It’s no secret that social media has revolutionized the way people interact and share information. Social media platforms have changed the way people perceive and connect with brands, and has impacted business at a fundamental level. Sage Middle East, the leading provider of business management solutions, can vouch for the power of an effective social media strategy as a boost in business and productivity.
“As of today, there are more people on Facebook than the entire population of China,” remarked Ankush Mehra, Marketing Manager for Sage ME. “Thanks to the invention of the “Selfie” craze, and digital photo-sharing platforms such as Instagram,Twitter and Facebook, we see a phenomena whereby more photos have been taken in the past two years than in the entire history of photography,” he continued.
“People are spending up to 2 hours per day accessing social media, whether it be for business purposes such as networking or interacting with customers online, or simply to keep up social appearances. Therefore, the more tech-savvy and digital our customer base becomes, the more we must strive to fulfil those expectations,” he added.
At the 2015 Sage Summit, it was estimated that the company had garnered close to 198 million impressions on digital media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and the company’s custom website, with over 298 million impressions from 69,472 Twitter mentions by 12,539 users, resulting in an 80% increase in YOY mentions and a 1419% increase in YOY impressions this year alone.
Such burgeoning statistics are definitely a nod in the right direction for Sage ME’s marketing team, and sheds light on the crucial role the Marketing Manager plays in garnering continuous social media interest from its followers in the GCC.
The power of E-marketing and Sage’s effective social media campaigns empower its marketing managers to provide improved intelligence to their teams regarding lead generation activities and the accuracy of marketing campaigns’ ROI. This is done by attending events and exhibitions across the GCC, keeping tabs on digital marketing trends and social media marketing, as well as engaging effective, target-driven PR campaigns to keep their stellar reputation in check.
Sage’s secret weapon for tracking customer inquiries and measuring customer satisfaction levels is two-fold: Firstly, their in-house Sage CRM- a hi-tech customer relationship management tool which gained huge popularity in the GCC- is utilized to track all marketing initiatives and responses, from inquiry stage through to lead follow-ups and lead conversions. The system is also used to keep track of all marketing statistics and outcomes in terms of results and costs incurred for campaigns and events.
Secondly, since Sage uses a combination of online and offline marketing to reach out to GCC consumers, their Automated Response Tracking system assist them in tracking, measuring and reviewing their marketing initiatives to ensure that both their digital and non-digital marketing spend is better qualified in terms of ROI.
“Sage CRM has been developed with the digital age in mind,” Ankush said. “We use it as a tool for building lists for future marketing initiatives based on our customers’ e-marketing preferences, as well as their feedback from social networking sites, for example, our company’s LinkedIn or Facebook sites,” he added.
“In terms of marketing strategies, people want interactions with suppliers to be simple. New modern technological advances are being built every day. We are investing time and effort in e-marketing; that’s the future, and that’s how we will continue to position ourselves as thought-leaders in a digital age.”