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The essence of marketing lies in reaching out to the consumer. I talk about communication here. Wikipedia defines communication as the exchange of ideas, thoughts, opinions or information by way of speech, writing or signs. The sole agenda of any marketing guy has to reach out effectively to the consumer.
Let us explore the meaning of 'effectively' -
Does it mean climbing sales charts? Or does it mean being the market leader? More TRPs? Top of the mind recall? Awards for best service/product? What???
'Effectively' would only mean that the message that your product/service/company is trying to convey is perceived; exactly as intended. The situations mentioned above are merely happy consequences of the perception that you have ingrained by way of effective communication. Understanding this is unfortunately an exercise that involves a lot of money. A decent market research has to be undergone to evaluate your position. Move over to analysing the data from your strategic standpoint and enable action items for further resource development. This becomes a pain point for most of us because in this era of financial difficulties, research would be only possible if we all remain afloat - let alone Market, which seems like a concept right out of fairy tales.
So, the million dollar question remains - how to market frugally?
It is not as hard as it would seem. With the boom in online communication and the younger generation being heavy Internet users, all your preliminary needs are addressed at this level itself. Content now can be directed to a whole set of users that are the intended audience and not beamed across the country hoping to be picked by the target market. Whatever the need is, it is addressed here as soon as you can say 'Orkut'.
First up - Google. The search giant that has revolutionised the Internet. Be it paid searches (the small two liners that appear to the right of the page saying 'sponsored links' on top) or the first page of the search results, it is best to be seen on google in any form present. Its a bit like American idol. Make a fool of yourself on the stage - but get noticed - be there on Google! Tools like SEO are now widely available and knowledge commonplace for the same. Google has other very powerful tools in its labs - worth a dekko. Analytics being one of them, i myself use analytics to figure out how many hits I've had on this blog and from where.
Social networking sites are another very strong tools to direct targeted content. Here everyone knows everybody else, so there are two pronged vectors working here for you. There is the grapevine or word of mouth communication and there are the 'event happenings' (invites being sent by peers who have recieved these by their peers) that we all are well aware of on facebook or orkut. I can recall an instance of a restaurant in Bangalore that opened up recently and had business up 70% only in the first week thanks to a facebook page.
Such could be the might of social media. We all are well aware of the furore that took place over the cattle class remark made by Sashi Tharoor on Twitter which is only another case in point of the power that has been unleashed by social media.
Viral marketing and micro sites are another cost effective way of involving the consumer by whetting his appetite for an experience by technology like Web 2.0 and Flash, Flex and Silverlight. Many auto majors use the microsite route to bring in the eyeballs and address the minute questions that are pertaining to their product.
Going online has another advantage which is not completely apparent. It is persuasive word of mouth publicity. Here's an example, Coldplay - the popular English alternate band from UK put up their latest album on the site free for download as a tribute to their fans. This was then shared with millions of people online and they in turn shared the same link with their peers. The persuasion is definitely the product - free music. but what does not meet the eye is the persuasion involved in step 2 i.e. passing the information to the peer. Its the difference between telling you that Coldplay is giving away free music on their site. as opposed to giving you the link directly to their site. Apart form this, there are Blogs, Wikis, RSS feeds et al for the savvy and the updated.
Moving away from the Internet, another powerful media for frugally getting across your message is PR. PR is managed across channels so that only a succinct, all encompassing and unambiguous message is passed on. This is important because PR is a dual edged sword. A message that is not clear would only lead to major down gradation of the image of he subject under question- be it a product, person or an organisation for that matter. Jessie Paul has addressed this question in great detail in her book when she says that there should always be a face to the organisation that speaks for it. A clear confident person who represents all the organisations stands for and more. you could find more information in 'No money marketing' - a very interesting read.
Many other interesting ventures are available for the adventurous. SMSs. There are various sites that allow users to send sms's to other people via signing up on their site and filling in some amount of information. Although it is inadvisable to go for such a route largely due to the veracity of the site involved and security issues.
Moreover the perception of such a method will not always be favourable.
Let us explore the meaning of 'effectively' -
Does it mean climbing sales charts? Or does it mean being the market leader? More TRPs? Top of the mind recall? Awards for best service/product? What???
