Mumbai: The complexity for marketers today is that the rule book keeps evolving and changing. The fragmentation of media channels, lack of assured ROI and the options to avoid being advertised to all makes the job of making a bang for every buck spent, harder than it has ever been.

As partners to our clients, we are not only involved in the creative side of content development but we also play a big role in deciding the promotion plan, media choice and budget allocation through our media buying services. This unique capacity itself helps us look at content marketing in a holistic way, wherein we are able to pool in learnings from various departments to make sure a campaign delivers authentic results. Our North Star is not to just hit numbers when it comes to reach, but also to ensure how much engagement the content gets.

I often come across spirited discussions on how one must choose Influencers primarily as a media vehicle. Their number of followers is considered a guaranteed reach. Unfortunately, that is hardly ever the case. Going by published benchmarks, the reach rate of an Instagram account with 500K followers is 1-2 per cent for stories and 10-12 per cent for posts. Only in the case of celebrity posts have we seen a higher reach of upto 50 per cent when it comes to branded content.

Our head of digital media buying, Varun Melwani, has some interesting thoughts on the topic as well. “Look at platforms like Viral Bhayani and Instant Bollywood and evaluate their engagement rate. It gives you a very clear understanding of what people want to consume on the internet”. Meme marketing is another great avenue to accelerate reach. However, one must understand that the content that gets shared here has to be tailored to the account and its audience and not be obviously advertising-y. For example, in the past, we have ‘leaked’ frames from a celebrity ad on their fan pages with links to the brand page. This performed way better in terms of engagement and reach than when we posted the actual ad film. What comes next is to be absolutely clear about what such an activity does for the brand - does it build credibility and brand equity, no. Does it hit Awareness targets and reach. Absolutely.”

The key lies in being absolutely sharp in what the goal of the campaign is and then curating the right mix basis budgets. If influencing the brand’s perception is the primary objective, I would not consider higher reach as a success metric. I would look at the audience profile that the engagement comes from. If a brand is new and would want to increase their Awareness, One will often argue higher the budget, better the reach. But as we have established already, some strategic thinking in picking the right mix can extend the value of every ad-rupee one spends.

Here are some points and questions I go back to time and again when developing end-to-end campaigns:

1.   Promotion does not just mean ads on the Big 2 platforms - Meta and Google (X is axed by most clients today for reasons known to all). Using Groups, Communities, Fan Pages, Meme Accounts can play a big role in delivering quality reach.

2.   The content you create itself determines the reach it will get. The paradigm shift from pushing advertising to creating content that gets pulled, keeping audience behaviour and interests is at the key to optimising organic reach

3.   Don’t expect the same content to work across platforms and ad-types. Putting the same message and same type of content will reduce the effectiveness of the money spent.

4.   Read between the lines when reviewing performance reports and media pitches. There is more than what meets the eye when it comes to being ‘’assured’ a certain reach.

5.   Lastly, don’t be swayed by hitting higher numbers; reaching the right audience who are engaged is far more effective than shelling big bucks to reach a lot of generic audiences.

Creativity in our industry has now transcended from content development to how to promote said content. Finding a partner who can navigate this complexity and strike a balance in the quantitative and qualitative aspect of planning the promotion mix is rare but worth the search.

This article has been authored by Makani Creatives chief brand officer Suchana Sarkar.