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Get Found: Our Secret to help you create an effective marketing plan!

Startups and small business enterprises have little in the way of resources to execute detailed, bombastic marketing campaigns. With a bigger budget, you can feasibly reach more people and generate a more compelling message — but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to create an effective marketing campaign with a smaller, more moderate budget.

If you are looking at creating and executing an effective marketing plan, here is our secret that can help you create one.

Creating and executing a marketing plan is a lot like cooking a meal. You may ask how so? Here is a simple analogy to it:

Just like a meal, no two marketing strategies will be the same. That is why it is important to measure and adapt to the ever-changing consumer behavior and environment. Let us discuss few of the parameters in depth on which your Marketing Plan can be built:

1.      Defining company’s marketing objectives

Identifying specific marketing objectives to support your company’s long-term goals is of utmost importance. Identifying need / market demand for your product / service; defining right communication message; Identifying right, but effective channels of marketing; defining qualitative or quantitative parameters to design a measurable metrics are some of the elements to be considered while defining company’s marketing objective

2.      Identifying the right target market

After putting in long hours in building the product / service, it is time to introduce people to the offering. The process of knowing, whom and when to market your product or service – can result in much higher rates of return. Identifying the right target market involves implementation of systems (Analytics) rather than relying on indiscriminate marketing.

3.      Learn & Tweak your strategy

Measurement is what makes marketing a science of performance. Many business owners prefer spending money on marketing only when the budget is flexible enough to accommodate it. This is because the rate of return on marketing is, in many cases, unpredictable. But identifying parameters to define measurement metrics would help you tweak your marketing strategy, giving you higher returns on marketing investments. Some of the parameters you could consider are Total Visits, Channel specific traffic, bounce rate, lead to closer ratio, cost per lead, consumer retention rate etc.

Regularly checking these metrics will provide you with an accurate pulse of the health of your marketing campaign.

Apply this to your store. The objective of this article was to help you identify steps in planning of right marketing strategy for your store. Now pick up the right marketing channels and give it your best.

This Article has been conceptualised by Mr. Apoorv Houzwala, an associate partner at YellowMustard and currently the Founder Director of Welworth3G Advertising (A Brand Consultancy Firm) and is also a Consultant to Welworth Creative Media (A Media Consultancy Firm). 

Welworth Advertising associates with YellowMustard to expand services in the field of Digital Marketing

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Marketing is all about solving your customer’s problems!

The social media channels have forced marketers to relinquish control over their brands. Now, customers are using their newly-acquired clout to shift the conversation of brands from selling to helping.  Consumers are tired of reading billboards and banner ads every single day with same communication message because they’re busy solving their own problems.

In my earlier post ‘How will Marketing change in 2016’, we spoke about how buyers of today have changed with their buying decision as their buying behaviour has seen a drastic change in pattern. Following the traditional marketing methods do not work anymore. Marketing team is facing a tough time. There was a time when a little amount of advertising spends and telesales was able to get a whole lot of business. But, this is not the case anymore.  The reality is that by the time the customer contacts a brand he has already completed 60% - 70% of his/her buying cycle.

So rather than pushing your product / service on the face of your customer, it is important to establish a human connect with them considering how can your brand help them solve their day to day problems.

Let me explain the above stated statement with a classic example of India’s first telecommunication service provider brand named ‘Telstra’. At its most fundamental level, the telco giant sells dirt-bound copper wire, aerial towers and access to satellite coverage – not the most enticing  offerings and quite the headache for a marketing & sales department with the responsibility of attracting interested customers and increase numbers.

With this Telstra’s Marketing team could have created a mind-numbingly communication strategy taking of the physical specifications of their product, instead they decided to connect with their customers lives and acted accordingly. It was not what type of copper wire did Telstra used, its customers were interested in, but it was the need to connect to the world around them, with their near and dear ones – End goal Telstra was the solution to their customer’s communication problems.

So to summarize, customers today don’t want to be pushed towards any buying decision, instead they want valuable, insightful content which can help them. Luckily for brands, you already have wealth of knowledge and expertise, know get connected to your customers, identify their problem and set out to help them.

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.

