The Quartz Effect

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May 24 / 6:45am

African Digital Renaissance - No business left behind by Anesu Michael Maposa

With the digital renaissance dawn upon Africa and in these tough economic tough, every penny counts so whatever you decide to invest your hard earned cash in your business, it’s not rocket science that you would want a positive return. The higher Return On Investment you realise, the more satisfied you are. An investment in a company website in this digital era in Africa is surely one of the ways to increase your businesses’ sales revenue.

Long gone are the days when only the big corporates were the only players who could afford investing in a company website. With the current competition in the website design market, you can get your business, whatever size you are a website from as low as $150.  

So before you get yourself a website the important question you pose to yourself always is: “How am I going to boost my business’s online sales revenue in line with the current internet boom in Zimbabwe and the rest of the world?” An enormous number of businesses with websites are in the pursuit of increasing their Return On Investment and some rely heavily on highly targeted website traffic. Improving a website’s search engine visibility has proved to be the most common and popular way.

But before we go into depth with the following strategies you have to make sure that your website is optimised for mobile phones. With the current rise of mobile phone internet use in Zimbabwe and the rest of the motherland, it doesn’t need a rocket scientist to figure out that for your business to reach a wide scope of potential clients; your website has to be compatible for viewing on mobile phones. There are more people in Zimbabwe browsing the internet on their mobile phones than using the traditional desktop computer. Investing in a mobile website is only a plausible investment decision. A simple search on the internet will give you results for mobile websites designers.

Now I am going to delve into the 3 strategies you can use to help you harness the power on the internet using your business website. The 3 strategies are Pay Per Click advertising, Organic Search Traffic and Targeting your Local Market.

Pay Per Click Campaign Advertising


Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is defined by Wikipedia is an Internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, where advertisers pay the hosting service when the ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system. PPC is a major attribute for page search engine results. Therefore, it is very important to try by all means to attain the best possible exposure without breaking your bank. Times are hard.


Any winning paid search strategy has its foundations in sound amplified and or optimised campaigns. Care should be taken and avoid the gut reaction of uselessly burning resources on Google AdWords and other similar campaigns. You can increase your ROI and stretch your budget to an extra mile by using the right targeted keywords on your target market or niche market; this includes more precise geographical locations and most profitable periods.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), Wikipedia defines it as the method of creating an experience for a website or landing page visitor with the goal of increasing the percentage of visitors that convert into customers, therefore, is an opportunity worth looking into. Let’s assume that you are getting website traffic but you are not converting it into sales, there surely is a serious issue that needs to be taken care of. If you thoroughly analyse your landing pages, website forms and checkouts, you will surely find out areas which are lacking and needs improving. Running live checks is important to establish the relative value of making the changes. The ideal final outcome ought to be the increase in the Conversion Rates and Sales Revenue of your website.

Organic Search Traffic


Organic Search Traffic is the traffic to your website from search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to their being advertisements. Your website can be seen on search engine results pages by using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). SEO aids increasing your website rankings in the organic results by targeting specific keywords of your choice aligned to your website. Implementing SEO greatly assists your website and aligns it with the search engines standards.

SEO is a valuable system to improve visitors to your website pages, and this in turn assist you positively increase your Return On Investment. With this in mind, free business articles on Ngoda Business can get your internet marketing off the ground and will help your website generate more sales revenue.

Target Local Market


Concentrated energy is put into better use and achieves more results effectively and efficiently. You should strive to appear in your local searches, it  is very important and should not be sidelined from your internet marketing strategy in working towards increasing your ROI. Running besides Search Engine Optimisation, local search services will help you attain supreme visibility in your area.

Maintaining a dominant presence for your website in Google Places Yahoo Local or Bing Local will aid direct traffic or hot leads with the intention to buy to your website. This should in return direct business and inevitably home visits ought to increase, helping your business increase its brand awareness and present a respectable Return On Investment.

