DIGITAL MARKETING

UNIT -2
INTRODUCTION TO CRM
CRM stands for customer relationship management. It’s an all-encompassing digital marketing
tool that enables businesses to manage customer relationships and data. CRM systems track
customer interactions, personalize customer experiences, build brand loyalty, and generate
more leads.
How does a CRM system work, and how one can use it to reach digital marketing success?
Here we see the benefits of using a CRM system, and how CRM platforms facilitate the process
of customer acquisition, engagement, and retention.

Let we see the answers for the following:

1. What is CRM?
2. What does a CRM system do?
3. Why do companies use CRM systems?
4. How does a CRM platform work?
5. How to learn more about CRM

1. What is CRM?
A CRM system is like a digital filing cabinet for all of your customer data. It stores everything
from contact information and sales history, to purchasing patterns and preferences. This data
can be used to support sales and marketing activities, such as email campaigns, personalization
efforts, and customer segmentation.
CRM systems also enable to track customer interactions over time, giving a better
understanding of their needs and behaviour. This helps to build better relationships with
customers and provide them with more tailored services and experiences.
There are different types of CRM systems, such as:
• On-premise CRMs are installed and maintained on the company’s own servers,
requiring significant upfront costs and ongoing maintenance.
• Cloud-based CRMs are hosted on the cloud, offering quick access without software
installation.
• Mobile CRMs are optimized for mobile devices, making them a good choice for
companies with many on-the-go staff members.
Although all CRM systems offer contact management solutions, their focus may vary
depending on the types of businesses and goals they can support. For example, some tools have
a mainly operational focus—managing sales processes, customer service tasks, and customer
communication—while others focus on marketing and analytics capabilities—providing
insights into customer behaviour and buying trends.
Which type of CRM a business uses depends on the size of the company, its budget, and more
specific factors, such as customer segmentation, scalability, and the level of automation
required.
2. What does a CRM system do?
No matter the type of CRM system used, it should be able to perform the following key
functions:
➢ STORE CONTACT INFORMATION
At the heart of every CRM system is contact information storage. It stores all customer or
client-related data, such as names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, and other contact details.
This data allows to identify who the customers are and keep track of their customer journey.
When dealing with a large customer base, CRM tools enable to segment customers into groups
and assign specific tags to them. This makes it easier to target customers and personalize the
messages and marketing campaigns for maximum impact.
.
➢ LOG COMMUNICATION HISTORY
CRM systems log the communication history between the customers and the company. This
way, one can organize customer conversations by contact or account and track interactions with
customers across multiple channels. This feature enables to better understand customers’ needs,
respond quickly and accurately to inquiries, and resolve issues faster. Another advantage is that
with all communication data in one place, it’s easier to spot opportunities for upselling and
cross-selling.
➢ OPTIMIZE THE SALES PROCESS
CRM tools also streamline marketing efforts and automate repetitive tasks. For instance,
company can use them to manage sales pipeline, track leads, and monitor the progress of deals.
That way, company can easily identify which stage they are in and take appropriate action to
move them forward.
You can also use CRM tools to schedule sales calls, set follow-up reminders, and assign tasks
to team members. All this makes optimizing your sales process and maximizing your team’s
productivity much easier.
➢ ANALYZE CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR
Another key feature of CRM systems is analytics. With powerful insights into customer
behaviour, company can get an in-depth understanding of their target audience’s preferences
and buying habits. This allows to track customer engagement and analyse the effectiveness of
the campaigns. Furthermore, this data can be used to identify growth opportunities, create
targeted marketing strategies, and personalize customer experiences.
➢ IMPROVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
One of the most significant advantages of CRM systems is their ability to provide a better
customer experience. By collecting and analysing data about the customers, Companies can
create personalized campaigns that resonate with them. Additionally, CRM tools enable to
build loyalty programs to reward the customers for their engagement and keep them coming
back for more. So, using CRM software is a great way to increase customer satisfaction.
➢ USE MARKETING AUTOMATION
Marketing automation—or sales force automation—is another common feature of CRM
systems. With tools such as email campaigns and drip marketing, you can automate sales and
marketing processes to save time and resources. This will enable you to focus on more critical
tasks, such as nurturing relationships with existing customers, attracting new leads, and
optimizing customer service. And, most importantly, it can help you to provide a seamless
customer journey for maximum satisfaction.
➢ MEASURE AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS
Finally, CRM systems can helps to measure and grow the business. For example, you can use
customer data to assess your campaigns’ lifetime value and return on investment (ROI). That
way, you can adjust your customer outreach strategy as needed and make decisions that will
lead to better customer retention and higher profits, which ultimately translates into business
growth.

