Hyderabad-Based Achyut Menon runs a recruitment agency that specialises in providing jobs to Indians returning from abroad. With hundreds of firms offering such services countrywide, Menon realised he could cut through the clutter only by creating a unique “buzz” about his services. He started an interactive blog that sought to address queries on topics like work culture and emerging sectors in India. This soon began receiving a stream of enquiries from not only job-seeking NRIs but also international recruitment firms.Welcome to the new world of online buzz marketing, where the art of generating “word-of-mouth” has taken a massive technological leap since the early days of simple publicity. Rather than blitzing the airways with “low-recall” TV commercials, corporates are discovering the efficacy of deploying new-age digital media like blogs, online communities, newsgroups and forums, to create a sustained buzz about their offerings.“My blog acted as the best way to attract potential job-seekers and also helped create a strong brand-name,” says Menon, founder of Options Executive Search. That, in essence, is what Internet-based buzz marketing encapsulates. It employs the tried and tested gambit of slipping into the conversational pathways of those who either use products, or make them. “The buzz is started by our customers, who discuss our products through blogs. There are also trade blogs where someone posts a query like ‘does anyone know a product which can .’ We post replies directly to such questions, revealing our corporate identity,” says Vikas Joshi of Harbinger Group, an e-learning solution provider.Often, employees are encouraged to contribute to the blog. The end idea, of course, is to boost sales. “About a third of our sales is an indirect result of the company blog,” says Pramod Harith, a marketing manager at MeritTrac Services. MeritTrac is a job skills assessment company whose blog encourages feedback from students and employees on their “test-taking” experiences.In an age when expensive advertising channels seem less and less able to move the needle, blogs and online forums have the added advantage of being virtually free. With smaller companies having negligible advertising budgets, such digital methods have come as a great help.Besides the cost factor, what makes web-based buzz marketing tick is the credibility it commands. Instead of coming from a faceless corporate channel, “buzz” message comes from the most trusted endorser — the end-user.The method also helps in another challenging area, attracting employees. Companies like Frito Lays routinely blog about work-culture to win the much-talked-about “war for talent”. “If you have to reach out to next generation of workers, you have to be interactive and demystify yourself. It acts as a key differentiator,” says blog consultant Gautam Ghosh. The web is also seen as the most accessible way to reach customers spread across diverse geographies, Ghosh says.While the online advertising and marketing industry is currently valued at Rs 280 crore, industry-watchers expect it to grow to Rs 500 crore by 2010. Despite the “buzz”, however, experts caution that ethical issues related to blogging need to be addressed as well. “The moderator has to ensure that all viewpoints — both positive and negative — are reflected on the site and that employees are not coerced to write for blogs,” says Leroy Alvares of Tribal DDB, a digital marketing agency.