A simple search for “company Harare” on Google places will come up with the following results.

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On the left side of the image above you will notice that there is a list of companies who have signed up for Google Places in Harare, and they have shown up in the results. Now the major advantage of this are:

1.      Prospective clients will see your contact details on first glance without visiting your website, giving you more chances of them contacting you.

2.      On the right side there is a map showing your business physical location, corresponding with letter marked reddish bubble. This adds an intangible value to your business that you are actually in “existence”

3.      You business name is hyperlinked to your website. If a visitor goes on that link it takes them to your linked website page.

4.      There is a Place page besides your business name. Google give s you an option to create a place page which is more like a one page website on which you can upload your logo, business pictures and you can list your products and services.

5.      On the Place page, customers can review your business, giving you aiding that “word of mouth” advertising.

So what are you waiting for? Go on and create yourself a Place page, for whatever City you are in. The best things in life are free. Even after you sign up for Google Places, Big Brother G will even send you advertising credits for Google AdWords, though I haven’t confirmed this to be the case in Africa.

What fellow entrepreneurs out there need to focus on now is this opportunity to come up with a system of facilitating people to buy and pay for goods and services online. One to come up with such a solution will surely be carrying the pot of gold home. But in the mean time you can be creative and depending on your situation, come up with a solution for a check out system if you sell goods and services online. You can have people to reserve goods online and pay in your shop or offices, since a lot of people in Zimbabwe do not have credit cards and Visa cards to pay online.

Don’t let your business get left behind, jump on the digital bandwagon and rip the “digital benefits”, expand your market share, increase your sales revenue and your Return On Investments, it’s not yet water under the bridge.

For more tips and articles like this please visit Ngoda Business, a free business article portal aimed at helping fellow striving Zimbabwean Entrepreneurs by Zimbabwean Entrepreneurs on www.ngoda.info . Anesu Maposa is a founding member of Ngoda Business.

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May 20 / 6:17am

There is an issue of principle here. #Zimfest

Not long ago there was an article circulating in Zimbo circles about the lack of vision and innovation among Zimbabwean entrepreneurs. That of course is debatable as Zim has produced a number of stellar businessmen and women who have broken down barriers and performed very well in very difficult circumstances.

 

The thrust of the article was that there are too many people who see someone successful in a area and immediately copy their concept hoping to find similar success. This of course does not happen as the market quickly become fragmented driving down potential earnings and resulting in limited earnings for everyone in the sector. Economics 101. This is not to say that no one should try to do anything has been done before. The right level of competition is always healthy and can have a positive impact on prices and quality of service.

 

At Zimfest has recently fallen become victims of this and not only have we seen similar events being launched we have had people simply use not just our name but even our brand material without so much as an emailed enquiry for permission to do this. The irony is that it is the philosophy of the organisation to Celebrate Zimbabwe and to open the doors to as many Zimbos as possible to participate in this. While this is the case it would be very irresponsible to allow this to happen without taking steps to protect the brand and what it has come to mean.

 

Beyond this there is an issue of principle here. If you decide you want to set up a telecommunications company you do not just call it Econet. If you want to set up a bakery you do not just call it Lobels. These companies have spent a lot of time and effort building up their reputations and brands and only someone who has no respect for the hard work these people have put in to this would even consider trying to use their name or brand without their permission.

 

Starting out on any project of this nature requires a level of confidence and determination to put in the work required to make it a success that would mean that you do not need to do this. that you have the ability to build your own brand and the follow through to see this become a reality. At Zimfest we would like to see more Zimbabweans embark on new and innovative projects and to see them become successful but would like to hope that this is done the right way, in a way that would leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that the success was earned and deserved.

 

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We welcome competition as in order for us to be successful in what we do we have to have confidence in our product and in our ability to deliver it but if anyone would like to work with us in helping enhance the reputation of Zimbabweans and Zimbabwe through Zimfest please, talk to us you will be pleasantly surprised at what can be achieved.