'Effectively' would only mean that the message that your product/service/company is trying to convey is perceived; exactly as intended. The situations mentioned above are merely happy consequences of the perception that you have ingrained by way of effective communication. Understanding this is unfortunately an exercise that involves a lot of money. A decent market research has to be undergone to evaluate your position. Move over to analysing the data from your strategic standpoint and enable action items for further resource development. This becomes a pain point for most of us because in this era of financial difficulties, research would be only possible if we all remain afloat - let alone Market, which seems like a concept right out of fairy tales.
So, the million dollar question remains - how to market frugally?
It is not as hard as it would seem. With the boom in online communication and the younger generation being heavy Internet users, all your preliminary needs are addressed at this level itself. Content now can be directed to a whole set of users that are the intended audience and not beamed across the country hoping to be picked by the target market. Whatever the need is, it is addressed here as soon as you can say 'Orkut'.
First up - Google. The search giant that has revolutionised the Internet. Be it paid searches (the small two liners that appear to the right of the page saying 'sponsored links' on top) or the first page of the search results, it is best to be seen on google in any form present. Its a bit like American idol. Make a fool of yourself on the stage - but get noticed - be there on Google! Tools like SEO are now widely available and knowledge commonplace for the same. Google has other very powerful tools in its labs - worth a dekko. Analytics being one of them, i myself use analytics to figure out how many hits I've had on this blog and from where.
Social networking sites are another very strong tools to direct targeted content. Here everyone knows everybody else, so there are two pronged vectors working here for you. There is the grapevine or word of mouth communication and there are the 'event happenings' (invites being sent by peers who have recieved these by their peers) that we all are well aware of on facebook or orkut. I can recall an instance of a restaurant in Bangalore that opened up recently and had business up 70% only in the first week thanks to a facebook page.
Such could be the might of social media. We all are well aware of the furore that took place over the cattle class remark made by Sashi Tharoor on Twitter which is only another case in point of the power that has been unleashed by social media.
Viral marketing and micro sites are another cost effective way of involving the consumer by whetting his appetite for an experience by technology like Web 2.0 and Flash, Flex and Silverlight. Many auto majors use the microsite route to bring in the eyeballs and address the minute questions that are pertaining to their product.
Going online has another advantage which is not completely apparent. It is persuasive word of mouth publicity. Here's an example, Coldplay - the popular English alternate band from UK put up their latest album on the site free for download as a tribute to their fans. This was then shared with millions of people online and they in turn shared the same link with their peers. The persuasion is definitely the product - free music. but what does not meet the eye is the persuasion involved in step 2 i.e. passing the information to the peer. Its the difference between telling you that Coldplay is giving away free music on their site. as opposed to giving you the link directly to their site. Apart form this, there are Blogs, Wikis, RSS feeds et al for the savvy and the updated.
Moving away from the Internet, another powerful media for frugally getting across your message is PR. PR is managed across channels so that only a succinct, all encompassing and unambiguous message is passed on. This is important because PR is a dual edged sword. A message that is not clear would only lead to major down gradation of the image of he subject under question- be it a product, person or an organisation for that matter. Jessie Paul has addressed this question in great detail in her book when she says that there should always be a face to the organisation that speaks for it. A clear confident person who represents all the organisations stands for and more. you could find more information in 'No money marketing' - a very interesting read.
Many other interesting ventures are available for the adventurous. SMSs. There are various sites that allow users to send sms's to other people via signing up on their site and filling in some amount of information. Although it is inadvisable to go for such a route largely due to the veracity of the site involved and security issues.
Moreover the perception of such a method will not always be favourable.
Excellent observation Supriya. Traditional marketing techniques would always be extremely successful largely due to their wide reach and appeal - not to mention recall. But an FMCG product could also leverage the use of online media. From what i have noticed, FMCG cos. move online more from a perspective of secondary line of promotion. For eg. sunsilk gang of girls; (http://www.sunsilkgangofgirls.com/) which has to do more with building brand loyalty.
ReplyDeleteSecondly - frugal marketing is an option of constraints, which is to say that - at a shoestring budget, your limited options could only allow you to go online.
Appreciate your thoughts. Do keep writing in.