“Give them a reason to talk about your brand. Let your audience know your story, let them tell their story on social media, listen to them and respond accordingly”
Md. Mehedi Reza
Product Operations Manager
Alibaba Group
Bangladesh is the world’s eighth most populous country with a population of 166.2 million out of which approximately 52 million is the youth. Bangladesh is also experiencing rapid urbanization. The total number of mobile phone subscriptions has reached 131.085 million with younger people having greater access to new technologies and gadgets. The use of the internet on mobile phones has increased the allotted time Bangladeshis spend online; around 60 million of locals use the internet through their mobile phones.
This very interesting country profile makes Bangladesh an exciting place for newer brands. At the same time, newer brands may face huge challenge in their brand building on the digital platform in Bangladesh. But what can be done to overcome this challenge and how do newer brands make their presence felt?
Understand your customer engagement with your brand
Customer engagement is very important for your brand success. As a newer brand, you need to find out how customers are engaging with your brand in order to make good marketing strategy. You should know the channels that they spend their time on. It can be on social media, email, SMS or some other platform on the web. You need to indentify the right channel to reach your customer given that not every channel is relevant for your brand. Also focus on real customer engagement; real engagement does not happen in traditional channels like newspaper, magazines, radio, television, billboards. It occurs on digital platforms such as Facebook or Twitter pages, YouTube channels, Applications, Blogs and Microsite.
Participate in conversation
We have seen some brands in Bangladesh that are only focused on their campaign. They do some Ad Hoc campaign plans, they run it on social media and they just disappear after it is over. But the important fact is a brand always needs to engage in a continuous dialogue with their consumers to build relationship: never stop talking to them or sharing your stories. As a brand the first thing you should ask yourself, is if the content that you are developing is relevant to your audience. Create good content that attracts your audience. Give them a reason to talk about your brand. Let your audience know your story, let them tell their story on social media, listen to them and respond accordingly.
Focus on the “mobile first” strategy
“Mobile First” means thinking strategically about the use of mobile functionality to enhance your brand, service or user experience. Mobile phones are playing vital roles in Bangladesh, becoming the go-to device for the younger generation. You must have a deep understanding of your customers to create optimal content and user interfaces to meet their needs. A properly executed and functioning mobile app will allow you to collect your customers’ data such as their preferences, behaviors, and locations – and then use the information to offer contextual solutions to your customers that makes their life easier while improving your brand.
Use Facebook
Bangladesh has over 22 million Facebook users and it is no surprise that Facebook is the largest platform for the youth. Facebook can be a biggest social channel for a brand to promote their product or service. Regardless of the size of the company, it can easily reach its target audience on Facebook. It’s a free medium and every brand, especially newer and smaller brands, should reap its benefits.
Measure your customers’ sentiment
Social media provides the opportunity to obtain feedback from customers. These platforms will provide both negative and positive feedback; the negative comments should not be ignored, as they are a critique for your brand. The reality is that people are having this conversation whether you are listening to them or not. On social media, there is great opportunity for a brand to hear both sides of the conversation. This is how a brand can measure the sentiment of consumers: what they think about your product or your service. Some brands are more interested on acquiring users or likes rather than engagement. The idea of having a million subscribers is rather arbitrary if very few of them are actually talking about your brand.
Paid Media Campaign
As a newer brand you may think of spending little money on paid media campaigns. As you know your audience, try to run a paid campaign as per location, interest, age, gender base; whichever suits you. Don’t just depend on the media plan that your agency provides – do some homework, some research because you know your audience better than anyone else.
Live Streaming
One of the biggest current digital marketing trend is live streaming. Facebook Live streaming is rapidly becoming more relevant. People want their information in real time. Go where your audience is hooked, find a way to personalize and humanize your brand by creating interactive content. You can no longer rely on static content like a blog post or even images to make an impact with your audience.
Influencer Marketing
The Influencer Marketing is on the rise. Smaller brands are starting to understand that working with influencers can add the necessary fuel to make their content soar. Brands get huge amounts of exposure by linking to the right people in an article upon publication.
