Digitisation is a key foundation and enabler of the ‘mine of the future’. More and more mining companies are turning to digital technologies as a necessary way to restore and improve agility and flexibility in the value chain, and increase their robustness of business and industry intelligence, especially in terms of marketing. This is Part 1 of a 2-part series.
A big part of becoming an ‘intelligent mine’ means investing both the time and effort in new innovations and technologies in marketing to help ensure best reach and future profitability.
Digital marketing as a driver of change
Within the mining industry, digitisation is a force that changes the nature of companies and their marketing interaction with their stakeholders and investors at every step of the value chain. Core Consultants brings you five digital marketing strategies to help your company optimise the performance of its digital marketing program:
- Keep your digital marketing strategy relevant
Consider your company’s marketing strategy to be a ‘living’ thing that needs to be continually updated based on new information – keep the strategy relevant to deliver optimal outcomes. This might include a marketing automation system, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and data collection and monitoring tools – which all help to keep your firm’s marketing strategy relevant and prevent it from becoming ‘stale’.
- Nurture a conversation with your audience
Effective digital marketing encourages true conversation with your audience – understanding your investor’s journey and how to approach them is key. With the rise of the Internet and social media, investors have developed new expectations. They no longer just want to be ‘pitched’ your company, product or service – instead, they expect to be engaged in conversation and ultimately build a relationship.
Investors choose businesses that are both authoritative and helpful, and it’s important to provide value while keeping up a conversation. Mining investors understand that key to delivering a good mining project, is having a strong management team. A good management team will find the right project and will ultimately deliver. A marketing strategy that consistently provides value helps investors recognise the team as knowledgeable and approachable—and ultimately more worthy of their trust and money.
- Be present
Trusted companies are those that ‘show up’ consistently. Consider how often your followers can expect to hear from you in their feeds or inboxes. Decide how often you can realistically provide valuable content and plan out social media updates, video content, podcasts, or email newsletters accordingly. You set the pace, but the important part is to engage your investors.
When you can consistently provide quality marketing content at a pace your investors can predict, you’ll not only be highlighting your brand, but you’ll also reinforce the idea that you are available to deliver projects and provide solutions consistently as well.
- Focus on results
If you aren’t generating results from your marketing strategies, you aren’t meeting the long-term goals of your company. You need to push beyond the limits of traditional marketing metrics to deliver the best possible outcomes. Ultimately, you want to work towards building a long-term investor base and earn the business of high-quality investors.
A focus on results means:
- Mapping out your investors’ journey and interactions with your company
- Assigning values to customer interactions
- Designing shared KPIs with your investors
- Determine any unseen value gaps – such as virtual roadshows / virtual meetings
- Regularly assess your business performance
The way your marketing performs goes beyond any strategies you implement. In order to determine how impactful your digital marketing program is, you’ll need to regularly assess your business performance based on your marketing to truly understand where your company is heading. This way, you are always assured of ‘proactive’ change, rather than ‘reactive’ change.
Conducting a routine digital marketing audit, for instance, will help you distinguish which specific marketing strategies are serving you, and which ones require a different approach or a bit of a boost. It would be hard to know where your efforts could use a tune-up – or complete redirection for the sake of your ROI – if you do not frequently perform these checkups. Regular reviews are great for creating positive change, seeing what’s working and what isn’t, and bolstering the weaker areas of your digital marketing strategy.
For more on Intelligent Marketing, see ‘Part 2: Delivering an effective digital marketing strategy’ on how mining companies that commit to delivering superior digital marketing communications and investor relations (IR) content for their constituent stakeholders, keep them coming back, grow their investment base, maintain loyal investors and improve share liquidity.
There are so many effective digital marketing techniques ranging from social and email marketing to virtual roadshows. For advice on drawing up an effective digital marketing plan, and for more on how to optimise your digital marketing strategy, email us to arrange a call.
