Digital advertising strategy for a Startup in india.

A few days back I met some one, who is currently planning to do a start-up and wanted my help on making a digital advertising plan. That gave me an idea to write about a strategy on digital advertising for a start-up.

In the current sate of start-up affairs in India, where first round of funding raises anywhere between 0.2-5 million USD's, the idea was to develop a methodology where even with a shoestring budget it is feasible to do some bit of digital advertising. This is primarily because the first round of funding (Forget VC's, even Angel's don't fall) happens after validating the concept and the acceptability of the product / service  by its users.

I am presuming the following. 

1. A start-up is a company where one/two/three/"N" people gather, focused on one concept and an un-stopable passion of doing something big in life.
2. Shoe String budget : Small, family and friends round of investment[100K-1Million INR]
3. This is just for digital media and the objectives to be met for the concept to be realized and not a BIG ticket marketing campaign .
4. Objectives to be met.
1. Get relevant target group(TG) traffic.
2. Get the visitor to perform the desired "Action". (Action = Any objective that will help the advertiser ascertain that the product / services being offered is valuable to the user and has a potential of growth.this could be sale / registration / download etc etc.)
5. Attribution Technology is in place [Even a basic one, not the one I proposed in an earlier post]
1. Action confirmation pixel tracking. [Thank you page placement of pixel]
2. UTM parameter based traffic allocation and tracking
6. Creative development is is place. [Even if it is not, accessibility to good resources is]

So here is my take on the digital advertising strategy for a start-up. ;-)


The Four Pronged Approach . 

Mail:Search:Social:Media (I am going to Coin this as the "M-SS-M" strategy for Start-up)

The above can be classified into a Media mix, where reach and frequency will be defined by the target audience and the watering holes where the TG can be found. 

Let me take an example to explain this in a more understandable manner. 

eg.

Startup : " Nutssabharwal Realestate". that's my handler on twitter ;-)@nutssabharwal

Objective of the company : Sell's real-estate projects in Delhi & NCR to customers interested in either buying  for them selves or looking for a high return investment.

Now Pls understand that this company cannot in wildest of imagination sell apartments online. so what will the online medium do for them. 

Simple : Get them interested parties, and also create a general awareness in the markets they are catering to. 

Objective of the campaign : Get Leads using digital marketing for real-estate from Delhi NCR region, preferably male, Age 35+.

Strategy : Let us understand the watering holes for this client.

Budget : 1lacs - 10 Lacs on advertising.

Before we get into the strategy. here is a quick look at some currencies which are used to buy media on the digital platform. 

Hope this is clear before you proceed further.
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No >>So a quick explanation.Courtesy Wikipedia

CPM : Cost per mille (Thousand)

CTR : Click Thru rate

CPC : Cost per click

OSC : On Site Conversion or Conversion rate

CPA : Cost per action

So the above Graphic would be read some thing like this:

Media purchased at CPM of INR 100. If it yields a 1% CTR then the total clicks would be 10 in INR 100 = CPC of INR 10, now if these ten click yield me even 1 conversion at OSC of 10% then my CPA would be INR 100. 

Clear : >> Hope so.. if not .. don't read further, send me a mail.

Going back to "MSSM" strategy.

First Of the block :

Mailers : Get hold of some opt-in databases.  " Please don't buy databases(10 Million Email id's for INR 1200 kind) , it is criminal and will put you / your brand in the spam circle immediately"

Some of the mailer inventories are available on the following currencies :

1. Cost per send. 0.20/- Paise to INR 4/-. depending on the targeting and laser precession present with the opted-in database manager.
2. Cost Per Open : INR 2 - INR 3
3. Cost Per Click - INR 6 - INR 25/30.

eg. of such inventories. 

1. Job site / Job Boards [Inventory can be targeted based on income/age/demographic]
2. Travel Site OTA's, Holiday sites
3. Real-estate Sites
4. E commerce sites
5. Loyalty membership sites

Please Note : @ an average INR .50 P mailer inventory come to INR 500 CPM, which is the most expensive inventory that you can buy in the Indian Internet Space. The mailer inventory has a three step process instead of a two step process for a normal web inventory

The three steps to a mailer : Step1--->Send --Step2--> Open--Step3--> Click-->>>>

A good mailer inventory should be able to deliver at least a 10% open rate and post open a 10% click thru rate. So a 0.20 Paise send will be equal to INR 20 per click.

So for this medium, it is good if you can buy inventories on a cost per click or cost per open . For a good media plan, a mailer inventory that can be bought on a cost per click at INR 5-7 /- is a fantastic buy, the reasons can be many but the most critical is that fact that a mailer carries more information than a banner and the user who is clicking on a mailer is most likely to have a better intent.(Subjective, but this is based on my experience)

Some of the things to worry about mailer inventories are as follows.

