1. Rise of ad blockers
Ad blockers are becoming increasingly popular, making it more difficult for digital marketers to reach their target audience through traditional online advertising methods. Marketers will need to find new ways to reach consumers who are using ad blockers, such as through influencer marketing or content marketing.

2. Explosion of social media platforms
With the number of social media platforms constantly growing, it can be difficult for digital marketers to keep up and effectively reach their target audience. Marketers will need to become experts at utilizing multiple platforms and understanding how to reach their target audience on each one. Each platform has a different purpose and synching their purpose to what a brand needs is the role of a social media professional today.

3. Increased competition (the evergreen variable)
With the sheer amount of content being produced and shared online, it can be difficult for digital marketers to make their content stand out and capture the attention of their target audience. Marketers will need to find new and creative ways to make their content more engaging and shareable. Digital marketing has leveled the playing field its no longer about the budgets but about how you understand your audience and their needs and share content that helps them.

4. Growing importance of AI
Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly important in the digital marketing landscape and is being used for things like personalization and automation. Marketers will need to become proficient in using AI to stay competitive and maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns. Today ChatGPT is the talk of the town and is expected to disrupt a lot of businesses and services, digital marketers of today will have to enhance their capabilities with AI in their arsenal.

5. Rise of the privacy & data security
With the increasing concerns about data privacy and security, digital marketers will need to become experts in navigating the complex regulations surrounding data collection and use. They will also need to be transparent with consumers about how their data is being used and give them control over their own information. One key aspect to consider is first-party data collection rather than relying too much on other platforms and mediums, some brands have begun this journey and other still waiting for the axe to fall.

6. Need for real-time data and analytics
With the fast-paced nature of the digital landscape, digital marketers will need to be able to quickly analyze and act on data in real time in order to stay ahead of the competition. They will need to be able to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and make adjustments on the fly. The consumer today wants everything at a click of a button and thereby mandates digital marketers to not lose on moment marketing with the help of real-time data.

Overall, digital marketers will need to stay on top of the latest trends and technologies in order to be successful in 2023. They will need to be able to adapt quickly to changes in the digital landscape and be able to effectively reach and engage with their target audience.

In the past, consumers would go through a linear journey, starting with awareness, moving on to consideration, and finally making a purchase. However, today's consumers are constantly looking for information and making decisions on the go. This is where the concept of "micro-moments" comes in. Micro-moments are the critical touchpoints within today's consumer journey where decisions are made, and preferences are shaped. In order to stay ahead of the competition, brands need to understand and capitalize on these micro-moments to build their brand and generate leads. Today most FMCG/Low involvement brands focus on getting their engagement right by celebrating those Micro-moments and exploiting them to generate business.

So, what exactly are micro-moments and how can brands use them to their advantage? Micro-moments are defined as "intent-rich moments when a person turns to a device to act on a need or a want." These moments include things like "I want to know," "I want to go," "I want to buy," and "I want to do." By understanding and identifying these micro-moments, brands can create tailored experiences that meet the specific needs and wants of their target audience. In plain words it a spur of the moment needs that is satiated by brands who have mastered this art.e

Coca-Cola is one brand that does an outstanding job when it comes to leveraging Micro-moments and real time experiences. The company realized that consumers often turn to their smartphones to find nearby vending machines and make a purchase. To capitalize on this micro-moment, Coca-Cola developed an app that allows users to locate the nearest vending machine and even pay for their purchase through the app. This not only makes it easier for consumers to purchase their products, but also increases brand awareness by keeping Coca-Cola top of mind during that micro-moment. Another example from Coca-Cola, they recognized the "I want to do" micro-moment and leveraged it to create a campaign that encouraged customers to share photos of themselves enjoying Coca-Cola with friends and family. By doing this, Coca-Cola was able to tap into the emotions associated with spending time with loved ones and create a positive association with their brand.

Another example is Domino's Pizza, they understood that consumers often turn to their smartphones when they're craving pizza and want to make a quick and easy order. To capitalize on this micro-moment, Domino's developed an easy-to-use mobile ordering system that allows customers to order and track their pizzas in real-time. This not only improves the customer experience but also increases brand awareness and lead generation by being there for the customer at the moment they crave pizza.

Real-time engagement is also a key aspect of micro-moments, and brands that can engage with consumers in real-time can create a more meaningful and personalized experience. Real-time engagement is also crucial for brands looking to build their brand and generate leads. By engaging with customers in real-time, brands can create personalized experiences that build trust and loyalty.

One real-life example of a brand effectively using micro-moments is the fast-food chain, McDonald's. McDonald's recognized that many of their customers were searching for information on their menu items during the "I want to know" micro-moment. In response, they created a mobile-optimized menu that made it easy for customers to find the information they needed quickly and easily. This not only improved the customer experience but also helped McDonald's to stand out as a brand that understands and meets the needs of their customers.

Another example of this is the H&M clothing brand, who used real-time engagement to increase their social media following and drive sales. The brand used a social media listening tool to track mentions of their products and then sent personalized messages to customers who had tweeted about wanting a specific item of clothing. This not only created a more personalized experience for the customer but also increase lead generation as the customer was more likely to make a purchase after the personal engagement.

In conclusion, micro-moments and real-time engagement are crucial for brands looking to build their brand and generate leads in today's fast-paced digital landscape. By understanding and capitalizing on these moments, brands can create tailored experiences that meet the specific needs and wants of their target audience, building trust and loyalty in the process.

Unfortunately focusing unidimensionally on ‘sales’ is an erroneous way to measure marketing, as it is one part of a much larger equation that could result in businesses believing that their marketing was either very effective or lacking.