Zimfest is an event that Quartz works on, we are pleased to announce that we will be helping out again this year. For more on Zimfest please follow this link.

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May 16 / 2:21am

Towards Greater Accountability Marketing Communication

Advertising is just one of many brand-building initiatives. The ultimate goal of any advertising campaign is to first generate awareness about a product or service, resulting in sales and ultimately a positive contribution to the brand’s bottom-line.

If the ultimate goal behind investing in any ad campaign is to guarantee sales and consequently profit, then the conventional media eyeball measurements of advertising exposure will no longer suffice as satisfactory bench-marks for measuring and evaluating the success of campaigns.

As a matter of fact, with the onset of advances in the field of campaign evaluation and media tracking, engagement metrics are gradually starting to replace those traditional audience reach and frequency metrics as standard tools for the measurement of advertising ROI.

Another critical factor is the increased emphasis being placed on the delivery of clearly measurable results and figures by agencies as far as marketing communication campaigns are concerned. This is where the issue of the limitations of advertising as a tool for influencing desired consumer action set in. Traditional advertising has been likened to waving at an audience from a distance. Brands therefore essentially desire a way to get in closer contact with their publics/targets and embrace them, as it were, particularly at a more optimal cost such that resources are not literally thrown down the drain.

Equally importantly, it has been observed that BTL (Below-the-line) encourages the ‘less-is-more’ approach, in the sense that it enables brands to define and specifically target marketing tactics at specific segments and channels, with a higher potential to drive consumer demand/action. These can be taken through a multiplicity of channels which range between experiential, retail, POS (Point-of-Sale), Digital, Mobile, One-to-one marketing, e-mail and so on.

As against applying a strictly traditional approach that’s characterized by a campaign hinging off an array of separate visual (Television), Audio (Radio) and print executions, an unconventional BTL strategy may incorporate tactics such as flying a hot air balloon over targeted geographic areas, offering consumers instant gratification via an in-store retail promotion, the creation of an animated poster or production of engaging content that spreads virally using the consumers themselves as the media…..the through-the-line shopping list is virtually endless and relatively economical. The objectives of a particular campaign will however have to be clearly outlined and taken into consideration as they will inform the type of strategy which will be employed to drive the campaign.

While TV, radio and print will remain particularly important media, particularly where mass awareness is required to support marketing and also for the ‘entertainment’ value they add to the art of advertising, the future of advertising is about consumer relationships, conversations and influence.

This is why Below-the-line has started to and will increasingly take larger portions of campaign budgets and enjoy greater recognition for efficiently delivering integrated campaigns that create tangible value for all stakeholders – brand, client and the consumer.

Tomi Ogunlesi, a professional member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK) is a strategic planner at Bates Cossé, Lagos.

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May 9 / 2:42am

Making the most of your Facebook fan page

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I have helped plenty of businesses in recent months to design and set up their presence on Facebook. But the problem always remains of how to keep your fans interested.

So you’ve got a Facebook business page created, you’ve started to gather fans but what should you post?

One of the nicest things about Facebook is that you can keep in touch with your fans on a daily basis (I wouldn’t recommend more than once a day).  This gives you a unique way to enhance your brand, to establish yourself as a customer and to converse with your customers and fans.

Trying to find content for your page however can seem like an impossible task, so I thought I would share with you some of the tricks that I use to keep my page populated.

1. Google Alerts:  Google alerts is a free subscription service.  You can choose words or phrases as your ‘alerts’ and Google will send you daily or weekly emails listing web, news and blog results containing those phrases.  When they hit your mail box in the morning scan through them for stories that would be of interest to your customers and that will help enhance your brand.

