Your approach to digital marketing could be back-to-front, warns business expert

Bristol, UK (SANEPR.com) November 21, 2008 -- Businesses looking to leverage benefits from social media need to consider carefully what they're trying to achieve before deciding on any technological solutions, says a leading business expert. Appearing on a regular business TV show on leading business TV network yourBusinessChannel digital marketing specialist Robb Hecht warned that many businesspeople are prone to getting carried away with technology too early.

Hecht, who is a popular blogger and Digital Strategy Director at IMC Strategy Lab, strongly recommends the four-step approach set out in "Groundswell", a recent book by business experts at Forrester Research.

The book suggests businesses seeking to leverage marketing opportunities from online social media should begin by looking carefully at who their customers are, and what their needs and capabilities are. They should then decide what the objectives of the campaign are: do they want to connect with customers, gather information from them, or something else? Thirdly, they should work out how the campaign or tool will help them to realise their wider brand strategy. Only when all this has been done, should businesses look in depth at what technology (for example instant messaging, microblogging, or developing an iPhone application) will best suit their needs.

According to Hecht, this kind of expert business advice is counterintuitive to many businesspeople, who view selecting a technology solution as the first step in digital marketing, not the last. "Too many brands reach out and grab technologies too soon, before assessing why they want to apply these technologies to their marketing and communications efforts."

Mark Sinclair, Features Editor at yourBusinessChannel, the business TV network which produces Robb Hecht's business TV shows, agrees with this analysis. "While it's great that more and more businesses are seeing the potential of social media for marketing, they need to be smart in the way they approach it. Listen to the business experts – you'll save money and get a much better result."

Robb Hecht's business TV shows appear on yourBusinessChannel each week, along with shows by many other leading business experts.

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