To judge the effectiveness of the Marketing efforts, first, there needs to be a good brand and marketing strategy containing key elements like

• A clear Vision for business growth with specific - Goals (short & long term), success parameters, profit margins, customer base, geographical reach etc articulated in detail
• An Effective Brand Strategy consisting of sharp Positioning, Differentiation, & Value Proposition
• Identifying Solutions to Customer Pain Points
• And finally Demand generation and tracking measures

And since sales do not happen in a vacuum, it does require many things to come together at the right time and place in order for a cold lead to turn warm and converted.

In my view there are 6 key pillars of judging Marketing Effectiveness
1. Market Measures
2. Engagement Measures
3. Customer Measures
4. Revenue Measures
5. Risk Measures
6. Cognitive and Behavioural Measures

Effectiveness in Marketing - Market Measures (mainly the external environment or the marketplace)
• Brand Awareness- The media exposure and coverage created by all forms of communication, Marketing & PR campaigns
• Share of Voice - How much of the conversations in your segment is dominated by your brand. What percentage does your brand contribute vs. competition in relation to the overall market segment in which your brand operates
• Brand Perception & Clarity - How effectively does your brand message get carried by media? Does it get covered verbatim? Do your customers use the same message when they converse about your brand or solution? The goal is to ensure that your brand's message is absolutely clear, reliable, strong, easily repeatable and consistent

Effectiveness in Marketing - Engagement Measures (the result of the customers interaction with the brand touchpoints and its results)
• Social Measures - These are dialogs between customers and the brand across social platforms via shares, likes, retweets, comments or interactions.
• Engagement rates - The idea is to create and engage with comments posted by others in a respectful manner and without overtly pushing your solution. Tracking via analytics might not be helpful however, if your comments result in more likes or further engagement then this method might be working for you
• Analytics and Conversion Goals - Google Analytics is a fantastic tool as it keeps track of your visitor’s journey. Being able to track their activity, behaviours, actions etc. Knowing what your conversion goals are, the costs of conversion, did visitors interact while on your site, the number of pages visited etc should definitely be measured and convert these observations into actionable insights for future campaigns
• Website Optimization - At Its most basic level your website’s purpose is to convert traffic into customers. Keep metrics to look for
• Unique Visitors - The total number of unique visitors
• Traffic Sources - Breakup of Direct, Indirect and Referral traffic
• New Vs Returning Visitors - Low returning visitors usually means that content on your website is weak
• Bounce Rate - complicated website design, incorrect inbound links, irrelevant sources, poor load time, media overload or domain issues, Weak Call to Action, all contribute to high bounce rates
• Landing Page Conversion Rate - Percentage of visitors that convert to a lead or actually purchase
• Time on Site - The more time people spend on your site, the better your quality, authority, relevance and ranking scores
• Mobile Vs Desktop Visitors - Mobile visitors prefer more images and less text so they don’t have to scroll too much
• Advocates - This metric shows the number of your customers who would be willing to be advocates for your brand on their preferred media channel. These advocates form direct referrals and untapped opportunities to close a sale

Effectiveness in Marketing - Customer Measures (understand the customer its various segments along with the decision-making cycle)
• Customer Acquisition Costs - Cost to acquire a customer determines the investment required to turn a lead into a customer
• Customer Lifetime Value - is the total revenue potential for business from a customer. Ideally the cost to acquire a new customer should be ⅓ the customer’s lifetime value within a 1-year period
• Customer Personas - Segment your customer personas by audience, customer type, industry, media type, media coverage, media consumption, customer pain points, product messaging etc into micro-segments so as to do more personalized campaigns with potentially higher conversion rates. If you understand your customers better, you know where to find them, what to say to convert them and how to do it more effectively
• Lead Generation - Different businesses have different goals and therefore approach lead generation differently. Knowing your businesses goals, audience, personas, processes, pipelines, having a well-defined marketing and sales funnel with appropriate tactics and mediums can make all the difference in your marketing effectiveness within lead generation

Effectiveness in Marketing - Revenue Measures (Internal matrix of KPIs)
Revenue measures the income and profit points influenced by communication and marketing. It is therefore the ultimate measure of what a company is in business to do.
• Sales Pipeline - Businesses may follow different sales processes however their sales pipeline metrics usually remain the same. Knowing how many leads you started with, How many leads were added, What is the lead growth rate, Where did these leads come from, What is the lead scoring, How many were Marketing Qualified leads, What was the lead behaviour, How many were Sales Qualified Leads and what is their likelihood (i.e., Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline) to buy are the most important aspects
• Sales - Sales revenues are usually broken down into 3 parts - New Business, Upselling or Cross-selling and Renewals.
• Lead Conversion Rate - is the percentage between the number of leads that turned into sales
• Cost Per Lead - What did it fully cost to get a customer to click your ad or call a telephone number or visit your store? Is the ad the only marketing activity your business did to get that lead? probably not. There are possibly media spends, creative agency’s fees, printing, production, technology usage, PR etc that were involved and contributed to the cost. While it might not be fair to include the whole budget into it, however knowing and arriving at a fair cost per lead definitely contributes to marketing effectiveness.

Effectiveness in Marketing - Risk Measures (Risk identification and mitigation)
It is seldom that some companies do not consider including risk mitigation into their marketing effectiveness or marketing measurement mix. Not tracking it, means that you cannot measure it and therefore cannot plan for it.
• Value at Risk - Is the total value of the business or product lines or service solutions potentially facing damage or exposure. What is the value of a product line or business vertical or sector at rick? How much of the business is covered and at what value? How much will be lost if this vertical or sector fails or is eliminated? How can marketing and PR help mitigate or minimize this risk and by doing what?
• Frequency of Loss - Some businesses have cycles of gains and losses; others have historic losses. Effective marketing can help slow down, minimize or even mitigate losses. Planning marketing budgets accordingly can help improve effectiveness overall
• Crisis Impact - Crisis comes in many forms, colors, shades and impacts. Some of them happen outside of a business’s control while others from wrong-worded or misunderstood posts or tweets.

