Incorporating New
Media into Content Strategies
The majority of first impressions are made
based on how something or someone looks. We see a person and all we see are
their aesthetics; how they're dressed, what they look like, maybe their hair color,
and from this we make an almost instantaneous judgment. The same is true about
the content we read, both on and offline.
You need to think about your content as a
high street store. When you walk down the street you can see into the shop
windows, see the products inside and you’re tempted to go in, have a look
around and maybe make a purchase. Your content is essentially your shop window
and people will like what they see or hear and want more, either subscribing to
your blog, investing in your services or buying your products.
In the past, the phrase “writing an article”
meant 300-500 words of copy on your given subject. Now, it should be all about
incorporating the latest technology to show just how well you informed and your
company are and what you can produce or provide for your audience. It could be
the difference between winning a contract, landing a job interview, being
offered a speaking opportunity and so much more.
Social Media
This has become one of the most powerful
formats for reaching new audiences, expanding our reach and interacting with
all kinds of businesses and individuals. social media and search transforming
static news into conversations and bypassing media to speak directly to your
target audience.
The same concept applies to any content, it
doesn’t have to be just a piece of news, it could be a blog post, image or
video. Whatever you’re creating, social media has allowed us to reach further
and more effectively than we could have imagined a decade ago.
Twitter has opened doors in the past few
years to a world whereby we can update our followers using 140 characters. Facebook started the whole social media craze
by letting us have a ‘status’ that originally started out with “Chris is” and
we would tell the world. Originally designed for University students it spread
around the world like a viral video, (see the tenuous link!) Today, it’s one of
the most important marketing tools as well as a chance for us to share videos
of footballers missing open goals, posting pictures of our holiday and laughing
at our drunken friends.
In the past week, Facebook have added an
embed feature that allows users to copy ‘public’ posts into their own content.
Facebook recently incorporated the ability to embed Instagram posts into
content, and must have been using this as a test to see how the feature would
work.
Videos
It’s a well known fact that blog posts with
videos in them get shared three times more than blocks of content. Both Twitter
and Facebook soon realized that just telling people what you were doing, where
you were or how you were feeling weren’t enough and they needed to go to the
next level.
Instagram is a photo sharing platform that allows users to
take pictures of anything they like and apply one of a variety of filters to
that image to turn it into a piece of art. Vine is a six-second video platform
that runs on a constant loop and was developed by Twitter. Just as it was
starting to explode, Facebook jumped in with Instagram Video to cool that
explosion, with their offering presenting users with the chance to run a
15-second video clip that can be shared across a variety of social networks,
(Vine only offers sharing on Twitter and Facebook), as well as the chance to
use the filters and embed the clips into blog posts or websites.
Video Diaries and
Time Lapse
If you’re running a daily, weekly or monthly
campaign whereby you’re updating your followers, customers and friends on
progress on your current strategy or your latest development, maybe your office
build or your new fitness plan, then consider running a form of video diary.
This is much more effective, (and moreover great fun), than simply
bullet-pointing your progress, especially where people are sitting at their
screen thinking “come on then, show me your progress.”
4 WAYS TO INCORPORATE CRM INTO YOUR SOCIAL
MEDIA STRATEGY
Social media is without a doubt the face of
21st-century marketing. Studies show that Americans check their various social
media accounts an average of 17 times a day; factor in eight hours of sleep, and that
means they’re checking more than once per waking hour of every single day.
Clearly it’s important for small businesses
to embrace social media as a form of both marketing and customer service. This
is why your social media marketing needs to be complemented by effective CRM. Here are a few simple ways that CRM can
enhance your social media marketing and customer service strategies:
1: FACEBOOK MESSENGER IS THE NEW PHONE CALL
One of the interesting developments of recent
years, especially among Millennials, is just how much people want to avoid
calling a company directly. They find more indirect methods, such as emails and
messages, much more preferable. Taking this into account, businesses such
as Virgin Atlantic and Amazon have found great success in
inviting customers to contact them via Messenger for inquiries or assistance.
