Tag: Marketing Strategy

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Social Media

Here’s how your brand can stand out on Social Media through Lifestyle Marketing

What does Nike sell? Shoes, sporting gear?

It actually sells a lot more than that. Nike sells the idea of being fit, being on top of your game, the joy of discipline and the attitude of never giving up. This is part of the lifestyle marketing strategy of Nike, originally an American multinational footwear manufacturing company.

Having worked with lifestyle brands in India ranging from fashion, fitness and food, the team at Flora Fountain, a social media marketing agency in Ahmedabad, has come up with the definitive guide to developing an effective lifestyle marketing strategy.

But, how do we define a lifestyle?

The way we live? Yes, exactly that.

Alright, let’s break it down.

Lifestyle is the interests, opinions and behaviours of an individual, group, or culture. And it grows and thrives when it influences the people around them.

Okay, let us take an example of ‘lifestyle’, that is closer to home. Remember when all of us wore baggy jeans, inspired by global hip-hop stars who looked fly dressed in baggy jeans, from grocery runs to red carpets?

This was after all the hip hop lifestyle.

Where does lifestyle marketing come in?

lifestyle-marketing

Lifestyle marketing is a strategy that combines elements of traditional marketing and consumer psychology to create a unique connection between the brand and the consumer. When done right, lifestyle marketing can be incredibly effective as it allows the company to create an emotional connection with their target market. But it is important to approach it the right way.

Brands like Levi’s and Woodland cashed on the hip hop trend in the early 90s, and well into the mid-2000s, because they saw the opportunity and marketed a hip-hop lifestyle to their target audience.

Why should brands consider lifestyle marketing?

Lifestyle marketing is the practice of creating a brand identity around the lifestyle of the customer base. It’s a powerful way of connecting with customers on a deeper level. With the right approach and strategy, lifestyle marketing can be a powerful tool for connecting with customers and achieving success.

How to create a lifestyle marketing strategy?

Don’t try to sell to everyone
You need to understand who your target market is and what type of lifestyle they lead. Knowing this will help you craft content that speaks to them and resonates with their interests and values. You should also consider the type of lifestyle marketing medium you want to use, whether it’s blogging, social media, video or other forms of marketing.

Engage with your audience
Social media is a good place to promote your products and engage with customers. Figure out where your audience spends its time socially and optimize your content for those channels to engage with your audience. You can join conversations related to your industry and address concerns through conversations. Taking it further, you can create relevant, mobile-friendly marketing to post on social media channels. That includes making specific ads for social media, as well as, boosting posts for increased visibility.

Develop trust
The goal is to develop a relationship of trust with your target audience, so it’s vital to maintain the same brand voice and story across these channels, as on your website. You want to maintain brand consistency so people going to your website will seamlessly make the transition, instead of being confused if the aesthetic styles don’t match.

Showcase your products, EVERYWHERE

Using your website and social media to post online demonstration videos allows you to showcase how your brand fits into the consumer lifestyle while making it more easily accessible to people as they’re researching products.

Use your website or social media platforms like YouTube to place videos that explain who you are and how to use your product. An informative YouTube ad can familiarise your audience with your facility and give information on how to make a purchase.

This ad by IKEA on YouTube was a smart way to promote the idea of buying DIY furniture

You can take this a lot further by posting videos about your company culture, highlighting products, expertise and even your team members. That will communicate a wholesome, authentic culture behind your products.

Millennial audiences alone report spending an average of 7.2 hours online daily. If your marketing speaks to them, demonstrating your products online is one of the best ways to get their attention.

How can Flora Fountain help you grow your lifestyle branding

Becoming a lifestyle brand may be something you do consciously or unconsciously. But lifestyle marketing is a conscious choice that you need to make early on. The process can take years of careful cultivation, authenticity, transparency, and some very intentional marketing choices.

After all, the lifestyle you’re trying to sell needs to be embedded throughout your whole identity. Take a look at the various types of lifestyle marketing activities Flora Fountain has done for our brands as their branding partners, digital strategists and ecommerce website development company.

The Hillock Ahmedabad – A boutique hotel

Ray-ethnic – Indian ethnic fashion brand

For these brands, we have achieved an enviable following through effective social media marketing, research-oriented branding activities and robust ecommerce website development to tell their story to sell their product.

Ready to get started? Drop a hello on hello@flora.ffteam.in.

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Digital Marketing Agency

Channelling the festive spirit with digital marketing

Digital marketing

“To Market or Not To Market…Digitally?”

That is the question. With festivals knocking on the door and people cashing in on their bonus there will be an increase in spending across different market segments. But who wants to hustle in traffic, reach the market and only to find out that the desired product is out of stock…NOBODY! And why would anyone, when the same product is just a tap away? Don’t forget, 63% of ‘products purchases’ worldwide begin online. So it’s time! To invest in festive marketing, especially online.

What is Festive Marketing

Festive Marketing

But, what exactly is festive marketing and what is in there for me, you may ask. Hear it from us, the best Digital Marketing Agency in Ahmedabad. When a brand capitalises on the spirit of gifting and spending to amplify its visibility and sales then it’s referred to as festive marketing. Seasonal and event-based marketing also constitute festive marketing.