For example, for African Marketing News I have a Google alert for ‘Marketing News Africa, occasionally there will be a great story, posted in a newspaper or a blog,  the sort of story that not only would be of interest to my fans and customers but which is also relevant to my brand.  When I find one of these gems I share it on my Facebook page. Priceless

2. Import your blog: Importing your blog into Facebook means that your page will automatically update whenever you post a new blog entry.   The simplest way to do this is to use the notes function:

  • Click the ‘edit page’ link under your company logo.
  • Click on the pencil next to the ‘Notes’ application.
  • Choose ‘edit’ from the drop-down menu, you will be brought to the notes page.
  • On the right hand side of the screen click the link ‘import blog’ and follow instructions to feed your blog into your fan page.

There is also a lot of blog functionality and apps that Facebook uses today like Networkedblogs and more, take advantage of those.

3. Ask a question: This is always great as it makes your page interactive, and if you ask questions that are of serious interest to your fans they are obliged to respond by posting on your fan wall.

4. Have a competition: Offer a small prize in return for a short story, a caption, a name for a product.  Spread the word about the competition through your mailing list, twitter, your blog, and your other social networks as well as through your Facebook page.  You will find that this brings you plenty of new fans too.

5. Company news and promotions: You will soon loose fans if you constantly directly promote your business but that doesn’t mean you can never do it.  As long as you are providing value to your fans through other interesting content it can be beneficial to add company news and special offers to your news feed.

If you need help with your Facebook fan page drop us an email and ask a question.  We’d also love to hear your Facebook fan page success stories. Don’t forget to ‘like’ our page as well.

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May 7 / 7:18am

Brands and Politics

Robert-mugabe1

Brands and Politics

We are always engaged in brand management. Whether it is on the conscious or subconscious level we are always trying to project an image of the person we would like people to think we are. The way we walk, the way we talk, the colours we wear, by commission or by omission we influence the way people see us and we in other words influence perception of our personal or corporate brand.
 
The explosion of internet and mobile data use has amplified this and the potential impact we could have has multiplied to levels many of us would even begin to comprehend. While it could be argued that this is only relevant to people in the public the truth is very little is private anymore. The concept of "privacy" can only be considered in terms of extent and context and with employers, business partners and even friends able gather information on you with astonishing immediacy online branding has become relevant to us all.

Not being online is not an option either. That choice simply hands the advantage to the competition in almost every respect and effectively surrenders control over the way you are perceived. Individual and organisations are no longer assessed based only upon how they present themselves but also by the things people say about you if anything is being said about you at all and having nothing at all said about you is probably the worst position to be in for the brand conscious.

The ease with which people can comment about your or your brand has left us all exposed and vulnerable. At the click of a button misrepresentations of the truth are exposed, quality defects in your product broadcasted, and that which used to be so easy to conceal is brought instantly into the spotlight. Few have any other option but to e aware and vigilant about their brand online.
 
A few weeks ago pop artist Sean Kingston put on an underwhelming performance in Harare leaving the crowds that paid $100 to see the show disappointed. In a vain attempt to enhance his personal brand he claimed, on his Facebook page, to have thrown $3000 into the crowd. This backfired spectacularly and within minutes comments from irate Zimbabweans flooded his page refuting this claim and accusing the artist of being patronising and condescending. The post was removed from his page but not before a screenshot was taken and re-distributed around the web. With a few ill advised strokes on a keyboard Sean Kingston permanently damaged his brand in not only in Zimbabwe but around the world and it will be very difficult for him to recover.

In America would be presidential candidate Donald Trump set social media alight by claiming credit for forcing President Barack Obama to present his birth certificate publicly for the first time. The incident immediately drew parallels to the times when people of colour were forced to present identification documents at the behest of pretty much any white person. In the eyes of many Trump was immediately branded racist rendering his purported presidential campaign unlikely unless he performs a miraculous recovery. That said his brand association with superfluous TV shows, bankruptcies, the glamorous life had already made any meaningful campaign unlikely.
 
