By Adam Wakefield

On Tuesday, 22 November, the Randpark Ridge Golf played host to the Duo Marketing networking breakfast, where running campaigns in a digital-first environment and the importance of good storytelling were discussed.

Dominque Pienaar, Duo Marketing’s regional manager for Gauteng, told guests that the firm has worked on over 16 different digital campaigns, but started its journey initially as a traditional PR marketing agency.

“The journey to digital happened quite quickly and the opportunities are immense,” Pienaar said.

She then went on to detail campaigns that had been run for Red Panda, Huawei Enterprise, Telviva, Entersekt, and Vox Telecom. Among all these campaigns, Duo Marketing were able to derive lessons which marketers can apply to their own campaigns, both present and in the future.

These included quality being more important than quantity, the importance of using video where possible, getting buy-in from all stakeholders prior to the launching of a campaign, being able to tweak a campaign along the way, understanding not every social media platform is right for your business, and contextual content is critical.

“Digital is not one size fits all. Content planning, message alignment and a strong brand voice are essential. There is more to digital than boosted posts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn,” Pienaar said in concluding her remarks.

She was followed by Vox Telecom head of online, Vera Romano, who focused on how effective storytelling online equates to effective marketing and PR.

“Life is about a journey and telling a story and this is the big link-up between marketers and PR. Marketers are starting to do what PR people have always known,” Romano said.

She preceded to play a few examples of excellent storytelling through video.

One was a video published in 2012 by Responsible Young Drivers, which focused on the difficulty of texting and driving. Another was the first edition in what has become an acclaimed campaign by Dove, which looks at beauty and how people perceive themselves.

The videos were published in 2012 and 2013 respectively, and as of November 2016 had over 15 and 67 million views each respectively. For Romano, they both displayed a critical principle when marketing online.

“They realised that the way to talk to people is through compelling content and the way to do that is to make them feel,” Romano said.

“It’s not about campaigns. It’s about being relevant a couple of years down the line. Great content is, in fact, great PR. The two work hand in hand and that makes a really great brand. A brand is about people.”

Asked often “Where do you start?”, Romano says that with great content, as exhibited by both the Responsible Young Drivers and Dove videos, you do not need a large budget to produce excellent content.

“You don’t have to have millions to have really great content. Start wherever you want to. Just start producing something,” Romano suggested.

For more information, visit www.duomarketing.co.za. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.

*Image courtesy of Axel Buhrmann and Duo Marketing