Welcome to MENA Review, the newsletter for marketers who want to learn how to grow their business and reach their customers in the Middle East and North Africa region. In this issue, we will explore one of the most effective digital marketing techniques. This technique is called the Surround Sound Method, and it can help you to increase your brand awareness, trust, and sales, as well as to improve your SEO ranking and organic traffic. We will also show you how you can apply this method to your own product or service and achieve similar results as Aramex, one of the leading logistics companies in the MENA region.
What is it?
The Surround Sound Method is a digital marketing strategy that allows your target audience to find your product or service through third-party search results such as review sites or listicles. It works best when your keyword is accompanied by organic search phrases like “best” or “top”. For example, if you are selling a fitness app, you want your app to appear in articles like “Top 10 Fitness Apps in 2023” or “Best Apps to Stay Fit and Healthy”. This way, you can leverage the credibility and authority of the third-party sources and increase your brand awareness and trust among potential customers.
How to use it?
To implement the Surround Sound Method, you need to follow these steps:
- Identify your target audience and their pain points. What are they searching for online? What are their needs and wants? What are their challenges and frustrations?
- Conduct keyword research and find the most relevant and popular search terms that your audience is using. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to find out the search volume, competition, and difficulty of each keyword.
- Create a list of third-party sites that rank well for your keywords and have a large and engaged audience. These could be review sites, blogs, magazines, podcasts, videos, or social media platforms. You can use tools like Moz or Ahrefs to analyse the domain authority, traffic, and backlinks of each site.
- Reach out to the owners or editors of these sites and pitch your product or service. Explain how your offering can benefit their audience and why they should feature it in their content. You can offer them a free trial, a discount, a commission, or a testimonial in exchange for their promotion. You can also create your own content and submit it as a guest post or a sponsored post.
- Monitor and measure the results of your campaign. Track the number of impressions, clicks, leads, and sales that you generate from each site. Use tools like Google Analytics or HubSpot to track your performance and ROI. You can also ask for feedback from the site owners and the users to improve your product or service.
Other ways to get third-party websites to cover your content:
Content syndication:
This means republishing your content on other websites that have a similar or larger audience than yours. You can do this for free by reaching out to the site owners or editors and pitching your content, or you can use paid tools that help you distribute your content to multiple platforms. Content syndication can help you increase your exposure, traffic, and backlinks, but you need to be careful about duplicate content issues and SEO best practices
Guest posting:
This means writing a new and original piece of content for another website in your niche or industry. You can do this by finding relevant and authoritative sites that accept guest posts, and following their guidelines and requirements. Guest posting can help you establish your credibility, authority, and reputation, as well as to generate leads and referrals. However, guest posting is not scalable and requires more time and effort than content syndication
Media outreach:
This means getting your content featured or mentioned by journalists, bloggers, influencers, or other media outlets. You can do this by creating newsworthy, valuable, or interesting content that appeals to their audience, and sending them a personalized and compelling pitch. Media outreach can help you gain more exposure, trust, and social proof, as well as to improve your SEO ranking and organic traffic. However, media outreach is not easy and requires a lot of research, networking, and follow-up
Embedding:
This means adding your content to your website or blog using embed codes or URLs. You can do this by using various embed blocks, such as video, audio, image, or HTML, that allow you to display content from other sources on your site. Embedding can help you enhance your content, provide more value and information to your readers, and increase your engagement and retention. However, embedding can also affect your site speed, performance, and design, so you need to use it wisely and sparingly
Why it works?
The Surround Sound Method has several benefits for your marketing goals. First, it can help you reach a wider and more qualified audience who are already interested in your niche and looking for solutions. Second, it can help you improve your SEO ranking and organic traffic by generating backlinks from high-quality sites. Third, it can help you increase your conversion rate and sales by providing social proof and positive reviews from other users. Fourth, it can help you reduce your marketing costs and efforts by letting others do the promotion for you.
Case study: Aramex
Now that you know what the Surround Sound Method is and how to use it, let’s look at an example of how Aramex, one of the leading logistics companies in the MENA region, used this method to enhance its brand image and customer loyalty.
Objective
Aramex wanted to showcase its values, culture, and social impact, as well as to highlight the stories and experiences of its customers, employees, and partners.
Execution
Aramex launched a digital marketing campaign called “Delivering Happiness” in 2019. The campaign included a microsite, a video series, and a social media campaign that featured the company’s vision, mission, and values, as well as its CSR initiatives, awards, and achievements. The campaign also invited the visitors and the followers to share their stories and feedback with the company and to join the company’s online community.
To increase the reach and effectiveness of the campaign, Aramex used the Surround Sound Method to leverage the authority and influence of third-party sources. The company collaborated with several media outlets and platforms that ranked well for keywords related to logistics, e-commerce, and CSR in the MENA region. These sources included Forbes Middle East, Campaign ME, and LinkedIn.
Results
By using the Surround Sound Method, Aramex was able to create a consistent and coherent brand message across multiple channels and platforms. The company was able to increase its brand awareness and reputation, as well as to improve its customer satisfaction and retention. The company also received positive feedback and recognition from the public and the media, as well as from its customers, employees, and partners.
We hope you enjoyed this issue of MENA Review and learned something new and useful. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please feel free to contact us at info@mena-review.com. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest updates and insights on marketing in the MENA region. See you next week!