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When SMEs got together for a discussion on 'How Marketing will change in 2016', ideas on combining digital marketing as one of the core strategy for Marketing & Brand communication emerged at Chamber of Marathwada Industries & Agricultural (Henceforth CMIA) on Saturday, 23rd January 2016.

The first-ever Digital Marketing & New age Branding seminar, organized under the CMIA Thought Leadership Series and TIE – Aurangabad Chapter, saw a gathering of Entrepreneurs, Marketing Professionals, Managers, CEOs and Individuals from the city, besides speakers like entrepreneur Apoorv Houzwala, Founder Director of Welworth3G Advertising and a Consultant to one of the oldest & trusted Advertising Agency Welworth Creative Media, Aurangabad and Naresh Garg, Digital & Technology Expert from YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd., Pune.

Take a sneak peek at what media houses have to say about the seminar. (Sakal, Aurangabad & Divya Marathi Aurangabad)

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How ‘Fault in our stars’ Marketing strategy can become a marketing supernova

A supernova, or the violent death of a star, happens in one of two ways: when a massive star runs out of fresh nuclear fuel and collapses on itself, or when matter piles up on an already dead star, making it unstable. Is your marketing strategy constantly changing & evolving to suit the needs of your target audience – still sticking to a single marketing strategy—losing your brand in the clutter go the same way? After all, innovating marketing strategies at a frantic pace to keep up with the times and be visible is the need of the hour.

But in this race of strategizing innovating & distinguishing content a lot of brands lose the core purpose of why they are creating content in the first place. Marketing today is all about creating a balance between deploying and leveraging the available variables at the right time.  With years of experience in Digital Marketing & Communication we would like to discuss some of the errors that can be easily sidestepped with a bit of careful planning.

1. Mismanaged expensive content I am sure nothing is more off-putting than unreliable information. Generating expensive content is not the only step towards success of your marketing strategy; rather it is only the first step. A careful and dedicated content management with a central hub for creating, deploying and responding to content strategy would lead to guaranteed success. Remember, mismanaged content always gets lost in the clutter without having reached its intended audience.

2. Stuck on one-track approach With the constantly spilling over marketing world with multitude of marketing platforms, sticking to a single channel of communication can be a costly mistake at times leading to brand suicide. With customer today being spread across platforms and devices, it is important for a brand to know when, where and how to target them effectively and in a manner that generates results.

3. Don’t know how to track results This is one common mistake carried out by several companies, whose marketing campaigns is not necessarily failing, but lack set of KPIs to track results. Defining KPIs is one of the vital step before beginning any marketing campaign. For example, If your focus is on content marketing then the number of impressions is crucial to know to determine success. If you are using any of the online ad placement platforms (like Google Adwords etc.) to promote your business then the amount of paid traffic you obtain is necessary to know if those ads are paying off in the end.

4. Mis-utilized data In today’s world of digital marketing where marketers are fueled with data, it is shocking to know that very few are actually leveraging the power of their databases. Most of the times we will get databases with incomplete, outdated or simply irrelevant customer information which affects the lead nurturing process for the company.

Word of caution: What happened in 2015 is good, but 2016 is not going to be like the 2000 tech bubble. Now the time is different. Now the time is around where zillions of handheld devices on 3G connection are stared upon by countrymen over 300 times a day waiting for some new interesting piece of information. The issue today is not about the demand; it is about the brand ready to take up the challenge to serve these audiences. Now it’s time to revamp the marketing strategy incorporating multitude marketing platforms and hampering right communication message at the right time to relevant target audience.

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.

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Its 2016 already and we all are now taking about the change 2016 will bring in the field of marketing. I have already discussed about what the change would be, but did we talk about how did this happen?

The Evolution of Marketing from 70s till date!

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.

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What Engineering taught me about Marketing?

I came to my career in Marketing Communication by way of a bachelor degree in Technology. Leaving behind all the lucrative on-site opportunities, I decided to explore a role in “Business Strategy” and almost 5 years I haven’t looked back.

I do not regret the fact that I studied engineering and not something mainstream relevant to my profession like Business Administration, Economics etc. – because what engineering taught me about Marketing is adamantine. Engineering trained me to think in a rigorous, logical and quantitative way. In fact, I believe this left brained view of the world has made me differentiate myself.