The political arena has been impacted more heavily than any. Barack Obama literally tore his opponents to shreds in his presidential campaign because of his campaigns mastery of new media. His image was spun into iconic posters, t-shirts, posters and other election paraphernalia inundating web. Where his image was presented the words "Hope" and "Yes we can" were never far away and brand Obama came to represent the aspirations of a tech generation fatigued with the same old politics. In contrast his opponents seemed to stand for nothing, had very little online visibility and their increasingly desperate attempts to counter this rapid advance seemed leaden footed, simplistic and pandering.

Long before the Obama phenomenon a new political force was sweeping onto the stage in Zimbabwe. It too carried clean and simple imagery, an open palm symbolising peace and transparency. It also carried a simple and clear message, "Change” that captured the imagination of a generation that had trudged through over 20 years of political musical and the stagnation that comes with broken promises and misappropriated resources. This force was the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and it has emerged become the most popular political party in Zimbabwe.  The MDC had a simple brand and a clear message.

In contrast the party in power at the time, Zanu PF's had moved from it’s simple crowing cock and communist/one party state image and message to a mish mash of images and messages adopted more out of expediency than calculation or belief. The single clear image that had come to represent the brand had become the face of Robert Mugabe. The effect of this has been for Brand Mugabe to represent Brand Zanu PF and the party has found it impossible to even consider replacing him and with concerns over his age and health the party is in a very precarious position. Beyond this the brand has come to be associated with violence and negativity characteristics that while being intimidating are hardly inspiring..
 
Since its early successes the MDC has not fared much better. Their brand has come to represent stagnation as the need to provide some stability took home in Zimbabwe necessitating their entry into the Government of National Unity. The split of the party into two separate entities and subsequent wrangle for ownership of the brand name has culminated in the personalisation of the brand with MDC T representing the Morgan Tsvangirai faction and MDC M representing that faction’s erstwhile leader Arthur Mutambara. This has further diluted the brand and added an element of confusion in terms of policy and therefore message leaving the majority of Zimbabweans uncertain about what the party stands for now beyond opposition to Mugabe and Zanu PF.
 
This lack of clarity in respect of what the Zimbabwean political brands has left the political landscape practically feudal with the parties themselves floundering under internal pressure caused by fragmentation. Online Brand presence is very weak and where this does exist it frankly will not hold the attention of the average internet user for more than a few passing seconds.
 
As the country embrace of new media continues to rise at a remarkable rate a new front has opened for the two main political forces. The party that does the best job of managing its brand online will be the party that wins the hearts and minds of a new tech savvy and globalised generation. Frog-marching people into feigning support for your policies will not make any party dominant in the psyche of this generation and therefore not claim their loyalty. Both parties can be said to have surrendered control of their brands in both the physical and virtual worlds.

Hilton Mendelsohn is a founder member and Trustee of WEZIMBABWE, partner at Quartz Marketing and a columnist with The Zimbabwean,  www.hiltonmendelsohn.com

 

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May 5 / 1:29pm

Monitoring your brand/name online

Knowing what is being published online specially in the social media space about your brand or your name is very important. It is safe to say that a big portion of your customers/clients use or belong to some sort of online social network.

If you are concerned about preserving your brand or your name it is imperative to monitor the social space for anything negative. But with so many social networks out there, how does one monitor everything?

There are many services out there that allow you to monitor the social space, some of these platforms are user friendly and free, some are not so friendly and cost money. So here is the list of some of the most popular ones and a few that we use on daily basis.

TweetDeck

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TweetDeck allows you to set up multiple social media channels on one screen that consistently monitor keywords that you need monitored. Think of it as your personal browser for staying up to date with what’s happing in the social space.

HootSuite

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HootSuite is a social media dashboard that has grown to be very popular in the last year. We personally and professionally use this service and love it! HootSuite allows you to setup columns with multiple social profiles and will monitor each social space based on your keywords.