Better data and a record of past
communication leaves
everyone in the exchange happy. The customer walks away impressed with the
speed and precision of your customer service. Meanwhile, your sales or service
team is able to gather even more information about the client and effortlessly
input that information into the CRM, ensuring that future interactions with
that customer are just as smooth.
Even better, information put into the CRM can
help you track some of the emerging trends and issues of your customers so that
you have a more three-dimensional view of your clientele.
Many companies are discovering that social
media campaigns are the new email campaigns. Certain customers who are likely
to dismiss email marketing out of hand are likelier to respond to the vibrant
images and videos of social media marketing.
Customer relationship management is vital for accomplishing both of these goals, which is why it is the key to small
business marketing success. Using a CRM remains the best way to create precise
segments of your customers so you can understand the motivations of each
client. Moreover, CRM gives you a solid visualization of each customer’s stage
in the sales cycle, so when you decide to send a social media campaign to their
feed, it will be timed just right.
3: CAPTURE NEW LEADS
In addition to helping you craft social
campaigns that target your ideal buyer, your small business CRM can help
you capture new leads. Sharing gated content (like an ebook
or guide) or presenting an irresistible offer (like a free consultation) is a
great way to capture names, email addresses and other info right into your CRM
through online forms.
4: GIVE YOUR AGENTS THE POWER
Chances are that negative customer service
experiences of the past may have given your customers a grim view of what it
means to contact customer service. This is a major contributing factor to why
many customers avoid phone calls, as they imagine being placed on hold multiple
times until they finally reach someone who can actually do something.
A small business CRM allows you to change all of that. Once you allow customers
to reach you via social media, you can start to deliberately blur the lines between sales, service, and support.
Giving all employees instant access to all of the information and interaction
history of the customer means that the first person they contact can, in most
cases, be the last person they need to contact. This allows your customers to
have a better overall experience while allowing you to streamline your teams
for efficiency and speed.
v Learning about
customer in emerging markets
Sure, you’ve crafted detailed marketing plans for
your products in those fast-growing emerging economies, but do you know how
consumers will respond in the store aisles? If you don’t, you’re vulnerable to
competitors, particularly local ones, who know how emerging market shoppers
think, what they need, what they crave, and how they buy.
Local retail chains, by contrast, have been quick to
understand their customers and develop offerings and approaches that work for
them. As a result, a new generation of retailers have progressively captured
market share from know-how street vendors and mom-and-pop operations. They’ve
also kept most multinational retailers at cry.
In developing economies, the retail aisle is where
the marketing action is—it’s where customers make purchasing decisions.
McKinsey studies show that in China, for example, as many as 45% of consumers
make those decisions inside stores, compared with 24% in the United States.
The Lay of the Land
In extensive interviews with shoppers, store
managers, department heads, and corporate executives, we discovered that
despite significant differences among markets and populations, there are some
problems that all the companies we studied have faced. Most of these challenges
are unfamiliar to retailers accustomed to functioning only in developed
economies.
Where’s the demographic middle?
In developed countries, income groups form a more or
less classic pyramid. So you can create a mass market for a sophisticated new
product (think MP3 players) by first winning the approval of early adopters in
the upper segments of the pyramid and then simplifying the offering and
reducing the price until the product is accepted by the much larger segments at
the bottom.
In emerging markets, that strategy doesn’t work. The
number of affluent consumers who could adopt and champion your product remains
small, and they tend to gravitate toward specific luxury stores, many of them
overseas. Most important, incomes don’t form a smooth continuum.
Customers buy the cheapest or the best.
Whether the economy is strong or weak, developed
market consumers tend to buy across the price range. They might show up at the
register with a high-end digital camera, medium-quality linens, and cheap
sunglasses.
Emerging market consumers focus on essentials,
favoring the lowest-priced items that offer acceptable quality, even when it comes
to luxuries. They tend to know the exact price of everything they want and
refuse to pay more. They also refuse to buy in greater quantities than they
need, even if that means they must purchase an individual piece or two from an
opened package in a traditional outdoor market.
Consumers in emerging markets buy a lot of the
cheapest and a little of the best—and often ignore the middle. At the same
time, shoppers typically save up to indulge in more-aspiration categories such
as sport shoes, cosmetics, and plasma TVs.
