I think this will be a long post but I must write it. Was in two minds whether to post it here or not but considering I am only active on Medium these days, it had to be posted here only.
So, I think the pressure to always ‘think positive’ is too high these days.
The pressure to always ‘feel happy’ is too high these days.
The pressure to have a ‘perfect life’, rather project a perfect life is too high these days.
And, the pressure to be always ‘cool & confident’ is just too high these days.
I mean, you express a moment of worry or weakness to anyone and here you go, suddenly everyone is ready with a quote on power of positive thinking and optimism and how it’s your thought that’s responsible for all the miseries in your life and… well, you know all those “ands”, as I am sure you get to listen to it as much as I do 🙂Read More
Medically speaking, I am recovering and much better than that day.
That day when people gathered around me, lying in a blood pool weren’t even sure if I was alive.
If I was alive, would I survive?
If I survived, would I be fine and normal again?
Many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ that suddenly clouded our life within a fraction of second. That second when our car met with a fateful accident on Chennai — Bangalore highway.
Was it an accident? What was it? I try to recall the details often but everything, oh so vague! Husband and my brother were seated on the front seats of our Ecosport while me and my 5 year old leisurely sprawled on the back seat. Something happened and even before we could realize, the car hit the left divider and then the right and then toppled once, twice….was it the third time when the locked back door broke and I got thrown out on the highway? Was it just then that I managed to push my son further inside and save him from being thrown out? What exactly happened at that time? It was all blank for me, sort of a weird white in front of my eyes. I hear from others that the car toppled perhaps multiple times before it skidded to a halt. No one remembers the count. The only thing I know after seeing the pictures of our car or talking to police and doctors is that I am thankful that my family is safe and I am alive. My son, husband and brother got some bruises and I even though critically injured, am still thankful that I am alive!
Ford Ecosport— The car is beyond repair now but thankful that it’s sturdy structure could save us to some extent
What all did I experience at that moment or that day? Perhaps I will take some more time to have the courage to jot it down. It’s all scattered and jumbled up in my mind but keeps coming back to me in multiple formats.
Dealing with bad accidents or trauma is not new to me. Like many others, I have had my own share of lows and brutal misfortunes in life. Though this time, something has been incredibly difficult to deal with and something that’s not fading with time.Read More
Out of all the work experience that I have, almost half of it has been into photography industry now — a category that has really exploded in last decade, a category in which you literally have to be on your toes in case you want to make a mark, a category that has gone through unimagined consumer behavior changes at an unimagined pace. We all are clicking, clicking all the time, clicking anything & everything!
My work also involves meeting photographers and consumers who are looking to hire photographers on a regular basis and at times the kind of insights that I get by just observing or casually interacting with them is mind blowing.
The trend of getting life events photographed or preserving our unique moments as photographs has been existing since centuries but there is something now because of which photographs and photography are as much part of our lives as food and sleep.
Thanks to social media, it will be safe to say that now we humans literally eat, breathe and live our lives through photos. This is something that we all know of but at times certain incidences just make this realization starker!Read More
Love me, or hate me, but you can not ignore me — Sincerely Yours, Facebook!
Even if certain set of users won’t agree to this statement but considering Facebook & Instagram are still dominating the charts of most downloaded and most used apps, it would be better to accept that Facebook is one of those beasts which marketers can’t ignore if they’re going for a paid digital campaign especially for a consumer product category.
I know there are enough pro and anti Facebook advertising arguments all over the internet but this post is not about whether to go for Facebook advertising or not, it’s more about when you are doing it, do it right. No point in spending money without fixing the basics first.
It’s 2017 & why I am still talking of basics of Facebook advertising? I mean, even a school kid knows how to advertise on Facebook? What’s the big deal about it when it’s just so simple and easy to set up a Facebook campaign? Well, that’s the exact problem — it’s just so easy! And almost everyone is setting it up without much effort or thought put behind understanding the platform or learning the best practices.
And when something is very easy, it’s also easier to mess it up. Isn’t it?
In last 15 days I have met four startups who are spending big money on Facebook advertising and three of them have digital agencies managing their accounts. While we discuss CPA and efficacy of the medium, there is this general sigh that CPA is not coming down and the effectiveness of their campaign is decreasing with time. I got a chance to analyze their campaigns and surprisingly, I found the problems common across — ignoring the basics and one-size-fit-all campaigns.