MyWeboo

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MyWeboo was established in 2009 and launched in June of 2010. This platform allows you to monitor multiple social portals. From Facebook to Twitter and from Yahoo News to CNN, this tool will help you stay on top of news, videos, photos, and social network conversations pertaining to your brand

Google Alerts

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Google Alerts is a free service from the folks at Google. This service allows you to setup a list of keywords that you want to monitor, Google will then monitor these keywords as they appear on the web and will notify you by email when it catches anything. You can set how often you want these emails sent and which email address to send it to. We use this tool to monitor our Public Relations customer’s brands.

SocialMention

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SocialMention – Ohh how we love this tool, think Google Alerts but for social media! This service lets you aggregate content that is streaming through Social Media sites into a single and very detailed page. SocialMention also allows you to setup daily email alerts for your brand.

Addict-O-Matic

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Addict-O-Matic lets you “inhale the web” by creating a page with results from searching websites, blog posts, videos and images for the latest buzz on any subject. It is addicting, we tried it, liked it and then had to take some time to come off of it!

Want to add some more social media monitoring platforms to this list? Just drop us a line in the comments section below!

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May 5 / 12:43am

Spread the Word!

    So we have decided to open up our Facebook presence www.facebook.com/Zimfest to any Zimbabweans and friends of Zim out there who would like to spread the word about any new music, events, artists, campaigns, products and services ou

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Apr 29 / 12:24am

What your business can learn from the Royal Wedding..

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Nothing can really beat the excitement of a big wedding and they don’t come bigger than a Royal one. The big day is upon us. Today, billions of televisions around the world will be tuned into the wedding of the future King of England, Price William of Wales, to his fiancée Kate Middleton.

Regardless of what you think of the Royals (or marriage for that matter) there is no mistaking that this is likely to be one of the biggest events of the year (unless you are a fan of Zimfest ;)). And big events with big audiences mean big opportunities for smart marketers.

I have been following the build-up since the wedding was announced and have watched with great interest how businesses have taken advantage of the mood and excitement. With this in mind, here are some marketing lessons from the Royal Wedding – it's not too late to use some in your business.


Become an expert

With the media desperate for any sort of content in the lead-up to the wedding, an army of business people – from fashion designers right down to humble bridal shop managers – have emerged to give their expertise on everything from bridal dresses, wedding cars, wedding cakes and even cutlery. In most cases, these people aren't privy to the actual details of the wedding, but that doesn't matter – they are "experts" in their field and therefore have a platform.


Back it up with social media

Any event with a big television audience is almost guaranteed to create huge social media traffic and the royal wedding is no different. With this in mind, any promotion or marketing must be supported by an appropriate social media campaign – something the Royal Family itself is doing well with a steady stream of Tweets from its account @ClarenceHouse.

One of the best examples of a specific social media campaign comes from Schweppes, which is itself an official supplier to the Royal Family. The company, which is selling a special range of Royal Wedding-branded bottles, has created a virtual giant wedding card on Facebook for users to sign.



Control the flow of information

The Royal Family have given marketers a master class in how to control the information around a big event. While Clarence House can't control the experts weighing in on potential wedding dress designs, they have been able to set the official agenda around the wedding by releasing a steady stream of information, including selected members of the guest list (which killed off speculation around this) details of flower arrangements and seating plans and photos of rehearsals and other events.


Tailor your content

Getting some wedding-related content out to your customers or potential customers in a timely matter is crucial if you want to get even a small slice of the interest around the big event. It might be a blog on how your industry is involved in the wedding or it might be a special wedding-related event or promotion.


Build anticipation

The wedding itself may only take a few hours, but clever marketers have been working at building anticipation for months. It's a great lesson that business owners can use in the lead up to a big event – count down clocks and marketing messages saying there are "two weeks to go" allow you to stretch out the marketing impact.


Sentiment sells

While modern marketing tends to concentrate on the smart, slick, innovative and satirical, there is a decidedly old-fashioned lesson in the Royal Wedding – sentiment still sells. While many consumers in the UK think the monarchy is a rather out-dated institution, there is no getting around the fact that everyone loves a wedding and a bit of romance.


