Digital Marketing Success made simple for SMEs - Part II

Continuing from my earlier blog post, here you go:

Your basic digital toolbox

• ·        A couple of latest, well-equipped computers/laptops with the latest software
• ·        Key team members equipped with Smartphones for smoother mobile access to                digital networks
• ·        A good, solid broadband internet connection: This facilitates faster data uploading,            downloading  of  heavy files – content, videos, audio
• ·        A good brand plan in place – The digital plan is a subset of your brand plan and has          to cater to the brand’s larger goals
• ·        A sustainable strategy and wherewithal to continue the digital plan over the long                  term
• ·        The right team mix with knowledge about your business and knowledge about the              digital ecosystem

The dos of a successful digital strategy 

• ·     Align it to the big picture: Align it to your brand /company strategy and goals
• ·     Budget: Earmark a budget for digital from your marketing or advertising budget. Set clear milestones and       monitor progress weekly/fortnightly/monthly
• ·    Plan the digital activity step by step: Else, you might get overwhelmed and not be able to do justice to          anything
• ·    Don’t be present on all digital media: Be there where your target audience congregates. For example,  Facebook may not be the place for you if you are into auto components. Research and find the digital  platform – social media sites and websites where most of your target market/buyers go. Don’t be on  Facebook just because everybody else is there. That could mean a waste of valuable budget
• ·  Sustainability is key: Digital is no jadoo-ki-chaddi (magic wand); it is a long term investment. If you expect overnight results, you are likely to be crushed. Digital is more about building your brand/name over a period of time. It is about diligent, sustainable efforts worked upon every day so you are visible to your target market and stay top of the mind. Giving up is not an option.  

• ·    Have an internal digital team: Even if it means two or three people; have an internal team for this job. Sustained effort is a must; moreover, your internal team can do this job better than entirely outsourcing it to an outside agency. You can do that initially, and then train your team to take over, with a consultant overlooking the progress weekly.
• ·    Offline presence and delivery: Promises made online have to be ‘kept’ offline. In simple words, what you promise, you have got to deliver, else you are likely to lose face and therefore business and reputation. Your online reputation must always have an offline plan to live up to your word.

The good and the bad about digital

The good

• Your markets and marketing are at your fingertips and can be reached through even a mobile
• You can achieve far more marketing effort in a lesser amount of money as compared to printing           costs or traditional media expenditure
• Digital marketing can be implemented sitting right at your desk. All you need is a well-equipped,    reliable computer
• You can find your buyers from all over the world and reach out to them in a jiffy
• You can incorporate to-the-minute updates about your products and services and stocks, so your  buyers always know the latest information about you
• You can also effect online orders and make the buying and payment process simple for your buyers, thus saving valuable time

The bad

• Starting digital activity with a big bang and giving it up in a short time is a sure case of loss of face – it   may amount to lack of seriousness on your part and present a wrong image to your buyers
•  Being everywhere on the digital platform without a clue of what will work for you or where your buyers are
• Allowing your digital activity to devour your entire marketing budget without assessing if it is the right strategy
• Not having your digital strategy aligned to your brand strategy/company strategy

They did it. You can do it too.

B2B, they say is not cut out for digital. That’s a myth. Many big and small enterprises have proven this wrong. We will look at how two companies did it the digital way and successfully at that. 

Dell’s Digital Savvy 

Dell is known for its digital experimentation. Dell even won an award for its focused campaign on LinkedIn. This campaign included creating a close network of IT professionals that it wanted to target for its core products. This activity by Dell focused on using custom groups on LinkedIn.

Dell has a huge number of popular B2B Twitter feeds it operates. Some deal with company news and announcements, while others are dedicated to answering customer service queries. Dell Cares PRO provides 24×7 global support and Dell for Business answers questions from small and medium size businesses. Different feeds also communicate with one another to ensure that customer queries are dealt with through the proper channels. To make sure it stays on top of things, Dell’s social media command centre collects customer conversations around the web that enables the company to effectively identify problems, address complaints, collect feedback and respond to it.