Effectiveness in Marketing - Cognitive and
Behavioural Measures (intangible impact of marketing on customers)
• Cognitive and Behavioural - At the core of effective marketing and communication is to influence customers - from not knowing something to doing something about it. Marketing effectiveness is done is to Change attitudes, change perceptions, Change behaviors. How have your campaigns lifted the brand’s position in the minds and hearts of your customer?
As a brand, if you are really keen on understanding the impact of marketing then these are critical areas to introspect on and gather data on a regular basis. The most forgotten aspect is the Cognitive and Behavioural measure which is not very tangible but if this measure is taken up seriously then I believe the brand is unstoppable. All one needs to do is dedicate some time to crafting formats (manual or automated) for these KPIs and review them regularly to ensure the brand understands the true value of marketing rather than just looking at sales numbers.

Blockchain has been making waves in the business world for some time now, and its potential applications are far-reaching. Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize businesses by providing a secure, transparent, and decentralized platform for data collection and analysis. By eliminating the need for third-party intermediaries, blockchain can help businesses create more efficient and effective strategies. With blockchain, businesses can connect with consumers on a more personal level, resulting in creating nano segments ad ability to serve these segments via personalization on a one-on-one basis.

Blockchain can provide a new level of transparency and trust between brands and consumers, and it has the potential to completely change the way we think about marketing strategies. With Blockchain, brands will be able to connect with consumers directly and build long-term, trusting relationships. Marketing campaigns will be more effective and efficient, and consumers will be able to hold brands accountable for their promises. This new level of trust could completely revolutionize the marketing landscape.

Here are some examples wrt application of blockchain that can potentially help improve productivity across various teams/depts:

Marketing / Sales
• Building customer trust by being transparent about their entire manufacturing process and quality checks
• Deeper brand partnerships, what's working when one partners with another brand and compensates immediately
• Unlocks new markets where products are now accessible to cost prohibitive markets as gives access and complete overview of those markets and cost structures to enter those markets
• Can influence behaviour like micro behaviour tracked and accordingly segment the consumers into micro-segments
• Hyper-personalization of messaging with all micro segments
• Get new data sets where consumers give data without giving data itself as only insights are shared, brands can deliver value in turn of the insights shared

Finance
• Payments and Receipts become automated saving a lot of time, payments released only if agreed program / tasks are completed
• Zero reconciling of accounts books as everything is automated and documented hence does not need an audit of accounts or finances
• New levels of traceability improving working capital, monthly qtr. closures, as these are done without any human intervention

Supply chain, Ops and Procurement
• Manual processes eliminated and documentation gone
• Pinpoint problems with incredible accuracy, source to destination data is available, Walmart uses it to check food safety by tracking every movement of their food products
• Automate collaboration, importer can share data helping ports get details, smart contracts for share trading, etc where based on agreements signed things automatically get executed

HR
• Screening talents to get verified professionals
• Better background checks and direct access to talents
• Compensate talent for their performance
• Dynamic security and access

In conclusion, Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize businesses by increasing transparency and trust between buyers and sellers. It can also provide a more secure and efficient way to track and manage customer data.

In sum benefits of Blockchain implementation for businesses
• Increase operational efficiency
• Increase visibility and transparency
• Provide privacy
• New business models via segmenting smaller addressable segments

A landing page normally is a webpage that is a follow-up to any content/ad posted online, the first page that a visitor lands on, once he clicks on the ad/content. But unfortunately, most brands have the homepage as the landing page or have a standard generic landing page. A good landing page increases the probability of a visitor becoming a customer but more often teams are too focussed on optimizing campaigns and creatives and not look at this critical asset that can actually create the biggest impact.

Landing pages are a great opportunity to drive traffic and to create conversions and build your customer base. A website should have as many landing pages as needed, for e.g., every campaign has a different take out or key point, now unless the landing page does not take point and build on it the visitor will lose interest. The visitor clicked on the ad since he/she felt intrigued by the offering but unfortunately landed up on a page where generic content about the organization or the brand is mentioned leading to him exiting the site.

I would strongly recommend brands to create and maintain multiple landing pages enabling customised communication wrt every consumer segment that the brand is targeting. But if landing pages are so important, why aren’t brands focussing on them? There are a couple of reasons for it:

• Website Management should be a shared responsibility for marketing and IT, when both teams work in silos landing pages take a back seat (especially when multiple pages are needed with constant changes)
• Campaign analytics are the only measure of success and failure, key parameter of landing page funnel or analytics should be measured as often as campaigns
• Misconception of landing pages are expensive and hard to maintain
• Content has to be changed as and when the campaigns/content changes which is tedious
• One of the major reasons is also lack of knowledge with the teams to setup or manage them

Today there are many CRM software/packages that also provide creating basic templates for landing pages and are easily integrated into the website. While creating or optimizing landing page keep these key things in mind to help you increase your landing page performance:

1. Mobile friendly (design for mobile)
2. Overall theme and messaging to be in sync with the ad/content that is driving traffic
a. Content should not be replicated but an extension of the ad/content
b. Keep the page focussed and not try to tell the entire brand story and all benefits which will cram the page
c. Speak to a specific audience
3. Keep the headlines, the main message, and call-to-action above the fold
4. Visually also it needs to be synced with the ad/content
5. Put up only 1 CTA, and it needs to be extremely clear about what you want the visitor to doo
6. Landing pages with social validation perform better than the ones that don’t have (customer reviews, testimonials, satisfied customer picture, etc)
7. Ideally do not have more than 4-5 lead capturing fields
8. Thank you page on submission and immediate connection with the client via email/SMS/WhatsApp to boost conversion further
9. Keep doing A/B testing as this is journey not a race

