(38 votes, average: 4.89 out of 5)
Loading ...So here’s the scenario: small companies primarily run on referrals, while large companies are the ones that have the marketing spend and already have a name in the market. Having established the understanding that marketing spend makes the target audience aware of the opportunity, why are marketing departments and promotional budgets some of the first to get cut during the downtime? Sameerah Siddiqui and Rabia Garib have a discussion about effective marketing strategies during the recession. Do companies really understand what Marketing can do for them in the downtime? Take a listen!
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by rabiagarib. rabiagarib said: RT @tweetmeme StrategizeHer: Ep1 Sameerah Siddiqui and @raiagarib talk about Marketing Strategies in the Downtime http://bit.ly/HTbc0 #ciopk [...]
Social media for small gigs is not only a life-saver but it can be employed for reaching and serving your niche more effectively. One thing which companies are slowly but steadily realizing is that consumers in Pakistan can be better tracked using this new media, which is a good sign for a business as a whole. I’m sure most of you are members/fans of both big and small companies fans pages and other social-media presence. This shows an interest by consumers in what companies has to offer.
Big boys in Pakistan need to allocate significant dollar to internet marketing. Others will follow.
An episode with a social media expert / internet marketer to discuss all this here on CIO WebStudio is going to help many.
Look forward to more exciting content.
So it’s BECOMING THE CHANGE and hoping that others will follow. Sense of community and working for the well being of our people/surrounding is projected as more of a rocket science than anything else. And when you do see people talking about the ills and fixes, one can conclude that all we do is COMPLAINING.
You rightly said that we can’t solve all of our problems, but we can start adding value to whatever we do in bits.
@bilish, Well sure. Considering all education begins in the home, it really makes you wonder what kinds of home environments we each have. So yes, you have hit the nail on the head. However, the average student spends 8am to 2pm in school from the age of 4 to 17 – that’s approximately 5 hours each day multiplied by 5 days a week; that gives us 25 hours of hands-on interaction each week with teachers. The average person goes to school (depending on Inter or Matric) for a minumum of 10 years of their life. Add the amount of passive interaction each student has with the teacher because of homework and assignments – While the role of parenting is CRITICAL, the role of the teacher is life-altering. You’re right – the debate is neverending story.
As Sameerah mentioned in the discussion, corporations usually have some form of CSR or education program ongoing.. I know we’ve got a program coming up that precisely addresses this issue which I’ll be able to talk more about in a few weeks.
At the end of it all, we have to realize that education and learning takes time. You can Tweet all you want and make your communication streams more precise and crisp, but it’s going to take as long as it does for you to THINK of what to Tweet about. The strategies and plans that we have in place, will take decades before a holistic assessment can be made whether or not that was the right or wrong choice… and then new strategists come into place and go back to the drawing board..
The most pertinent resolve I can come up with is this: get involved. If you know PRECISELY what is wrong with the system, AND have a solution you’d like to propose for further discussion, get involved and take the lead yourself. Government and enterprise will eventually follow, but because these are OUR communities and WE know what our future can or cannot hold for us, we have to get involved.
Make the contribution as specific as possible. We can’t solve ALL problems, but we can certainly hope to solve one…. one at a time contributing towards a roadmap…. and yes… this CAN go on forever..
@rabia, it’s a debatable issue and needs input from many of the stakeholders i.e., industry, academia and students. And I would like to have opinions of people out there on the role of teaching methodology employed especially for marketing.
Majority is taught by feeding books, and there are no second opinions on that we have been miserably failed the way we teach our students. We always give them fish, but nobody bothers to tell/show/demonstrate how to fish. TRAINING OF TEACHERS (TOT) is an area we should focus.
The isolated incidents happen because most of kids out there are not groomed and encouraged as thinking individuals. But that’s the secondary issue which comes a bit later in anyone’s life. Right? The role of parenting is instrumental in all this, because that’s where learning starts.
How can we motivate? No magic pills here, so let me list down factors that need to be discussed
> Parenting
> Reading habits of students
> Training of trainers
> Lack of research culture
> Less number of curios minds
> Is our society good enough to groom future leaders?
> Who are the opinion leaders? Are there any?
> ….This can go forever.
I am interested to know how we in our capacities should go about making more bridges (corrective actions, policy issues, feedback of respective stakeholders etc).