Beware the backlash

The Royal Wedding has received its fair share of bad press. Concerns about the cost of security and the amount British taxpayers stump up each year to keep the Royals in the manner they have become accustomed are inevitable around an event like this. Saw it recently with the Zim Achievers Awards where there was a lot of negativity but the organisers dealt with that brilliantly. If your event is controversial or has its critics, be prepared to address any negativity.


Have fun

Everyone knows that getting excited about the Royal Wedding is a bit silly, but marketers shouldn't be afraid to get caught up in the spirit of whole thing and have a bit of fun – particularly if this is part of your brand values.

 

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Apr 27 / 12:02am

Using your blog and social media to build your business

Blogging

If you’ve been learning about how to increase your online presence for your business, then you know about the importance of having an active blog with fresh content.  You also know that you need to have a presence on popular social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  You may, however, be confused about how to intertwine your blog with your social network interactions.


 

Here’s how you should look at the relationship between your blog and your social network profiles: your blog should serve as your “primary home” while your social networks should be your “holiday homes.”


 

This means that you need to spend most of you time building out and developing your blog – which means you need to be constantly adding value-add content to it as well as ways to capture the information of people who are visiting your site – and supplement your blog activity with engagements on your social networks.


 

The process should look like this:


 

Step 1: Create an attractive blog that is prepared to capture leads (e.g. create lead capture forms with an e-mail marketing platform, such as Constant Contact, and make it easy for people to connect with you on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn)


 

Step 2: Create a “content schedule” of topics that you (or someone else) will write about; publish this content to your blog according to the schedule.


 

Step 3: Jump on your social networks and drive your friends and followers back to your blog through compelling offers, comments, and questions.


 

Step 4: If you offer good incentives and intriguing content on your blog, you’ll be able to capture the contact information of the people who visit your site.


 

Step 5: Market to the leads that you generate through your e-mail marketing and social networks.

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Apr 18 / 3:05am

Building a case for co-creativity in Marketing Communication: for the good of the Brand..... Tomi Ogunlesi

Building a case for co-creativity in Marketing Communication: for the good of the Brand

Tomi Ogunlesi, Senior Strategic Planner
Bates Cosse

Building a case for co-creativity in Marketing Communication: For the good of the Brand
 
Recent trends indicate that Consumers have become wary and increasingly suspicious as far as the entire concept of ‘marketing' is concerned. This stems from the perception that advertisers/marketers are only out to exploitatively ‘brain-wash' potential targets towards meeting their own selfish commercial ends, at the expense of the ‘unsuspecting' consumer's wallet, by subtle and calculated manipulation of their (consumers') psyche.


Today's reality is that we're struggling to reach skeptical audiences that have become largely jaded by our traditional brand communications. Our targets are trust-starved and are erecting and fortifying their psychological defenses against commercial ‘onslaughts'.


Contemporary marketing strategy clearly necessitates a departure from many of the marketing industry's current ideas, perceptions and techniques which have for long held sway.


It is ironic, however, to note that Coca-Cola's high-profile ex-marketing arrowhead, Sergio Zyman (who authored the treatise ‘The End of Marketing, As we know it") is notoriously recorded to have warned, at some point, that, in his words, "Leaving things up to the consumers' imagination is something you never want to do. Customers are dangerous, and if you leave them to decide how they want to be satisfied, you're going to have a terrible time living up to their dreams. It's better if you can control both the promise and the delivery."
Well, this may actually have been tenable in time past, but engaging Mr. Zyman's position, in the light of the realities of contemporary market and consumer trends, reveals that such disposition is little short of suicidal for any brand desirous of meaningful impact in an environment where the typical consumer is more discerning, enlightened and empowered. Remarkably humorous, though very instructive, is former Nike and Starbucks marketing point-man, Scott Bedbury's take on what a brand is "The sum total of the good, the bad, the ugly and the off-strategy!"


