Email Marketing: A great tool to reach your customer

Over the years marketers have realized the growing importance of the process of email marketing, although its sustenance in league with other impactful digital marketing media has been questioned, with at times being brushed aside or assumed dead. Email marketing, however has far outlived any such indifference towards itself and stands out as a powerful tool for marketers all around the world for allowing them a good reach and grasp over their consumers.

What has made email marketing such a significant tool for brands that set out in the world of digital marketing is the ease with which it is implemented and the major marketing expenditure it cuts, relieving marketers to a good extent. Another factor to be noted about email marketing, one that makes it all the more popular is that a brand can be specific about the people who are to be at the receiving end of their mails. Brands have the freedom to target their mails at people who are already interested in them without bothering those who are not. In fact email marketing is one of those channels that the consumers themselves ask to receive. Also, as compared to other marketing professionals, email marketers have a upper hand owing to the fact that they can send mails to subscribers who meet certain criteria.

Ease of sharing is another major factor enhancing the popularity of email marketing. All it takes for a consumer to share a mouthwatering deal with his friends is a click. Owing to this, a brand’s consumers themselves become the brand’s evangelists, spreading a good word about your brand to newer markets.

In addition to all these benefits, email marketing is also an inexpensive and easy mode of marketing that yields major results in favour of a brand that makes use of its mechanism, embedding their messages to their favoured costumers with the creativity and appeal of their content. Thus, email marketing is a powerful talisman for marketers; the ones who thrive upon its use are the ones who know how to get its apparatus running. 

What is Social Media Marketing?

     If you are an average teenager, you might not be aware that beyond the world of chic selfies with many a pout and with tongues sticking out, and kittens and puppies, and a hundred things mushy, the social media has another parallel universe that you are well- connected with, although subconsciously. However, those familiar with the ways of business and brands explore deep into this parallel universe: the world of social media marketing.

     Standing on the creamy upper layer of social media marketing, one could say it is an easy process to drive traffic towards a brand through the use of social media platforms, but only when one gets past this definition does the realization dawn that it is not a laid-back task to build a strong online reputation in the social media, and that the idea of doing so is way beyond posting engaging blogs and catchy images. The focus of the entire process is on making the presence of your brand being felt, with its impression dominating others who are engaged with the similar world.

    Achieving such a reputation requires certain key factors with homogeneity and consistency being some of the significant ones. But before any of that, your profiles need to set a mood around itself, giving the slightest, yet clear hint of the idea behind what your brand stands for, i.e. what temper will your brand’s social profiles reflect in its posts? Is your mood humorous, or is it grave or informative? - This is what the brand’s profiles should be able to answer without being too puzzling for its followers. Once the mood is set, the posts that follow each other should be in harmony to the established temper of the brand without wandering into random directions while your followers desperately try to figure out what your brand stands for before finally giving up on it. That is homogeneity.

    Consistency is yet another key element in social media marketing. A brand’s social profile in any platform, be it Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, must never stop reaching out to its followers. A block in this communication can cause setbacks in the brand’s journey to build a strong online reputation. A word not uttered for a long time in your social profile can account for your disappearance from your followers’ minds; something that a progressive leader would never want.

   Having said this, there are many other challenges a brand’s social profile can face; with competition from rivals being the most significant one. Your brand’s profiles must have a uniqueness in the communication they make with their followers, something that will give you an edge over being identified differently among many others; a wit that will make the millions flooding social media platforms every hour, every minute stop and engage with you, even if it is for a mere minute. Your idea is what your brand’s profiles need to win them in a minute. Aim high before you are scrolled away into oblivion. 

Adidas & Paul Pogba: When an ad campaign goes terribly wrong

2 days ago, French international and Manchester United superstar Paul Pogba could be found in the news headlines for two main reasons: one of them concerns a commercial launched by Adidas, while the other headlines hold critical analysis of the Frenchman’s performance on the pitch against rivals Liverpool.

The YouTube video launched by Adidas tells the story of how a Paul Pogba grew from a child juggling melons with his feet in a French suburbto a superstar donning the Manchester United jersey and representing France in the international level, doing things his own way since day one. It has already crossed over a million views in the last 2 days, but it’s interesting to note what the people have to say about the hype that has been created around Paul Labile Pogba. From a player who was bought for a record transfer fee of 89 million pounds, fans of Manchester United have been expecting much, and at times when the Frenchman has been unable to meet the expectations (like in his last game against Liverpool), he has been at the receiving end of much flak and criticism with football fanatics labeling him as being overrated.

