3 Industry specific Strategies to focus using Digital Marketing Social media
This week, after my blog post on Digital Marketing, move over Vanity metrics, integrate social media ROI I got quite a few enquiries on “What are some specific STRATEGIES few industries could focus on for social media ROI using digital marketing tools and process?”
This is PART 1 of this series!
The enquiries I received were from the following industries:
- Travel and Tourism (2 enquiries)
- Hotel and Restaurants (5 enquiries)
- Educational and Management institutes (14 enquiries)
- Books and Publication (3 enquiries)
- Retail and Lifestyle brands (7 enquiries)
- B2B sales (2 enquiries)
- Real estate and Housing (3 enquiries)
- Event management companies (9 enquiries)
For this blog post, we would be looking at the following 3 industries (IN CASE You wish to get updates on further posts, do Add your email to the list at the right side of this blog where it says: “Follow this Blog along with…“)
Industry STRATEGIES focused in this Blog post are:
- Travel and Tourism (2 enquiries)
- Hotel and Restaurants (5 enquiries)
- Educational and Management institutes (14 enquiries)
So instead of responding to each one of them individually, I thought of creating a blog post to answer their queries in a three part Blog post series. This is Series No.1:
Do note: These are merely my views. When brands and or organization’s come to us for designing a customized social media digital marketing ROI based campaign, we sit and interact with them and understand their brands and goals very clearly prior to going ahead with the campaign design and strategy. The points given below are merely my views on a general approach to the same, whereas as suggested above, it is always advisable to get as many queries about the organization and their goals clarified prior to simply starting a digital marketing ROI based campaign.
STRATEGIES to focus across specific GOALS for:
Travel & Tourism industry:
- Enquiries for specific locations and tours: This is a tricky one, because, may be as a touring company, you only provide touring across specific locations and during specific time period. So your content, communication should be focused to make this very clear so that as an organization, your team and executives do not spend time wading off enquiries that are not even remotely connected to the tours you provide.
- For such type of enquiries, one could focus on using FACEBOOK ADS for “Reach people near your business” wherein the ads could focus on “NOT Your Organization’s business location” rather, on the locations where you want people to visit for eg. if you are providing a custom tour for Melbourne, Sydney in Australia etc, you could add under the facebook ads option for tourism and these specific locations under the option of “PEOPLE Demographic interests” so that people who have expressed their interest in these locations are only the ones who are shown these ads. At the same time, you need to ensure using the advanced metric options under these ads which excludes people residing in those locations so that they do not see these ads. This is so that your monetary investment for these ads do not get wasted. Similarly, you could use Google Adwords too to focus on specific location based interests. These type of Pay Per Click ads (PPC) coupled with quality content in the form of Blog posts or short videos about these locations on YouTube etc could go a long way since it helps attracting a lot of users who have expressed similar or same interests.
Of course, when we have designed these type of campaigns for our client brand partners, we have used lot more tools, planning, strategies, social media analytics, PPC models etc to help them even generate actual SALES ROI for their campaigns.
Hotel and Restaurant – Hospitality industry:
- You could focus on footfalls and or home delivery enquiries based on your business type. Recently, we have had restaurants who have also expressed their interests in getting enquiries for party orders and or catering for functions.
- For these types of goals, your strategy could focus on using Blogs with geo or location based app integrations coupled with facebook ads and or google adwords.
- Remember, the priority should not be on websites or apps, rather on the process of using it. For eg. for a Hospitality based business, create a strategy that helps brands have a connect and relationship with end users. Instead of simply sharing what your business offers, speak about the customer experiences at your restaurants. Showcase how your chef takes cooking creatively to another level. Use short videos eg. 10 sec videos and or a simple blog post that expresses a specific recipe or your speciality. Here, you could also ask the customers to share some of their favorite home menu options and reward or CREATE GRATIFICATION by offering them deals and discounts to engage with your brand. For eg. X number of checkins at your restaurant gives them X% of discount on their total bill or a free drink etc
- On similar lines, our digital agency realized when we were going through our detailed Your SMQ Social media quotient analytics and reports of one such client that, the chatter across their prospects online and through various posts, expressed ideas and issues about having innovative and truly creative party themes. So we suggested and the Restaurant also agreed to offer customized PARTY THEME Ideas and support for such catering events for their customers. Soon enough, we saw a 23% increase in their sales for such orders in the following quarter. Personalization, engagement and customization is the key!
Educational and Management institutes:
Now, the various enquiries from this category had a long list of different set of queries and we loved it.