Remember Surf Excel’s #RangAccheHain advertising campaign on Holi? That campaign was grounded in the thought that a festival is always memorable and special when celebrated with family. This heartwarming campaign didn’t just create engagement for the brand but also brought smiles to the viewer’s faces and conveyed a sense of warmth and affinity with the idea of the product.

From television commercials to digital marketing, occasion-based marketing has always allowed brands to adapt and blend the mediums effectively. Cadbury, another case in point, has often put to use its heritage of being a ‘family brand’ to capitalise on the event and festive-based marketing.

With the Madbury campaign, the brand allowed the consumers to create their own customised Cadbury virtually on a website. The intent was to engage customers and explore their local and unique take on their product. The campaign observed 823 million impressions and 17 million fans were engaged.

Why should brands care?

People Look Forward to Spending on special occasions

As per a survey by LocalCircles, Indian consumers have the propensity to make big-ticket purchases during festivals. Because for people it’s a season of consuming, they look forward to spending. Whether it’s Dushhera or Diwali, Raksha Bandhan or Christmas, celebrating has always meant gifting and giving.

It’s imbibed in our culture to spend and give when we are happy, to welcome novel things home. Thus, the festive season opens an enormous amount of opportunities for brands and local companies to drive engagement and conversions. Moreover, extensive lockdowns have altered consumer habits in a significant manner. So, now your brother won’t leave his office early to look for gifts during Raksha Bandhan. He will probably go through a wide range of offers online and give you the most amazing gift you deserve.

So you might want to make the best of the festive season and will be looking for a proficient and reliable Digital Marketing Agency, if yes then Flora Fountain is at your aid. Call us!

Branding services

To Cut Through the Clutter

Throughout the festive season, brands and agencies work as a team to devise and execute campaigns. Come monsoon season, agencies start receiving festive briefs. Every brand goes about marketing typical festival themes and offering discounts, even freebies. It’s tricky to stand out during the festive season. Tricky but not impossible, aye? To stand out requires an idea that the right audience can relate to, maybe even remember. Like #RangAccheHain.

The staying power of such ideas makes a brand stronger. And guess where this idea came from? It was thought of by some of the smartest brains churning the brightest ideas to connect with the audience. Flora Fountain, a full-service Digital Agency in Ahmedabad, is a collective of creative and marketing brains armed with relevant experience and aptitude to make our client’s brand stand out from the rest.

Re-Thinking your Marketing during Festivals

A traditional model of digital marketing would be completely different from festive marketing. Usually, a brand would market its products by finding the right target audience, offering discounts, and using Google and Facebook ads to promote their products, etc. However, during festivals, the same strategies would require a little extra planning. Read on to know how you can put festive marketing to use and how brands can put that little extra effort.

Imbibe the Essence

Digital Marketing strategies

Every brand has its own identity, plus every festival is different. Thus, a brand should reflect the festival’s essence. Brands must look for a marketing strategy that could knit the festival with the brand and weave out a creative idea that can help boost sales and image. So, first, try to ponder about ‘why’ your brand wishes to send a certain message before starting to brood about ‘what’ to convey.

For instance, Asian Paints created a Facebook application that allowed its users to play Holi virtually through the ‘Tag a Friend Holi’ application. As a result, 16,755 monthly active Facebook users and 924 Facebook fans were created, which helped raise brand awareness and impart the message of water conservation.

In the same vein Flora Fountain, the best-in-class Digital Marketing Agency can help your brand achieve viable and measurable results.

Leverage digital for maximum gain

Content can be leveraged to link the festival with the brand through festival-relevant keywords. Moreover, redesign your website and social media pages, and make them festive-ready. Your social media posts also convey festive spirits which in turn helps you promote your products and services. Also, make sure to have the landing page on your website.

Like Cadbury’s Badi family Badi Diwali campaign where the brand asked families to share portraits of their special moments on social media using #BadiFamilyBadiDiwali, during which the page was redesigned for the festival. It promoted the idea of sharing delightful moments with loved ones and like Anil Viswanathan, Director of Mondelez India said commenting on the campaign, ‘happiness shared is happiness multiplied.’

Collaborating with influencers that suit the target audience will enhance the discoverability of your products and promotions. Moreover, consumers are looking to spend, so concessions such as fixed-time deals, festive discounts, combos, and gifts will boost customer anticipation, resulting in increased sales and discoverability. Get your social media marketing done right with Flora Fountain, the finest Digital Agency in Ahmedabad.

Create a Festive Calendar

If you are putting together a festive marketing plan, it is important to leave additional time for events and activities to be implemented, since stakeholders would be swamped with work and duties during the holiday season. It is best to integrate a festive calendar as a way to accomplish this.

Besides including a list of festivals and events that engage the target audience, it will also contain pre-planned posts with months, weeks, and days along with the platforms it appears on. Thus, building a social media calendar is a form of self-care since it gives brands the leisure to engage more in the creative process by planning and save time.