And all it takes is 3 simple steps to fix the same.
Customize
So startup A, with whom I was interacting recently, is a food company with a potential target audience that could range in between any age group, i.e., teenagers to even 50+year old ones. Their agency was running a digital campaign for age bracket 18–45 years with same messaging and same creatives. Their logic — after all it’s a food category and anyone could potentially be a customer for this category. True, absolutely true. But what happened to the basics of marketing known as segmentation and customizing the campaigns according to each segment? The more granular we go with customization, the more effective the outputs are in digital medium. For e.g., in this case it took us a day’s exercise to go through each product variant and try to figure out the star appeal of each variant. The moment we were ready with product feature matrix, it was getting clearer to the founders that perhaps each variant needs to be targeted to a different segment, customized with a different messaging. And that’s what we did — instead of one master campaign showing different products in different units of carousel, we configured multiple campaigns with messages and visuals tailored to different audience type. Going granular and customization upto the last level was some task for sure but the results were obvious and in a week’s time the acquisition numbers were moving northward within the same budget.
Customization takes time and effort but it’s worth it. Just go for it. Go granular, go microscopic.
Connect
Are you targeting your ads to those who have liked your page as well? Of course, the logical brain tells you why do you need to especially when you have limited money? The ones who have liked your page are already getting to see your updates, so why not use the money to target new audience and acquire new customers? Start up A, B, C & D — all four had done the same. And earlier, even I used to do the same. But then after experiencing the diminishing organic reach of Facebook posts that perhaps is not even in the range of 2 to 5% these days, I had changed my targeting strategy. And I was surprised with the improvement in the conversion rate.
So, next time when you are trying to sell any new product or targeting your users for repurchase, connect with your existing base first, you’ll be surprised with your acquisition percentage and more importantly, your CPA. The rationale behind this is pretty simple — the ones who have liked your page are somewhat interested in you, the chances of them buying your product are much higher than the new ones.
When you have limited money, it’s all the more important that you prioritize it on targeting the interested ones first. Connect with your existing fan base, it works.
Change
Startup D had spent some decent money in getting their products shot beautifully. The campaigns were doing well initially but with time, the CTR had reduced. On asking, when was the last time the images were changed, the answer was almost three months back. To add to that, all the good pictures were used in first burst itself. But then why do they need to plan for second or third bursts when the first one was doing so good? Well, simply because users get bored of seeing the same thing again and again. To add to that, this phone era has reduced our attention span to 8 seconds which is perhaps lesser than that of many living creatures. And the only method to grab attention these days is through striking visuals. Visuals attract attention and new images give a fresh perspective to your ads. Be it digital or any form of advertising, a good visual evokes emotions and enhances the consumer connect. This has been tried and tested since ages in all forms of advertising but is especially true in this digital era where we literally breathe and live our virtual life through images.
Change your ads frequently, especially the images. Even if you are advertising the same product or service, just change the visuals and see the impact on your CTR. In one of my last campaigns, it moved up by 3x.
Customize, Connect & Change — that’s it. Focus on these and your basics will be in place. And if basics are in place, we all know rest can be managed, enhanced and improved 🙂
Reflections — captured randomly one fine evening in Goa
End of previous year & beginning of a new year… this joy & celebration & enthusiasm to welcome the year. While I join the celebration and enjoy the fun, I also end up wondering why? Why this zeal to welcome a new date? Why this eagerness to greet this day? After all, isn’t it just another calendar date? Why to make new resolutions only on first of January? Would it make any difference if new resolutions were to be made on first of March? Why this keenness to start things today and not on any other day of the year? Is a calendar date really that important to start something afresh? A beginning can be anytime, anyday, any moment, why this strong urge for the beginning today?
While I sit back and reflect, I realize once again that it’s not the rational or logic that can give answers to every why of ours. Perhaps for certain things, it’s just good to rely on our belief and have that faith — faith on new beginnings, faith on magic of those beginnings. Somehow the magic of beginnings always remind me of these beautiful lines by Meister Eckhart:
“And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust in the magic of beginnings.”
So, cheers to yet another beautiful beginning, yet another new year and let’s hope this new year proves to be as magical for all of us as we are hoping it to be today.
And it just doesn’t matter if the consumer is 40 or 4 year old!
