Technology in marketing

Opening of the digital world has led to never before possibilities and hence, transitions across domains, including communication. The consumption of news as well as information have undergone a sea change with the doors opened by online and digital sources of information. The availability of information is no longer restricted to a certain time (like news bulletin or newspapers) or limited to an overt exhibit of information (say through advertisement). A customer appreciation or complaint on a social media platform, or an aggregator website, or an online newsflash is enough to grab eyeballs and influence decision making customers, both in a positive and negative sense.

Read more: http://everythingexperiential.businessworld.in/article/Role-of-Technology-in-marketing-Gaurav-Patra/18-09-2020-321944/

HR Rebooted

As a new workplace model has emerged, so have the rules of engagement.  PR agencies are no exception with business coming to a complete halt.  For agency leadership, it’s a time for re-invention, business survival, client continuity, and the need to demonstrate a new type of value add.  For HR professionals, there’s a rethink on workforce strategies, encompassing: composition, compensation and performance.  For the individual, work from home demands discipline, self-motivation and re-learn how to function effectively in a virtual team.

Read more:https://www.agencyreporter.com/hr-rebooted-balancing-pr/

“Brand activism” - the new embodiment of corporate values

Where to play and how to play, are the questions that many global brands have positively squared up to in a short space of 100 days. The George Floyd movement, Coronavirus and Donald Trump have given brands a new sense of purpose and redefined societal responsibility in a completely new way.  Brands have moved from being passive to active participants on contentious and divisive issues to ‘take a knee’. On the anti-racism and reform of criminal justice campaigns, mass support has been unprecedented.  From CEOs through to major global sports leagues, all have been vocal on media, company websites, via official social media accounts or through messages to employees.

Read more at https://www.exchange4media.com/marketing-news/on-brands-taking-a-knee-in-divisive-times-105454.html

Micro Influencer Marketing

Author: Rasesh Raja, Account Manager at GolinOpinion (PoineNine Lintas)

With fans getting bored of the brands directly targeting their products and services, reaching out to the TG through influencers and bloggers as a medium has become one of the crucial parts of the marketing mix.

An influencer can be anyone a blogger or a celebrity or a brand advocate or loyalist.

The rate at which the number of influencers in the Indian market is growing it is getting difficult for a brand to reach out to the right TG.

Here is the flow you can go with to plan your influencer campaigns-

1. Define the objective of your campaign

Set the goal of what exactly you want from the influencers to reach out to your consumers. For example, you want to just create awareness or highlight the product or promote any offer or specific service. 

2. Choose the category and the right influencer

Here is where themajority of the brands and agency fall short because we just blindly select influencers.

Firstly, decide who your influencer is because the one who has more followers is not the only influencer. Your influencer can bethe one whoengages with you regularly or someone who is passionate about the category or a celebrity who is a right match for your brand.

Take time to select influencers, so here is what you should tick when you are searching for an influencer

- Select the categories, because if you are food brand doesn’t mean you only target food bloggers but you can also tap lifestyle and travel. Same goes with other categories (example: Coca-Cola, Dibella Coffee and more)

- Quality of the followers: We always select the ones with ahuge following and blindly consider them as an influencer but that is absolutely wrong. Do a Klout score check also do a quick check on the followers as many of them are bots.Higher follower doesn’t mean high engagement. I have seen big blogs with 1M followers with theengagement of 100 or so. 

- Check the bio and history: getting a brief of what the influencer is known for and also check theprevious content to understand the quality and engagement of the content. Also, check the previous associations and hobbies of the influencer. 

3. Briefing the influencers: 

Clearly set points/brief of what the influencer is expected to deliver with what he or she is comfortable with. You can’t tell influencer to put anything and everything just because you are paying them. In this process ask ideas/suggestions from the influencers since they know their fans better and what would work for them. This will definitely help you promote your product effectively.

4. Set KPI's:

It is very important to understand the ROI of the influencer campaign. You can choose engagement, Reach(awareness) and share of voice as the metrics to check the effectiveness of the campaign. Decide and agree to the KPI’s to get the best out of the influencer outreach. 

Influencer Campaign which I recently liked was #PushTheLimit by Samsonite for their lite-shock bag. The product was the hero of the campaign. They roped in some celebrities and fashion influencers to showcase the features of the product.