Digital Marketing and Brand Management

1. Digital marketing and Brand Management By: Digitally Next Address: 268, Business India Complex, Uday Park, New Delhi 110049 Nearest Metro Station: Green Park Tel: (91)9810-409-943 http://digitallynext.com/ https://www.facebook.com/digitallynext/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpuEJ_U1qUs_FZP2eKMXXcA https://www.linkedin.com/company/bfg-corporation/ P a g e 1 |

2. Table of Contents Can a New Brand Launch totally depend on Digital Marketing…………………………………………………… WHAT COMPANIES EXPECT OF A DIGITAL MEDIA PROFESSIONAL……………………………………………… Tools which help to enhance your Content Marketing Skills………………………………………………………. Why ecommerce start-ups need A virtual Digital Marketing Office……………………………………………. Social Media and Big Data………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7 Is your marketing strategy complete without Digital Marketing? ................................................. PERSONAL BRANDING AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT……………………………………………………………………. 10 How Google has changed the way people do business………………………………………………………………. 3 4 5 6 9 11 P a g e 2 |

3. Can a New Brand Launch totally depend on Digital Marketing How do you come to know about a new brand/product launch? Print media? Television advertisements? Word of mouth? Brand launch events? There can be ‗n‘ number of ways to do so, but the most popular today definitely has to be digital media. Now, the question that arises is can a brand launch be isolated from all other media and just be relied on this new platform? The reality these days is that actually all new brands, from mobile phones to apparels, from cars to computers are first launched digitally. Brands today have shed apprehensions with respect to the digital media and are using digital marketing campaigns to do their branding. Rather than uploading just a short version of the TV campaign on YouTube, they now launch entire brands through the digital medium. The thing is that out of 1.3 billion people, 275 million are online. What brands are asking today is simple – if 100 million people will buy my product, and if 80-90 percent of them are web-connected, then why focus anywhere else and why not go with a digital marketing campaign? Consider the example of the latest launch of one plus that launched their new product ‗One Plus 5t Smart Phone‘, by veering away from the TV and preferred to take the digital-only route to launch their product, whose primary audience is already on the digital platform. Check out the video: https://youtu.be/tT-valfcjgg Earlier, from the corporate perspective, there was pressure to do some 1-2 percent of digital work, only to please the global ecosystem. But things are no longer the same today because consumers are living in the digital age and brands are talking to a different set of consumers, whose purchasing patterns and habits have changed. Also, people want to be active and not passive today. They want to react, and the digital platform allows them to interact in the form of Like, Share and Comment. Earlier, TV showed a lot of emotional content and digital was used for commerce and transactional purposes. But if people today are not watching TV, then the digital medium needs to fill the space up by dishing out emotional content. Digital marketing campaigns, through social media, provide another effective platform for digitally launching a new brand. The Snapchat campaign of Burberry is a great example of this. ―Digital is a fundamental and integral part of who we are —it‘s central to our way of thinking,‖ said their CEO Christopher Bailey. Burberry secured a prominent spot on Snapchat by running its very own Discover channel for the next 24 hours, an ephemeral native ad with a suite of branded content. The channel, which could be found in the first slot of the Discover tab of Snapchat, was dedicated to promoting Mr. Burberry, the luxury brand‘s latest men‘s fragrance and accompanying capsule collection and men‘s grooming products. Digital marketing has replaced our environment with its own world. We should embrace it with grace and explore the everlasting opportunity inside it. P a g e 3 |