This is something that we all know and always try to achieve as a marketer but recently I experienced the power of a consistent brand in a different way altogether.
Few weeks back, I was traveling out of country along with my 4 year old and one of the days during that trip we were roaming in an area that had very limited options for food. While I was ok with anything to eat but it was the little one for whom we were not able to find any suitable option. To add to that, internet connectivity was weak and Google map wasn’t being of much use. It was already quite late for his meal time and he didn’t want to eat any of the packaged snacks that I was carrying. And suddenly he shouted — Mumma, look there is a Domino’s! I tried to look around and asked — where? He was pointing to a remote corner where we could spot a red & blue part of glow-sign. It was quite far but yes the red & blue looked familiar and we started walking in that direction. And bingo, he was right, there was a Domino’s! As we approached nearer, we realized there were other food joints as well including some good options for pizza. We tried to convince him to try out something new but the junior was adamant on having a pizza and that too from Domino’s only.
Here’s a snapshot of conversation between me and my 4 year old.
Me: Ok I understand you want to have pizza only but why not try this place (me pointing to the next outlet of Brand Y).
Him: No, I want to eat at Domino’s only as I know their pizzas are good.
Me (Trying my luck again as we wanted to explore something different): But how do you know the pizza at this other outlet is bad without even trying?
Him: Mumma, I don’t know if the other pizza is bad but I know Domino’s pizza is good. What if their cheese pizza will have mirchi (chilly) in it? Domino’s ke cheese pizza mein mirchi nahi hoti and taste humesha same hota hai (Domino’s cheese pizza doesn’t have chillies in it and always tastes the same). I’m hungry and I will have my favorite cheese pizza of Domino’s ONLY!
And yes, the mom and dad in us won over the foodie in us. We finally had pizzas at Domino’s only despite the fact that Brand Y outlet looked more appealing and had much higher rating on Tripadvisor.
Now a 4 year old’s love for pizza is something that I needn’t explain 🙂 but his love for Domino’s was something that I thought was worth observing:
He can’t read all the small letter alphabets yet, but it was him who could spot the brand from a really far off place. In fact the brand name was hardly noticeable but he could recognize the outlet just by a glimpse of that red & blue logo unit. Well,
Consistency surely makes a brand easily recognizable!
His trust in brand and its offering was rock solid! He had tried Domino’s cheese pizza at different places earlier and he knew that it tastes the same everywhere. Preferably,
Consumers trust the brand they recognize and consistency helps in building that trust!
He was sure of his choice and when it came to his favorite pizza he wasn’t willing to try anything else except Domino’s. He ensured that we bought the pizza from Domino’s only. And,
When there is a trust, there is a loyalty and chances of repeat business are quite high.
So here I was, practically experiencing the three key lessons of Brand Consistency through purchase behavior of my 4 year old who doesn’t even know how to read a brand name yet :). Consistency actually helps your brand get recognized, builds trust in the minds of your consumers and increases the chance of repeat business!
Btw, that area also had Domino’s biggest competitor in Indian market but somehow that brand was not the top of mind recall for my 4 year old, maybe because Domino’s is more of a household name in India due to its focus on home delivery model as against the fine dining or eat out experience by the competitor.
Domino’s — you definitely have a very loyal 4 year old consumer at my end!
Of late I have been interviewing people for content writer positions in my current organization. I had some content strategy in my mind and the goal as product owner was clear to me – create content for user engagement and offer content that the user is looking for. Yes, the operative word was “user”, loud and clear. But as baffling as it may sound, not even a single candidate whom I interviewed in last few weeks mentioned to me the word “user” in his/her opening pitch. It all started with writing content for search engines and ended with content quality being SEO friendly. To add to that, the kind of content that I am looking to create is sort of new initiative for my target audience, so it’s important for the candidate to have basic understanding of the category. When asked about industry experience, understanding of target audience, pat came the reply – you can let us know which words work for you and we will figure out the content that’s doing well for those words in search engines and create content for you accordingly, the written piece will have all those words with right density and frequency.
Density? Frequency? Engines? Errrr, what happened to writing content for humans? Last I knew was search engines were meant for discoverability but consumption of content was still done by humans. Isn’t it? And search gods like Google have anyways changed their algorithm to focus on quality of content rather than quantity of keywords inserted in it.
Then, why this focus on promotion so much more than production?
