The Marketing Blogger

I've always been obsessed by technology and gadgets. I am the type of person that usually buys the latest phone, downloads the newest apps, tries out new technologies. My other passion is marketing and communications, and in the past few years, these two passions have become one.

If you're thinking you need a digital strategy, you better go back to the drawing board. Digital has enabled us to do many things as marketers, but it has also confused many people in thinking that they need a digital strategy as if it were an isolated "thing". Digital is a comprehensive mix of channels that has enabled businesses to connect with customers like never before. But the real power of digital is not deploying all the channels, like following a fashion trend. It is about using the right channels to interact with your customers, wherever they are in those channels.

Most businesses I know usually go into social media because they feel they have to. Phrases like "all my competitors do it" or "we will be left behind" are common grounds for developing some kind of social activity. Nevertheless, not many companies actually spend some time to think about it before they follow the trend. Social is as any other traditional media channel included in the marketing mix (TV, Events, Newspapers, etc) but it requires a lot more work than putting an ad in any of the other channels. You really need to think through how you will deploy your social strategy. Here's a few thoughts that I've learned throughout the past few years.

The more I read, the more I am convinced that the whole Big Data explosion has just become another business trend that no one really understands but everyone talks about. The thing with data is that, as much as we have more data than ever before, most people don't know how to use it. Data is just the input, and needs to be organized, categorized and mixed in a way that it makes sense for people. And then comes the really important bit: USING THE DATA!

Many people say this phrase in their daily lives, but this is mostly relevant for brands and businesses. When you think about brand or product categories, usually they are all trying to say the same thing. As products have become less and less differentiated because of the technological revolution, it is all down to the connection we build with brands. If you think about it, even the most sophisticated products like smartphones and tablets now all do the same, look the same, and have the same contents available. So why does Apple sell more, charge more and people love it more? Because of the brand.

I started my career when I was 22 in a PR Agency and had the fortune to work with an exceptional boss who took the time to explain to me how the Media Relations world works. He was also a very talented strategist, from whom I learned many things. I went to work for 2 more PR agencies afterwards and most of what he had shared with me helped me really be successful. I also learned a lot more by working with a varied set of clients including businesses in entertainment, beverages, technology, telecommunications, banks and software. Here are 5 things that I learned from my experience in PR.

I finished my BA in Corporate Communications over 10 years ago, and started working in PR. Soon after, I went into the magical world of marketing and advertising, and my view of Corporate Communications changed forever. The internal communications world is still very much stuck in the traditional information push model in most organizations. By the time I joined EY Colombia and was tasked with the challenge of setting up the Marketing & Communications function, I had a completely different view of how to tackle internal communications and engagement. Here are ten things I did different in internal communications based on my advertising experience.

Almost 18 months ago, I was given the task to start a micro site for our purpose of " Building a better working world ". This was originally built as a destination to an advertising campaign, but once the campaign finished, we needed to keep the site relevant and continue to attract visitors. This is the issue many marketers face... how do you keep the visitors coming after the advertising machine stops? Driving traffic to a site without constant advertising is not an easy task, but it is the challenge everyone phases after the advertising campaigns finish. Most businesses can't really run advertising campaigns all the time, so there is always the quiet period when you need your site to stay alive and continue to interest your audience.

There was a time when brand and branded content was controlled solely by marketers and advertisers. These times are certainly gone. In the new era of social media, smartphones and user generated content, you no longer control what your brand content is about... your consumers do. Although there have been many attempts, most brands are still quite reluctant to give up control. They feel nervous about the quality of the content, the messaging, the lack of control. Brand has always been quite a controlled topic where marketers and advertisers have always wanted to set the rules. Even in things that were more out of their control like PR, they created ways to try to limit risk and control outputs. But the age of democratized brands is now.

A lot of people theorize about the success of some of the most popular global brands. Whenever you think about brands like Google, Apple and Amazon, what you find in common is that they place the user or consumer at the heart of everything they do. This may sound quite basic, but lots of businesses and entrepreneurs forget about the fundamental premise of a successful business: products and brands exist to satisfy a user/consumer need. Sometimes, this need is created by the product or brand (based on an existing opportunity), but it doesn't work when you try to create a need (or problem) out of the blue.

Mapping digital customer journeys and understanding what role each one of your digital channels should play in this journey is key to being effective in really creating an impact in your target audiences. One of the main misconceptions about customer journeys is that they are just for customers. In the current world, your organization has different audiences and seeks to achieve a wide range of goals with them. An example of this, is your media relations (journalists, editors, bloggers, etc) where you want to build a relationship, reputation and probably some kind of output (publication, referral, etc.). So if you think about it, this is the equivalent of a purchase. 

In the current marketing world, where lots of technologies and platforms emerge every day, it is very tempting for marketers to jump on random choices just because it sounds interesting or because it is trending. Not everything that goes out there will work and not everything is right for all brands. The fact that it may be working for somebody else, doesn't mean it will work with you. This is no different than any other type of marketing channel. In the past, brands tried to replicate the same media strategies (outdoors, print, etc) that their competitors where using, and in many cases that didn't work.