So, owing to his unimpressive stint against Liverpool, the comments section of Adidas’ latest commercial bearing the lines “Football Needs Creators” is loaded with disapproval. Contradicting the number of  views and likes the commercial has received are the numbers that define Pogba’s performance for Manchester united since his record breaking transfer, and honestly, they are nowhere close to justifying Pogba as a “creator” in the game of football. Consider this with the fact that Adidas had the likes of Lionel Messi and MesutOzil on their list, men who can actually be credited for being the ultimate creators on the pitch.

Looking at the whole scenario from a marketing point of view, the conclusion can be drawn with a couple of questions. Does the commercial,and its reception among football lovers mean that Adidas chose the wrong person to feature in their new advertising campaign? Or was the sports brand simply drawing its own advantage from all the hype that has been created over Paul Pogba? Well, it’s upto the Frenchman alone to justify both: the commercial that credits him as a “creator in football”, and the hysteria that has so far been caused around his name.

10 worst advertisements of all times

If Ads Could Kill.....

Video commercials have become an important channel of communicating a product’s gist to consumers around the globe. Some excel in creating advertisements that deliver a good image of the product in the public’s mind, while there are those that could possibly kill you with the fatality of their concept. Here are 10 worst commercials of all time that have graced our eyes.

1.       This comes from India’s most racist brand ever who years ago took the sole responsibility of transforming Indian women into fragments of the silvery moon, and this ad pretty much sums up their idea of a “fair” India.

Fair and lovely “amavassachehra”:

2.       In an advertising campaign consisting of 5 mini episodes featuring Priyanka Chopra, NehaDhupia and Saif Ali Khan, all Pond’s was trying to convey was this: “True love is all about transforming into a fair- skinned woman and being a man who identifies the significance of a truly fair skin.” Oh, my…. Love has taken such “coloured” definitions these days.

Pond’s priyanka and saif: 
 

3.       Mahak: The commercial gives the idea of a “pan masala” that gives you hallucinations of a woman who approaches you as soon as you pour the contents of “Mahak Silver, SabkaDilbar” (that’s their actual tagline) down your mouth and seduces you into taking her for a ride but only for as long as the pan masala lasts in your mouth. Yes! That’s the actual concept of this pan masala advertisement! A guy consuming “Mahak” pan masala and hallucinating of a girl who addresses him with the cheesiest pickup line a girl could possibly use: “Hello…Chalein…?”

6.       Tapa Tap:

Tapa Tap is the new magic word that can get you out of situations even as sticky as bumping into the cops. Don’t believe me? Watch this ad for yourself. It features a man whose costume has been designed by Abbas- Mustan riding a scooty with a girl behind him. It is pretty much a romantic affair between the two as the couple goes about the town handing down a small, gift- wrapped rectangular package to anyone who greets them on their way, even the cops. What’s inside the package will surprise you! [Suspense created] Add to this some lovely background music (Tapaaa Tap!), and voila! In the end you have a detergent bar that goes by the magic name of Tapa Tap!

7.       Nutrigain: The creators should have added some actual motivation into this one; not people punching bubbles. The commercial is trying to sell a weight- gain supplement and all it shows is a young boy and a young girl, each donning a pair of boxing gloves and punching simultaneously at VFX- created bubbles. Now, there is a strong metaphor in this ad. The bubbles are actually the remarks the boy and the girl used to receive at a time when they were possibly skinny. And that’s what makes this ad so powerful. The metaphor.

8.       Nafees Roasted Bread: Such an emotional commercial featuring a man who travels in a VFX airplane just to “break bread” with his age old friend at a restaurant that once used to be his favourite haunt… Much feels…

9.       Soda- G:This ad features an actor who breathes fire from his mouth when he has acidity! That’s not a disorder, brother! That’s a superpower! It’s like Peter Parker suffered a spider bite and turned into Spiderman; you suffered acidity, and turned into Fire- Breather- Man.

And what’s up with the product name I wonder. Imagine other brands going all out with their names: Coffee- G, Biscuit-G, Anardana-G…

10.   JK cement: This commercial is short, and crisp, and sexy, and was good enough to grace our TV screens of old. Before you watch it for yourself, let me wish you Good luck finding a relevant connection between a bikini- clad model and a “super cement.”