I understand the importance of marketing the content esp. in this age of too-many-of-any type of content but being a hard core marketer I can only say one thing – you try to market whatever, be it product or service or content, if the foundation of it is not in place, then your marketing can only help you just as much and not that much.
I know there are many golden rules that exist for creating engaging content, marketing the content etc but based on all my practical experiences in product & marketing, especially in digital, here is my quick list for new age content creation process:
User first – As basic as it may sound, but this is really important – put your users first above everything. Write for target audience and not for target channels. Content to me especially when I am looking for user engagement is exactly like a product. If you put your users in the heart of your content creation process, half of your battle is won. Speaking of user first, I actually love this quote by Jamie Turner:
As a simple practice when I write or approve any piece of content for my products, I generally check it on 3 quick parameters – is it offering value to my readers, is the language easy to understand for my readers and is it engaging, inspiring or thought-provoking for my readers? Yes, “readers” it is, in all three parameters.
Quality can never be outdated – Whatever changes may happen in our content search or content consumption behavior but one thing that can never be changed is the importance of “quality” of content especially in today’s age where there is a content jungle out there. You may adapt many tricks to get discovered but once the user has landed on your page and if sufficient substance is not there in your content then she will lose interest and is bound to navigate away immediately. To add to that, average attention span of readers has further reduced by more than 30% in last 3 years. While there are many methods to get your content promoted, and content marketing seems to be one of the most fashionable jargons these days but there is no substitute to the quality of content that you produce if you want your marketing to really work for your content.
Engage with readers – Again a term that we have heard quite often but it’s one of the most ignored parameters when it comes to content. Like any product or service, user engagement in your content is a must. Connect, interact, converse and accept the feedback or criticism graciously. The more the user is engaged, the easier it is for them to act or decide.
To sum it up, if the content is unique, offers value to its readers and is interesting enough to hold reader’s attention, then there is no reason why the reader won’t share and spread the word around it. “Share”, isn’t it the reason as to why content has suddenly become one of the most important marketing channels in the digital world?
Of late I have been interviewing people for content writer positions in my current organization. I had some content strategy in my mind and the goal as product owner was clear to me — create content for user engagement and offer content that the user is looking for. Yes, the operative word was “user”, loud and clear. But as baffling as it may sound, not even a single candidate whom I interviewed in last few weeks mentioned to me the word “user” in his/her opening pitch. It all started with writing content for search engines and ended with content quality being SEO friendly. To add to that, the kind of content that I am looking to create is sort of new initiative for my target audience, so it’s important for the candidate to have basic understanding of the category. When asked about industry experience, understanding of target audience, pat came the reply — you can let us know which words work for you and we will figure out the content that’s doing well for those words in search engines and create content for you accordingly, the written piece will have all those words with right density and frequency.
Density? Frequency? Engines? What happened to writing content for humans? Last I knew was search engines were meant for discoverability but consumption of content was still done by humans. Isn’t it? And search gods like Google have anyways changed their algorithm to focus on quality of content rather than quantity of keywords inserted in it.
Then, why this focus on promotion so much more than production?
I understand the importance of marketing the content esp. in this age of too-many-of-any type of content but being a hard core marketer I can only say one thing — you try to market whatever, be it product or service or content, if the foundation of it is not in place, then your marketing can only help you just as much and not that much.
I know there are many golden rules that exist for creating engaging content, marketing the content etc but based on all my practical experiences in product & marketing, especially in digital, here is my quick list for new age content creation process:
User first — As basic as it may sound, but this is really important — put your users first above everything. Write for target audience and not for target channels. Content to me especially when I am looking for user engagement is exactly like a product. If you put your users in the heart of your content creation process, half of your battle is won. Speaking of user first, I actually love this quote by Jamie Turner:
As a simple practice when I write or approve any piece of content for my products, I generally check it on 3 quick parameters — is it offering value to my readers, is the language easy to understand for my readers and is it engaging, inspiring or thought-provoking for my readers? Yes, “readers” it is, in all three parameters.
Quality can never be outdated — Whatever changes may happen in our content search or content consumption behavior but one thing that can never be changed is the importance of “quality” of content especially in today’s age where there is a content jungle out there. You may adapt many tricks to get discovered but once the user has landed on your page and if sufficient substance is not there in your content then she will lose interest and is bound to navigate away immediately. To add to that, average attention span of readers has further reduced by more than 30% in last 3 years. While there are many methods to get your content promoted, and content marketing seems to be one of the most fashionable jargons these days but there is no substitute to the quality of content that you produce if you want your marketing to really work for your content.
