The Telecoms landscape is changing – So should your digital marketing strategy

The Telecoms landscape is changing – so should your digital marketing strategy. (Image Source: )

Intensifying competition and regulatory changes in the South African telecommunications market are shaking things up. The landscape is seeing the emergence of new technologies and services and a deeper penetration of smartphones. Local telecommunications providers are pushing into parallel markets such financial markets through insurance products, mobile money and mobile banking products as well as entertainment services.

Change is good and potentially very profitable. However, identifying new customer segments and increasing wallet share leaves little time to devise and implement a smart digital marketing strategy. The irony? It’s the one thing that’ll drive awareness, generate leads and boost engagement through multi-channel marketing, ultimately driving growth in this changing landscape of opportunities.

Here’s a quick and smart telecommunications digital marketing strategy that will make a big impact.

Objectives

Your primary marketing objective should support your overall business objective such as to increase market share by gaining qualified leads into your business. These are leads that are likely to convert, given the right triggers. Second to that is to build brand awareness and reputation.

Your marketing objectives should support your business objectives and increase your market share.

Target market

It’s important to understand your target customer. What are their pain points, what solutions are they seeking and what digital channels are they frequenting? Divide your customers into segments and create personas for each segment. This will simplify everything as it informs the following:

Key messaging
Selected channels and media

Key search terms and content

Don’t forget about potential gatekeepers to your audience. This important target market segment usually does all the online research, so make sure your business is on their shortlist.

Website

This should be the centre of your digital strategy. It’s where you’ll convert leads from other digital channels. Don’t be limited to a traditional website – it might be a simple landing page or an information intensive microsite. Whatever form it takes, ensure it’s designed to capture essential, relevant information, that it provides a simple user experience and that it quickly converts leads with a strong and clear call to action.

Decide on one conversion and stick to it.

SEO, PPC and web PR

All the acronyms you need to know – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, and web Public Relations (PR).

SEO will enhance organic rankings on Google’s search results page and work hard to drive qualified leads to your site.

PPC (when executed well) allows your brand to rank high in the search space and create always-on brand awareness. This is an advantage, as always-on search campaigns get more cost-effective with time.

Public Relations (PR) feeds directly into SEO and PPC activities, as articles and news about your business featured on third-party sites, magazines and news media will build awareness, reputation and even more qualified traffic to your site.

SEO and PPC are a killer combination. Throw in some web PR and your business can dominate the digital space.

Marketing automation

This is digital marketing and sales on rocket fuel. It’s a super-intelligent software embedded onto your website to automatically send out a series of pre-determined emails (depending on your user’s behaviour on your site). It also rates leads and alerts (by email and SMS) your sales teams when a lead is hot and when to pounce.

Marketing automation converts leads into customers. A game-changer.

Marketing automation will not only enhance your website performance, but all your other digital marketing activities – as well as provide more granular reporting to optimise and refine your marketing activities.

Digital matrix

To simplify, your telecommunications marketing strategy should look like this.

The right partner

Don’t feel overwhelmed thinking you’ll never acquire the skills to do all this effectively. Find the right digital marketing partner who takes the time to understand your business, your objectives, your customers – and importantly – what success looks like for you.

Edited by Fundisiwe Maseko
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