Online reputation management(ORM) has become a primary focus for any business in the digital world as negative feedback or reviews from customers can influence many minds not to do business with that brand. Hence Companies are ensuring that they maintain a strong brand reputation and are proactive to address the concerns raised by their customers in an effective manner.
The world is becoming digital. Digital technologies are changing the competitive landscape rapidly. With the rise of ecommerce, mobile commerce internet has become a business enabler. Companies today are creating brand awareness through online channels. The marketing budgets are also getting tilted towards the online medium as the customers are relying heavily on the internet for their research on the brands before making a purchasing decision.
It is imperative for companies to build brands on the internet with a strategic plan in place as it has become a major platform to influence consumer’s buying decisions. Protecting the brand’s image online and ensuring that the positive aspects of the brand is getting highlighted has become an issue of paramount importance. This has given rise to ORM(Online Reputation Management) which has become increasingly vital for the growth and success of the brands.
ORM is the practice of monitoring the reputation of a brand on the internet, taking corrective steps to deal with content which maybe potentially damaging and using customer feedback solutions to get feedback about the brands. Most of reputation management is focused on pushing down negative search results. Normally brands having more relevant and genuine positive reviews are given more visibility in the search engines.
As per a survey by PWC 80% of internet users research a product on internet before purchasing and 72% of those do not buy if there is a negative comment or review.
Brand building helps the company in making an impression and create a unique slot in the mind of the potential customers. It is important in the prevailing business environment that more than its products, the brand should be known. Brand is an experience or a promise which a business provides to its customers. Customers highlighting their issues or problems on a daily basis could result in negative word of mouth hampering the overall brand image and the business.
Companies are actively monitoring all the review sites and the social media networks like twitter or facebook to get the pulse of the customers and their feedback about the brand in the marketplace. If a customer writes a negative review or comment about the brand or when he/she does not recommend the brand they are immediately contacted by the customer care team to find out the exact reasons. This will help in mitigating the overall risk to some extent. These issues should be tackled immediately to avoid further tarnishing of the brand image. Companies are hiring external agencies to monitor the social media conversation and to provide them with the actionable insights, alerts regarding their brands.
Below is an example of PR activity which was undertaken to manage the ORM of Great Online shopping festival (GOSF 2013)
Google & The Nexus contest
Google India had a bad start at GOSF with the GOSF site facing a lot of downtime and glitches. Netizens had taken to the social media to vent out their anger and frustration over this inefficiency by GOSF organizers. In a smart move to overpower the hate noise being made on social media, Google India launched the GOSF Nexus 7 contents on December 13th , along with the news of extending the festival by a day. The contest gave away a Nexus 7 every hour it ran and the contestants had to share on Twitter ‘Why they deserved the best deals’ along with the hashtag #GOSFDeal.
Tell us why you deserve a deal & win a Nexus 7 every hour. Make sure you use #GOSFDeal & #GOSF for the entry to be valid. — Google India (@googleindia) December 13, 2013
The hashtag immediately started trending ensuring a positive trend for Google India and the festival across the social networking site. This marketing stunt helped Google India drown all the negative comments being shared regarding GOSF and all it took them was nearly or less than Rs 2,40,000 (approx. cost of 24 Nexus 7) to get trending on Twitter and keep the netizens engaged.
Summary
At the end of the day most of the customers go for a brand which is recommended by their family and friends. As they do the research online it all eventually boils down to how well the brand is perceived and visible online. An effective PR team can help in managing ORM which will help the brands to embark on a digital journey scaling new heights of growth.
Relationship Marketing
Relationship marketing differs from other forms of marketing as it recognizes the long term value of customer relationships and extends communication beyond intrusive advertising and sales promotional messages.Companies have established teams to only concentrate on building customer relationships and marketing themselves better on each occasion while pitching for more business with their existing clients.
Leadership : Myth vs Reality
The general perception and belief is that leaders win followers, innovate, inspire people, take end to end responsibility, develop power with people , bring about a change , strive for effectiveness etc…A company with a robust leadership pipeline is expected to be successful in the long run as many organisations who face leadership vacuum stare at a major crisis.
Collaborative Marketing: Co-creating value with customers
Marketing is basically about satisfying human needs profitably and also creating value for the customers . Marketers need to create distinctive & unique offerings, build brands and focus on promotion activities along with a robust distribution strategy.
