Feb 25, 2016 | Business Communication
Sudhir Kumar
In today's connected world, digital platforms have transformed the way people interact, share and make choices. This brings you closer to your customer, more than you can imagine. Decisions are often made solely by what they perceive your brand and not just the features of your product. An average internet user consumes increasingly more content every day, be it a trending social topic on twitter or cat videos on youtube. This is where all successful brands of the present are directing their resources to turn their audiences to consumers and then into a loyal customers. Since, people are inherently inclined towards following a narrative, the one you create for your brand through digital marketing will decide whether your customers make a purchase or otherwise. But creating a narrative for your brand doesn't happen overnight. It takes time and effort through content that is presented uniformly over multiple online platforms. This integrated approach is what defines your brand and differentiates it from your competitors.
Leading with Digital Marketing
Let's take a detour and explore how other brands have tapped into the enormous potential of the digital landscape: How can a globally recognized brand generate leads that surpass its already successful business? Xerox is the brand to ask. With a targeted "Get Optimistic" campaign that connects top 30 accounts, Xerox partnered with Forbes to create a magazine which offers valuable insights and business tips. The results were astounding. Out of the targeted companies, 70% interacted with the microsite, while the readership increased by 300-400% compared to previous email campaigns. The campaign also added 20,000 new contacts and generated over 1,000 scheduled appointments. And guess what? The return on investment was '$1.3 BILLION' in pipeline revenue.
Meanwhile, the world's largest container shipping company, Maersk Line took a different approach to boost its winter shipping services.
Even though the Danish shipping company Maersk Line began using social media back in 2011, the big break came when Jonathan Wichmann, then head of social media of Maersk, sent a photographer to take rare and jaw-dropping shots of frozen container ships to share on instagram (#WinterMaersk). This created a visual story of the efforts made by Maersk to tackle winter to keep the cargo moving. This campaign alone brought 150 new leads which is massive for the industry. Furthermore, Maersk focuses on human interest stories those are hand-picked to suit their business such as how Maersk is fuelling a boom in sale of Kenyan avocados and where the staff come from. This tailored approach to digital marketing is visible on each of their digital channels, namely LinkedIn, where they promote job vacancies and publish articles that focus on work culture. Maersk Line now has more than 1.5m Facebook fans (of which around 15% are customers) and 12,000 Twitter followers, along with active accounts on Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube and Google+.
While creating products for people and their pets are two different things, the strategy for targeting the decision makers (us humans) remains the same. Petflow, a pet supplies and food e-commerce site, understands that and has nailed its digital strategy. By creating a unique website called Littlethings.com, Petflow was able to drive traffic by taking seemingly trivial topics and turning them into posts that resonate with the target audience. The 'littlethings' website alone garners more than 30 million users per month and has transformed into a self-sustained business for Petflow.
Content is still king
With the above mentioned examples it is easy to understand the scope of digital marketing. But it takes a dedicated team of seasoned professionals to carve out the perfect digital strategy for your brand. Our digital services encompass the entire spectrum of the digital landscape from adwords to social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and all the way to your own intellectual property website.