to buy your product. Instead, you ask her to give you permission to engage with her, then escalate the level of the engagement over time, so that she eventually wants to buy your product herself. Permission marketing is not about trying to reach a million customers at one time, it’s about engaging with a million customers one at a time. Digital media is not about trying to reach a million customers at one time, it’s about engaging with a million customers one at a time.

So, I’m not interested in knowing whether the total number of internet users in India is 15 million or 50 million. I’m not interested in knowing whether the number of impressions on site A is one-tenth more than the number of impressions on site B. I’m not even interested in knowing whether the CTR (click-through ratio) of one particular type of banner ad is 0.05% higher than the CTRs of the other one thousand and one types of banners.

I’m interested in knowing if digital media allows me to engage with my customers in a fundamentally different manner than traditional media. I’m interested in knowing if it allows me to do it at a significantly lower cost than traditional media. Most importantly, I’m interested in knowing if it allows me to measure both the nature of the engagement and the cost of enabling it with significantly higher precision that traditional media.

But let’s go back to my friend X who works in the digital media space. I want to tell X that my budget for online/ mobile/ DTH is indeed unlimited, as long as it pays for itself. I also want to tell X that I’m not interested in doing any of the activities she has suggested to me because all of them are based on the “interruption” model of marketing and using digital media for “interruption” marketing would only prove that it doesn’t work, whereas I want to prove that it does work.

And, finally, in response to X’s parting repartee on how marketers expect too much from digital media and too little from traditional media, I want to tell her that only marketers who expect too much from digital media would help establish proof of concept for digital media, and, yes, I agree, it is an unfair world.

But, enough about what marketers should not do on digital media. Coming up next, some ideas on what marketers should do on digital media.

Published on October 20, 2007 in Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .. View Comments