OfficeYes.com

OfficeYes.com, India’s #1 e-commerce firm for B2B Office Supplies, recently introduced a new range of School Stationary Products and launched it via a campaign on Twitter.

The challenge was to establish the category, generate a buzz around it and subsequently drive sales for the new range of products amongst the right TG. They knew that their right TG i.e. School Students may not be majorly active on Twitter and therefore wanted to focus on driving traction from their parents, elder siblings etc who are a more evolved set of users on Twitter.

To do this, they launched the campaign with the insight that people love to reminisce and talk about their School Memories. People were invited to tweet their favorite School Memory using the hashtag #SchoolMemory. Their winner was declared each day and rewarded with a set of Back-To-School Goodies.

The conversation was kept subtle about School Memories and purposely stayed away from blatant selling while reminding our followers that Office Yes has introduced a new range of Products that might interest them. As a result, they saw a 154.2% rise in mentions and 113.5% increase in retweets without any media budget being spent. Office Yes was successful in reaching out to over 1.6 lakh Twitter users in 20 days and saw a 50% hike in the number of followers as well. The brand maintained an engagement score of 99% through the course of the campaign and hence despite being a B2B setup, Officeyes successfully established School Stationary as a part of its product portfolio.

You may feel they can do it easily. But believe me, taking the first, step, even a small one, is the way to success. When are you going to take that step in your digital journey? 

SME Branding - to do or not?

Branding – To do or not to do?

When Yahoo! redesigned its logo recently, it flew in the eye of a news storm with branding gurus vociferously rooting or hooting the change down.  When our own homegrown Bajaj Auto overhauled its logo in year 2004, a good 5 decades or so after its birth, the fraternity debated whether Bajaj was justified in spending a few crores for the change. Reebok, a few decades back changed its logo every two years; while Coca Cola still has its good old logo and so does Nike. Some companies have spent millions, while some lucky ones have spent a mere hundreds on designing or redesigning their logo. Which makes us wonder - what really makes a company go in for a logo redesign? Or how important a logo is really? Does every enterprise, company – even a midsized one or a start-up really need a logo in the first place?

Logo or branding- a reflection of the company’s core.

A company name and logo go far deeper than being a cosmetic garb. The name and the logo together reflect the company’s core values, its essence, its raison d’être. Bajaj Auto’s new logo captured the company’s changing policies, its growing markets, its global moves and its new standing, while retaining its core. A branding exercise is not just a design or logo exercise but a discovery of what the company really is at its deepest level, its culture, where it stands, what it stands for and where does it want to go and how. The new Bajaj Auto logo stands for its 5 brand core values - Learning, Innovation, Perfection, Speed and Transparency.

Whether it is Bajaj, Yahoo or an unknown, every company, no matter what its size, needs an identity.

As clutter dominates the global markets, as competition grows exponentially, as USP (Unique Selling Proposition) stands at the risk of obliteration, it becomes all the more critical for every company to have its own unique identity. Every company needs to do this exercise of finding out its unique position. It needs to find a way to establish itself firmly in its customer’s mind (positioning), create an identity that reflects its core and resonates with its customers for life. Without an identity, the company will be just another faceless product, unknown, unnoticed and unidentified.   

What is the right time to go for an identity or branding exercise?

The right time to go for a branding exercise is NOW, if you haven’t already started working on it. With the immense benefits of branding, it’s never too late to begin. For the start-ups and the debutantes, it is utmost important to enter the market with the branding in place. Let’s not think whether sales should come first, or branding; each has its importance and cannot be compared or prioritized.  If you have a good product, good sales spiel, you are bound to grow big and fast in a new industry, but as you will later discover, even the competition has grown as much. This then becomes your perfect branding time.

Branding, creating an identity, creating a vision, mission, a set of values, a purpose and philosophy statement – all of this should start before you start marketing yourself in the market. It should be done before launching your company, before inviting buyers to try you. That is perfect timing for creating an identity, for branding your enterprise or your offering.

In the next post, find about how to put together a basic Branding Kit.

Extract from my article in Sampada Diwali 2013 issue.