Corporate Marketing has to do with how a organization/company conducts marketing versus product marketing which is more focused on selling specific products to a consumer.
Corporate marketing goes hand in hand with Branding which is essentially how a company portrays itself to their customers. This includes logo, taglines, colors, content distribution and outlets, company mission, vision, value proposition for the company etc.
Every company practices corporate marketing in some type of form whether they know it or not. Different marketing tactics can lean towards corporate marketing such as social media marketing, promotional advertising, broadcast advertising, public relations and so on.
For example, a video with a spokesman that is distributed to the public which is talking about the company is corporate marketing, which many people would think it is product marketing. Public relations is in the corporate marketing realm, as it is more about the overall company and for companies that have investor relations.
Ultimately, marketing that has more to do with corporate image and marketing the overall company versus the product(s) it is selling falls under corporate marketing.
The difference between large and small businesses is that corporate marketing is a lot more defined, executed and much more capitol is involved in a big business. In many cases there are separate groups that handle this and formulate an effective corporate marketing strategy. In small businesses, it is about understanding how to berth the brand and gain credibility as a company versus just selling individual products or services.
Corporate marketing plays a huge part in the longevity of a business. Successful campaigns, have enormous impacts that cause a brand to remain in the cultural consciousness for decades. Here are a couple of tactics many businesses practice that you could use for your organization.
How to develop an effective Corporate Marketing Strategy
The initial step in developing a corporate marketing strategy is defining the objectives clearly. Who does the company want to reach, and what kinds of messages appeal to this target audience? Is the goal to generate more traffic to a website? To increase online sales? Is it to make consumers aware of the organization using brand awareness tactics such as embedding a logo on a globally recognized sports team?
Here are 6 vital Corporate Marketing pieces:
Organizational Identity
Corporate Identity
Corporate Branding
Corporate Image
Corporate Communication
Corporate Reputation
The answers to these questions depend on who the company's actual customers are. Some of this information can be obtained by tracking sales history, social media reports, Google analytics, etc. Social media can be a huge factor in collecting consumer and potential consumer data due to its very detailed analytics certain platforms offer. Some data includes demographics such as gender, age, marital status, geography, internet habits and religious preference.
Additionally, corporations often employ outside data services that are best known for tracking which programs people are watching on television. This is similar to Google analytics in that organization will know exactly where the traffic is coming from.
Once they've identified an objective and who they want to reach, the organization needs to find creative ways to conduct their strategy. Ideas that meet the objectives, target the appropriate market, generate excitement, and meet budget guidelines are then used in the corporate marketing campaign.
Using Television is still a viable advertising route
One reason for TV advertising’s continued success is simply, it works. For example WARC, found that among the 100 global campaigns it has deemed most effective, a greater proportion were TV-led in the 2013 to 2016 time frame than in the prior three years. After leading with social media, WARC saw more advertisers returning to TV to ensure maximum reach.
Research has shown that consumers pay more attention to TV advertising, we all know the only reason why is that we are forced to watch that 30 second advertisement in order to continue our favorite show.
There is a reason most large brands start their annual media planning around television advertisement efforts. TV still commands an enormous share of ad dollars and is incredibility unique in its ability to make an emotional connection with the target audience.
The downside of TV advertising tactics is that it is dispersed across so many devices, apps, and networks. That makes reaching a critical mass of the target audience with the right creative at the right frequency is very hard.
Advertisers are navigating this environment by combining data about consumers with new delivery mechanisms for TV advertising, like interactive ads such as the Xfinity commercial that allows you interact with the commercial by speaking to your remote. Many companies are even using TV ads that can couple with their internet marketing efforts. If a consumer sees an ad on TV, they’ll then see an ad on their digital devices reinforcing that message.
Social media marketing is a trending corporate marketing tactic
Social Media Marketing is primarily and not limited to the management and marketing duties of specific media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat etc. Social media is having an ever growing importance of a corporation's image and the impact it could have in its audience's space. Whilst it has an enormous global reach that organizations can capitalize on.
For example, in 2015 Instagram reported it had approximately more than 77.6 million active Instagram users in the United States. This figure is projected to surpass 111 million in 2019. The list below gives some key insights that corporate marketing needs to take into account;
1 billion people use Instagram.
80% of users are not from the United States.
There is a 39% Women & 30% Male ratio that use the application.
59% of users are below 30.
72% of teens use Instagram EVERYDAY.
72% of users have bought a product on Instagram.
77.6 million Instagram users are from US. Instagram’s Mobile Ad revenue is expected to hit $7 billion in 2018.
Facebook by far is in the top three social media platforms used by businesses. Additionally, it is among one of the most affordable ways to conduct corporate marketing. Larger businesses can fully utilize this with social media marketing concepts and different campaign themes through Facebook before committing to bigger advertising plans that require a larger budget.
Social media outlets allow for businesses to upload pictures and videos about their organization's motives, social responsibilities, services and products. This can be a powerful way to communicate with potential customers, current customers and clients, allowing them to have a preview of a whatever the business wishes to distribute to the public via social media.
Using Facebook as an example again, it uses algorithms that analyze detailed information that millions of users enter into their profiles or search for on the platform. Social media managers can pay a certain price to utilize this key information to deliver targeted advertising to a specific group. The targeting options are almost endless and can appeal to the masses with ad dollars that will be much cheaper than television ads.
For example, a shoe store could use Facebook to calculate how many women over a certain age in a specific city have listed 'shoes' as an interest. Then they could develop an ad for a new trending shoe, and pay for it to appear only on the pages of those people. This is a very powerful tool that corporations utilize.
What does your organization use for its corporate marketing strategy?