Product knowledge may be lacking.
In developed countries, consumers in all income
segments are complicated and knowledgeable about retail offerings. So are
employees, many of whom grow up using complex products and have some higher
education. But consumers who are moving into the formal economy tend to lack
knowledge about such things as what products can do, why various services might
improve their lives, and how to access companies’ offerings. Store employees in
emerging economies suffer from the same lack of knowledge, posing an obstacle
for retailers’ efforts to educate shoppers.
Consumers care about quality, not status.
In developed economies, many companies successfully
position their brands as status symbols. But in areas with low incomes, that
strategy often falls flat. The allure of status isn’t enough to induce
consumers to buy. Instead, shoppers care most about quality.
Multinationals may feel they’ve got the quality
issue covered, but it’s not always that simple. Modern packaging, for example,
is a crucial element of high quality in developed countries, but it can put an
offering at a distinct disadvantage in an emerging economy, conveying
artificiality or lack of freshness to consumers accustomed to shopping in
traditional markets.
Markets are changing at breakneck speed.
Finally, unlike most developed world retailers,
those in emerging economies face the daunting task of keeping up with rapid
market expansion and demographic change. The consumer base is growing
constantly, and, despite recent setbacks due to the global downturn, average
incomes have been rising steadily. Consumers, once mainly rural, are now
largely urban—75% of Brazil’s and 47% of China’s citizens live in cities.
Rapid growth may sound great, but emerging market
retailers face enormous challenges in keeping customers and facilities safe,
arranging credit, and getting people to and from stores. In many areas, the
transportation infrastructure is weak or nonexistent:
Marketing Solutions
Each retailer we studied deals with these problems
in its own way, adapting its solutions to the needs of target customers. But
the solutions share certain broad features, which have far-reaching
implications for multinationals’ marketing strategies.
Aim low.
Forget multinationals’ cherished myth that the high
end is the most lucrative segment in emerging markets. Leave the rich to their
shopping trips abroad, and forget about using the demographic pyramid to create
a mass market for your gadget.
Adapt to consumers’ habits.
Cater to the demand for the cheapest and the best by
providing decent quality at the low end and aspirational choices at the high
end. Rather than position its packaged barley breakfast as an alternative to
Quaker Oats’ high-end offering, the Peruvian company Malteria Lima (part of
Peru’s leading brewer, Grupo Backus) marketed it as a less-expensive purchase
for the lower end. The product provides the breakfasts that customers are used
to, with a few pluses: It comes in one-meal servings, it offers good
nutritional value, its chocolate flavoring improves the taste, and it carries
an endorsement from Peru’s heart association.
Don’t just sell—educate.
Successful retailers figured out long ago that in an
emerging market, a store must be much more than a source of basic necessities
and a target for aspirations; it must be a center of knowledge and learning.
For example, many retailers, including South Africa’s Pick n Pay, make a
concerted effort to connect with the very lowest earners, who visit stores
mainly out of curiosity and for entertainment. To entice them and educate them
about products, retailers often display the broadest possible range of items,
even if that means stocking limited quantities of each. And they devote
extensive resources to on-the-job training, turning salespeople into frontline
educators.
Focus your brands suitably.
The most successful brands are those that stand for
quality and reliability. Biedronka, Poland’s largest retail chain, offers a
limited assortment of high-quality foods at more than 1,400 locations. Because
of long-standing supply-chain problems in Poland, food safety is a customer
priority, so the chain advertises that every day 200 of its items is tested by
an independent laboratory. The policy has strengthened customer loyalty. In
places where consumers object to packaging on food, additional information
helps allay concerns about lack of freshness.
Develop quick reflexes.
Emerging market retailers have a great deal to teach
multinationals about flexibility, rapid adaptation, and expecting the
unexpected—qualities that have helped the chains stay competitive.
Multinationals need to learn to be just as flexible,
quick, and alert to the unexpected as emerging market retailers, taking the
time to understand local markets and adjusting to changes in consumers’
attitudes and innovations in selling.
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