4. What companies expect of a digital media professional Most of the digital media professionals are really cool about the technical skillset. They are very cool about the algorithm-driven skill set. But when it is about objective-driven work some way or the other they lag behind. So what are the exact things that an agency expects from a digital marketing professional? What else is needed other than technical skill sets? All these questions need an answer. Well, here I am going to tell you several things that can prove really beneficial for all the digital marketing professionals. Companies expect professionals who can impact the top line Companies want professionals who can help in delivering social media campaigns for a product or even for that matter for a person. Being a technology driven person is not enough to sustain your place in an organization. More of marketing driven less of sales driven Professionals should have an attitude of creating a brand for themselves and organization as a whole. If they are concerned more about sales in totality then yes they might generate revenue but they would eventually not impact the brand of the organization as a whole. For that to happen marketing-driven approach is a must. In other words, total brand management. C-Suite Framework As a professional, it is necessary to understand which model does your organization lie in. Is it Business to Business or it comes in the category of Business to Consumer. Depending on these factors the whole C-Suite framework works. The first C that stands for Concept tells us about the overall architecture of the organization, in other words, do you understand the line of business your organization is into. The second C stands for Context which means how well you are able to translate that concept in context of your organizational business model. After that comes the third C that is Content which is one of the most important factors of an organization. Without an effective content strategy, no organization can move ahead hence having a proper content strategy and its management is a must in all organizations. The fourth C stands for Communication after understanding the concept and converting it into context and creating proper content it is time to communicate. And finally after communicating it comes the fifth C which is Coverage, which can work globally or even for that matter locally. You might be an effective SEO person or be very good in PPC campaigns. But these things are not enough to become an effective digital marketing professional. For that to happen you need to be good in all the points that I have discussed above. P a g e 4 |

5. Tools which help to enhance your Content Marketing Skills Thousands of rules exist in the English language which is certainly not easy to remember. In spoken English, most of the rules are not always used. But, when it comes to writing, rules are to be followed in a proper way. It becomes all the more important when you are working hard to take the leverage of mediums like Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora or Any Blogging forum. Nothing can ever replace practice but, there are a few tools which will certainly help you create great content. • Grammarly is a tool that is very effective and helps in catching small grammatical errors so that your content is error-free. This tools also helps to analyze the writing pattern which forms the writing style of any writer. Downloading the paid version gives an even more in-depth analysis of the writing style. • Scrivener is the second tool that can make you a better writer. It is not suitable for those who write one or two pieces of content in a month. It allows one to research and collect all your notes and all your writings in one place so it is much more organized. It helps the most to make an outline of your work. Though it is for those who are into regular writings but still can be used by others too. • Hemingway is one another effective tool that helps to analyze your writing style and shortens the sentences made by you which makes it easier to read. Content put on the web should be easy to read otherwise its readability decreases. Grammarly and Hemingway used together can help a writer a lot to become better each day. • WordRake is a PC tool that connects outlook with your word which helps improve clarity in writings. This tool shows the various number of ways to improve your content. But unfortunately, this tool is not available for MAC users. Focus is another tool that is widely used. It allows you to temporarily block time-wasting websites while you work. These secret weapons can be used with ease to become a better writer by managing your content in an efficient way to make the most out of it. P a g e 5 |

6. Why ecommerce start-ups need A virtual Digital Marketing Office “Time is money and money is time…” It is the age of innovation and cut throat competition. The dominance of old and giant business houses and corporations makes it extremely difficult for startups to enter into the market or increase their market share. The brand recognition and brand value associated with these heritage brands is too strong for any new startup to challenge. The years of association with a particular brand leaves deep imprints in the minds of consumers as they place their trust on it and to win that trust is no joke. For new business owners with limited resources in hand, to promote and advertise one‘s product is a challenging task unlike big brands and corporations with a fat belly. The investment or the employable capital available with the big business groups is high in comparison with the later. Also, the initial set up cost for startups is so high that their promotion and advertising budget shrinks as a consequence. Now, coming to the ecommerce ventures where every transaction and working is supported through an online activity, the man-power required for startups like these is generally less when compared to the manufacturing related ones. Hence, when it comes to marketing requirements, ecommerce companies generally opt for hiring virtual digital media offices that work parallel as their extended offices and operate on project and campaign basis. The virtual team also provides solutions or suggests any up gradations required to the existing digital media campaign designing etc. Hiring virtual offices offers the advantage to the startups of reducing costs and also customizing teams and strategies per the project or campaign requirement. The feasibility of the idea of extended offices especially for ecommerce ventures is high keeping in mind the nature and type of workload. Here outsourcing all of the administrative and marketing tasks proves cost- effective, time saving and efficient. This helps business to boost and get out of oblivion. A virtual digital marketing assistant is already highly trained and quick in understanding the job requirements and works to complete the assigned task in dedicated time. This ensures saving on training costs. Also a contractual relationship ensures not having to hire a full time worker and hiring only when one requires professional assistance whenever new projects are taken up that do not fit one‘s skills and talents. Hence, ecommerce startups today generally go for virtual digital marketing offices these days because they intend to save time that is precious and money that is scarce. P a g e 6 |