– Common GOALS and Targets many of these educational and management institutes had enquired for, were as under:
- Increase in student enquiries
- Increase in registrations at event’s conducted by institutions
- Increase in event participation’s
- Increase in students purchasing courses online
- Increase in students purchasing video courses or distance learning courses online
- Brand monitoring and mentions with positive engagement
The first thing to understand here is that, the idea behind “Selling” should take a very different approach when it comes to industries like Education / Management Institutes, Medical / Hospitals etc because, people in general have a pre-conceived notion about these type of industries.
People generally look at these industries as a noble and purely service oriented industry or businesses which focus on CUSTOMER satisfaction to the core. So, the more humanized approach these industries take while communicating with the end readers or users, the more or better success they can achieve in winning their trust and connecting with them for quality engagement.
Over the past six years, we have worked with around 3 education based industries and 4 health and wellness based industries and our approach towards generating ROI has been “HUMANIZE Your BRAND” which has worked wonders for our client brand partners in winning their prospects and customers long lasting TRUST followed by sales of their services. In other words, real-time engagement with actual digital marketing social media ROI.
Strategies:
- Focus on customers problems and concerns for eg. one on one attention, some sort of empathy and or assurance to them to ASSIST or HELP them with their problems or more specifically future GOALS!
- What is the value-add they achieve in connecting with your brand? Create a strategy that helps them with such issues and or concerns.
- Creating a content marketing system: Here, many times, especially educational and or management institutes make the blunder of ASSUMING that their teaching or their know-how of the industry and knowledge is the best and better than the rest. The problem is that, the end readers today can clearly see through that veil of arrogance from such institutions which at times creates a sense of disassociation with that brand and or organization itself. So the focus should be on creating blog posts, short videos that help students or prospective students to add value to their day to day work and or lives. Adding tips of social interactions at work place, time management, support on queries about their industry and work, latest industry news and updates etc goes a long way as a brand to earn the TRUST of these end readers.
- Responding to users queries: Many times,users share their concerns or feedback or support or general queries with these institutions and instead of using this amazing opportunity to connect and or interact and or engage with them, they simply choose to ignore. Why? Apparently, they believe they can afford to? No brand or organization today is indispensable. Just like their employees! So it’s always important to show mutual respect and acknowledge, especially if someones has expressed a genuine concern or shared a feedback.
- Event Registrations: Today, it’s not enough if you, as an educational and or management institute have showcased what attending this event can DO FOR THE CUSTOMER or Participant. You need to focus also on “What this has done for those who have attended these events in the past?” This works two ways: Firstly, you get to express as a TESTIMONIAL from your past attendees about how your event experience was. Secondly, you end up showing VALUE and Respect for the time these participants have spent by attending your event and at the same time, showcase how it has transformed their lives one way or another or how attending your event has added real value both professionally and personally. Here again, the mistake many institutions make is that assuming one of the following two things: First, they either assume that the participants would not be interested in sharing their experiences or they assume that their institute and reputation is too big to need past participants feedback and or testimonials. Remember, today, there are thousands of events happening across the globe and for your event to stand distinct and for users to want to attend your event by spending their time and money, you need to have that genuine connect with them in the long run.
- Attending the events: Allow users to create memories at your events, by taking pictures with the key-note speakers and or even a small 5 or 10 sec video clip. This will make them want to share it across their social networking sites too. At this stage, give them specific hashtag and or brand page link that they can tag and share online. This goes a long way!
- Purchasing courses and or videos online: Participants and or students who prefer to buy courses and or videos from institutions online are usually those who sincerely wish to learn a new skill or upgrade their know-how but are unable to travel. So ensure to give them ample support during the courses online and or even after the courses for a limited time period so that they can get back to you for support or queries if needed. It seems, more often than not, majority of the students have expressed, “lack of support online after the course” as their main concern or grievance. Similarly, adding relevant certification or even a VALUABLE recommendation across platforms like LINKEDIN for these participants by the TRAINER goes a long way in adding great value for these participants and as an incentive to join and or do these online courses with confidence. Today the world is gradually moving out of “certification” as a prime concern and focusing towards “Learning the right skills hands-on” as a prime motive behind doing courses.
- Brand mentions and brand monitoring: Using the right set of brand monitoring tools and responding to queries on social networking sites on time makes a lot of difference. Remember, in the digital world, a delay of over 8 – 10 hours in responding to a query online is equivalent to a delay of almost a week in the real world. Adding a name while responding to users queries also gives them a sense of assurance that the brand or organization has real people looking into their problems and concerns and not ‘bots’ that are automated.
Well, there are so many things one can do as a brand to empower their customers and at the same time build a valuable connect and engagement, win the loyalty and Trust of their customers followed by actual sale conversions using digital marketing and social media the right way!
Do share your feedback and queries on this post. Would love to hear from you.
Have an amazing weekend ahead.
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