Once the landing page is created or optimized be obsessed about understanding and improving performance, this will add to the workload but remember if this is not sorted the entire performance plan goes for a toss. Below are some key metrics which need to be tracked regularly to ensure optimum performance

1. Landing Page Views – No of times page is viewed
2. Sessions by Source – From which source is the traffic coming from
3. Goal Completions (Conversions) – Most critical to understand performance, most of the times its lead submission but depending on the goal it could be eBook download, etc
4. Visitors to Contact Ratio - how people moving along your website’s buyer journey (No of contacts divided by website traffic)
5. Average Time on Page – Time spent on the page (check for heatmaps to understand where max time is spent)
6. Bounce Rate – % of people leaving the website

Finally, a good landing page has the potential to bring down your acquisition costs significantly while increasing lead counts for your brand. A good landing page conversion in my experience varies from 2.5% to 10% depending on the industry and audience segment. Another benchmark to watch out for is page loading time which should be ideally under 2 secs. Having more than 10 landing pages increases leads by 55% as per one study.

For the benefit of everyone let me put down what I think a lead magnet is - it’s a smart approach to lead gen where a piece of content or product that you give away for free in exchange for contact information. Lead magnets thus compensate users for their engagement with an obvious / certain advantage. The main goal of creating a lead magnet is to build a targeted list of leads that you can reach out to at any time. This can be a great way to build your business as you don’t need to rely on organic search traffic to convert. The best part? All it takes is one piece of content to build a list of thousands of subscribers. There are several things you need to take into account when making lead magnets: the type of content, how much time it takes to make them, what their value is to your audience, and how they align with your company values.

Types of Lead Magnets

There are a few different types of lead magnets you can create for your business. The best ones are ones that are useful for your customers, but don’t take too much effort on your part to create. Here are the most common types of lead magnets: - Ebooks - An ebook is a long-form piece of content that you can use to educate your readers on a specific topic. Ebooks come in a wide range of subjects, from marketing and sales techniques to how-to guides for everyday life. - Checklists - Checklists are short guides that walk readers through specific processes. They’re usually short – around 10 to 15 points – and they can cover anything from your sales process to gift-giving. - Cheat Sheets - Cheat sheets are similar to checklists, except they’re usually visual representations of facts. They’re usually short, with around 10 points at the most, and they cover information on a wide range of topics.

The main goal of creating a lead magnet is to build a targeted list of leads that you can reach out to at any time. Unlike organic search traffic, leads are people who want to hear from you, and they’re not just clicking on your link by accident. You’re actively gaining their attention and encouraging them to give you their information.

Creating a lead magnet can also help you generate high quality leads via search engine optimization (SEO): if your content is useful, it’s more likely to rank for relevant keywords. This means more people will find your website and start clicking around. Lead magnets can also help you with social media engagement. If your content is valuable, your followers and friends are more likely to share it, increasing your reach and driving traffic back to your site. Creates a lot of value for the brands as they provide a excellent bait to the prospects to experience the brand in a way and also build a perception of being an expert.

How to create lead magnets

When it comes to creating lead magnets, the first thing you need to do is decide on the type of content you want to create. Is it an ebook, checklist, or something else? Once you’ve settled on a type of content, you need to determine the length. The best lead magnets are short, easily digestible pieces of content that don’t take hours to read. If your lead magnet is a 40-page ebook, you’ll struggle to get readers to finish it. Next, you need to determine your price. You don’t have to make your lead magnet free, but it should be inexpensive enough that readers feel like they’re getting a good deal. Lastly, you need to decide on a title and a cover. Your lead magnet should be enticing enough that readers actually want to read it. Make sure your title is clear and descriptive, and your cover is eye-catching. I read somewhere that the first 3 and last 3 words of a title are the most ready by readers.

Some good lead magnet title examples

• How to choose the right CRM for your business?
• Tips and tricks to optimize your email marketing campaigns
• How to Increase Your Brand Equity Scores?
• Ultimate guide to lead generation
• How experts turn insights into effective sales strategies that deliver results
• When is the time to shift to switch from traditional marketing to AI based marketing?

The best types of lead magnets for your business

There are a wide range of lead magnets to choose from, but some are more appropriate for certain industries than others.

Here are some of the most common lead magnets:

1. eBooks - Everyone loves to learn something new, and ebooks are a great way to share your knowledge with your readers. If you’re in any kind of service-related business, like content marketing or website design, an ebook is a great way to teach your readers new skills. If you own a product-based business, like an ecommerce store, a product guide is a great choice.

2. Checklists - Checklists work great for service-related businesses, especially if they’re helping someone complete a task. If you’re a marketing consultant, for example, you could create a checklist for creating an effective blog post.

3. Cheat Sheets – Cheat Sheets are used across industries to achieve goals faster.

4. Templates – Layouts of commonly used documents where they are easily editable, universal and can be printed. Like cheat sheet these can also be used across industries.

5. Case Studies – Providing in depth understanding of the entire case history – its background, challenge faced, solution and finally the result is one the best ways to attract visitors.

6. Webinars – Great way to engage visitors by providing access to experts who present and builds good rapport with the brand.

7. Discounts/Coupons – Very popular in the D2C and B2C businesses drawing in visitors and pushing them to convert into consumers with a time bound offer.

8. Free Trials/Samples/Consultation – Another very popular tool used across industries to get sampling done, builds rapport and gives comfort to the visitor or not buying into something where they haven’t understood the benefits immediately.

9. Calculators – Used across BFSI sector for loan eligibility, EMI, etc. where they draw in masses to give an idea of purchasing a particular product or service

10. Reports/Infographics/Whitepapers/ Studies – Give detailed analysis and expert opinion about specific subjects to the visitors based on data and evidence. Mostly this medium is used to provide an insider view of some industry related topics

Creating a lead magnet doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. In fact, it can be as simple as writing an eBook or creating a checklist. What’s most important is that you choose a type of content that your readers will find useful. Once you’ve settled on a topic, all you need to do is create the content, price it appropriately, and you’re good to go. So what are you waiting for? Start creating your lead magnets today and make lead gen a little bit easier.