Also, check out our blog on creating a content calendar to know more about how and why it plays a vital role in effective social media marketing.

content marketing

As the best Digital Marketing Agency in Ahmedabad, we offer complete assistance in setting up your brand digitally. And you know what else comes in handy *drum roll*, blogs like this and a holistic range of services.

Let’s Shake Hands and Market together…

Categories
Digital Marketing Agency

Why your brand needs Inclusive Marketing

An image of a group of friends from diverse backgrounds sitting together

When we mention a term like inclusive or a word like diverse what is the first thing that pops up in your mind? Race, religion, gender? Maybe it is time that inclusivity becomes more than mere words, and becomes a value that brands understand and embrace. Maybe it is time that brands realized the importance of Inclusive Marketing, in order to speak directly to a wider variety of audience, and as a by-product also paving the way for a more inclusive world.

Let’s dig a little deeper into inclusive marketing and how a brand can use this strategy to bring change and explore an untapped market.

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What is Inclusive marketing?

Inclusive marketing means a brand creating a marketing strategy plan which resonates with people who have been underrepresented or stereotypically portrayed. Be it racial and ethnic minorities, be it plus size models or be it LGBTQ individuals, inclusivity means to show the diversity of the real world by including people from all backgrounds.

For instance, a makeup brand which caters to young women, decides to create a post featuring a man using their product. Unexpected? Definitely, but inaccurate? Not necessarily. Such an approach reflects the positive attitude of the brand towards the different genders it serves, with a thoughtful and inclusive message for the society. This type of marketing helps in bringing positive social change and elevating diverse voices and role models. It even eliminates cultural bias.

In today’s world, it is very important for a marketer to relay the brand’s message in a way that it relates with everyone regardless of gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc. and elevate their stories.

Why inclusive marketing matters for a brand?

Customer is the king and ‘inclusive marketing’ matters, because they say it does.With time more and more brands have started catering to diverse consumers, which is why a consumer knows that they do not have to ‘accept’ being ignored by any brand they want to connect with.

high-view-diverse-wooden-characters-inclusion-concept

According to a survey conducted by Adobe in the year 2019, 61% of their customers think diversity in advertising is important, as it has an impact on their likelihood to engage with a brand.

Moreover, as our societies have become more diverse, it’s important than ever that companies are thoughtful about the messages, images, voices, and values that represent their brands.

Increases brand’s reach

A brand can expand its reach in the market as inclusivity allows the company to find and connect with new customers. When a brand shows inclusivity and diversity in its marketing strategy, it creates a huge impact on how the potential customers see a company.

Inclusive marketing even helps the company to develop a closer and deeper relation with the existing customers in order to build brand loyalty.

Overall, this marketing technique will help your brand’s audience to grow.

Closer to the audience

Pop singer Rihanna’s beauty line Fenty Beauty is an epitome for how inclusivity in brand marketing can bring you closer to your audience. Her brand places “beauty for all” at the core of its marketing message and her focus on inclusivity is striking a chord with many people because it is authentic.

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Her brand SAVAGE X FENTY featuring plus size models or gender-neutral products helped her get close to a wide range of consumers as they related to the marketing.

Boosts brand recognition

People respect a brand which offers inclusive marketing and genuinely shows what real people need. When a brand speaks the language of the consumers, they earn their trust.

A company which tries to avoid stereotypes and make more efforts to counter them, inspires people. Eventually it gets a brand more recognition in the market.

The smart thing to do right now is to incorporate inclusivity into the fabric of your brand.

How can your brand practice it?

Gather data and LISTEN TO IT!

The first thing on your list should be to throw every assumption you have made about your audience out of the door. You as a brand should dig deeper and research cultural intelligence to know your audience in a better way. The data analytics will allow you to clearly see the positive, negative or neutral responses to your advertising campaigns. Inclusive marketing does not mean just to gather data, it also means listening to it.

Once you study the data with an unbiased eye, you will be able to identify pitfalls in the marketing strategy plan which in turn helps you to create a relatable marketing campaign.

Reflect reality and tell universal stories

We see a mix of people when we go out in public. Just like the real world, a brand also needs to reflect real people in its marketing. People want to see themselves reflected in the media to feel inspired and heard. Use their real-life stories in your marketing image, video or more and infuse their language with yours.

After creating one, ask yourself if it elevates diverse voices. If it does, go ahead!

Show variety

Deloitte stated in one of its researches that ‘Millennials are the most diverse generation in history’. This means that marketers in the current scenario can no longer create the kind of narrowly-targeted campaigns that worked for them in the past. PEOPLE NEED VARIETY.

Potential customers are becoming increasingly aware of the social challenges that people of other sorts of backgrounds, philosophies, and ethnicities are facing. Hence, people not only want to see themselves but also a variety of groups.

So, think out of the box and create something which is welcoming, inclusive, and attractive at the same time.

It’s high time now! We are in the year 2021. Brands embracing diversity in their marketing should not be considered as a trend, it should be a norm. 

Wish to know more about inclusive marketing from your brand’s perspective, reach out to us for a consultation. Drop us a line here.