A lot of my marketer friends ask me this recently: how to allocate my marketing budget?
Why? Re-allocating advertising budget from traditional marketing and media, especially OOH and TVC to the digital world. Marketers know clearly that their consumers are now digitally-driven and digital-savvy. Hence, they have been spending on Facebook Ad., online and mobile advertising, from rich media to programmatic buy. So what’s next in this digital age?
I have 4 recommendations for my marketer friends:
1. UX/UI
UX stands for User Experience while UI is User Interface.
Does it mean web design or website revamp? The major difference between UX/UI and web design is: user-oriented for the former and brand-oriented for the latter?.
Digital platforms, website and mobile apps are not merely “company sites”. They no longer only provide information about your company. They are now your retail store, loyalty program, roadshow and service centre in one place. Imagine it as a digital version of physical stores: you’ll have to take users’ needs, requirements or even desire into concern.
You may say, UX is much easier for startup because most of the things start from zero, with users being the main concern. However, if marketers are from corporations, needs of stakeholders and concerns of internal teams have to be considered as well.
Based on our experience in developing UX/UI projects for big corp, it is important to do user research and market analysis. User needs should be considered in every stage of production, from pre-production research, prototype usability testing and post-launch. Besides, UX/UI is an on-going process because consumers will are rapidly changing their behavior in the digital world.
2. Marketing Technologies
O2O has been popular since few years ago. However, what is the true meaning of O2O? Offline to online or online to offline?
It should enhance both digital and physical experience, and then to create interaction between online and offline.
Tons of marketing technologies are out there to enhance consumer experience. Good experience enhances engagement and creates word-of-mouth.
My forecast is, a number of technologies will either be evolutionized or popularized. They are VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Realty), Beacon and 3D/4D mapping. Technologies in these area have improved a lot with lower cost. Consumers are still new to and curious about these improved technologies. I’m glad to work with some marketers for experimenting with these marketing technologies.
3. Sentiment
Consumer research is important for collecting consumer insights. Instead of pro-active surveys, questionnaires and interviews, there are still tons of consumers’ insights, thoughts, reactions etc. on social media platforms and forums. For example, what is the tourist’s view on travelling in HK? There are tons of consumer insights available on Trip Advisors and Lonely Planet etc. Most important is.. all information is available IMMEDIATELY!
Sentiment is part of social listening, which focuses on listening consumers’ comments on and feelings towards brands and incidents. The first step is to define keywords to be monitored, which involves heavy workload. But after setups and input, latest consumers insights are in your hands.
Sentiment definitely makes my work easier! Since Big Data Analytics platform Klarity is part of NDN Group, I only have to login and input keywords for instant knowledge of “hot-topics” in town.
4. Instagram
Instagram has been the 1st runner-up in social media locally and globally.
From the report I have generated from Klarity, the top 10 posts among all Nike social media platforms are from Instagram. IG just updated their news feed algorithm, As user, I hate it! (I am an active Instagrammer with nearly 3000 photos in my IG account: paulayang). As a marketer, I love it! It means “creating good content to help with increasing the organic reach on IG”.
For performance enhancement, i recommend allocating advertising budget on IG ads to enhance exposure in your targeted customer segment! My vision of IG is to provide detailed report, such as reach, views and engagements. If that is the case, IG should definitely be included in both contents and marketing budget strategies.
It is time to re-activate or getting started with IG!