Do you think Engineering especially Applied Science and Physics has anything in common with Marketing? But they do. Marketing, just like a applied science / physics experiment, means dealing with numbers and varying quantities in the process of creating and delivering value to customers. And the connection goes deeper.

Physics is actually about developing general descriptions - mathematical models - of the world around us. The models may describe different types of complexity, such as the movement of molecules in a gas or the dynamics of stars in a galaxy.

Let me explain this to you in depth using the famous “Newton’s law of motion”

Newton’s second law:

By definition: The vector sum of the external forces F on an object is equal to the mass m of that object multiplied by the acceleration vector a of the object:

F = ma.

We all know this, how is this related to any of the marketing strategies. Let me explain this to you briefly. Let us consider

F = the external force a brand / company applies in the form of Advertisements, any of the branding / marketing exercise

m = market size i.e. the no of masses a brand plans to reach out

a = brand popularity

And now rearrange the formulae to

a = F / m

We get to acceleration equals force over mass, which means that for a larger particle -- a larger mass -- it requires more force to change its direction. It's the same with brands: the more massive a brand, the more force is needed to change its positioning. And that’s one of the reasons why Toyota chose to launch Daihatsu rather than try to persuade the world that Toyota is also for the masses in the form of small cars, without changing Toyota’s brand positioning. That is why companies like Unilever and P&G keep brands separate, like Ariel and Pringles and Dove rather than having one giant parent brand. So the Newton’s second law here is that the bigger the mass of an object the more force is needed to change its direction. The marketing is, the bigger a brand, the more difficult it is to reposition it. So think about a portfolio of brands or maybe new brands for new ventures.

Let me try and state my point using another law from our physics books. How many of us remember “Second law of thermodynamics”

By Definition: The second law of thermodynamics states that in every real process the sum of the entropies (measure of the disorder of the system) of all participating bodies is increased.

So what does that say that the entropy, which is a measure of the disorder of a system, will always increase. The same is true in-case of marketing. If we go back 20 years, one marketing message which pretty much defined a brand could be well controlled using limited marketing channels. But today, things have changed drastically. You can get a strong brand image or a message and put it out like our Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi did during his election campaign. But then you lose control over the message, with all the available marketing channels like comment creation, videos, social media distribution tools etc. that are available to every consumer today, it’s impossible for any brand to have a complete control over the message. This is when your brand has started to disperse, get more chaotic. It’s now out of control. This distribution of energy during the process gets your brand closer to its audience. So, the lesson from engineering here is that entropy will always increase; it's a fundamental law. The message for marketing is that your brand is more dispersed. You can't fight it, so embrace it and find a way to work with it.

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.

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Leave it to the experts – Outsource Marketing!

To all you busy entrepreneurs, one quick question – What is your most valuable asset? Take a guess!

Let me answer it for you, your time is your most valuable asset. To make the most of your time, don’t just pile on the hours or work “harder.” Instead Outsource!

Outsourcing is often one of the most challenging things for an entrepreneur to do. At the same time, it’s one of the most critical. Weighing yourself down with a medley of mindless tasks compromises your ability to grow your business. Hiring others to do work for you is the mark of a successful and a growing entrepreneur. So you would wonder what tasks I can outsource. There are hundred but here are top 5 most time consuming tasks of today:

1. Curating content for social media With the exponential growth of social media networking and blogging, curating great content to nurture engagement with your audience in a way that is easy and manageable, does take up your time.

2. Creating visual content Visual content is essential in today’s marketing world. Creating clear, eye-catching graphics take serious time. Outsourcing the project takes less time and effort, and it costs less than completing the task personally.

3. Handling SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Identifying and submitting to relevant directories, identifying guest blogging opportunities, responding to blog comments etc. are critical for enhancing your business SEO. Often however, the above stated activities are a time-consuming process.  Outsource ASAP!

4. Infographics creation No matter how skilled you are with the designing software’s, creating an infographic requires a lot of time. Hiring a professional infographics designer is a cost effective solution with better quality and results.

5. Monitoring market mentions & alerts Keeping tabs on what the world is saying about you and your brand is an important part of good business, but it can be a time consuming process.

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.

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Re-engineering marketing strategies

Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection describes the gradual, non-random process by which biological traits appear in a population over time. In Marketing & Communication, the evolutionary process also applies. It just moves at a much faster pace and is driven by customer engagement i.e. through their actions: purchases, recommendations and criticisms.

