By Shilpa Vishwanath
In recent years, technological advancements through the
internet and mobile have brought the marketer and the consumer closer to each other
and faster than ever before, offering the marketing manager opportunities
galore. But the channels to reach out to the audience are larger in number,
fragmented in viewership and erratic than ever before. Every brand worth its
penny has a website to boast of, Twitter feeds and Facebook posts, ad campaigns
churned out overnight on the mac and blogs with content that would take you a
lifetime to pore over. Every marketer is everywhere at once! Agencies are
frantic, fragmenting into niche offerings to cater to clients’ every whim and give
them a worm’s-eye view into the number of tweets and Facebook updates per day.
All very good. But it might help us marketers to step back a
bit and take a bird’s eyeview of the brand and its market direction. We need to
make sure the brand talks and looks the same in print, on TV, on the product
label and on the internet.
Very often, clients tell us ...”I need to launch my revamped
corporate website in six weeks to ensure it is up in time for the big offline
event.”But then, people at the big offline event are hardly going to look up
your revamped website on that very hectic day! Point is when you are building
something as important as your corporate website, you need a messaging that is accurate
and stronganda layout that is eye-catching and easy on the visitor. You need to
ensure that all the knickknacks have found their place on the website that does
due justice to them. The world has shrunk and you have customers looking up
your brand...intentionally or accidentally and either soaking it all in or
writing your product off their list forever, before you can blink. Time to get
back to the basics!
- Ensure your online presence is consistent and complimentary to your brand’s offline presence. You cannot have the website in blue and yellow because it is the favorite color of the Director’s wife and so will get you an easy approval on the design!
- Have a clear plan and goal in place. Decide what you want from your online marketing efforts. Identify ONLY a FEW action items and keep at them. LESS IS BETTER.
- Keep it simple. You will not achieve much having a website, a blog post, a Facebook page and a Twitter feed each managed by random disconnected people. Keep your communication plan simple. Choose a primary vehicle to publish your message. And keep it easy for your user too. No lengthy forms, no multiple pop-ups. Use technology wisely to make it a pleasant experience for you and your visitor.
- Kick-ass SEO is a must. You can have the best website in the world and it won’t do much for you if you don’t come up in relevant searches.
- Monitor and track all your activities. It is no longer about ’Do it. Shut it. Forget it’. You got to keep at it and check on the metrics often to see how the results are panning out.
- But then, online marketing is NOT instant coffee. Sure, it is faster than what print campaigns were 20 years ago, but this doesn’t mean you jump off your seat looking at the website traffic trends every morning and making course altering business decisions. Watch the trend, study, analyze, compare and then act!
- Keep the communication going! Don’t you hate it when coffee brands on Facebook and Twitter post that cheeky early morning update “Good Morning, so how’s your day looking?” and then fail to check on you for the rest of your day?! Be clever about your online communication plan. The internet is all about ’engaging‘with the consumer. Use it well and for meaningful conversations.
- Always ensure you write back to customers who write in with ’Complaints’, ’Suggestions’ and ’Feedback’.
- Use all channels of technology – mobile, email, online advertising, podcasts, webinars etc. to stay in touch. But do not be nosy. Communicate only when required, and communicate well.
- And oh yes, most companies online fail to recognize the importance of a good copy editor. Please, please do NOT put up a post in abbreviations! Ensure you pay well to get a good copy editor to scan EACH and EVERY one of your posts before they go live!
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