With so many options on hand and with external parties also sharing their inputs about upcoming mediums/technologies, making finalizing a performance plan a daunting task. But the key task is to focus on the basis, past data wrt sales / marketing funnels / segments and prioritizing the next steps based on this data.

First step is to look at the entire marketing funnel and figure out where the drops are happening or where stagnation is happening. For e.g. if there is a huge from top funnel to actual conversions which is normally what most companies suffer with then a deep dive into each part of the funnel to unearth issues segment wise, or alternatively the opportunity is huge but the funnel is very slim, could be an awareness issue at top funnel. This again may seem very complex if there is lack of structured data, but if this information is there then problem identification would be evident and easily identifiable. This enables one to answer, why Sales are down or not happening with specific direction of where the issue lies and what can be done about it. Based on this information the media / creatives / martech tools, etc need to be implemented.

Secondly one would also want to understand the sales trajectory, marketing spends, NPS scores (satisfaction index) over time and what's the current commercial target set for the team. This critical information along with the funnel data enables one to understand how the monies should be spent.

Once all this data is studied the first task is to fix the problem areas in the funnel whether its top / middle or bottom funnel and guesstimate the kind of sales it would generate. Then taking this as the base one could extrapolate this to the new targets and see where we need more investment. The end goal is to convert this inverted pyramid into a stack so that we have minimal drop offs at every stage.

Today when you scan on the internet you may have many versions of this funnel and the most interesting one that I found was an hourglass shaped funnel where post purchase or sale the funnel grows via retention, referrals and loyalty/advocacy. But in most cases funnel would have4 basic stages of Awareness, Consideration, Purchase and Post Purchase.

Key Top Funnel activities (Objective : Attract Visitors) that will help spread awareness not just about the brand but also about the problem and the solution being offered. Key tracking metric for this part of the funnel : reach, impressions, video views, unique website visitors, engagement, email subscriptions, registrations, inbound calls, fans/followers, etc

Content marketing that includes blogs, webinars, infographics, podcasts, videos

SEO
Checklists / Tip sheets
Research reports or studies published
Offline activities like Print / TV / Outdoor / OTT , etc
Events / Seminars
Microsites
Email

Key Mid Funnel activities (Objective : Convert Visitors) that will build interest and the desire of the prospect to further enquire with the brand and submit details. Key tracking metric for this part of the funnel : CPL, CTR, Landing page conversions, time spent website, Downloads, app installs, funnel conversion, shares/comments, etc

Paid Digital ads - Google / FB / Twitter / LinkedIn
Email Marketing - CRM mailers and Affiliate
Social Media - Organic posting and inorganic paid leads
Offline activities like Print / TV / Outdoor / OTT , etc
Case Studies
Offers / Discounts
Whitepaper
Demo Video

Their Interests / Attitude
Buying pattern (Heavy users/Moderate users/Light Users)
Media consumption / habits
Decision making process (influencers, primary decision maker, actual consumer, seasonality, etc)
Triggers - What is the customer buying (what need/want is being fulfilled)
How do they decide on buying a particular brand (within the category and outside)
What are the list of benefits they seek while making a decision?
Current perception of the brand in the category (Brand vs competition)
Economic factors that may influence the decision

Key Bottom Funnel activities (Objective : Close Leads) that will help spread awareness not just about the brand but also about the problem and the solution being offered. Key tracking metric for this part of the funnel : Funnel conversion, CAC, footfalls, avg order value, revenue/profit

Retargeting via Google, FB, Website

Sales collaterals - Brochures, Sales playbooks, explainer videos, email templates, sales scripts, eBooks, etc

Testimonials
Reviews and competitive analysis
Live Demos or free usage periods

The above are just directions one could use but normally each industry and segment will have a very specific funnel, there will be times where one media is used across funnels but in that case different messaging will be put up by the brand.

The overall idea of looking at the funnel is ensuring all the activities lead to one point that is generating sales and each and every element of the funnel is connected, which normally in most companies is a disjointed effort. What I mean to say is that the Top funnel ad mostly talks about why the brand whereas in the funnel top funnel ad has to be why the category or making them aware of the problem.

Mid funnel should actually nudge the consumer to believe that the brand has the right solution/most differentiated offering and finally bottom funnel should help them finalize on the brand and purchase the product or the service. And by doing this each piece of communication or touch point needs to be linked to each other (online ads, social media organic and inorganic ads/posts and offline ads) and have a consistent benefit for the consumer as a common string. The moment the ads become about "we do this or we give you this benefit" the consumer stops considering your brand.

We need to pay attention to what the consumers want, so the next time around check your ad copy and see how many times you have mentioned we/I rather than using you/your to make your performance creatives more persuasive.

Next blog will cover creating lead magnets very soon. So watch out for this space.

The most common formula one would find online is ATTRACT - ENGAGE - CONVERT - CLOSE - DELIGHT. Although this is true, unfortunately it completely ignores the critical first step that is detailed out below.

Fundamentally lead generation as a process, is a mid - bottom funnel activity where the consumers are tightly defined and their current issues are already understood. Moreover, at this stage the consumer is also exposed to the brand and has already consumed top funnel marketing content, so a basic level of brand understanding exists with the consumer. Unfortunately, due to budget or time constraints jump on lead generation directly and try to figure out who is the target audience and what do they want and end up spending tons of cash to get that learning.