1. OPT-in inventories only, you don't want to fall into spam filter on day one of your product launch.
2. Don't buy incentive based mailer inventories, where people are paid to open the mail and click

 Some important tips. 

1. The best email creative are the one that have some offer or a discount coupon. Use this in your first mail shot. Giving Incentives to user to use your product service for the first time is never frowned upon. Use mailer as coupon distribution lists.
2. Get visitors to register & get feedback if possible.
3. Use less images and little text, come to the point from the word go. 
4. Subject lines are the ones that get the person to open the mail, so think very carefully about them. Don't think its your product, get into the users shoes and think what will excite "me". Note : Don't oversell, customers have a way to detect your oversell.
5.  Buy Precision, as mailer can provide some of the best targeting options.
6.  As always use a third party click tracking, If possible with fraud detection 
7. Add UTM parameter for you to do basic attribution for the campaign.

Search : The god media, developed by Google, executed the best by Google and now the largest media company on the digital space in India.

Objective of search :Reach out to users when they are looking out for you.
If mailer is a push Medium, Search engine marketing is pull.

I am currently only highlighting the pull based aspect of search engine marketing and not some of the other ones like Search Engine Optimization & Google content network. 

Also I am talking about Google right now, a more evolved buyer can try Bing as well. Google currently has the largest market share.

The Idea for a shoe string budget is to focus energies on what is get-able on a short sprint rather than the long haul.

So focus on the Google campaign should be.

1. Keywords that are closest to the product / service being offered
2. "Exact Match" on Google ad words and not  "Broad Match"
3. Focus on keywords that have an action word. Like for property would be. Buy / book / best price.
4. Geo target to your competency area "Delhi" for the business above.

Some things to worry about

1. Create ad text that is to the point.
2. Add action words like book / buy / try 
3. Offer a instant gratification to the first few buyers / inquire. 
1. More Interesting maybe Every day for a week, it will for sure get some social mileage as well. 
4. Get them to connect on a social platform. Instead of a lead form, connect using Facebook / twitter. Enabling you to push content or a special offer in the future as well.
5. Put conversion tracking codes on the thank-you page of registration or sale.

Maybe a repetition, but I have to repeat. 

1. Pass UTM parameters. 
2. All click bought will not be equal to clicks, so please live with it

 Some interesting things to keep a watch out for.

1. Bounce rate is something you should read deep into. between 20-30% is good.
2. Use Google analytical tools to see where the user is clicking on the page. What is getting the best response. 
3. Have one / two / three  landing pages ready for doing a quick A-B testing.

Social Media : The new kid "ON" the block... so ' what they say.

Interesting media to spend on.

So taking a leaf out of my earlier written article : "Facebook marketing in India for starters".  It is important that as a start-up you have a Facebook & a twitter id for people to connect with. This can have various benefits.

1. Use Facebook social connect to get people to register on your site. 
2. Use twitter to send updates at no extra cost to users. 
3. Get instant feedback on your products / features from existing users without have to hire a analyst .

A sample face book page for a company.

Marketing on social media can be tricky. Be careful about the following.

1. Facebook ads come cheaper if you are taking the user to a face book page
2. Again laser target users data that Facebook provides
3. Manage user expectation of the Facebook page quite carefully. It will be your soundbox, but for the world to speak into.
4. Be ready to handle criticism 
5. Your product can become Viral " So don't think viral", just make sure your product or service is good, it will automatically go viral if it excellent.
6. paid social media will yield low CRT's but are very high on the branding matrix.

Things to be managed

1. Get good content writers for a social campaign 
2. engage with your customers and understand there problems 
3. use some kind of tracking even "UTM" parameter based will be good.

Last but not a small portion will be media: huh!! media, so what was all the stuff that I mentioned above.

The answer lies to the training all of have received in the digital marketing arena.

Media means : Larger website's / display banner / innovative media like road blocks/ shosh etc etc...

So Media. A very essential part of any digital marketing activity. Not sure How relevant is it for a start-up, but if the start-up has some decent monies, then he can invest some of it into large portals for  a few days, so get some brand salience going.

Things that will always trouble a start-up on large media properties  are as follows

1. What will I get 
2. Will it perform 
3. Will my technology holdup against a flood of traffic coming from a large media activity. (Trust me, I have seen this fail for a lot of companies)
4. Why should I pay on a CPM basis, when I am looking at performance
5. Large portals : Should I go direct or go thru an agency and pay a commission for the media purchase.

The above are just teething issues, So don't panic,pls follows a few simple things.

1. Insure that you use tracking parameters in the landing page url 
2. Use third party ad-serving like zedo, double click etc.

So what would a typical digital media plan for a startup look like. 

The Idea over here is to start with a plan like the one mentioned above. But being a digital plan, this can change into any one the following , based on a hourly learning that you will be getting while running the campaign.

Try all mediums and see what is working for your product / service.

Happy Planning & A great Digital campaign execution...

Reach out if you need any help.