Beats by Dre
“People aren’t hearing all the music.”
Beats electronics founded in 2006 by legendary producer Andre Young, known as Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. The company slogan is “People aren’t hearing all the music.”Beats family (products) includes headphones, ear buds, speakers and beats music.
In a social context, whoever wears or owns any Beats products are seen as a fashionable, flashy music enthusiast. Beats products are considered fun, trendy, good quality and high-performance products.
In the marketing world, Beats is known for its compelling campaigns and creative marketing strategies. Beats uses its product a certain image which allows the consumers to interact with their products. Beats use an image of quality and style of their product to attract desire. By making their products “cool” and trendy, as one of the strategies that make Beats stand out.
Strategy
It is unusual to see headphones or audio equipment advertising because many companies in this industry relied on the retailer’s recommendation to their clients.
Celebrity Influencers
Beats uses celebrity influencers in their campaigns (musicians, athletes, actors), they believe young people might idolize them. Below are the examples of celebrity influencers:
- JustBeats Solo by Justin Bieber
- Heartbeats by Lady Gaga
- PowerBeats by LeBron James
Compelling Campaigns/Visual Branding
Ambush Marketing
During World Cup 2014 and summer Olympics in London 2012, Beats used ambush marketing to capture their customers. To get its message across at the Olympics, Beats sent every athlete a pair of Beats headphones. Beats was also banned by FIFA at the World Cup 2014 and players from all 32 teams. Sony was the official sponsor. This generated a lot of buzz for Beats and although Sony sent free headphones to every team, players stuck with Beats. Just because the Beats was not the official sponsor, it did not stop them from spreading its message and have a presence. Beats is a fearless brand and it turned a negative situation into an opportunity. Beats used this Ad below:
Emotion
Beats uses emotions in most of their campaigns. For instance, “Hear What you Want” campaign, it uses real stories from athletes. Emotions play a huge role in marketing, and an effective way to connect with your audience/customers. Other companies like Dove have also used this strategy. Even if your product or brand is not emotional, it is important to implement a story that will connect with your consumers.
Beats remain authentic while they take risks, think outside the box and using an emotional feel to their products to boost their brand.
Social Responsibility
Beats by Dre fights for an Aids-free generation by creating (RED) merchandising. Beats contributes $5 from each Solo2 (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition. In addition, $17 from every purchase of Beats Loves (RED) Special Edition T-shirt.
Apple acquired beats music & beats electronics for $3.2 billion. Bingo!
Infographic: Over 7.5 million Africans on LinkedIn; South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt account for over 60% of users
Africa is the world’s second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. Social media in general is taking Africa by storm . Over 7.5 million Africans use LinkedIn, over 20% are entry-level, and the majority of the users are ages 18-34, most of them are male. LinkedIn is quickly gaining popularity among working class professionals in Africa though it is still far less popular compare to Facebook and Twitter. Other countries with the fastest growing number of users include Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Morocco, and Cameroon as seen in the images below.
Social Media Marketing Strategy
Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media can also be viewed as a monitoring tool, widely used to inform customer service, product development and marketing activities.
Social media marketing uses technology to build relationships, drive repeat business and attract new customers through friends sharing with friends. Social media marketing not only increases branding and website traffic, it is a powerful influence in overall search engine optimization.
Social media marketing can help you increase the activity around these top goals:
- Website traffic and user behavior (external and internal tracking)
- Conversion and sales tracking
- Page views, ad exposure
- Raising brand awareness
- Creating a positive brand association and keeping it there
- Broader customer reach
When shifting gears from traditional marketing to social media, it is important for a company to prepare a scheme. The strategy begins with a focus, which include goals. And those goals can include short and long-term goals. When you think about social media, it is important to remember to set realistic business goals. For example: Are you going to generate leads, answer complaints, engage with customers, or something else? Will you be doing all the above? How will this relate to other functions and tools, like the rest of the marketing plan or the rest of customer service? Try to stay focused and be specific.
Social Media Marketing Strategy (Influence and ROI)
Social media can be used for different goals. For example, Oprah’s opinion on literature has inspired millions to choose titles from her book club. But you don’t have to be Oprah to have influence. You influence your friend when she listens to a song you recommend on Facebook. You influence your coworker when he checks an article you posted on LinkedIn and shares it with someone else. Social actions like these are reflections of influence.
As a company you can influence one customer to another. For example, a loyal customer can act upon others by a simple tweet, feedback or an RT (retweet) that mentions the brand. It is important for organizations to focus on cultivating the engagement and not figures.
Define your target audience and find specific areas of expertise. Don’t try to cater to everyone. Alternatively, if you are really keen to progress to power users, key decision makers and influencers, your content should be designed around your market. Social media is simple and yet complicated.
It’s complicated because you have to know your audience so well that you know exactly what social media platforms they use regularly. Is it Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? LinkedIn? The focus should be which social network is generating more audience and engagement, see the example:
ROI = (Gain from the Investment – Cost of Investment) /Cost of the Investment
Marketing VS. ROI
Social media marketing should never be done as a stand-alone campaign, and it should always support your other marketing initiatives. Social media is not an activity that can exist on its own. For social media to be beneficial, it is important to co-exist alongside other activities such as offline marketing, digital marketing, public relations, and advertising.
Social Media Strategy (ROI and Audience)
Social Media Marketing is not necessarily a direct sales tool, but is effective at engaging your audience, conversations, expand web presence, build brand awareness, generate expose and provides SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits.
Some marketers say social media has no ROI but is great for:
- Brand building
- Relationship management
- Product development
- Reputation management
- Customer interaction
- Customer feedback
- Customer support
- Community building
Jeffrey Hayzlett, former Kodak CMO said: “Social media is not a campaign. It is a commitment.” Meaning a social media plan should cover your immediate and short-term while keeping an eye to the fact that technology changes all the time, if not daily. Don’t be surprised that some of the tools you chose are outdated by the time you get around accessing them. Flexibility is the key to success in business today.
One of the most frequent questions is that how do you measure ROI on social media? It is possible, but it’s not black and white. The same question could be asked about how can you measure ROI on organizational emails. The absence of social media, a striking example: an email in your organization would lead to an implicit cost of being in business. You can get greater profits using social media marketing that can help cut expenses and increase revenue.
For example: more traffic equals more profit.
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