While it still holds that branding is the most critical element of commercial success, some fundamental laws and pillars that have been relentlessly preached for ages are presently being called to question, such as one that preaches "Create advertising around an aspirational image associated with the brand." Now, these traditional and conventional big bang promotional methods still work for many products and services, but the clearly emerging truth is that in order for a brand to ‘stick' i.e. to have a real impact on culture, it has to collaborate with its users, its constituency.


In many instances, misguided (in retrospect!) attempts to exert and enforce control over brands and consumers' reaction to them have been noted to have backfired in quite a number of scenarios.


One intriguing realization, when put into the proper perspective is that consumers themselves have actually become important brand-builders. They build a perception or an image of the brand just exactly the same way birds build nests from scraps and straw which they chance upon, according to Jeremy Bullmore.


As brand managers and custodians, the implication is that we need to let go of the fallacy that the brands in our care belong to us - A brand belongs to the market, of which the consumer is a key determinant. At this juncture, it must again be stressed that Co-creation is very key, and ideally, the brand is co-created and shaped via meaningful collaboration with consumers. One fundamental challenge that constantly comes to the fore, which many people saddled with the task of managing brands have repeatedly confessed to be faced with is that of seeing and approaching their brands from the perspective of consumers.


Such successful co-creative initiatives that have gone on to strengthen brand equity abound world over. Consumer-generated media is no passing fad. Many of the world's most successful brands are progressing beyond the centuries-old model of driving awareness through mass-marketing, choosing instead to engage consumers.


"Co-creativity" is a form of the creative process that involves more than one person. In a co-creative process, many people come together, interacting with one another, sharing ideas and experiences, and affecting the growth and insight and ideas of everybody else in the group.


Co-creativity involves listening, dialogue, mutual respect, and careful attunement with the ideas and intentions of other people in the venture. Co-creativity can be understood in different ways, depending on the understanding among parties involved. As a co-creative group gains in resonance and understanding, the group may wish to refine an "agreement" among its members, to clarify ways in which the group has decided to address issues and questions that may arise.


Marketers are inviting their customers to take part in the creative process Commercials, print ads, tag-lines and a lot more communication elements are being produced by the very audience they're intended for and, at first glance, it somewhat appears that many functions within the larger marketing community are becoming rapidly obsolete.


In the past, the technical skills and distribution capacity (budget inclusive) required to create and deliver an impactful marketing campaign were significant and far beyond the means of any one individual. With the proliferation of personal technology, social media and the rise of interactive networks, the entry barriers have become almost completely obliterated.


Against this contemporary backdrop, the ‘advertising' agency can not expect to be a sole repository of strategic or creative input by any standards whatsoever. Whoever says the winning idea can not emanate from the client, or even more interestingly, from the ‘bloody' consumer?


As someone put it succinctly, ‘Every consumer with an idea and an iMac is a potential visionary, willing and eager to step into the vital role of brand ambassador."


What this essentially translates into is that you're just as likely to find the next great creative director in an uninspiring and obscure university dorm room as in the hallowed studios of any of our highly revered advertising agencies.
Now, where does all of this leave that apprehensive brand/marketing manager who will find himself constantly haunted by the morbid fear of having his precious brand ‘hijacked' by ‘fickle and dangerous' consumers?


Interestingly, you'll find that you're still running the show effectively You conceive, create and manage the brand, with just a little (but immensely invaluable!) help from your customers. You, it is who gets to choose the form and specificity of content you're asking for, and also to decide whether you want it circulated or internalized as the case may require. If anything, all of this puts you in a more vantage position to better manage your brand than ever before, because your consumers are offering their valuable insights and help.


As brand custodian, you're ceding some control. But in reality, you have little to give compared to a whole lot more in benefits... So, loosen up and watch your brand take a turn for the better!
 
Tomi Ogunlesi, a professional member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK) is an account planner in Strategy and Business Development at BatesCosse, Lagos.

 

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