3. WHY DO COMPANIES USE CRM SYSTEMS?

Given all these features and functions, it’s no wonder that CRM systems are gaining popularity
in the business world. Companies of all sizes are investing in CRM software to connect with
customers and prospects, improve customer service, and enhance their marketing efforts.
Effective customer relationship management plays a crucial role in business growth today.
With customer loyalty no longer a given, the only way to keep existing customers and attract
new leads is by ensuring they remain as satisfied as possible throughout their journey.
A PWC report from 2018 on the future of customer experience in the U.S. Confirms this:
• One out of three customers will leave a brand they’ve been loyal to after just one
negative experience.
• 53% of customers hope to get better customer service from companies.
• 70% of consumers say speed, convenience, and excellent customer support are the most
significant factors determining overall satisfaction.
So, what do these figures tell us? Quite simply, customer satisfaction is the key to success in
today’s competitive business landscape. And the only way to ensure it is by leveraging effective
customer relationship management strategies. Successful business managers understand the
importance of customer relations and take a proactive approach by utilizing CRMs.
4. HOW DOES A CRM PLATFORM WORK?
Popular CRM platforms such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Freshsales, and Zendesk work
well and the steps involved in setting up and working with a CRM system are

1. Setting up the platform: install, configure, and customize it to ensure it’s tailored
to your needs.
2. Collecting customer data: use forms, surveys, or other data collection methods to
gather customer data.
3. Inputting data into the CRM: input all the collected customer data into the CRM
system.
4. Automating processes: automate email campaigns, customer segmentation, and
lead generation tasks.
5. Analyzing data: analyze the data to gain valuable insights into customer
behaviours and preferences.
6. Improving relationships: use these insights to engage customers more effectively
and build stronger relationships.
Of course, this is just a brief overview of how CRM systems work. Every platform comes with
its own set of features and functionalities that can be tailored to a company’s specific needs.
5. HOW TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CRM
Official websites of popular CRM platforms offer comprehensive training materials. Here are
our top three examples:
• HubSpot CRM Software Training
• Zoho CRM Training Courses
• Pipedrive Sales Resources
Another great starting point is the database from CRM.org. It contains a wealth of information
about different types of CRM systems, their features, articles, and case studies.
A Customer Relationship Management system, adds an extra layer of human interaction and
personalization that the digital marketing strategies may be missing. It individualizes
customers, so you can build a stronger, more long-lasting relationship with them.

An immense amount of data is collected by the software, which can then be segmented by
specific criteria. For example, customers that are around the same age with the same interests
are stored in one place, making it easier for sales teams to target them. In doing so, the
marketing strategy becomes more optimized: this saves a great deal of time and money
thanks to automation.

CRMs can also streamline invoices: reduces the processing time and costs of any invoice, as
well as errors. While all CRMs have their unique benefits and features, not all of them are
created equal. CRMs like the one from Odoo provide unique functionalities like the ability to
create automatic and targeted marketing campaigns, end-to-end customer journeys, engaging
email campaigns, and more. Unlike other CRMs, Odoo’s completed integrated solution allows
to combine the power of its CRM with its whole suite of powerful business applications and
third-party apps.

ROLE OF CRM IN DIGITAL MARKETING

CRM features are rapidly becoming more advanced, offering functionalities like:

• Team management organization

• Customer data record storage
• Marketing communication automation
• Ad personalization
• Insights on inbound lead generation
• KPI tracking Customer journey mapping
• And more…

BENEFITS OF USING A CRM IN DIGITAL MARKETING

A CRM collects and analyses key data from web pages that customers frequently visit to get
a good snapshot of their likes and interests. This way, once the prospect leaves the website,
company can still market to them using personalized ads that will pop up on other websites,
reminding them of what they just saw on the website. Facebook is especially known for this
kind of marketing. It’s a quick reminder of consumer’s previous search history, giving a
little nudge to go back and maybe look at it again, which could lead to an eventual
purchase.

