If you’re in a premium business, social media and online solutions are a must-have for communication success. But it is essential to fully understand how the consumers you want to reach behave and to adjust your expectations accordingly.
The need is great
The first rule is definitely to see beyond the megalomania and forget the allure of big numbers. The biggest advantage of online communication compared to all other channels is precisely that you can target very precisely. If you think about the potential of television or radio, the communication messages that are spread out there can reach anyone, and of course, there are professional forums that measure who the viewers and listeners are, but they have not yet managed to invent a way of determining whether a particular target group has listened to or seen a particular programme or advertisement. It is not possible to say for sure whether a person is listening to a particular programme or advertisement, even if the device is switched on. The problem is similar with online sites, although the measurement data are more specific. But even there, they usually throw around the number of visitors to the site in a month. Nowadays, of course, they also have to show how many people clicked on an article or advertisement, but these figures are not even close to the official visitor figures. In addition, the simple customer can measure the results, because although the free Google Analytics is not perfect at showing the results, it does give guidelines and answers the question of whether the online presence has had any impact at all. But there’s still a big question as to whether the clicks actually came from the target audience or just from the readers of the online platform in general. Because the two, even for an online magazine targeting a very narrow audience, are highly questionable. It is no coincidence that a new direction is gaining ground internationally – well, the smart ones have been using the solution for a few years now – which combines the main advantages of online portals, magazines, Google Ads and social media – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, depending on the target group. In addition, the results can be tracked concretely using Google Analytics, because agencies working with this specific set-up no longer use the free version of Google Analytics, but see the real numbers.
Premium online communication
If you go to a communications specialist today who builds truly premium brands, you should definitely use this online magazine-Google Ads-social media triple solution, as it is unmatched in cost-effectiveness compared to all other media solutions. In addition, more and more companies are looking beyond their own borders, and this form of communication can provide a strong backdrop and concrete sales support. The solution is to take the biggest disadvantage of social media out of the work. When a company uses social media, the communication is done under its own brand name, sometimes at most under the name of the agency that does the communication, but the point is the same: there is an immediate forced sales pitch throughout the whole process. That doesn’t mean, of course, that no one is interested, and only those who already have a concrete intention to buy pay attention. In other words, they have made a decision to buy a particular product or service, and the brand is the only thing that matters to them, who they buy it from. Well, that’s where traditional social media can cleverly find its way in and generate customers. However, premium buyers, in most cases, don’t work like that. Because they are at a high level of solvent demand, the proportion of purchases where they can be convinced of the usefulness of the product or service itself is outstanding. In other words, they do not have to wait for the prospective buyer to reach the purchase stage on their own. It is easy to convince them of the usefulness of your product, even if they think they don’t need it and the idea of buying it hasn’t even occurred to them. Well, it is a much bigger battlefield and can bring much more glory to those who want to communicate. However, it cannot be direct communication, it cannot appear to be advertising, it cannot smell of ‘effort’. It is simply a question of talking about a new product and its potential. It is very important that we cannot do this with our own product, but that an objective, external observer must consider it important that we write about our own product, and the communication must also come from this objective external point of view. This is what online platforms are used for by communicators. They are no longer buying interfaces on a portal or even in a magazine to get results, but to be used in Google Ads and social media campaigns as “objective writing”. Of course, all of this has to be delivered to the right audience through a consciously structured targeting campaigner, but that’s what the pros are doing. However, in this case, the target audience does not have to read a sales “message”, but is informed about a new opportunity that is relevant to their interests and needs by a professional forum. The more authentic this forum is, the greater the impact on the prospect. In other words, they post, “Google”, and thus “objectively” reach the desired target group.