We see brands/businesses that have recently launched a product or a service or maybe a platform, all of a sudden get so much visibility and traction and you stay wondering only if you had enough funds set aside to hire a Marketing Communications company to push that impending product or service that is due to launch soon. Well, using this platform we will use various scenarios from brands I have worked with that have leveraged on some or all of the component of digital marketing in getting visibility and exposure that have inevitably resulted in sales.
Now that you have seen and are relatively convinced on the effectiveness of digital marketing for brands and businesses, you are ready to join the wagon to gain visibility for your business and you ask now what?
They are various components of Digital Marketing that can be used to thrust a brand out there, thereby giving it the most needed visibility and exposure which to a large extent leads to ROI.
Take for instance, while working at the Marketing Department at my previous place of employment, a mobile telecommunications brand {Name withheld, but undoubtedly one of the biggest Android mobile brand in Africa} came to us for a strategic partnership that involved the marketing of a new Android Mobile Device that was set to launch. The first question asked was “Why would anyone want to buy this device? What differentiates it from every Android mobile device out there”? These questions were coming from me a big iOS fan.
Mind you, this mobile device was almost the same as every other Android device out there, in terms of the benefits. To ensure that this brand was seen as a unique brand and the next “Big Thing” we leveraged on the features of the brand. This we did to set it apart from its competitors. The benefits of owning a mobile device can be said to be almost the same, but the features are something totally different.
To effectively market this brand on the online space, we on leveraged Six components of digital marketing. These Components are;
- Social Media Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Pay-Per-Click Advertising
- Affiliate Marketing
Using the benefits of the mobile phone, we set the Online Marketing Campaign in Three Phases; Pre-Launch, Launch and Post-launch. These phases had detailed timelines of the step-by-step flow of how the campaign was to span out. And with these timelines were Themes and Activities.
From the pre-launch campaign- Social media marketing, content marketing and affiliate marketing came into play.
Social media marketing – Banner was created that announced the theme of the pre-launch phase which was titled “something new is coming” informing potential customers of the arrival of the mobile phone whilst Strategic information about the features of this device was used in developing content for content marketing channels.
Contents were distributed to an influential website that had a huge following of our target audience. Affiliate partners were also informed about the impending arrival of the new device. Incentives were given to these affiliates so as to get them to talk about the brand and constantly update their channels with the latest information so as to keep the “buzz” going.
A week to the launch campaign, homepage banners were created with a countdown clock that had people tweeting and sharing the countdown banners via social media sites to speed up the clock. The first 30 people who purchased the device when the countdown was up against were given several accessories with their purchase. At the very first stage, media influencers were recruited to tweet, share, reblog about the product. This created a huge buzz!
{We will have another write-up that talks about recruiting the right Media Influencers, what to look out for and why they are important}.
Email newsletters were sent out a day before the launch of the device and every day for two weeks till the end of the launch campaign. Still, during the launch phase, display banners and various keywords about the brand were fully optimized via SEO & PPC – Google Adwords for easy brand recognition that had the product URL redirect to where the device could be purchased which provided seamless service to the customers.
Now, how does one leveraging on the components of digital marketing in converting visibility and brand exposure to sales? This will be dealt with at great length in the second writeup.
Have you ever carried out an online marketing campaign for a brand or a product or maybe a service? What were the results?
Do share.
Published on August 17, 2015 on LinkedIn
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