Campaign Creation
CRMs facilitate the creation of new designs for specific future digital campaigns that target the
customers’ companies want. Those campaigns can then be published on the digital
platforms that the customer visits the most. If they correspond to the needs of the customer,
they’ll most likely visit your website. Companies must add those campaigns to their website as
well. Keep them as a constant reminder of what they are searching for.
Time and cost-saving
CRM is also cost-effective for companies: manual entries will be dramatically reduced, no
need to spend more time on saving customer info than actually promoting. Information will no
longer be lost because it is stored in a central location. Less marketing will go to waste because
data will help to hit the nail on the head with what customers are researching.

Better webpage positioning

CRM improves SEO (search engine optimization): using SEO is key for one of companies’
pages to land on the first result page, most likely on Google. However, for that to happen it has
to answer and correspond to a specific theme or question, the more precise, the more likely.

Increased brand loyalty and customer satisfaction

Finally, when those databases are stored on the CRM platform, it will be able to provide
personalized customer service and improve customer relationships through quick response
times and increased satisfaction. It usually leads to future loyal advocates as they spread the
word to their friends or family about their experience with your business or product.

The most likely and preferred outcome from the combination of these efforts is more loyal
customers, who will in turn be more likely to recommend you as a brand. Surprisingly, even
though a CRM is digital, it brings that key human interaction element that digital platforms
need.

What Is A CRM Platform?

A CRM platform is a system of software or an application designed to support the process of
managing sales leads, opportunities, and customers.

• Create a high converting sales funnel and close them with an action
• Generate more leads using build in leadsly and finder.io
• Maximize your conversions with built in SDR software, call center dialer and more
options
• Use 360o contact management capabilities to view all conversations, call recordings,
and more in one place.
• Automate workflows using visual drag and drop builder
• Customize your sales funnel using custom fields for deals, contacts leads and tasks
• Set automated alerts and reminders using built-in-task management and calendar tools
• Integrate with third-party apps to boost sales productivity
 • Unbelievable pricing – the lowest you will ever find
• Everything your business needs 50apps, 24/5 support and 99.95%uptime

BENEFITS OF CRM PLATFORMS

CRM loaded on advanced technologies provides a range of benefits to businesses to grow and
empowers their teams to level up and increase their efficiency.
1. Improves customer services 8. Accurate reports
2. Helps increase sales 9. More transparency
3. Retains more customers 10. Reduced costs
4. Provides better analytics 11. Work from anywhere
5. Improves customer service team 12. Increased collaboration
productivity 13. Faster deployment
6. Increases marketing effectiveness 14. Automatic software updates
7. Better knowledge and information
sharing
DIFFERENT TYPES OF CRM PLATFORMS

There are three major types of CRM platforms.

➢ Operational CRM
➢ Analytical CRM
➢ Collaborative CRM
Operational CRM
Standing true to its name, Operational CRM enables businesses to handle day-to-day sales,
marketing, and customer relationship service operations. It is one of the most common types
of CRM that streamlines and simplifies these primary business processes. Operational CRM is
highly beneficial to generate leads, convert those leads into sales and contacts, and improve
customer service processes to delight and retain customers. The three major components that
Operational CRM carries are:
• Marketing Automation
Teams usually get tired off due to mundane marketing tasks like posting the campaigns,
assigning dates, and sequentially arranging different promotions. However, with marketing
automation, all the marketing activities are streamlined and automated to free the team to work
on more critical tasks. This operational CRM component is all carried from scheduling regular
campaigns, email marketing, website monitoring, and directing leads to particular processes.
• Sales Automation
For any business, sales play an important role, and automating most sales tasks helps the
business grow faster while focusing on the vitals of sales. Sales Automation streamlines some
sales processes for more clarity and automates numerous time-consuming and manual tasks
that are usually part of sales operations.
• Customer Service
Happy customers make happy businesses. And nothing better than excellent customer service
has this magic. Speeding up the customer processes is what effective customer service
automation does. It expedites various customer service operations like call center routing and
customer information management and provides customer self-service options like chatbots,
automation tools, policy/compliance management, and more.
Analytical CRM
Analytical type is an effective CRM that provides data visualization for clarity and gives you
in-depth insights about customers, their interactions and relationships with your business, and
the future possibilities. It helps you analyze the overall collected information, including
customers’ preferences, contact information, and behaviour. Hence, it doesn’t matter where
your customers are in the buying cycle, or no matter when or how your customers like to
interact with your brand, you are well-equipped to meet their requirements.
Collaborative CRM
The collaborative CRM system is designed to improve the overall customer experience
bringing together the company’s entire channels - marketing, sales, and service data. It
collaborates data to improve synergy within the business, giving each department the proper
understanding of your customers’ needs, preferences, and expectations.
The two major components of collaborative CRMs are Interaction/Contact Management and
Channel Management

