The digital trend is growing tremendously in Pakistan. With a population of over 200 million, Pakistan has over 157 million mobile subscribers, 67 million active internet users and 59 million smartphone users. The digital medium is considered to be cost-effective with a wider reach and comes with many benefits, as people around the globe get easy access to information anytime and anywhere through multiple digital devices.
Digital means of marketing and communication are considered quicker, result driven and adaptable. Many companies in Pakistan have flourished through a digital approach by providing customers with effective solutions to their problems through compelling marketing strategies.
The growing digital landscape hasn’t gone unnoticed by PTCL – as they themselves have entered the world of digital and their marketing strategy has started to speak for itself. From the creation of their website to entering the social media arena in 2011, PTCL has dedicated a lot of time and resources to creating and developing their digital presence in Pakistan.
Starting with a single Facebook page back in 2011, PTCL has expanded its presence to eight social media platforms to connect with a variety of PTCL stakeholders; from reaching professionals through LinkedIn to reaching the common PTCL user through Facebook. Within the past decade, PTCL’s digital presence has expanded to over 1 million followers on Facebook, 170 thousand followers on Twitter, 8 thousand followers on Instagram, and 140 thousand followers on LinkedIn.
Looking through their pages, one can see that PTCL is achieving several goals. They are reaching the consumer at various touch points in their consumer journey. Through regular and consistent posting on several social media pages, they are generating brand awareness. Through product push posts and partnerships with local and international companies, they are generating interest in their products. Through the facility to purchase their products through their website or social media pages, they are encouraging the purchase of their products. And finally, through regular promotions on their existing products, they are encouraging people to re-purchase.
Apart from reaching customers at various touch points, PTCL is also benefiting from their digital presence by improving their brand image. PTCL has consistently and constantly been involved in CSR initiatives.
From helping small business owners by attending National Incubation Center meetings to promoting environmental conservation through partnerships with Ministry of Climate Change, PTCL has involved itself in several CSR initiatives throughout the country, several of which were initiated by the company itself such as Box of Happiness, Ramzan Mehman, etc. under the umbrella of PTCL Razakaar.
If we take a look at PTCL’s recent digital campaigns, we can see that through videos and press releases posted across several platforms, PTCL is situating itself as an ethical and humane brand in the customer’s mind.
Most recent success stories involve Sherdil, eBilling Campaign, FACE Music Mela 2019, etc. Sherdil was extensively promoted by PTCL through which they situated themselves as a Pakistani brand. The campaign was very successful as it generated positive sentiment towards the brand and improved their engagement on social media – the campaign generated over 18 million impressions.
The eBilling campaign was an extension of PTCL’s CSR initiative of promoting environmental conservation, i.e. giving people the option of getting their bill online and saving paper. The campaign was positively received by customers, with several of them opting for the service.
FACE Music Mela 2019 was an event in Islamabad where PTCL had a gaming booth. People could come and play their favorite online and console games, powered by PTCL’s superior speed – there was a consistent speed of over 200 Mbps and a ping of 1 ms. This campaign helped PTCL situate itself as a connection for gamers and the campaign as a whole was positively received.
PTCL has been around since 1947 and represents Pakistan; therefore, we can witness their participation has started to evolve from just a telecom brand. This is good news for the brand as people have begun to respond in a positive way towards their initiatives.
Under their recent major campaign, Network Transformation Project (NTP) – where PTCL exchanges all across Pakistan are being upgraded to ensure superior customer experience – PTCL has managed to take the audience on board with their improvement in the quality of products and services.
PTCL intends to keep growing digitally to connect with the whole nation and support them in every way possible. The company is taking steps to resolve their network connectivity issues that their valued customers have been facing in the past years. Their efforts are appreciative and results are positively visible, which will continue to increase in years to come.