Step 1 - Consumer understanding: Profile, Pain points and decision-making process

Dig out internal records/details of existing consumers or in-case of new start-up define the audience profile tightly. Once this is done, understanding the profile of the consumer, one may also find different types or segments within a similar demographic profile. Once this is done for each segment the brand will need to understand the current pain points that consumer has wrt to the category and finally completely understand the decision-making process that will lay down all touch points.

The marketing team needs to have answers to the below mentioned key questions before a lead gen zlan is made or executed

Who is the customer - Demographics wrt age, gender, marital status, location, income levels (individual or HH), ethnicity, occupation, employment details

Their Interests / Attitude
Buying pattern (Heavy users/Moderate users/Light Users)
Media consumption / habits
Decision making process (influencers, primary decision maker, actual consumer, seasonality, etc)
Triggers - What is the customer buying (what need/want is being fulfilled)
How do they decide on buying a particular brand (within the category and outside)
What are the list of benefits they seek while making a decision?
Current perception of the brand in the category (Brand vs competition)
Economic factors that may influence the decision

Step 2 - Competition mapping

Once consumer understanding is sought the next thing is to understand what your competing brands offer, no one would like to go for a me too product hence better to understand competition offering and the way they market. This will ensure that even if in certain cases the product or service is commoditized the way you market or advt is differentiated. Although this isn't the preferred route, sometimes the product/service is a commodity and it becomes a challenge to differentiate.

Step 3 - Setting up the lead generation objectives with KPI

Before one sets up the KPI just do a current audit of the funnel to understand the situation and focus areas where you need help. Yes primary objective will always be to get more enquiries but also look at the entire funnel wrt the cascading.

Next it's important for the team to set up key objectives for lead generation, is it to generate leads or qualified leads or get footfalls or get sales. This is extremely important, basis the structure of the organization where if there is dedicated performance mktg team along with product or brand team then the objective could be to just drive traffic or get leads or if there is one marketing team then its the point where the lead is handed over to the next team so i could be footfalls or qualified leads or in case of ecom the sale target itself.

More on the key channels, WOM, lead magnets, nurturing and framing the performance marketing plan in the upcoming blog.

One of the key expectations of Founders and CEOs across industries and geographies from the marketing team is performance marketing or in other words lead generation. And this percolates down to the marketing team, when asked about their biggest issue is unfortunately not building a strong brand but generating high quality leads, 61% according to a Hubspot research actually quoted that Lead Gen is marketing's biggest challenge. This is contrary to what we have been taught to see marketing as a holistic function that looks into the 4ps or now maybe 7ps.

Performance marketing was a popular B2B concept initially where the marketers role was very simply to get more clients to interact with the brand. And for that typically events, mailers, seminars, whitepapers, case studies, referrals and testimonials were used. But this has all changed with the advent of digital marketing and advanced CRM systems entering the corporate world. This has enabled brands to understand which part of their budgets are actually working for them and the conversion pipeline source wise which earlier wasn't possible.

And getting excited by the tracking of spends even B2C brands have started pumping spending in this aspect. In some cases more than half of their budgets and in extreme cases 80+% of the overall marketing budgets are spent into lead generation activities, with the expectation that more leads means more business. This practice is rampant across both established and new brands, where in some cases the brand name is unheard but the expectation is that the leads should flow in and generate revenues.

Lead Gen is one of the bottom funnel activities in the broad marketing funnel and if most of the monies are spent in garnering leads then the flow that ideally should have come to the bottom funnel is restricted. So its imperative for brands to invest prudently in all 5 parts (top of funnel, middle funnel, bottom funnel, conversion & advocacy) of the marketing funnel and not just on lead gen efforts. Putting all eggs in one basket and expecting great return is unrealistic and more so when all the competitors are also heavily investing in that part of the funnel. Making this focussed lead gen effort extremely expensive and ineffective.

More about best practices in Lead Gen in the upcoming parts of this blog series for Ultimate guide for lead generation. Pls comment if you seek to understand any specific aspect of performance marketing will try and address it in the blog.

Today, everybody is loaded with information and adding more content makes it difficult for brands to break the clutter. Moreover content put up by brands is mostly via agencies that makes content even more impersonal for the brand. And I would empathize with the agencies as well as the brief to them is "we want to start content marketing for our brand and would like you to partner with us" or "we want to start content marketing to deliver organic leads" a brief that is basically telling them keep posting something regularly and instantly get more business.

And when the time comes to evaluate the content efforts then metrics like website traffic, increase in enquiries, engagement rates, etc are populated and it comes down to a verdict of, our content strategy isn't delivering results. But before a verdict is passed at the planning stage if answers to these questions are populated then the possibility of a failed content strategy would be lessened to a great extent.

Key Questions Brands need to ask before closing the content strategy

1) How relevant is the content to your audience? Is it something that makes your consumers' life better or is it another sales pitch?
2) How easy to understand is the content?
3) Is it only a fact driven post? Is it a one off post or its series that your consumer eagerly awaits for?
4) Is the content strategy based on multiple buyer personas or a mono track one?
5) How crisply is the message conveyed?
6) Medium/format used for decimating content?

These are critical questions that brands need to answer before they deploy the content across various mediums. Another very important aspect to consider is the usage of videos, more and more consumers are shying away from reading blogs, in fact even blog posts with videos are 3x more impactful than text only blogs.

And the most important aspect of your brand's content strategy is to see the content strategy as part of a 6-8 season OTT web series and not a weekly schedule, where every series is linked to each other and it progresses as time goes by. And each series will have a min of 10 episodes or posts that talk about a particular aspect of your brand that you want to convey.

If the content strategy for the brand is planned in this manner, where via videos the brand communicates key stories through the emotional route of how a particular quality/aspect of the brand changed their customers lives, or if its about describing the product or service & then what kind of depths does the brand go to, to give their consumer the best version of their product / service then it will definitely pay off by getting close to the deliverables.