Interaction/Contact Management
It helps to track every interaction between customers and business - whether via social media,
email, face-to-face, phone calls, or any other communication channels. Interaction
management allows gathering and stocking these kinds of information, which is usually further
shared with different business units for higher outputs.

Channel Management
Channel management is one level higher than interaction management. It collects the
information and helps to analyze the data to identify and finalize which communication channel
best suits your customers’ preferences. Whether your customer service team connects with
customers via phone call or chat or whether real-time notifications or email works the best,
these sorts of challenges are taken care of by channel management.

WHAT IS A CRM MODEL?

A CRM model is a workflow that guides all of your team’s interactions with leads, prospects
and customers. It provides a loose framework that the company can follow to acquire and retain
customers. It is not the same thing as CRM software – rather, CRM software enables to move
efficiently through the CRM model while coordinating with Company’s team.

CRM software is not necessary to run a CRM model. However, CRM software can
substantially improve your ability to execute your chosen CRM model.

MOST POPULAR CRM MODELS

The below CRM models are the most widely used across all industries.

IDIC

The IDIC CRM model is the brainchild of the Peppers & Rogers Group, which introduced the
model in 2004. Each of its letters represents a step in the process:

• Identify. In the IDIC model, company starts with identifying leads and customers.
More importantly, companies enrich their leads and customers. In doing so, companies
learn about their pain points and other distinguishing factors. Both these qualities allow
the company to develop better personal relationships with the customers and segment
them into groups.
• Differentiate. Once segmented the customers, company should differentiate them
based on how much Value Company expects them to bring to their business. Rather
than looking at immediate value – consider long-term value too. After differentiating
the customers, better understand how much time and money company should put
toward each one.
• Interact. The first two steps in the IDIC model exist to set up for actual interaction with
prospects and customers, giving a meaningful picture of the customer’s wants and needs
so that company can send them personalized content and communications. This shows
company prospect or customer that company understand their needs, making them more
likely to purchase from the company.
• Customize. Although the previous step involves tailored communications and content,
it should only be the start of modifying the approach to fit target customer’s needs. The
final step of IDIC is to customize companies approach based on what learnings about
the customer. That means tweaking your offerings or deals to best meet the customer’s
needs or budget.

Payne and Frow’s Five Forces

Ph.D.s Adrian Payne and Pennie Frow introduced their Five Forces CRM model to focus on
not just processes but elements too. These are the five processes:

1. Strategy development. In the Payne and Frow model, strategy development comprises
your business and customer strategies. Your business strategy includes your unique
vision for your company and what distinguishes it in its industry and market. Your
customer strategy involves creating ideal buyer personas and otherwise identifying the
qualities that might make a customer choose you.
 2. Value creation. In this step, you’ll determine the value you bring to your customers
and vice versa. For example, maybe your events company has access to one-of-a-kind
spaces that consumers just can’t get elsewhere – that’s the value your customers
receive. The value you receive is customers who remain loyal to you, since nobody else
offers spaces like yours.
3. Multichannel integration. After developing your strategy and creating your value,
you should inform your whole team of everything you’ve established. That means not
just your sales team but marketing, customer service and all the sub departments within
each.

4. Performance assessment. Once your multichannel approach has been put to work, you
should reassess your strategy. If your customers are happy and your team is meeting its
key performance indicators (KPIs), then you should be all set. If not, revise your
strategies and values based on input from your team and customers.

5. Information management. This step comprises your front-office and back-office

applications, IT framework, and all your other CRM analysis tools. You’ll add
information to these platforms as you move through the model, which will inform your
future movements through the model. For example, if a customer says on a tech support
call that they are considering upgrading their subscription package, the support agent
could enter that information into the CRM, signalling sales and marketing teams to try
upselling that customer.