7. Social Media and Big Data Today we are surfing on the internet, visiting different websites, posting, liking and commenting on events and images of our friend. While all this we are leaving our digital footprint which is converted into data and stored. This data is very precious for companies to understand and target their customers. Social Media and BIG DATA? Today an average user has five social media accounts and spends approximately one hour on social media. Most of Americans get their news from Facebook only. Everyday social media websites are abuzz with communication around the brand. Facebook witnesses millions of likes, posting and people reaction to different news and photos. All this creates data in petabytes (1 petabyte = 1000,000 gigabytes). But unlike other data, social websites creates unstructured and uncharacterized data. If you want to get a glimpse of how confusing it can be, go through a twitter feed of any popular brand, and also to its Facebook page among other social profiles (variety in big data) should you wish to be more confused, and then try to make sense of this all from a marketing point of view All this stands as a testimony to the fact that social media is a big contributor to the tremendous amount of data produced i.e. Big Data. Big Data helps in digital marketing by 1) Telling who your customers are 2) How your customers feel 3) What they want 4) Their source of information about your brand 5) How do they arrive at the buying decision Chinese Social Credit System a new dystopia for BIG DATA In some religions, there are two angels, one which keeps an account of your good deeds and the other about your bad ones. But in today‘s world, it is going to be algorithms. Regardless of what one believes, the world where our deeds are recorded is in near future. The Chinese government has rolled out a social credit system which is going to be compulsory by 2020. The Chinese government has allowed its internet giants, like Alibaba and Tencent only to run and bring this utopia to the realm of existence. Right now they are making the beta version of this system. P a g e 7 |

8. Whenever you post something on RenRen or Weibo (which are equivalent to Facebook and micro-blogging site Twitter), you will create a data which is going to affect your score. If you’ll post a photo with a person with bad credit score then that also is going to change to your credit score. For making this large amount of data is going to be needed to process. This is going to be provided by Big Data from social media as more and more people are shifting their lives on it. Big data is going to be a big business, which means ignoring them is not going to be a healthy decision. It will not be wrong to think that the more you learn about your customers the better you will be able to target them with your social media campaign, and seeing the gigantic size of data produced by various social channels, it becomes imperative that you make use of big data in your social media marketing campaigns. By giving you a far deeper understanding of your customers and their relationship with your brand, big data will help you fine-tune your social media messages, and choose the right social media platform to disseminate information. P a g e 8 |

9. Is your marketing strategy complete without Digital Marketing? Being creative and experimental are the pre-requisites of a good marketing strategy. A successful marketer needs to think on its toes and tailor the marketing strategies as per the changing dynamics of the society. Equally important is the dissemination of information to the people to get an edge over the competitors in the market. This is where digital marketing has a role to play. Though a number of marketing strategies may be utilized to make the product stand out from other products in the market but to take a giant leap digital marketing plays an indispensable role. Change is the only constant. One has to keep on evolving to stay ahead in the race. In this tech savvy world, people are always on a lookout for real time news and information about the latest products and technologies hitting the market. To add to that people have gotten used to the easy access of information today. The number of variations that are made available to consumers at the moment, make them want to switch to other alternatives very soon. Hence, for retaining the customers it becomes a challenge for companies and brands to constantly upgrade their marketing strategy. The younger generation, unlike the older one is gearing up towards digital marketing. They prefer this change as the digital methods are faster, practical and more versatile. Digital marketing enables them to browse through different products and make a decision accordingly. There are a number of reasons why digital marketing stands on a different pedestal than the traditional marketing strategies and creates a void in the marketing process if not utilized effectively. Digital marketing has somehow just extended the realms of influence for a brand that is trying to get noticed by its target audience as the information goes viral to a wider audience in comparatively less time. Secondly, the information is transmitted across the globe for a merest fraction of the amount spend in different marketing campaigns. The most important of all being that one can easily monitor and track the reach, customer response rates and success of information transmitted in real-time. Also, the options that are made available to boost the information available at a certain cost is an asset of digital marketing. If we take out a leaf from history books on the last U.S elections, we can certainly say that the most powerful platform on which the elections were fought was digital marketing of the political parties and candidates. In fact, it has transformed the way elections were fought earlier. The amount of money spent on digital marketing marked a staggering hike of 600% as compared to the amount spent in last elections. So, it would be better to switch to digital marketing rather than facing extinction in business. Apple‘s iWatch is the next must have thing people are talking about these days. The power of digital media lies in the very fact of being present at the right platforms and generating engagement by saying the right things. P a g e 9 |

