The journey from Social Media to Assured Sales
The journey from social media to assured sales is the one every brand would love to make. As it not only ensures good business, but also helps brands to establish themselves as “Consumers Choice”.
Of the many aspects that are part of an online marketing campaign, there are few which are the core points that brands need to keep in mind while planning a social media marketing campaign:
Understand the consumer first - Do your homework, research, analysis and understand the complete demographic and online social behavior of the consumers on:
- “How do they react” to specific tone of messages, words, phrases etc online.
- Each consumer (Industry centric) reacts differently online and offline.
- The idea is to have a very thin line between the two worlds and give the end users a real-time experience with rich content, feel in terms of demos, apps, videos, immediate feedback and responses too.
- In simple terms, it should result into value for connecting with your brand and a wonderful experience at the end for the users.
The consumer of today is well informed and it is to be used as an advantage by brands as their target market today interacts and engages themselves more than ever before.
So the first idea is to understand and connect with the consumer within and then with the end users.
- Don’t sell, but relate to their needs, buying patterns, customize and give them value for being a part of this online social engagement.
- Remember, every user online who speaks about you or “Likes or Mentions” you across social networking platforms, is your very own brand ambassador.
- Recognize them and reward them accordingly.Make room for immediate gratification.
- Look at what brands like Starbucks or Mountain Dew does. They take customers feedback and create products relevant to their needs.
Now comes the part of understanding what they need and the aspect of really making it happen based on organizational support and dealing with roadblocks that are inevitable (Organizational roadblocks – Rigid Policy, guidelines, in-house team support etc). Every effort towards customization for consumer, especially on an online platform, assures the Brands tremendous recognition and feedback via brand promotion and mentions by their consumers and the best part is that, its measurable.
Offer them custom designed services and products. Its wonderful when brands ask customers to design their very own “Combo products / services” It not only keeps them engaged with the brand, but also tells them that you value their opinions and doing your best to deliver.
Today e-commerce companies like Flipkart are doing really well because of many reasons, but few of those mainly owing to the fact that they have a “no-hassle return policy coupled with Cash on delivery” option which gives tremendous trust to consumers buying online today. With that, they also offer daily special offers, deals, low-price and that with great service is bound to make them popular. It shows that they have listened.
Another important aspect is, to not be on, each and every available online platform.
This is a mistake which many brands today make. Being or trying to be everywhere. Be at relevant online platforms. Understand whether your end users use blogs, forms, social networking sites, google searches, web banner ads, emailers, smartphone apps etc and establish your presence across those profiles only. Being across 4-6 such platforms to begin with is more than enough during a period of a six month to one year campaign wherein, you get a better understanding of their comfort levels with engaging online and you can then focus on may be just those 2-3 platforms, where their presence is more and for a longer duration.
Search engine optimization also is an important part of digital marketing today with feeds and comments appearing on searches. But with the pace with which social media monitoring and marketing seem to be growing, its become compulsory to integrate social media campaigns with seo. But make sure, you concentrate on on-page optimization as strong as off-age optimization too.
Customer insights and knowing your company or Brand’s social media quotient (SMQ) is the core of a social media or any digital marketing campaign. It also ensures brand monitoring for both, negative and positive mentions about your brand, product and services. Always remember, if you exist as a brand, someone out there is are already talking about you. Make sure you are a part of that amazing conversation prism.
SEO and Brand monitoring helps you to find the relevant sites when combined with social media influence strategies (SMI). It lets you study in-depth about the relevant sites, have a brief look at the profile of registered users on that site based on connect you have with the users or the apps integrated with the site. You then get to know the influencer(s) too. The idea is to gauge the quality of brand and or keyword related conversations real-time.
No campaign is complete without predetermined target to be achieved in terms of real ROI for the company or brand. Make sure your social media monitoring and brand marketing campaigns have enough strategies and process in it to help you evaluate the return on investment for your campaigns. Remember, good campaigns are those which constantly are improvised with consistent responses and feedback based on the social media quotient analysis and reports of your campaign.
Some power packed tools that always go a long way when used appropriately are:
- Blogs: It’s a powerhouse in terms of social media tool. A great way to engage your users with interesting and relevant information and at the same time, gives them an opportunity to interact with the brand too.
- Forums: Extremely efficient when it comes to users wherein the products need a lot of assistance in terms of support intermittently.
- Facebook: Wherein the end user is right in front of you
- Twitter: Users are consumption hungry and need quick information at jet speed.
- LinkedIn: For Corporate professionals. Connect and grow as a business together
So, what did your brand tell your customer today?
Share with me your views and comments here. Would love to hear from you.
Thanks and have a wonderful connect ahead.
Ananth V
Founder & CEO
Techdivine Creative Services
You can also Connect with me here: On facebook, On LinkedIn & on Twitter
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