Topic: Guru.

com Case Study on marketing campaign

What should be the key message of Guru.com's communication campaign and which media should
they use? Why?

Guru.com has been doing a stupendous job by effectively using public relations, events, opt-in email,
online ads, print direct mail, referral programs for harnessing independent professionals and employers.
They’ve been able to reduce their acquisition cost month on month demonstrating the success of their
advertising and marketing campaigns so far. However, there are following caveats that Guru.com should
be aware of as they grow and position themselves besides their competitors.

a. Targeting older segment - older segment of the audience which is more established, more
experienced and more accomplished are left out on the online advertising mediums. This segment
is usually well read and has a very little tolerance for irrelevance and hence can be captured much
more effectively over the offline advertising media such as print, billboards, radio, TV, etc.

b. Category coverage - Though Guru.com has been doing well - considering the rate at which they
have been capturing the independent professionals and the employers. They are admittedly not
doing as well on the category coverage. Online ads are biased by definition as they can only
effectively cover technology savvy audience while they miss out on not-tech audience in the
categories such as finance, legal, sales and marketing, etc.

c. Brand value and recall of Guru.com – Since Guru.com is pitching against veterans such as
monster.com, which has been around for a while and has been using offline advertising media to
establish its brand and identity. If Guru.com wants to be in the race it’ll have to make sure that it
appeals to the monster.com’s audience segment as well. Though this decision will have a
financial impact on the bottom line of guru.com, the non-quantifiable benefits such as brand
image and recall of Guru.com against its competition will add to its valuation and will help it
raise further funds in future.

Guru.com's advertising efforts can be more heavily weighted in the offline world in terms of cost. There
are values in both offline and online, while online efforts are better at targeting, offline efforts are more
significant in building an overreaching brand image.
Online Ad can be better targeted hence it can be more specific. The online advertisement can overtly
target both the independent professionals and the employers. These characteristics are antagonistic to that
of the offline world. The offline ads cannot be biased hence it should be neutral and should appeal to both
the professionals and the employers. A message that calls out the benefit that professionals get by being a
Guru and benefit that the employers accrues by hiring a Guru will effectively convey the value of the
community and contribute towards building the brand.

In the offline world, print ad can be more cost effective and more viral in its impact; also its appeal seems
to be the most captive amongst the targeted audience. The print ad should be complemented with radio
and billboard ads. Budget withstanding the print ad should also be followed by TV ads in the targeted
shows to appeal to the residual audience.