Advantages of content developed via the storytelling route ensures a few things for the brands

1) Showcases the human side of the brand
2) Gets the audience emotionally invested hence better recall and TOM
3) Stories are an age old activity, that holds attention and interest over a relatively longer time periods and builds anticipation (When will the next episode of GOT come)
4) Stories bring about more context and relevance to the message as it has a build up, body and a conclusion
5) Stories enable a better call to action as a result of the complete understanding of the content
6) Even from a scientific angle a story

a) Can enable neural coupling basically have the brain enable parts where one takes inspiration and create their own way forward
b) Releases dopamine when an interesting event occurs in a story and makes it more memorable
c) Facts activate one part of the brain whereas stories activate 3 different parts of the brain enabling better understanding

If brands adopt this approach I see no reason for the content strategy to not work, the brands content series as I would term it as, should be crafted post answering the key 6 questions and then brief the respective inhouse or external resources to create the magical content series that delivers the goals set by the brand.

These metrics today, tell how efficiently brands spending their monies to increase their customer base and how much is each customer spending in his/her lifetime with that brand. Traditionally the focus of brands was always on building long term profitable businesses but now that is no longer a criteria for alot of brands. Hence there is over emphasis on aggressive acquisition, as that drives the valuation of the brand and the only metrics that needs to improve is CAC, so the narrative is : increase in customer base while reducing CAC that makes everyone happy.

But if this isnt looked in context with the value each new acquisition is providing, it ends up being an acquisition strategy to have a negative LTV to CAC ratios for a few yrs with no profitability in sight. Am not saying that the wrong strategy, in fact there are a few large VCs that actually support this notion, but again these VCs are also looking for these metrics to ensure a good fat exit.

But if companies focussed more on increasing the LTV I suppose the value of the brand would increase significantly over time with relatively lesser investments, but this will apply if the brands are patient and not looking for a quick win.

Imagine a scenario where the churn rate is low, higher retention rate, consumers are more likely to be in it for the long term, resulting in a compounding of growth that allows for higher average annual recurring revenue than just one-off purchases allow consistently.

This also ensures that the brand grows profitability and with a more predictable growth curve. The only drawback is that this process will take more time but on the upside it will fetch handsome returns once its starts delivering results.

Personally I believe that boosting LTV is in favour of business leaders who want to be in the game for the long run whereas where leaders want a quick upside whether to exit or to increase valuation in a short time only aggressive acquisition is the way to go. To increase acquisition brands have now started recruiting Performance Marketing Specialists, same way to boost LTV brands will have to consider recruiting an LTV owner who drives increase in value or volume per customer.

#ltv #CAC #customerlifetimevalue #acquisition

But today, this challenge can be reasonably conquered with a few tricks that can minimize the complexity of the process. With the help of ai powered predictive analytics tools, that convert visual data into actionable insights at a fraction of the cost and more importantly instantaneously, brands negate some ambiguity in their quest to get the best creative out.

This option helps evaluate the visual aspect of the creative, visuals and headlines are the 2 critical aspect that influence the appeal of the creative.

For copy evaluation, it's a more elaborate process, based on the overall communication strategy and the positioning plank. Something as intangible as creatives can be also made trackable by looking at engagement scores on social media or if it's offline then the amount of appreciation it gets (this is mostly applicable where channel partners are involved) thereby giving a sense of how your creative is performing .

One may argue that if it does generate sales, what's the point of a winning creative, but we need to understand that the job of a creative is to position the brand rightly, give the right msg and grab attention, as long as it does that then it's a job well done. Sales eval is completely different aspect of business and a much more comprenshive exercise.

Therefore if budgets allow go in for communications research if not at least try and use these ai tools and talk to a few consumers to ensure the right message goes out and ensures the desired impact.

#sales #brand #ai #research #communication #creative

Still these facts are not enough for brands to focus on retaining their existing consumers. More than 70% of customers leave because they perceive that the brand is indifferent to them. Infact on an avg only 10% customers get swayed away by competition which is the focus area of most brands. Hence this makes an extremely strong argument to have a dedicated team that focuses purely on customer retention. Below are some thoughts on how brands can improve their stickability.

Key strategies / activities that boost customer retention for all segments B2C, B2B & D2C

1. Content strategy
- Onboarding emails educating consumers about the product features and its benefits
- Tutorial about how to use the product or if there are any updates available
- Offering discounts and offers
- Putting up customer stories and testimonials
- Content on the brand - its values, mission and vision
- Inviting them to be part of your brand community

2. Customer journey enhancement strategy
- Defining consumer segments/personas
- Mapping the customer journey for each segment
- Personalizing the journey and communication for each segment
- Delighting the customer at every touch point
- Ensuring excellent after sales service
- Offering early bird discounts and access to new products before they launch
Hence if the Measurable Commercial Objective of the brand is improving profitability, along with launch of premium products or replacing current products with cheaper alternatives brands should also think about retention. New acquisitions are like flirters who may come provide temporary joy but existing customers are the ones who have committed that will need special care and maintenance to ensure the relationship continues.

#business #retentionstrategies #retentionmarketing #customerexperience #customeracquisition #retail

With dynamic search engine algorithms, AI based tools and machine learning tools changing almost everyday the onus is on the brands to keep up with these changes, failure to do so and SEO is definitely a failure. Each change requires you to adapt so you can overcome each update. Most people can’t be bothered to keep up with each algorithm update and make the appropriate changes to their website.

But on the sunny side if there is focus on SEO, with dedicated resources (internal or external) constantly working to understand Google changes then chances of you featuring on the top are extremely high and will pay rich dividends via improving rankings / increasing organic traffic for your site. If a brand manages it SEO is the most cost effective channel to increase sales as an excellent SEO is ROI focussed providing long term lasting results unlike other mediums. Also SEO provides an edge over the competition which is hard to quickly copy, how many times have we heard from SEO specialists that it will take time to deliver. The same is applicable for competition as well, so if we have a great SEO performance consistently its difficult for competition to quickly catchup, unlike Adwords where spending can outsmart persistence and hard work.

