What do you think makes a great digital marketer? Here’s what some experienced digital marketers in Thailand thinks:
Customer –Centric Mindset
Good marketers understand their customers’ needs and beyond. Besides understanding the goal of each campaign, great marketers understand their customer’s brand image, voice and how they want to represent their organization to the public.
If you are a digital marketer who is employed by a brand, this is, of course, a given. However, for others who work for a digital marketing company; it’s always a great idea to study each and every prospect’s background before meeting face-to-face during the first meeting. For example, you might discover that the target group for a certain prospect is teenagers and as such they have been running campaigns designed for this target group. You also discovered that they may be rebranding to target adults better.
Having this knowledge ready for when meeting the prospect means you’re able to discuss and come up with sample ideas on the fly. In other words, from the client’s perspective, it’s more productive to meet with a digital marketer who already understands their brand as oppose to a digital marketer who comes empty-handed.
Knowledge-able of Changing Trends
When was the last time you saw a chunky monitor or a bulky CPU? Can’t remember? Well, that’s exactly how fast technology and the digital world changes. Your mobile phone isn’t just for making phone calls anymore either. You use it to surf the Internet, take photos, listen to music, set reminders; it also acts as your pocket book or Gameboy!
Knowing how the world have switched from desktop to smartphone, tablets and portables, means the difference between truly helping customers with their heartaches from the get go, and going on a wild goose chase.
For instance, your client may be getting a lot of traffic already but for some reason they’re not able to keep visitors on their website for longer than 5 seconds on average. After a quick check, you discovered that their website isn’t responsive. Since you are also up-to-date on changing trends, you know that users have switched from desktop browsing to mobile. In essence, this means you would be able to quickly provide the right solution for your client; which is to switch to a mobile-friendly website.
Good Understanding of the Target Group’s Behavior
Several years back, when we think social media, MSN and Hi5 comes to mind. Today, there’s just too many to add to the list, ranging from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, to Snapchat and Reddit. Good marketers are individuals who are able to identify which is trending for the different age groups right way.
To be able to identify this, a great marketer doesn’t only understand the individual platforms but is also insightful on the behavior of the different target groups. For example, Thais read less, prefers images and loves videos. In addition, they spend hours daily browsing the Internet via smartphones. Given this information, if your client is targeting Thai teenagers and you’re providing recommendations on which channels to focus on, Instagram should instantly come to mind as one of the top options.
Many times over, it’s not just about, ‘what’s trending’, but having a good understanding of different generations, cultural differences and so on, which would allow you to predict how things may change every year.
What may have worked wonders a certain year such as a photo contest might turn out to be a total flop the next year per se.
Be a Great Consultant
Some of the best marketers strive to become more than entrepreneurs. It is true that it’s the client’s business, but your relationship with every project should be more than just to finish the job, get paid, and be done with it.
Admirable marketers are those who are also both a teacher and advisor to their customers. Some clients might not be familiar with online marketing. As such there is a communication gap and the best marketers are those who put in the effort to close that gap. For instance, when discussing banner advertisements, you might be thinking of retargeting, real-time bidding and native advertising, while your client have only ever did single-site buys. The result? Your client feels confused, unengaged and simply lost.
A truly effective digital marketer open new doors and opportunities for clients while also being able to effectively explain and advice all the different techniques and options.
The Take Away
In the end, if you want to become a truly admirable digital marketer, think of your client’s business as your own. Try to figure out what they might be thinking about, how they think, what they probably want and then gradually expand from there.
In addition, do lots of reading and research to understand different target audiences and changing trends. Coupled with a clear understand of your client’s business, you would be well on your way to provide your clients with successful marketing campaigns.
This article is a summary from interviewing several digital marketers at Syndacast, a performance-driven digital marketing company in Asia.
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