10. PERSONAL BRANDING AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT Your online and offline reputation is something that defines you. There are many people around you who are actually more talented than you are. But there are certain things that can give you an edge over them. Having a personal foundation is not restricted to making people aware of you and creating a reputation for you. When we look at the bigger picture it is more than that. Personal branding can help us to show the creative side of what we are. Personal Branding can help us in exploring new horizons which we dream to achieve. John Cass a graduate in graphic designing from New Castle University Australia got a job offer on Twitter from New York in his final year in 2007. He accepted that offer gladly and went to New York. There he started his new job. Everything was going on pretty well and suddenly six months later he was asked to leave they no longer needed his services. There is a policy in the USA if you are an immigrant then you have to leave the country within 10 days of leaving your job. He went to Canada he was in jail for 3 days. What really astonished was when all these things were happening in his life he was still active on social media, posting his designs and enhancing his reputation. Finally, he went back to Australia leaving his apartment and girlfriend behind. He always wanted to go back to New York. He was in love with that place. Finally, he got a job opening in New York through his designs that were posted on his website and social media page. All these things happened in a span of 2 months. This was made possible by him being active about his work online and eventually making the best out of it. There are some lessons that can be derived from this story in terms of personal branding One needs to stay committed towards his/her work. Both online and offline. With greater stress on the online part. Connections are the most important factor when it comes to personal branding. One needs to stay connected with a variety of people in order to make a name. Value addition is also a very important factor what you are bringing to the table plays a very important role in terms of creating a personal foundation. P a g e 10 |

11. How Google has changed the way people do business The wide impact internet and the advancement of technology had in and around 1998 on the minds of customers, forced people doing business to adopt new marketing strategies. Some far seeing entrepreneurs imagined that the world would be quite different if everyone could access information so easily. Instead of relying on print and TV ads to get the word out about their products, they would now have an entirely different arena to push their products and services through online media. Google‘s influence grew exponentially and internet technologies were the birthplace of online marketing. This new platform unfolded great talent in the form of technicians and other digital artists. Individuals first discovered the ease of finding out information on the internet that had not been accessible previously. Google identified its primary mission as ―to organize the world‘s collective information and make it universally accessible and useful‖. The marketing world, however did not really identify the versatile and flexible nature of the internet until 2002. Google led the way by introducing new technology to the younger generation. ―Search engine optimization‖ was not given a thought by business houses until the late 90s. The effect certain keywords would have on online searches and how marketers realized the underlying opportunity to capitalize markets, paved the way for online marketing. The process has not ceased to stop ever since with newer arenas being explored simultaneously and the opportunities are exploited by every business. With the advent of internet early advertisers gradually made a focus shift from print and TV ads to e-mail and other electronic means. As the internet and digital marketing gained popularity by word of mouth, companies and brands thereby increased their rate of customer acquisition. This has happened because of the interactive interface provided by Google that gives room for advertisers to experiment with their strategy. Banner ads, Pay per click model (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO) and more have given a lot of options to marketers to customize their advertising and promotion strategy per requirement per product. Another important of business aspect that has been affected by Google‘s entry apart from customers getting more information and being educated about a product or service is that companies today can manage their marketing and advertising costs to a great extent. The results of these marketing campaigns have bettered from those couple of decades ago along with a sharp increase in the customer retention by brands. So, it is not wrong if we say that companies today do give a lot of thought in deciding how to plan their marketing campaign on digital platforms. Online media marketing becoming the next big thing now if you want to grow your business. P a g e 11 |