Shiraz Khan, the Founder Director of Spicetree Design Agency (SDA) Pvt. Ltd, and an ingenious professional with a rich blend of experience and expertise. Shiraz formed the venture in 2004; prior to this, he was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at a software developing company. Under his able leadership, SDA has effectively broadened its horizons from graphic designing to the realm of digital marketing — with the philosophy of complementing creatives with science intact to date. Shiraz harbours a mindset that is result-driven, he considers every day as an opportunity to scale the heights of success even further.
In the modern era, marketing activities have undergone a tremendous change. The pandemic has further created a need for greater focus and the emergence of ‘horses for courses’ marketing strategies. Even though the basic customer traits such as purchase behaviour might remain the same, the way a business approaches the marketing activities has changed.
It is no longer a secret that all businesses, even those within the same industry are different in terms of their service quality and needs. They need unique and impactful marketing strategies that set them apart from their competitors. Observing the rivals to understand what works and customizing marketing strategies to target specific audiences are things that can help tremendously in business growth.
The emergence of digital marketing and the absolute need for it in the wake of the pandemic has posed a unique challenge for businesses all over the world. The biggest problem for them today is not about identifying and strongly focusing on a specific marketing channel. Rather, they now need to create an extensive as well as integrated marketing strategy that has multiple focus areas integrated into it. For instance, no matter whether you make jewellery, shoes or are simply a service provider, you need the support of social media marketing to achieve different objectives. For some companies, social media is to spread awareness about their work, for others it is to engage customers, and there are start-ups etc., that rely on social media for leads and sales.
Need for social media
Having healthy brand engagement on social media channels is as critical today as having a website for your company was a few years ago. Back then if you were not found online in Google search then you didn’t exist. Today, if you are not being talked about positively on social media then you don’t matter. Social media engagement has become a strong and a double-edged tool. Marketers all over the world constantly focus on harnessing the power of the digital platforms to propel their brands and to proactively undertake damage control wherever needed.
Customization of campaigns
Even when social media is bound to be an integral part of any marketing strategy, there are a number of factors that need to be taken into account while devising the plan. The marketers and marketing agencies need to create campaigns which are tailored to reach the right audience with the right information in the right manner. For instance, let’s say you are devising a marketing strategy for a car dealership. In such a scenario, the right strategy would be to create a targeted campaign for the audience residing within a 5 km zone if the dealership is located in a major city with multiple dealer outlets, and to target the audience within the district or the town when the dealership is in a smaller city or rural area. Further, you will need to strategically identify where your audience is and try to engage them at those points. It could be housing society or shopping mall activations or social media advertising on popular platforms such as Facebook, and Instagram.
A recruitment and business productivity tools provider would target LinkedIn audience strongly, whereas a travel services provider will target those on Instagram. Accordingly, there will be factors such as influencer marketing, Google AdWords campaigns or other channels that can generate the maximum visibility and lead generation among the target audience.
Importance of market research
Any marketer with a reasonable degree of knowledge and experience would tell you that you need to undertake strong market research before planning and finalizing a campaign. That’s why a dipstick study on your target audience is of utmost importance. Understanding what the customers want, their problem areas, the available solutions in the market and how you can better deliver the experience to the customers, is of critical importance in creating campaigns and products that engage as well as delight the customers. For quality conscious brands that focus on staying updated with the audience sentiments and preferences, it is important to put in place a mechanism that generates constant feedback and customer engagement and shares the insights generated with the customers. This is another area where social media engagement has come across as a cost effective, real-time assessor of the audience mood and needs.
Execution and course correction
No matter how brilliantly your marketing campaign is conceptualized or how much thought you put in generating the customer profile before launching the campaign, the eventual ROI of any marketing campaign is the most important area of evaluation. You need to undertake data analytics and other assessment to see if the campaigns are making the desired impact or not. If they are failing to resonate enough or not generating the right response, then you need to review the campaign and focus on constant refinement to yield better results from your marketing efforts.
Such a strategic, customized, multi-channel and constantly refined approach towards marketing is going to make your brand stand out and grow faster than most of your rivals. As a marketer or marketing agency in today’s dynamic scenario, you must never lose sight of the above points in order to make each of your campaigns successful!