Ryan is a highly successful marketing professional whose creative thinking helps solve business challenges.
Your startup is booming and your new product line is about to launch. It will be looking for a new round of funding in a few months and is optimistic about what the new valuation might look like. But there are alternative data sources that can undermine this estimate or take it to a new level.
Investors and financial analysts have long used unconventional information to make decisions. For example, satellite imagery can determine the traffic patterns of retail stores by looking at how full (or not) their parking lots are on any given weekend. Alternative digital data is now freely available, and it has become much easier as AI-powered technology cleans up all available sources of business information.
Social media activity and comments, product and service reviews, job postings, and upvotes can affect your company's ranking. This is alternative data, which is a growing source of publicly available data that researchers are studying. So how can you be sure that this information, which sometimes seems out of your control, represents the best of your business?
Develop a marketing plan that takes advantage of your company's many touch points and the power of public opinion. Here are some of these sources and what to consider when considering them in your plan:
- Social Media - When it comes to social media, time and pressure (frequency and content) are your friends. Even so, it takes time to build a following. Post consistently and stay offline for periods. The frequency of activity can affect the credibility of your business. Carefully follow the comments, likes and reposts. Some content will perform better than others. Be critical of yourself and really understand why.
- Product Reviews: How do customers review similar products or services? What questions do they ask? How many of them have a common concern or interest? Even something as simple as where a product is made can make a difference.
- Company culture and opinions. There are many things in this category that people search for but never talk about. Google Street View Company. Images of jobs on Google Image Search. Events for employees and customers that they organize. What your executives do in their free time, as shown on social media.
- Posts: talking about culture. What are the goals of employee morale? No need to exaggerate the dignity. People want to know what the job is like. Avoid copying and pasting sample job descriptions. Describe the problems you want the position to solve and where you want the candidate to fill the position.
- Vote share: "Any publicity is good publicity" shouldn't be the main thing here. The goal is to attend appropriately. As we look for the subtle ways customers appreciate or notice, make an effort to be there for the right conversations. There are all kinds of media interventionists. Customers will make better judgments when you engage in higher quality conversations. Aim for the best possible exits. So promote it.
Always put yourself in the customer's shoes. I do this with everything in life. This will give you a focused perspective, especially when it comes to marketing. Every decision has some emotion, even business decisions. What do you care about as a customer? What will you look for and how will you evaluate the company? Be sharp and even a little ruthless in your comments. Because chances are your customers are the same.
Your goal should be to create and maintain the right emotions so that the person feels comfortable in your company. And most often these emotions are influenced by subtle things.
Forbes Communications Council is a community for successful PR leaders, media strategists, creative and advertising agencies. Am I right?
