Good Publicity Or Bad Publicity?

It is more than obvious that in Marketing there is no ONE right way to achieve an objective. Similarly there isn't good publicity or bad publicity, there is only publicity. Whichever way you swing it, it still works for you. Now we all know, it is only when you have the knowledge can you use it as your competency. So in this post I would like to explain with an example why we should not right-a-way objectify publicity as either good or bad.

Everyone has seen these ads on Facebook. I do have a screen shot of the same but cannot attach it here due to editorial guidelines. Here is the obvious scenario, it is social media marketing and it is targeted towards Indians (mostly boys), a cheesy provocatively dressed girl shown in the ad campaign with the title "Indian Hotties to date" for a very respected Indian Matrimonial website. I personally feel this is a very poor attempt at online marketing as it is a) deceiving b) below standards c) no clear marketing goals.

I often see people use the terminology SEM or SMM very freely, and more than 80% of these people have a prior programming background with zero marketing experience. Why this is an issue, because the notion around the web world is that you can play around with keywords and call yourself an online marketeer. It is very flawed and aptly skewed. Marketing, regardless of the medium follows a set of protocols within a frame work. I obviously don't mean to curb the creativity out of it but still thats true. One cannot just advertise on random(so called targeted) keywords using CPC(Cost per Click) mode of advertising on search engines. There needs to be a clear marketing strategy in place and a communication strategy in place as well.

Somewhere is the web world the notion of advertising ROI is being confused by just click through rates (CTR). Your ad campaign can be measured by just CTR but what after that, how many prospects have been converted. What was the cost that acquisition? Even if you look that this conundrum from a business sense your VCs and angel investors are not going to be happy with just page hits and CTR figures there needs to be money following in.

Now I did digress a little from the Shaadi.com example simple to explain this fact that, unplanned search marketing can get you clicks but are these even prospective customers? forget sustain, can you even retain any of these? The answer is NO or for some optimistic lads a MAY BE. So the next question is why is the company letting money go to drain? Simple answer, lack of focus; It has been seen that not many companies prefer doing Online marketing at their end so they outsource it any online marketing service provider. There is a tough competition for account acquisition too at the marketeer end. Low quality services always are cheaper, basically cutting costs is proportionate to quality after a threshold obviously. A result of the situation, company picks the lowest project bid, sometimes results in blunders like these.

The question for the future, can they now counter this; when the damage has been done? I believe yes that is possible. A good landing page can still do the trick. Instead of getting them directly at the shaadi.com registration page, get them to a page that explains dating ethics and taps the emotional quotient of relationships. The campaign can be diverted from membership sales to relationship information. All in all I believe that publicity is publicity, good or bad it still gets a bunch of people to talk about you just like me.