Sumit Goyal’s tips on low cost marketing turned out to a big hit among the audience, leaving them wanting for more. Goyal, Editor of 'Food and Nightlife' magazine, shared with the audience his personal experience when he started his website and magazine and also pointed out several ways in which cost effective marketing goes unnoticed.
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He started with explaining how marketing is one of the crucial aspects of any startup and that low funds and capital would always be a problem for them. He himself started with 0 capital and gave examples of a few things that he had done in his business which helped him promote his product:
- For all the mails that circulate from Food and Nightlife magazine, instead of adding a signature at the end of the mail, they started adding promotional offers. This was different from promotional emails and included just a small detail at the end of the regular mails, of the product or what it had to offer with some visual effects. Goyal says that although the success rates were not all that high, but it did have an effect when circulated among his community and clients. More importantly, it could be done for free.
- At the back of business card, they include details of products that they are working on in a particular time period. The business cards are printed on a monthly basis. Every month, they include something new and innovative in a textual format.
Apart from this he also addressed the audience to harness the power of social media and build strong networks on Twitter, Facebook etc. He emphasized how several magazines which run well in print do not have a very strong presence online miss out on a lot of opportunities to carry out low cost marketing. Starting your own website with a small amount of Search Engine Optimization is the key to fast, easy and low cost marketing.
Goyal also stressed on the importance of having belief in your own brand and how that actually helps in attracting audience to your brand. He gave the example of Vijaya Mallya who personifies his brand by always donning red! And also gives his own example saying, ‘I run a food and nightlife magazine, if anybody comes and sees me, they just know that this guy is all about food. Your image and your brand image should not clash. You have to be your brand.’ Being positive about your own product helps in promoting it as well. ‘The positive feeling transpires from you to your customers, peers, clients. You must sell your product for yourself’, adds Goyal.
One common misconception that several startups have is trying to ensure that friends and family should get hit by the first level of marketing that they do. What they fail to understand is that they are not their customers and trying to improve visibility there would be of no use. Hence one should be intelligent enough to carry out marketing in the right places. Having an ad in one of the leading dailies would not fetch as much ROI as it would if the advertising is done on a platform which is very niche or very focused, helping in acquiring more hits. He says that a lot can be done with internal marketing.
He added that while several companies spend a lot on marketing which promises customer satisfaction, they forget to maintain fool proof operations to provide the same. This is one of the prime reasons for companies for losing out on its customer base. He states that word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing methods and to do that one needs to ensure that the customer is fully satisfied.
Once this is done, the startups can start experimenting with demanding premium payments from customers by providing extra services. This should come easy as customers already trust your brand and wouldn’t mind paying more for getting more.
Some of the questions addressed in the session:
Q: If I have a budget of Rs.1 lakh on marketing, how would I divide it among online marketing, advertising, email campaigns etc?
A: It depends upon the kind of business you have and does your customer really lie. Whether they are online or offline. I can speak for myself. 30% would go in online advertising. 30% on emails and the rest I would spend on innovation, on we can improve our products internally.
Q: What do you think as mobile as a marketing tool?
A: You need to do marketing carefully here. It can be a devil if the product is not properly promoted here. I feel rather that getting more customers it irritated them enough to discontinue using your product or service.
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written by RAHUL BANSAL, December 27, 2010
written by coolfunnytshirts.net, December 21, 2010
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