As a consumer have you ever thought about how Marketing & Communication is changing your life? Is it bringing efficiency and betterment to you, or is it leaving you in the dark?

Nowadays business is considered as a market of more and more growing consumers and industrial democracy. This kind of market is a function of globalization. The major challenge faced by brands while converting interested leads into sales is when a customer encounters similar products of different brand (when quality and price are equal), the most important factor influencing the buying decision is the brand purpose and brand differentiation. Hence Marketing & Communication strategy is not only allowing companies to chase the bottom line -- it is allowing them to chase a triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. If you would have notice companies / brands boast about the millions they are making -- they brag about the lives they are changing. This is where the Re-Engineering of Marketing system is taking place.

It is clear that while brands are re-engineering their marketing models that boost their triple bottom lines, communicating that message effectively to influence and educate customers takes an innovative marketing approach. Henceforth it has become important for brands & marketing professionals to make an attempt to reveal this newly defined system, which is to integrate the different marketing & sustainability theories and to mould the way for one integrated result oriented marketing theory, adequate to current business.

Brands who are incorporating marketing & sustainability strategy in their core business strategy are entering into a lengthy commitment; both to the environment and with their customers. By maintaining an on-going dialogue with their audience, brands are able to effectively communicate that commitment over a sustained period of time. Today, forward-thinking companies understand that balancing the needs of their stakeholders is an essential component of sustaining business success. Many of these companies are engaging in socially and environmentally responsible business practices and working to re-engineer their marketing & communication strategies that speak to investors, consumers, and employees. As a result, stakeholders are rewarding these companies for their transparent business practices.

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.

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Social Media & Social Sentiments

We all are coming off age when communication was all about reach of your communication message amongst your audience segment, with a missing element of conversation with your audience segment. Companies / brands needed to run pre and post campaign surveys on their defined audience segment to measure any shift in sentiments either positive or negative. But the rise of the social media networks has changed all of this. Now thinks have become more real time. People are conversing, sharing and commenting all the time. But it only tells a portion of the communication story.

Social media is often seen as an ephemeral medium as reporting on latest disaster caused due to Chennai rains and floods, it’s a treasure trove that has helped Chennai overcome disaster. The short history of social media has shown it very adept at covering disasters. Social Media commentary and mobile phone videos by citizens told the world fast moving updates and stories of the situation in various parts of the city. The breaking news footage on social media networks by people of Chennai has helped government, companies and family members residing in other parts of the country & world to act upon the situation. The key thing that was and still is happening which has helped people of Chennai to rise above the problems and get their sentiments together is ‘social conversation’. This social conversation is the ‘sentiment’ on the social web and as more and more people move to social circles for to tell and converse their own stories it become more important to ‘listen’ and measure. Social media today is go-to tools for those effected by disasters and are looking forward to share their sentiments with others. An in-depth analysis of various social media commentary on several social media networks and groups stated that majority of the people used social media to contact friends and family; followed by people using social media to help find shelter and supplies; and then individuals using social media to let loved ones know they're safe. The above case study shows how social media has revolutionized communication.

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.

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How Marketing will change by 2016

Marketing and sales in particular as a part of corporate communication strategy have come a long way from how they used to work in earlier days. Buyers of today have changed with their buying decision as their buying behaviour has seen a drastic change in pattern. Following the traditional marketing methods do not work anymore. Marketing team is facing a tough time. There was a time when a little amount of advertising spends and telesales was able to get a whole lot of business. But, this is not the case anymore.

Today the major challenge companies are facing is that the buyer / consumers have control over the sales process, as every piece of information is available online. You need it, you get it! All you need is a piece of device and internet. Hence the challenge for companies is that the buyers engage with the salespeople only when they are ready. Now it has become extremely important for companies to work on a strong online presence. Managing an effective digital marketing team / agency has become the need of the hour.

With drastic changes in the buying pattern of the consumer, businesses are forced to change and adapt to these changes. Companies today need to pen down marketing strategies to match the all new buying techniques. Buyer of today has become more knowledgeable and aware. As such, marketing has turned out to be lesser of a single sided endeavour. Emphasis now is on building good relations with customers. Marketing now has become more dynamic in nature that incorporates all kinds of technologies to bridge gap of an effective communication between the company and the buyer.