These are the four elements of the Payne and Frow process:

• CRM readiness. You should prepare to implement CRM software before

implementing the Five Forces CRM model.
• CRM change management. You should have protocols in place for modifying
your CRM workflows, CRM dashboard and other software components before starting
with this model.
• CRM project management. You should know how projects administered in your
CRM will be managed from start to finish.
• Employee management. You should have a firm sense of which employees are
responsible for which tasks along your sales pipeline. You should also know which
sales reps are assigned to which prospects or customers.

QCI

The Quality Competitive Index (QCI) CRM model focuses more on managing customers than
improving relationships with them. It has eight components:

1. Analysis and planning. Fill in any data and behavioural gaps that your prospect
presents, then figure out what value your company brings to the customer.
2. Proposition. Use your customer’s needs to determine how you’ll serve them, then
propose this approach to the customer.
3. Information and technology. Look at your technology to determine how it’s adding
customer information to your CRM and analysing this data. Use what you learn to
conduct reviews and update or modify your technology as needed.
4. People and organization. Designate certain employees as responsible for managing
customer feedback, such as service inquiries and online reviews.
 5. Process management. Ensure that your sales and customer service teams are
consistently supporting customers. Identify shortcomings and figure out how to resolve
them.
6. Customer management activity. This element has three elements of its own
– acquisition (obtaining and learning about new customers), penetration (collecting
information about customers and helping them feel connected to your business and its
goals), and retention (keeping customers engaged with your business, which might
include winning back dissatisfied customers).
7. Effect measurement. Analyze your teams’ performance to see how their work
corresponds to sales. Get granular by looking at each sales and customer service rep’s
work as well.
8. Customer experience. Conduct the same process as in the previous step, but for
customer satisfaction instead of sales volume.

CRM value chain

Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter introduced the CRM value chain model to
help companies identify and develop unique solutions for customers. Through this CRM
model, you’ll determine which activities bring you the most value and refine your processes
to best assist your customers.

The CRM value chain model has two stages. The primary stage has five parts:

1. Customer portfolio analysis. Determine which customers bring your company the
most value. Then, figure out how to divide your resources among your customers
based on this value.
2. Customer intimacy. Interact with your customers and obtain new data from each
interaction. Adjust your offerings for the customer according to what you learn.
3. Network development. This step is unique among CRM models in that it looks
beyond your company and customers to third parties such as suppliers, investors and
partners. Your goal is to use the data from your customer intimacy step to advise these
third parties on how they can operate to optimize the customer experience.
4. Value proposition development. Use the preceding three steps to develop a unique
value for your customer. Focus on individualized service and minimizing costs so you
can charge your customers less (or retain more earnings).
5. Relationship management. Take a step back and look at the previous steps of your
process. Determine spots where you can improve or make changes, then implement
them. This way, you can perform better overall in customer retention, acquisition and
development.

The second stage is about making sure your company has the following:

• Leadership and culture. Without someone directing your operations and setting
company standards, your CRM model will be harder to execute.
• Procurement processes. You should have a solid workflow in place for moving
customers from highly interested prospects to actual customers.
• HR management processes. You should recruit an HR team (or hire a third-party HR
provider) to resolve internal issues as you go about the CRM value chain model.
• IT management processes. Since CRM is quite data-intensive, proper IT
management is necessary for successful CRM.
 • Organization design. You need to clearly designate who is responsible for what and
who reports to whom.