BTW, Excellent discussion!
@bilish, Thanks for sharing the perspective, Bilish. But let’s be fair – are students as motivated to learn? The problem really lies in the entire ecosystem. It’s always interesting to note that all good work worth talking about, is done in small silos and isolated incidents; bad work, however, spills over everywhere.. that’s how we hear more about it.
But yes, in general, there is a real problem. The fact that you’re stepping up and identifying the crux of the issue, it’s more than the step in the forward direction!
The relevance issue of marketing practices with theory taught during marketing courses is something which I faced as a student. The only thing which teachers do talk is marketing activities (mostly observed in the news-clippings, ads etc) which are actually the result of both deliberate and emergent strategies. How companies do come up with such strategies is mostly known to the marketing and creative people in and out of the company. Instructors are not qualified to teach, because who cares if you cram, teach and torture kids with textbook stuff and expect them to re-produce non-sense in exams. Majority of the teachers are not tech savvy so they hardly know where to look for updates about brands, industries and business. Being tech-savvy it helps a teacher in our part of the world where marketing literature is non-existent, to have access to online opinions (blogs, forums, facebook groups & fan pages, twitter, podcasts etc). If teachers can not engage students, it is because he/she knows irrelevant material.
Wake up people! Learning has a new model now, so use your textbooks only as a framework because one thing is very constant and that’s CHANGE! Add online resources which I mentioned to your reading -list.
People from industry are a fix. So I do agree with that part. They are likely to have access to scenarios to which students can relate. So for teaching business you have to employ a resourceful person and not someone who got good grades, which unfortunately is a norm.
I’ll share my opinions about the role of social media for small gigs in a future comment.
Good to hear that! Well, you know what they say, don’t you? Nose knows best!!
@rabia garib,
@Rabia: Little did i know when i first started that this was the best time to start my particular business because foreign clients were looking to outsource to dedicated service providers in a big way! And thats where I come in, haha
and your half face (its mostly just your nose really) was quite expressive, so i don’t think you have anything to worry about
Looking forward to watching episodes 3&4 then! And yes to echo Ken, please keep the discussion relevant to Pakistani businesses!
Thanks to you both (Rabia & Sameerah) for taking the time out to do this and also for replying to comments here.
Salma.
@Ken Neil, Ken! Many thanks for this – I agree. I think the discussion was extremely critical, yielding a positive change.
@Ken Neil, Thanks Ken! The essence of marketing itself is up for interpretation by each individual..
And if you thought Sameerah’s sense of humor was intact during these discussions, please stay tuned to future episodes!
@Sameerah Siddiqui, This discussion is actually getting to be a great deal more insightful than the episode, Sameerah!
Nadeem sahab – Thanks so much for leaving your thoughts behind for us to ponder over. I was quite horrified at your comments for the following reasons:
One, that yes, Dr. Philip Kotler is very much alive. Second, perhaps your browser isn’t functioning so as to stream the entire discussion. Sameerah has actually addressed the fact that the marketing function is so sadly downplayed across organizations. I don’t think she’s alluded to the theory of Marketing anywhere. After all, Dr. Kotler has the rights to that theoretical knowledge – surely not her!
Even you cannot overlook the fact that functions such as marketing and PR and just generally good networking strategies can enable companies to go a long way. If you have to innovate and be creative to stretch your invested dollar the same length as before, so be it. Businesses don’t seem to have an option. The purpose of the episode was not to tell people what should or is being done to marketing during the crunch time; it’s to highlight what CAN be done.
Theories that we studied in books, are open for discussion. With the passage of time, these theories are altered or go through some revision. If the case was that all of us followed theory down to the letter, we’d all be highly similar – the free market demands that we apply as much innovation and creativity atop those strategies to survive.
On a parting note (so as to prepare for another round of comment-wrestling with you), here’s an interesting set of QnA that Dr. Kotler’s site offers – Please don’t pass a judgment now that HE too doesn’t know what he is on about!
Hi there everyone,
First of all I’d like to thank Salma, Huma and Ken for their positive responses and productive suggestions – its comments like these that make what we do so worth while (and yes we think there many opportunities in Pakistan).
Nadeem, Mr. Philip Kotler is very much alive at 78 – hence I hope he wont be “turning in his grave” for many years to come!