So now you would be wondering how we overcome the above stated challenge. Remember in my earlier 2 posts I mentioned content is King! You guessed it right! With help of content marketing. It has been found that 25% of the marketing spend today is on custom and branded content. With the advancements in this field, demand for good and efficient digital marketing agency has increases considerably. These days, companies are investing heavily on digital marketing & content. Right from white papers to custom videos, there are numerous options in front of you. This field is changing rapidly. Every company now has adapted to sending visually stimulating emailers, newsletters about various deals & offers and also have their own blog. If companies do not put in sustainable amount of effort into their digital content management, they are sure to be in loss.

So now let’s answer to the question of today, How will marketing change in 2016? Based on the latest trends and changes in the market, here are a few ways in which the market could be expected to change in 2016.

1. Search Engine Optimization would move ahead from pure search engine based efforts to social media networks. Companies will have to invest both time and money in making their presence strong on social media by building interactive social media strategies to engage with the customers.

2. In the era of touch screen and smart phone devices, making ones website mobile responsive has become of utmost importance. Creating content that is optimized specifically for touch screens / smart phones is the main aim of the digital marketer.

3. Till now the budgetary control rested in the hands of CFOs, this practice would slightly change with shift in control with the CMOs. Companies that are able to pivot, respond, and also create proper and relevant work in real time will turn out to the best content brands in the world.

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.

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Importance of originality of content in Digital Marketing

We have all heard the “content is king” spiel. Truth be told, yes it is really an important part of your website or any essential online marketing strategy – particularly for search engine optimization.

In Digital Marketing, there are a variety of factors that’s garner audience towards a website. As you all know. While keywords, images and video all contribute to the number of clicks, pageviews and visits that a website receives, the quality of content on your site is one of the biggest factors in determining success. According to Google’s latest patented concept “Authorship program” they have identified a way of sorting out good & original content creators from those who ‘do evil and wrong things on the internet’ and rank them.

Hence it has become important to consider the originality of your content, the relevance of your content and the shareability of your content for good ranking results on Google pages.

But the threat is that with the latest Authorship & Author rank program, many people have forgotten to see the other trees in the forest. It is advisable that Google Authorship be just one of the ‘tree’ in the toolbox or a well – rounded, healthy digital marketing strategy. On which we would be talking about in our upcoming posts.

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.

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Value of Originality and Usefulness

“At the end of the day, going forward, time will tell…”  Ah, we’ve heard it all before, right? For most of the companies the focus while designing marketing campaigns is ROI (Return on Investment). ROI, in YellowMustard has always been explained as Relevance, Originality and Impact.

When you’re designing your marketing strategy / campaign, one of the main things you need to consider is: Is it original? Whether it’s a product or a service, originality, usefulness and creativity are absolutely vital for a success of any marketing campaign.

In my earlier paragraph when I defined ROI as Relevance, Originality and Impact, it did not mean that we aren’t focusing on cost-effective results. But to get there, it is important to design campaigns that are relevant to the right consumers, original so that they grab consumer’s attention, and have an impact that can be sustained.

Let me explain my above stated sentence with an example: We all as marketing professionals have designed our marketing / advertisement campaigns with the word ‘SALE’ in big, bold letters to catch the eye of our customers – but did we ever ask ourselves if there’s a better, more unique way of spreading the word. Nothing kills marketing swifter than boring, monotonous style of content representation in your marketing / advertisement campaign.

Studied agree that using tried and tested marketing tools and channels including word of mouth are important for the success of new products / services, but a systematic research by several scholars have also examined that focus on the drivers which would lead to branding building are equally important.

Based on our experience at YellowMustard while working with clients from diverse sectors of the industry it has been observed that 3 main dimensions of innovation – originality, usefulness and creativity have led us to the success of new campaigns either for new / existing products in the market. 

Let me ask you all which marketing campaigns do you remember the most and Why?

This article has been conceptualized and written by Neha Garg, Founding Partner & CEO of YellowMustard MarComm Pvt Ltd. Neha is a proactive planner & creative thinker with years of experience in Integrated Brand & Media Communication strategies.