Article from the December 2011/January 2012 issue of Your Business Magazine.
In a world where word-of-mouth is fast changing to word-of-click, here are some tips to compete in this space…
As members of the digital era, we’re fully aware that the way consumers live and communicate has changed; and that there’s no going back. It makes sense that marketing has evolved together with these mediums; and that digital marketing has become as necessary a channel as traditional print advertising or television. Prakash Patel of Prezence Digital chatted about some do’s and don’ts for marketing in the online arena…
DO consider your business objectives first
“Like anything in marketing, you need to have an objective; you need to decide what you’re trying to do and achieve,” says Patel of the starting point for planning a digital strategy. Once you’ve figured this out, you can assess which is the relevant technique for your business – bearing in mind that the digital landscape is broad with many tools on offer. If your objective is driving people to a touch point for example, Patel says the obvious step would be to set up a website, mobi-site or Facebook page. “If it’s building awareness you might consider online advertising or e-newsletters, or if you want to create ongoing dialogue with your customers then social media might be the answer.” Ultimately you need to plan actions that will drive the greatest return on investment for your business. So start with the plan.
DO play where your customers play
Are you quite sure that your customers are online? And how do they get online? Presently, approximately six million South Africans access the web from their desktops and 13 million via their mobile phones – with a three million cross over. It is estimated that this will climb steadily to at least eight million (via PC) and at least 15-18 million (via mobile) by 2015. “If these stats from Google are anything to go by it points to having twice as much reason to have a mobi-site than a website,” says Patel. “Most people understand how to build a website, so a mobi-site becomes an afterthought, whereas having a well-constructed mobi-site that displays across various mobile phone devices should be seen as essential.” LSM levels come into play here too. If your target group have tight budgets and are cost-conscious of internet charges, an immersive and engaging website won’t necessarily do the trick, whereas a great functioning mobile site, with “please call me”, sms or mobile advertising campaigns are likely to be the best options.
Once you’ve figured out that your market is online, it’s time to embrace one of the greatest benefits of digital marketing – the ability to effectively target your customers. “If you’re in the auto accessories market, you can go straight to an online forum where car fanatics speak to one another, and advertise there,” Patel explains, “as opposed to traditional marketing’s blanket approach where possibly only 2% of your audience is relevant.”
If you find out where your customers play online, you’re halfway there in terms of achieving your marketing goals.
DO have a long-term social media strategy
Just because social media is instant, free and easy to use, doesn’t mean you don’t need to do your homework on it and plan ahead. Again, as you would with traditional marketing, know your touch points and target group, set desired outcomes and gather market research to find out which mediums they prefer – i.e. Facebook, Twitter etc. Some simple steps include:
- Listen to what is being said in the digital space, by who and where (eg, competitors, consumers)
- Monitor these conversations, dialogues, likes and comments
- Devise an “engagement plan”, including a rolling content plan
- Engage with honesty and transparency
- Monitor and evaluate on an ongoing basis
Patel emphasises that your social media fans and followers expect dialogue and relationship so you need to have resources available 24/7 to meet this expectation.
DON’T underestimate the negative flipside of social media
If you get complaints about your product/service/business on your social media networks you need to be prepared to handle these effectively, understanding the potentially damaging effects of a complaint that goes viral. “The biggest advice I have to give is to take the emotion out of your response,” says Patel. “You need to act in line with your brand’s social media persona, so think carefully. My advice is to type it, park it, think about it… perhaps run it by someone else…and then post it.”
While complaints are the extreme case, your social media campaign can also be hindered by inconsistency in the tone of your brand persona. “Don’t make the mistake of putting your intern in charge of your social media. It’s a highly strategic channel and your posts need to be well thought through,” Patel explains. It’s also important to always add value through what you say, and tell your customers things that they don’t already know.
If you get it right, social media can be extremely powerful. “An example I always think of is a small baker in Soho, London, who has literally thousands of followers. All he ever tweets is: ‘Fresh bread, ready’. He’s giving his customers information they want and need to know,” says Patel. Patel says that social media is the equivalent of a free customer relationship management (CRM) programme. “You know exactly who your customers are, their likes and dislikes, and what they do in their spare time.”
DON’T forget to measure your efforts
Patel says that the key thing that business owners aren’t currently doing enough of is analysing the results of their digital marketing. “There are some effective, free tools available to do this – Google Analytics is just one example – but there seems to be very superficial analysis taking place.” Unless business owners understand what they are doing, who they are reaching and how it is being received, they can’t improve on it in the next campaign.
Going deeper into your analysis means really examining click-through rates, and deciding whether the clicks are converting to sales, or followers, or whatever your objective points towards. Patel says that some sites have 1000 pages, and analysis will show that only five of these pages are being viewed. The logical conclusion would be to make those five pages particularly rich and engaging.
Perhaps a last piece of advice is to make sure that whatever you are driving people towards is worth their effort. “There’s no point in having a rubbish website that people click onto and then promptly decide to leave,” says Patel. “You’ll get the click and you’ll pay for it, but what’s the point?”
Essentially, it all goes back to the very first premise: before you even start to dabble in digital marketing, know what you want to achieve. Your plan doesn’t need to be mind-blowing, but it does need a clear destination and some solid steps that will help you get there. Good luck!
What are we doing online?
- According to research conducted by the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF), the top five online activities today are: Doing searches online remains the biggest online activity and it is getting bigger. In AMPS 2007,76.2% of weekly internet users did online searches. Now, according to AMPS Jun 11, 80.2% of surfers run searches.
- In second position is emailing, which has remained constant: in 2007,69.4% of adults emailed, and today 72% do.
- Just over 57% of all local internet users go online each week to do social networking, making this the third- biggest online activity in South Africa.
- In fourth spot is online chatting, which has shown substantial growth over the past four years.
- Instant messaging comes in fifth. Activity has grown from 24.7% four years ago to 39.5% now.
- The availability of cheaper, faster, uncapped bandwidth is possibly behind the healthy growth of the sixth and seventh ranked activities – music downloading and online gaming.
- Those that have adopted this medium are spending increasing amounts of time online. And not just as a distraction in the office environment…
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