WEB ANALYTICS

Web Analytics is a technique that can be employed to collect, measure, report, and analyze
companies, website data. It is normally carried out to analyze the performance of a website and
optimize its web usage.
Web Analytics is an indispensable technique for all those people who run their business online.
Web Analytics is the methodological study of online/offline patterns and trends. It is a
technique that you can employ to collect, measure, report, and analyze your website data. It is
normally carried out to analyze the performance of a website and optimize its web usage. Web
analytics can be used to track key metrics and analyze visitors’ activity and traffic flow. It is a
tactical approach to collect data and generate reports.
IMPORTANCE OF WEB ANALYTICS
Companies need Web Analytics to assess the success rate of a website and its associated
business. Using Web Analytics, we can −
•Assess web content problems so that they can be rectified
• Have a clear perspective of website trends
• Monitor web traffic and user flow
• Demonstrate goals acquisition
• Figure out potential keywords
• Identify segments for improvement
• Find out referring sources
WEB ANALYTICS PROCESS
The primary objective of carrying out Web Analytics is to optimize the website in order to
provide better user experience. It provides a data-driven report to measure visitors’ flow
throughout the website.
Take a look at the following illustration. It depicts the process of web analytics.
• Set the business goals.
• To track the goal achievement, set the Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
• Collect correct and suitable data.
• To extract insights, Analyze data.
• Based on assumptions learned from the data analysis, Test alternatives.
• Based on either data analysis or website testing, Implement insights.
Web Analytics is an ongoing process that helps in attracting more traffic to a site and thereby,
increasing the Return on Investment.

WEB ANALYTICS TOOLS

Web analytics tools provide information about the origin of website traffic, how users navigate
and interact throughout a website, what content and webpages they’re most engaged with, and
if they take valuable actions on the site, known as conversions, these include purchases or
contact requests. Using this data, marketers can optimize channel and website performance
with data-led decisions.

A number of analytics tools are available on the market today. Some of them are free, and some
of them require a paid subscription. Paid analytics products and free analytics products will
differ in terms of support, features, and functionality.

Some examples of available analytics packages include:

• Google Analytics and Google Analytics 360, which are part of the Google Marketing
Platform
• Adobe Analytics • Webtrends
• Woopra • Piwik
• Kissmetrics
The market leader and most commonly used analytics program is the free version of Google
Analytics, or GA as it is sometimes known. The paid version of GA, called Google Analytics
360, offers some additional functionality in terms of report validity and sample sizes. But it's
mainly for websites that receive more than 10 million page views per month. For the vast
majority of websites, the free version of Google Analytics is perfectly fine. Because of its
functionality and widespread adoption in the market, Google Analytics is seen by many
marketers as the single ‘source of truth’ for website traffic, engagement, and conversion data.

ADVANTAGES OF WEB ANALYTICS

Web analytics is a valuable way to deduce the ‘story’ behind the data, in order to gain valuable
insights and enhance business performance. Web analytics can help a digital marketer
understand their customers better by providing:

• Insight into who the customers are and their interests

• Conversion challenges
• Enhanced appreciation of what consumers like or don’t like
• Understanding of how to improve user experience for the consumer

One of the real values of web analytics is that it allows companies to deduce the ‘story’ behind
the data in order to gain valuable insights and enhance business performance. Web Analytics
helps to understand your customers better. It tells who they are, where they're coming from,
and what their interests are. It tells you about their demographics and location. It also helps
reveal any conversion challenges that might exist on your website. It helps you grasp what
content and products the consumers like or don’t like, and how they interact on your website.
The companies can use all this information to improve the consumer experience on the website
and to optimize the channels that consumers use to visit that website.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Nowadays, businesses of all sizes globally utilize social media to reinforce their brands,
products and services. Social media is an excellent platform for customers to connect with
brands. If you are not implementing this valuable source, you are disregarding a far-fetched
marketing opportunity that can become a boon to your successful business. Let’s explore more
about how to do social media marketing and its various whereabouts.

Social media marketing is an approach that allows businesses to promote their products,
websites, services online. Social media in itself is a broad term for sites and apps that may
present completely distinct social actions including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube,
and many more. SMM provides companies with a gateway to engage with existing customers
and reach out to new ones while enabling them to promote their fancied mission, culture, or
tone. Social media marketing has custom-built data analytics tools that empower marketers to
track the progress of their efforts and take it to the heights they desire.

THE NEED FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

 • Social media and its associated tools contribute to diverse advertising and organic
opportunities when interacting with a customer. The benefits and opportunities of
moving on social media are diverse and for example one among those is projecting the
content so the world can see it.
• Social media platforms helps to connect with the customers, boost the brand’s
awareness, and increase the leads and sales. With around 2.7 billion people around the
world using social media day and night, the users and their engagement on these
platforms are both increasing continuously.
• Social media offers tremendous potential for businesses because customers regularly
log on to and are disclosed to companies. It also increases the challenge for businesses
because social media platforms change constantly and are notably loud and crowded.