Engage with readers — Again a term that we have heard quite often but it’s one of the most ignored parameters when it comes to content. Like any product or service, user engagement in your content is a must. Connect, interact, converse and accept the feedback or criticism graciously. The more the user is engaged, the easier it is for them to act or decide.
To sum it up, if the content is unique, offers value to its readers and is interesting enough to hold reader’s attention, then there is no reason why the reader won’t share and spread the word around it. “Share”, isn’t it the reason why content has suddenly become one of the most important marketing channels in the digital world?
Digital marketing is agile. Heard it, said it and experienced it many times earlier but I think the recent #CWC15 trend on Twitter is just one of the simplest and most perfect examples to explain this agility. Twitter this time definitely upped its engagement quotient manifold with its live cricket dashboard. It was a very well crafted and well promoted initiative with prompts and alerts at most visible places. Even a non-cricket lover couldn’t miss to notice it.
Twitter riding on an event is nothing new, neither marketers trying to grab consumer’s attention on all possible screens. But what was interesting to observe was the speed at which marketers could change their communication on this medium, engaging their audience in the moments that mattered, with messages that were contextually relevant at that point of time.
Just look at some of the screenshots grabbed on Twitter last week. Many brands came out with interesting messages that were very different from their general marketing communication, though some surely appeared to be force-fit in their quest to be different or relevant to the game. But overall the noteworthy point was the number of brands advertising on Twitter this time or the number of messages that brands could promote everyday depending upon which match it was and who was winning or losing the game. Imagine coming out with so many options during traditional advertising days? Imagine the cost implication or effort required to do it then? And no, I am not at all comparing the new age vs. traditional medium like television for things like reach. No doubts, television wins hands down at least in Indian market when it comes to reach but if I have to just take the digital medium as a second screen option, then the flexibility that this medium offers to adapt and be real time is fascinating!
And to me, the one brand that stood out completely on Twitter during ICC World Cup 2015 was Cadbury 5 Star. Not only were they smart in their content, they were also nimble enough to change as required. This Ramesh-Suresh duo knew how, when and what to speak. Otherwise, remember the reactions on seeing those super upbeat ads for any team during the commercial break on television esp. when that team was losing the game.
If I have to quickly jot down the steps on how to engage with your audience real-time without going into too much theoretical details of agile marketing, then I would sum it up in just three simple steps:
Listen intently
Communicate constantly
React instantly
Easy, isn’t it? Think again :-). How many of us listen carefully before communicating? How many of us communicate judiciously instead of reacting? How many of us react immediately without listening properly? Sometimes the simplest things are actually not so simple to handle and so is the case with digital medium. While the medium is very easy to use but not everyone knows how to use it to its full advantage. And those who have figured it out are already excelling in engaging with their audience on second, third or multiple screens.
BTW, I started my post with digital medium but when it came to referring to this year’s world cup, I only used Twitter as an example. I am myself wondering why I could notice all of it only on Twitter and not anywhere else? Is it just me who thinks that Twitter was the most preferred second screen option during this world cup? Would love to read some numbers by other sites but for now I would leave you with this latest post by Twitter that officially states on how #CWC15 played out on Twitter across the world.
Exactly how any apps do you think a consumer can have on her mobile? And how many apps do you think a consumer really needs on a regular basis? Yes, I do understand that amount of data a brand can access if the user has installed its app is phenomenal and that a brand gets to provide more focused experience to users through apps. But are these reasons enough for you to force install your app to consumers? Are those installs sustainable?
My views as a consumer on this latest app-only fetish at – Medium
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About Me
Dreamer, Doer, Mother, Marketer - that’s how Kanupriya likes to describe herself and the order of these roles keeps on changing for her every hour of the day :-). Entrepreneurial in nature with strong product leadership skills, she has established brands and built products that have been industry differentiators in the Indian market. Digital media is her great passion and she is an active contributor to some of the country’s leading technology and marketing publications.
Kanupriya currently lives in Bangalore with her husband and son. When not working, she loves to spend her time with books, oven or paint-brush.
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