*laffs – Errr.. Huma – not the right place to apply for a job!!! Please email me at rabia . garib @ ciopakistan. com (remove the spaces in the email address) and let’s see what we can do.
@rabia garib, i want to join your team …. i really looking for the people who doing all this , i would have decided to have my own but definitly its not easy to get started on my own .. so i really wanted to be the team member.. so is there any possiblity to have a place for me.. iam teaching since alst 12 years very soon complted my intermediate and than i did my job along with my studeis , i have done my MBA in IT. worked as a trainer for my colleges and schools. so if my expereince could be the palce inyour company do send me your interst to my my email. huma_cap@hotmail.com regards.
huma
Additionally I’d also like to add that she is one of the few people who has spoken so positively about Pakistan and its potential.
Actually I disagree with the earlier comment by Mr. Nadeem. She is talking about the practical applications of Marketing in Pakistan – not the text book methods. As a marketeer I find her views facinating. She’s covered a range of topics, keeping her sense of humour in tact, a real asset to her company (and please note, she hardly taked about her company making this a generally relevant interview)
Kudos!
She is butchering the very essence of marketing. Kotler and Levitt must be turning in their graves.
@Salma Jafri, Oooh! Well, congratulations to you! One can argue (myself included) that this is probably a MORE opportune time to start a company than any other, but well, I’ve just got half-a-face on this show!
You’ve actually outlined episodes 3&4 of this show, since I’ve quizzed Sameerah about Analytics and its link to Marketing Strategies. Being proactive and interactive as opposed sitting around all thumbs, waiting for the world to change.
On another note, you should watch a few episodes of PakCrunch here on the WebStudio where Imran and Umair talk about how small businesses can use specific online branding strategies to promote their organizations.. From SEO to social marketing, I’m sure there is something you can fish out from there. As long as people come to your website URL, it’s upto you to guide them the rest of the way and convert or let loose.
Don’t worry about the length of the commentary – I think there is much we can learn from all those who take time out to watch the programs!
Sameerah, for future topics of discussion, I’d love to see some interesting and innovative ways small businesses and even sole proprietorships can leverage social media (and other “free” tools) for marketing. I’m especially interested since I’m a small business that just started in Feb 2009 and is now a 3 person team with more people being added every month. I’m building my website but I don’t want to start offering services and then find a target market for them; instead I want to find out what people want and how i can help them within my skill set and then offer that service (as you might see I subscribe to the seth godin school of marketing
)
Rabia, even for big companies, marketing, especially the online version, really should be viewed as an indispensable tool today. Finance departments can’t pressurize you if you all you’re investing is your time and effort and using freely available tools to build a better brand image. I think the discussion should be between traditional advertising (and big bucks spending) versus building goodwill (such as offering excellent customer service); the latter is much more useful to your brand, spreads virally and ultimately much more cost-effective too.
p.s. sorry about the length of this post; could write entire blogs on this!
@Salma Jafri, Hey there Salma!
Thanks for stopping by. At the end of the day, no matter how much companies know how important the customer is, at times, pressure from the finance department (and the boss who is yelling out for immediate results!) is often too much. We’ve seen it time and again where customers feel neglected not because companies don’t care – it’s because everyone panics.
Sameerah makes some great points, but I’m wondering how they are applied by companies… What do you think?
Hi there Salma,
Thank you so much for your positive feedback!
Rabia and I are working on a few episodes which address some of the things I see in the Marketing/Education domain. Most of the topics are from acual experiences so I hope you find them relevant and useful.
Your feedback and comments on topics you’d like us to discuss would be great!
Spread the word around!
Hi Rabia & Sameerah,
Really enjoyed the discussion. I agree with Sameerah w.r.t teachers who don’t have field experience teaching marketing in schools (this happened to me in IBA no less!).
I also think that she’s right in stating that marketing first and foremost requires you to know your customer and find people who are your target market – your group of loyal followers. Big brand loyalty seems to be slowly being replaced by small businesses who actually make the effort to reach out to their customer and offer some level of individualized service.
This strategy also works really well for start-ups and small businesses, so I’m looking forward to seeing the next episode where you said you’ll focus on small biz marketing.
Cheers on the initiative and good luck!
Salma.
WordPL