CREATING A SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY

Having a strategic social media marketing plan can helps the business to grow. Implement the
following strategies to unfold the true potential of your business.
1. Research Your Target Audience
The first and most important stage towards building a social media marketing strategy is to
discover who the audiences and buyer personas are. It will help the companies to target their
demands and interests aptly. To do this, think about the target audience you’re trying to reach
and why and how you would categorize them as a whole.
By analysing your audience and customer personas, you will be able to discover what content
will catch the eye of the type of audience and customers you wish to achieve and the best way
you can produce appealing content to retain your followers engaged.
2. Choose the Best Platform for Your Business
Being a social media marketer, you need to determine which social media platforms you will
use to share your content. When you are busy managing your own business, it becomes
difficult to stay active on every social media platform.
When it’s about choosing social media to channel your business, there’s no right or wrong
answer. It’s about the requirements of your target audience and where you will find them
spending their most time. Nail down your option by only selecting a few platforms. It will
probably help you center your energies and get the best outcomes on the time you invest.
For instance, if you own a business whose target audience is millennials who love athleisure,
you will want to focus the bulk of your social media efforts on Instagram. All this is because
millennials embrace the most substantial part of users on it.
3. Create Engaging and Appealing Content
In today’s era, there are billions of people using social media around the earth. So it should
not surprise you that some of them are your followers, or the ones browsing your profile will
also see the content of your competitor or other businesses in your industry.
By creating social media content that stands out from your competitors, you provide your
audience a purpose to hit the “Follow” button to communicate with your brand.
For this, analyze your competitors and discover how you can advertise your products
uniquely. For instance, you can create a live video on Instagram or Facebook for conducting
giveaways and promoting your new launches.
Ultimately, you can also use your present customers and promoters to support you in
generating content. To achieve this, you can repost their content on your social platform or
inspire them to use your hashtag to yield their experiences and pictures with your products.
4. Scheduling a Post
Scheduling your posts as per the marketing plan is one of the most straightforward
approaches to guarantee that your content is shared regularly. These platforms let you write
captions, take pictures and videos, and schedule your uploading in advance. Based on your
scheduling time, they automatically share your content and observe all post synergies and
engagement.
5. Analyze Your Social Media Metrics
The primary feature of social media marketing is it guarantees your efforts will lead your
business to the heights you dream of. You can keep track of all your posts by analysing and
handling your social media metrics.
The essential metrics you need to track are-
• Engagement: This involves clicks, likes, comments, replies on your post and “saved”
on Instagram and “pinned” on Pinterest.
• Reach: The number of times your page or profile’s content is seen.
• Followers: The number of people who hit your profile’s “Follow” button and watch
you regularly in their feeds.
• Impressions: The number of times your profile or page’s post is seen is irrelevant to
whether or not your audience clicks on it. This happens when people are usually
scrolling down their newsfeed without clicking on anything.
• Video views: The views you get on social media such as Facebook, Instagram,
Snapchat, etc., that hold video capabilities.
• Profile visits: This is the number of people who visit and open your social media
page.
• Mentions: The number of times your audience members mentioned your profile in
their posts.
• Tags: Tags are when your target audience puts your company’s profile name or
hashtag in their post.
• Reposts: This happens when someone from your audience posts any of your posts or
content back on their profile.
• Shares: These are your posts available on your company’s profile or page that your
followers and audience share with their network.
BEST SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS FOR BUSINESS
1. Facebook
It is reported that more than 2.7 billion people use Facebook, which is nearly a third of the
overall population. This increases the importance of how one uses Facebook and makes it a
great platform to build the loyalty of your current customer base.
You need to think carefully about your business goals when you choose Facebook as a latent
platform. And when you require a gateway to stay in touch with your current audience,
Facebook can probably be the most appropriate and great choice for your business success.
2. Instagram
Instagram is perfect for businesses that produce plenty of visual content, like boutiques,
restaurants, retailers, etc. It’s the best approach to exhibit what your business is with the help
of pictures and video. If you utilize Instagram stories, you can easily attract viewers by letting
them in on your journeys.
3. Twitter
As Twitter grows rapidly, it becomes an exceptional platform to raise your brand’s
awareness. Twitter uses the hashtag, which helps to build discussions about a word or phrase.
By searching for hashtags, you can quickly discover what people are discussing and can also
take part in popular conversations by crafting a solid tweet. As Twitter is usually used to
accommodate real-time updates, several brands connect Twitter with offline meetings, such
as events.
4. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the most commonly utilized platform for older audiences. It has the most
prominent users in the age group of 30-49. LinkedIn is unique because it has a narrow focus.
People utilize LinkedIn to find jobs and network professionally. Consequently, the platform
is beneficial for B2B lead generation, general networking, and staff recruitment.
5. Pinterest
Pinterest is used for “scrapbooking” or, you can also save content by “pinning” photos or
videos to a practical bulletin board.
Some of the most basic are pin style ideas, recipes, cute photos, and DIY crafts. As Pinterest
is a visual-based stage, you will require strong graphics to bring in customers. The thriving
commercial worth of Pinterest has been linked to strong retail sales.
6. YouTube
Although YouTube has a billion users, its reach is much more than that. You do not need to
sign up to be a user to view content on YouTube. Consequently, YouTube has become one of
the largest search engine portals. Services industry businesses that can proffer this kind of
content do well with lifestyle and educational videos on this platform.
7. Reddit
Reddit is more about positive sharing and knowledge and engaging and connecting with like-
minded folks. Most Reddit communities have tight guidelines regarding what you may and
may not post for marketing purposes.
If you are using a forum to explicitly self-advertise, you will often be kicked out of a group.
That said, plenty of companies have found tremendous victory by registering on Reddit. All it
takes is a little creativity, plenty of conversation, and a genuine want to teach or learn
8. Location-Based Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms are excellent for those companies seeing to execute marketing on
social media. Register on those sites to explain your location, and consider additional
incentives like special discounts or check-in rewards.
Recognize, these visitants will have their receivers so they can write and post reviews. Lots
of good reviews can significantly boost potential visitors to come and build your business.

