Numerous Benefits of Media Monitoring in Your Marketing Campaign
- Written by Diana Smith
Running a marketing campaign is pretty hard by itself; however, imagine how much harder it would be if you had no idea how well you’re performing at the moment. This is where media monitoring comes in and allows you to rectify all of your mistakes before they start backfiring, as well as give you a chance to avoid counter-productive practices and techniques. Nevertheless, this is merely a tip of the iceberg of all that proper media monitoring has to offer and here are some additional reasons why this is crucial to the success of your next marketing campaign.
1.Knowing your competitors
Millennia ago, famous Chinese general and philosopher Sun Tzu said that if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. However, many businesses are so obsessed with their own online activity that they completely forget to check what their competitors are doing.
This means that you might fall out of touch, miss out on a growing trend or even fail to address an important industry-specific event. Also, the quality of your business is determined by comparing it to a fixed reference point. That reference point is usually the state of the market together with all the businesses that make it (your competitors). How can you know what it is if you don’t do proper research?
2.Finding new ideas
As we’ve already stated, media monitoring allows you to figure out what the industry you’re in is currently talking about, which, might even help you develop some new ideas to offer. Remember, getting inspired by a piece or a trend is not the same thing as plagiarizing it. When you take into consideration the output of content that you’ll have to meet, this becomes one of the most important factors to consider.
3.Measuring the effectiveness of your communication
Another thing you need to understand is that the primary function of communication is to send a message. The problem is that you can never tell for sure how this message will be received or understood. Sure, you know what you intended to say, which is why you’ll always understand more than your audience; to them, the message might not be as clear as it is to you. With the help of adequate social media analytics on your side, you’ll have a much easier job of checking whether you’ve received the desired effect. In other words, measuring the effectiveness of your communication becomes much more reliable.
4.Checking brand mentions
The next thing you need to understand is the fact that each brand mention is a story of its own and there is no equation that can help you measure its effect. For instance, is 100 good comments for every 3 negative comments a good ratio? This depends on a number of factors. How bad is the bad comment and how good are the good ones?
You see, a person who claims that they’ve got food poisoning at your restaurant can easily top dozens of people saying that they’ve had a good time. It also depends on the number of likes that the comment receives, the number of shares of the post and much, much more. With the help of social media monitoring, you’ll be able to monitor the general attitude created by these brand mentions, which is the next best thing.
5.The response in moments of crisis
Sometimes when a crisis occurs, you’ll have to give a swift response and address the issue right away. The longer you the guiltier you’ll look, right? Well, not necessarily. Sometimes, responding to the first mention of the issue can make you look too defensive, raising alarms even with people who would otherwise stay at the sidelines. With the help of media monitoring, you can get an idea of what kind of a response to choose. This also gives you a quicker and more reliable method to check facts before you do anything.
6.Avoiding generic campaigns
One of the biggest problems that a lot of inexperienced entrepreneurs walk right into is using all the generic methods to start a campaign. In the past, some of these techniques worked like a charm, yet, nowadays people have grown so accustomed to them that you’re required to adjust in order to survive and prosper. Moreover, there are more enterprises today than ever before, which is why it’s crucial that you learn how to fight against such odds. By conducting a proper market analysis, you get the benefit of avoiding a generic campaign and developing your own, unique approach to this scenario.
7.Turning the naysayers around
You don’t have to be liked by everyone in order to run a successful business and, truth be told, such a thing is impossible, to begin with. Still, not every ‘No’ is a definitive answer and there might be a way for you to turn these people around. Imagine a scenario where someone purchased your product only to find it malfunctioning and, when they addressed this issue to your customer service, they were able to fix the issue right away. Wouldn’t such professionalism and dedication ensure that the situation ends on a high note? Same could be done by your marketing team if they could only figure out the main reason behind the skepticism of these people.
8.Being proactive instead of reactive
One of the biggest problems with traditional social media analytics is the fact that it is tailored to respond to events that have already occurred. The problem is that this forces you to be reactive in scenarios where time is of the essence and where being proactive could have a much more positive effect. With an adequate social media monitoring platform on your side, you’ll be able to anticipate customer sentiment, thus making some cutting-edge predictive analytics. Imagine being able to offer a service to a client before they’re even aware they need it. Wouldn’t this mean that you’re initiating the negotiation from a much better starting point?
As you can see, media monitoring is not just something you can use to gain a competitive edge but also something that can prevent you from making a potentially expensive mistake. Moreover, it’s also a trend that can open up a world of possibilities that was previously unavailable for your marketing team.
