Digital Champion: Need for every organization

A recent Global Workmonitor survey 2013 by Randstad revealed one new dimension of hiring in today’s business practices. According to the survey, 91% of the employers have underlined the importance of digital skills in potential employees

The digital world is expanding like a Big Bang; it has impacted every sector, every organization however big or small and every function of the organization. Majority of the business today are practicing the digital marketing and those who have not started practicing yet don’t have any choice but to join the digital bandwagon in near future.

In such scenario, I believe every organization should focus on building internal digital competency in order to exploiting the maximum benefit out of new age digital practices

Yes, there are large numbers of digital consulting organizations available; however I think organizations need an internal expert who can understands their digital needs, set the smart objectives, channelized the resources, monitor the digital activities and work in synergy with external digital agencies if needed.

Internal digital champion may help the organization by addressing some basic questions like:-

Do we really need to go digital?

Do our stakeholders available on digital platforms?

If yes, how our stakeholders use various digital platforms?

Do digital deliver quick results?

Does it work alone?

Can everything be outsourced? Which are the things can be done internally?

How to design SMART digital objectives and define clear expectations from digital campaign?

 (It has been observed that clients frequently ask Digital marketers to do SEO within few months. Well, one needs to know its organic process and need good nine months to year to fully optimize the site for search engine. If somebody is promising you to do SEO within couple of months is probably a wrong guy to hand over your digital marketing to.)

What are good practices and what are wrong practices?

(Buying database for email or SMS is not advisable idea likewise buying links is also not fair practice)

Organizations which could not afford or don’t wish to engage digital consulting can also practice digital marketing with the help of internal digital marketing champion to large extent for doing some basic things like;

Content management:

Blogs, articles by internal employees and updating on regular basis

Advertisement & Promotion:

Google Adwords, Bing Ads tools for doing PPC campaign

Social Media:-

Managing Facebook page, Facebook Ads, twitter account and other social media platforms

Communication:

Emailer and newsletters campaign management

Analyzing, monitoring and mapping competition:

With the help of user friendly tools like Google analytics, Google keyword tool, Google trend,  SEO book, HowSociable & Socialmention etc. to name a few.

Well at the end I just wish to conclude by saying, irrespective of size, every organization today must have internal digital champions to exploit the huge benefits offered by the new age digital marketing.

Leveraging Facebook Page:

Facebook has been in the integral part of the digital marketing tactic around since long; still one wonders how good some companies exploit the platform while some other could not. It's one of the best platforms to engage with the customers and get critical insights on consumer behavior in very fragmented market.

Facebook offers host of the services marketers can exploit to their benefits, however in this post I wish to explore Facebook page, which could be the first step in your social media campaign.

Do's & Don'ts on Facebook page:

Set the Objective:

One needs to set the clear objective for the Facebook page, which will have huge bearing on the contents or the kind of engagement one can expect from it.

Mange the content:

Updating relevant content is the key in social media. When I say relevant, companies should focus on their products or services over anything else. There should be judicious mix of text, images, and videos. The frequency should be managed properly to avoid clutter.

Updating & Responding:

One needs to set up clear process for regularly updating the content and at the same time responding to the comments, complaints, or queries of the customers on regular basis.

Don't ever forget - it’s all about engagement

It happened with me, when, I failed to receive proper response from CRM system of one of the leading  water purifier selling company, I tried to voice my concern on Facebook and to my surprise, I found that the company had deactivated customer comment's on their Facebook page.

Well, I think it's like a first degree crime, if you don't let your customers engage if you are on social media.

Address complaints ASAP:

It's also been seen as a very powerful tool for customers to voice their complaint on social media. The motivation to register complaints on Facebook page may be to get attention of large audience & quick solution.

If you visit the Facebook page across businesses, one can see complaints makes out considerable percentage of customer engagement. Well, in such situation, companies need to respond quickly, judiciously, which could convert customers into loyal customers and minimize the damage.

Integrate:

Integration is the key to success in digital age, one can leverage various platforms in integration with each other to optimise ROI on digital campaigns

Monitor to Act:

The team which manage the Facebook engagements needs to be on the toe to monitor the different levels of engagement, quality of engagement and work in continuous basis to improve the customer experience though this space.

Digital Edge for Business to Business Marketing:

Digital marketing has been around and is now established is one of the important strategic force along with traditional marketing Practices. Companies from all walks of business are trying to reach out to the customers and engage with them in a big way on various platforms, however when it comes to using the digital marketing for business to business marketing one can not use the same tactics as used for consumer marketing simply because results expected out of digital initiative in case of business to business marketing would be completely different.

Business to Business buying is more informed, multifaceted, high value purchase and direct process involving face to face interactions largely. However, in today's globalized business environment, where boundaries are blurred to great extent business to business marketers can't afford to turn blind eye towards the new age digital marketing force.

Digital marketing may not help business to business marketers’ in actual selling the products but it can be of great help in creating positive perception among the buyers and their buyers buyer, it also helps in attracting the talent, building positive perception in buyers end consumers and over long term it dose contribute in absolute monetary terms.Here are some ways in which business to business marketers’ can use digital marketing to their advantage. 

Website: A well designed, search engine optimized website is an asset to any organization. It can be good source to demonstrate your capabilities and achievement to the buyer or strategic partners situated in distant corner of the world. It has been found that, almost 50% of business to business buying process is being done on Internet which involves critical steps like identifying suppliers, analyzing the capabilities of the supplier, rating the suppliers, getting the quotes and other basic information. Dell is one of the first organizations to offer enterprise wide solutions online.

Blog: Well research and industry specific blog can be great asset for any organization wish to become the thought leader in the area operations. Companies can talk about the capabilities and their future endeavors and their resource capabilities to reshape the industry.

Email: As written in my earlier blog, email is one of the most powerful tools available in digital space. E mailer in the form of newsletter can be of great way information dissemination across the buyers and suppliers and all the other stakeholders involved in the process. Also can be use for sending invitation to be part of exhibition or conferences or product launch.

Social media:- Specifically linked is great platform available to B2B marketers to explore and take advantage of. It ahead the highest response rate for mail communication. Companies which have offerings which can be influenced by buyer's buyer decision making then one can explore the social networking platforms like Facebook, twitter and Pinterest to build the positive perception and create a pull for their products from the end customers of their buyer. For ex. Companies like Intel, SAP etc. YouTube: YouTube is second most searched social site after Google. YouTube can be a great way for advertisement and product demonstration.

Webinars: Organizing regular webinars regarding your product and services for relevant audience can contribute to sales department by generating the qualified leads. Companies should organize webinars on regular basis to inform and update the potential customers about the companies next generation plans, new product developments or application of your offerings across the different sectors.