DISCOVERING BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

1. Boosts Brand Awareness
There were more than a billion people on social media globally. You can understand why
ensuring your business is sharing content linked to your products and details concerning your
company through one or two platforms can improve brand awareness.
Social media has been determined to boost brand awareness by increasing engagement.
Social engagement involves things such as likes, comments, shares, etc. Social media helps
you improve brand awareness by addressing traffic to your site.
2. Accelerates Lead Generation and Conversions
Sharing and promoting your products on social media is an easy way to accelerate lead
generation, drive conversions, and boost sales because you are promoting to people who
choose to join with you by following your account.
Here are some of the ways you can utilize social media to generate more leads-
• Create contests for your visitors and supporters to join on your social media profiles.
• Insert links to your website and give them in the bio sections of your profile.
• Host live videos to announce products and provide updates or details concerning
inspiring news in your company.
• Perform a social media marketing campaign on your channel.
• Sell your products by your social profiles. For instance, you can allow Facebook or
Instagram Shop sections on your profile. These traits enable your visitors and
followers to click on the products you share in the post to see information like
content, price, and size.
3. Enhances Relationships with Customers
By interacting and engaging with your social media followers, you will be able to establish
long-term ties between them and your company. You may accomplish this by connecting
with them on your posts, replying to their feedback and queries, or by providing any
assistance they may require.
4. Helps with Competitor Analysis
Social media is an excellent idea to keep an eye on your competitors – their social media
strategy, the products they are promoting, their campaign, or communication with sponsors.
Social media enables you to see what is and is not operating for their competition. Therefore,
it helps you choose what should or should not be modified in terms of their company’s
vision.
5. Cost-Effective
A well-crafted social media marketing plan for local and global promotions is probably the
most cost-effective method. Create an account and for free registration for all social
networking portals. But if you select to utilize paid advertising on social media, perpetually
begin with start-ups to understand what you should await.
Being cost-effective is critical as it helps you get a higher return on investment and have a
massive budget for other marketing and business pay-outs. You may substantially enhance
your conversion rates and finally, obtain a return on investment on the capital you initially
spent by investing only a little time and money.
Conclusion
Considering the use of social media by millions or billions, it’s one of the best sources of
promoting businesses and engaging with customers. As you understand the whole concept
of social media marketing to grow or take your business to heights, start working on
your social media marketing strategy now.