Richard BRANDSON Marketing

If there’s one thing Richard Branson is well-known for its knowing how to market a product or service well. In arecent Trinidad Guardian blog, he shares his advice for getting marketing right…

A recent study by the Nielsen Company revealed that while 47 per cent of consumers around the world trust traditional paid advertising, a huge 92 per cent trust earned promotions (such as word-of-mouth recommendations from friends). Earned media also involves messages that advertisers don’t fully control, such as online reviews and social media posts.

As such, it’s important to keep up to date with the latest technology and ways of working, as well as knowing the terms that people are using to talk about it.

Image by Owen Billcliffe

“I put my foot in the alphabet soup recently when a conversation with one of our marketing groups turned to the need for ‘UGC’,” Branson says. “Rather than asking ‘UG . What?’ I instead said, ‘Oh yes, I remember UGC—the French company that acquired Virgin Cinema Group.’

“I got some blank, mystified stares before someone said, ‘That may be so, Richard, but this UGC is ‘user-generated content’. You know, like earned media, that kind of stuff.’

“Fortunately, the conversation improved from then on because it turned out that I have been an active promoter of UGC for decades. The idea at its core is to give customers a forum to interact with your product or service, share their feedback and tell other perspective buyers just how good your brand is. Two can play this game!”

The strategy you decide on should be tailored to your business.

However, he adds that you shouldn’t get too distracted by the terminology.

“Engaging with your customers is critical, and the strategy you decide on should be tailored to your business.

Image by Jack Brockway

“Discussions about this can be full of buzzwords about ‘social engagement’ and keeping the right ‘content’ out there, about ‘social signals’ that are ‘quality indicators’, or about the ‘ripple effect’ can occur when paid and earned media converge and create a digital marketing tidal wave.”

It’s also important not to neglect your internal customers – your employees and colleagues. “They are likely to generate your brand’s most influential ‘content’, so make sure you are also putting effort into developing or maintaining open internal communications,” Branson advises.

User generated content is something that Virgin has been involved in promoting for a long time, even if Branson didn’t realise it at the time.

“Years ago I used to delight in cold-calling Virgin Atlantic passengers in their limos (which we provided) after their arrival at London’s Heathrow airport. I’d ask how they’d enjoyed the flight and whether they had any suggestions about how we could do things better.

“I suppose this strategy could have been called ‘RGC: Richard-Generated-Content’. It was always a great source of customer feedback and a wonderful exercise in public relations.”