Zuricka - The Digital Startup Web Girl

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Often times we have noticed that by mixing online and offline advertising, marketers have problems justifying the larger advertising spend. While speaking to clients within the brand advertising space some of the times we get hit with the statement ” We do a bit of online but most of our advertising spend is offline as the internet still needs to take off in India”. Its surprising but true, this is what many brand managers feel. Alternatively if you speak to a few media agencies we get into the rat race of CTC(cost per click),CPL (cost per lead), CTR (click through rate), etc. Its so easy to get carried away with measuring performance that sometimes we forget the basics which is building consumer loyalty and awareness. So how do you address this challenge. Its about integrating your advertising spend. There is more to integrated marketing than just repeating the same message in different channels. While speaking to a few friends over a cup of coffee i asked the question “How should a brand manager use the online channel as part of the marketing medium when launching a new product?”

The parts that follow below are the snippets of our discussion. I hope you are able to gain some value from this and implement some of these points in your offline and online campaigns.

1. Getting your information in one place - No matter what your product is you need to let the world know. So the first step is to have a place where all the information related to the product is easily accessible be it staff or the outside world. Its pretty straight forward this could be in terms of brochures which is the traditional way or a word document that you actively circulate or a website which could be updated as often as you require with minimal cost. I would recommend having a website :-). Now don’t be attached to your website and expect everyone to be visiting your website. Those were the good old days. Today’s world is about giving the information to people and allowing people to do what they want with the information. The information on your website is your master document, this information needs to be spread through various mediums be it News articles, RSS feeds, Widgets, Offline brochures, TV advertisements, Radio promotions, etc.

2. So you have the information now what - Once you have made the decision to have a website that speaks volumes about how people can use your product, the benefits and blah blah.. the next step is to motivate your audience to get to know about this information. This needs to be conducted both through offline channels and online. Thats what we consider by integrated marketing. But how do you efficiently do this with minimal cost you will ask?

3. Offline Integration - When launching a new product or campaign, using online coupons, organizing online competitions, as a purchase incentive has been very effective. Your offline promotions should speak about your presence in the online space don’t keep talking about the product instead speak about how the person reading or listening or watching your promotion could immediately benefit. This could be through online competitions or coupons or a free give away, etc that are currently on offer. This allows you to monitor the success of your offline campaigns for conversions and there by also improving your online presence. Of course there will be people who will know about the competition or online promotion but are too lazy to enter. This does not mean that your offline promotion was a total waste.

4. Online Integration - Now to get the online users who are not targeted offline to know about these offers have a few advertising avenues but this does not mean you spend you money by buying volumes you need to buy peoples time specially those who are going to add value and be your online maket promoters. There are a couple of ways you could achieve this. You could focus on niche communities this could be websites that target students, a website that targets IT professionals, A website that targets rural India, a website that is build around a community, social networks, etc. Be mindfull that when advertising on these websites you should not focus on how many people clicked to view your message, instead focus on how many websites provided me maximum exposure where you one among 100 other brands on a page or were you one among 2 other brands. This has a higher return for your bucks.

5. Where do you hold these competitions, coupons? - In the past the immediate advice was have your own Microsite and lets drive traffic. Now think about this logically you are doing a hell of a lot of work to get people to know about your new product instead of focusing on creating the best microsite in the world, its more practical to have your presence on portals that already create these microsites and who currently have traffic. When i say Traffic i don’t mean millions of page views a day, when i say Traffic i mean a portals that have your target market and who focus on premium advertising models rather than bulk. Remember all traffic that visit such portals are not going to simultaneously be all excited about your promotion so maximum exposure is key. You need to question yourself and ask for a 100 dollar spend how much of exposure would i get on the website i plan to advertise. If on a big portal you are going to be seen 3 times along with 10 other advertisements and a total of potential 100 people versus a niche where you are going to be seen 10 times along with 2 other advertisers and a total potential if 25 people which one is better for your business? This is something you need to decide as each business approach is different. Niche doesn’t mean small. When i say Niche i mean premium

6. Plan for channel-appropriate - A successful multi-channel marketing effort uses the best practices of multiple channels. If you are launching a new product on the market and your goal is to measure purchase intent or acceptance and curiosity, then your success metric should not be based on banner click-through, instead it should be measured on brand awareness and participation by the consumers. To achieve this use a mix of both traditional advertising as well an digital media advertising. The key is to identify all touch points and how to tailor your content fr the different channels. Media agencies / Companies should work in conjunction with the websites they plan advertising with as each model is best know by the team that runs these models.

The above were some of the points that i wrote during my conversations with my friends. ofcourse some of you reading this may have additional views or be in disagreement either ways please do share your thoughts so that people who stumble across this article can benefit from everyones contribution.

I wish you all the best in your advertising spend.

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