Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Milica Stojiljković, director of The Content Studio, Represent Communications
A key challenge in communications in Serbia today are three important facts: the media are changing, budgets are tightening and exchange of content online is becoming an important factor of communication between people. Reasons enough for companies to start thinking about a different approach. One that includes the creation of content in a different way, placement through targeted rather than mass channels and continuous instead of campaign communication.
That this is not a trend only in Serbia is evident from the Forbes’ data on the US market, where already in 2015 75% of companies increased their investment in content marketing. Also, 45% of US companies see the blog as the most important part of their marketing strategy in 2016, 62% use infographics as part of their marketing strategy, and 95% of the content containing adequate photo attracts more attention than the content without visuals.
It’s important to give attention to content creation
Subject of people’s attention has changed significantly in the time of digital communications, when they are overwhelmed with multitude of various content. Therefore, it is important to draw the attention of the target group in a manner which is most appropriate for that group. How do we know what is the most appropriate way? We have to fully analyze all the factors, and then prepare the appropriate content (video, infographic, text with a good title) and use all available channels (where you should not neglect the corporate website or similar channels that are company property).
Media are changing, and with them the communication strategies
The media in Serbia have changed dramatically over the past 5-6 years, both in concept and content. The biggest media houses have a fully integrated approach – releases of the same media in print/TV and on the Web. This directs both advertisers and all of us who are promoting a variety of content through the media to different thinking.
It’s much more effective to have an ad or a quality text in one or a couple of media across all their channels, if it’s a medium that is important to our target audience, rather than to roll out the same content en mass, in various media, which are not relevant to the target group.
In addition, it is useful to go a step further and take advantage of the loyalty of the audience for even better results. Using the tools and software that accompany the habits of the loyal audience, we can directly improve business results, whether we aim only to raise the visibility or to increase sales.
Sophisticated software solutions allow us to generate greater number of leads and influence the increase in sales. This is particularly interesting, both for large FMCG companies, and those which focus on B2B relationships.
It’s important to make a different reallocation of the budget
Instead of investing in as many different channels as possible (TV, print, radio, digital), to reach the appropriate audience in the mass, it is much more functional to invest in channels that directly reach the target audience, at the place where they are numerous.
For example, with a TV ad, with huge budget investment, we potentially have great visibility, but it is difficult to measure what is its reach of the specific target group. In contrast, we can create a YouTube video, which will be fully consistent with the values of our target group (visually and in content), promote it in cooperation with Youtubers or online influencers who have millions of followers.
In the first case, our message will have an audience of millions, but only one percent will be our real target group. In the second case we will have audience of millions, with a higher percentage, if not all, who are our target audience. And all this with a budget that is significantly lower.
More on these and related topics you can find out at the Content Academy – a unique education program for content and digital marketing specialists, which starts on 15 November 2016, organized by the agency Represent Communications.