Outsourcing your social media marketing

The decision to outsource your social media marketing can be a daunting one since no one understands your brand and business better than you do. The marketing agency you hire must be trustworthy, understand your business and brand objectives and be capable of getting your message across to your target audience effectively. Social media marketing is a highly effective way to increase your customers and achieve your marketing goals, while establishing your brand. Here are suggestions to help you successfully outsource your social media marketing:

  • Strategise and plan together

Outsourcing does not end with providing a brief. Even if the agency you hire handles your social media marketing, make sure that you are fully involved in the strategy planning process. Listen to the agency’s ideas and together, determine which of these are feasible for your own business. Communicate your goals clearly to the agency so that they understand your objectives and help you achieve them. Be actively involved and have a detailed plan of action.

  • Maintain a consistent voice

Let your social media marketing agency know the unique voice you would like to adopt in your communication so that they can maintain it. If you already have a social media campaign in progress, your agency can take a look at your previous posts to get an idea of what tone of voice to use. Help the agency learn more by sharing your marketing and promotional material, newsletters and other company material so that a unified voice can be developed.

  • Establish norms

Create guidelines and rules for your social media marketing campaign. If there are certain taboo topics, competitors or words that you want to avoid, let the agency know. This can prevent problems later. Let the agency know which topics to focus on and ask for their ideas as well. Offer a list of your favourite websites, blogs and other web pages you are interested in connecting with or referring to.

  • Keep your social media agency informed

Make sure your social media manager is aware of events in your organisation as this will influence the content you post in your social media networks. If you plan to launch a sale or promotional event, let your agency know so that you can leverage social media to get the best ROI.

  • Feedback

After you have the above in place, ensure that you offer feedback, both good and bad. This should be in specific terms so that improvements can be made where necessary.

Social media is proving to be a marketing platform to be taken seriously. Leveraged in the right way, it spells major benefits for your business, whether you outsource the process or do it yourself.  Establish a comfortable business relationship with your social media agency for smooth sailing.

Set your brand apart through positioning

Every business aims to build and position their brand so that its target market can easily recognise and engage with it. When the brand is memorable and creates positive feelings with its users, it results in sales, making the business profitable and resulting in long term loyal customers. Achieving this however is no easy task.  It takes strategy and hard work to position a brand.

A brand is essentially the business’ identity with its customers since it defines the business. It can take the form of a logo, the business’ name, product quality or business strategy. Branding can give the business the edge to stay competitive in its market and grow, while representing value to the customer. To do this, the first step is to position the brand properly in its market. This involves the following steps:

  • Target market identification

You must identify your target market in order to design and present your brand to them in an appealing way.

  • Letting your market know about the product

Information about your product must be communicated to your market in such a way that it attracts them and motivates them to buy the product. The customer must understand why your product scores over the competition and its “unique selling proposition”. They must know why they want to buy your product / should buy your product.

  • Impacting brand perception

You may want to run a quick survey to find out your brand’s current position in the market. Design an improvement strategy to set it apart from the competition.  Positioning your brand in a specific segment will attract the customers your business wishes to reach.

  • Determine where your product should be placed in the market

To do this, take stock of your competitive advantage. You must also conduct a competitor analysis so that you can design your marketing message in such a way that shows the customer why they should buy from you and not from competitors.

  • Design the marketing message

It is important to remember that the meaning of the words you use to communicate creates a perception in the customer’s mind. This means learning the effect of words (and also colours and other images) on people and the emotions they can trigger, and using the right choice of words to advantage as this can influence the buyer’s thinking process.

To ensure that your brand is effectively positioned, a thorough understanding of the competition is critical. Often, creating an entirely new niche works best, since it may not always be feasible to compete with a market leader. An example is the motorcycle brand Honda, which made an entry into a market where the Harley Davidson brand was already well-established. Honda introduced mini-bikes aimed at pre-teens. Eventually, Harley had to reposition its motorcycle as a high-end bike for the serious adult biker. A strategy that works for the market leader need not necessarily be effective for a follower brand.

Developing a personalised branding strategy for your business can help you stand out in your industry and build a compelling brand. Positioning your brand is about conditioning your customer’s mind about how to perceive your product and telling them why you are better than competitors. Even though you may know your product is the best, this has to be communicated to your potential buyer through your marketing message, distribution and packaging to increase your market share.