I know alot of you would think of whats the point of wasting time resources on SEO when we could just put more monies behind Adwords in google and get the top 3 listing on search. Yes that is true but its a short arm jab, the moment monies are reduced so is your performance in search. Secondly most brands go in for highly competitive keywords that come at a exorbitant cost and competition is always trying to outbid you making your paid search extremely expensive. So although you may rejoice of have a great share in search if you compare in the overall business context search ads will be equally expensive as other non digital mediums.

So focussing on SEO is important and here are a few tips which brands could try
1. Build only high quality backlinks (quality wins over quantity, in 2021 Aug Google has implemented a new spam link detection update)
2. Keyword Stuffing as a strategy will fail, focus on delivering unique content integrated with relevant keywords (Black Hat strategy again has been countered by Google where they derank sites and even impose penalties)
3. Understand how the algo works rather than finding a way around (Brands are at the mercy of Google when it comes to SEO as it uses a complex algo that is extremely dynamic, so best of luck for those that are trying to outsmart Google)
4. Keep consumers in mind (SEO works the best when you know what your consumers type in searches, keyword analysis is great but consumer immersion is the best. Also for extremely local businesses keyword analysis is only a direction as you dont get city level or location specific data with GA)
5. Keep a track on your Core Web Vitals and ensure your in the green
6. Audit your website and SEO KPIs regularly and keep fine tuning them

Brands and Leaders who wish to focus on generating high quality leads with minimal spends dedicate resources on sustained SEO efforts and see your acquistion cost drop down significantly.

PS: Have focussed this article on mainly google as it captures 85% share on desktops and 95% share on mobile search engine market.

I agree to an extent that when the brand is in a tough spot financially that's the right thing to do, since there is external pressure on spending, and lead gen spend is always welcome by internal and external stakeholders.

But as leaders we forget that first a brand has to be built, which gives the consumers a reason to connect with the problem it solves, then comes how is the brand different from others, that is mostly captured in a comprehensive brand strategy. And finally we have lead generation to tap the demand, but unfortunately lead gen takes precedence over everything and the business takes a hit. Sometimes aggressive lead gen works out in the short term but I suppose brands are built to last a marathon and not a sprint.

Branding gives a reason for consumers, as to why you buy a product from your brand and how your brand will make their life better.
Whereas lead gen will tap the demand with product features and a pointed CTA to get enquiries. Skipping branding means it's a harder sell and often heavy discounting is needed to close the deal.

Impact of the above on the brand, even if you have a great product the brand becomes a discount brand. It also significantly decreases the overall conversions as lead gen is targeted only at the purchaser group whereas branding is always slightly wider and it may also capture all people involved in making/helping the final decision. Consistently going thru this cycle also makes it extremely difficult for the brand to come out of this circle as the overall system gets used to this process, restricting success of newer more premium products ranges and most importantly standing out in the market with a clear differentiated product/service.

Considering branding as an investment and lead generation as a spend I think the right way to look at both these aspects.

#marketing #branding #strategy #consulting #leadgeneration #branding #brandstrategy

Moerover, parents are still worried about their child, wrt safety and hygiene. And that’s what is needed to be addressed during this time around in the counselling sessions. So instead of talking about a world class curriculum, brain development or international standard infrastructure the mantra for this preschool admission season is Hygiene, Safety and Convenience.

Hygiene and Safety are the obvious choices with the pandemic still lurking around and talks of 3rd wave parents are bound to be a little concerned about the safety of their child. Studies put up by publications show that a lot of parents are still not convinced to send their child to a preschool unless they have their child vaccinated. Hence here it is critical to bolster confidence in the parents by laying down extremely strict guidelines an adhering to it. For e.g., frequent handwashing for the staff and the children, preschool sanitizing schedule to be put up at the gate of the preschool, wearing of masks mandatory, washrooms being sanitized post every usage, mopping of the floor every couple of hours, 100% staff vaccinated with 2 vaccines, sanitizing toys and books every day, etc.

During the counselling session maximum time has to be devoted to this aspect of interacting with parents, also if there is a preschool tour ensure the cleaning staff is present and is sanitizing the areas before and after the parents leave to ensure complete satisfaction/peace of mind to the parent.

But unfortunately, every preschool will focus on the health and safety angle the more you do there the better it is. The scales of getting the admission will tilt if you offer flexibility wrt physical and online classes. Since the parents are skeptical, they may want to take admission if you offer maybe 2-3 days physical only and rest of the days online or any other combination as they may prefer. If your rigid that its all days physical or only 3 days then the chances of losing out the admission will be high.

And whatever combination you offer there should not be any disruption in the child’s learning, managing that will virtually guarantee admission at your preschool. So be flexible about the online – offline combination and ensure child has a smooth learning experience across the platforms.

You take care of these 2 aspects and rest assured you will garner more admissions than your next-door preschool.

But digital marketing also has a different meaning for most, there is a segment that believes digital complements traditional marketing, some believe traditional marketing is dead and digital is the only way and a lot of them are confused as to which way to go and just try out things that other brands are doing.

The last segment of people makes it difficult for marketing teams to focus on results since they don’t understand the dynamics of digital marketing. Today, when you replace a TV ad with a YouTube ad initially, start to get a lot of data about impressions, clicks, VTRs, etc which excites the management but eventually this dies down after a couple of weeks since results cant be directly related to this.

And the push for performance marketing starts, the entire full-funnel approach is never executed as managements are too focussed on bottom-funnel or as most call it lead generation activities. And eventually, a full-funnel plan is transformed into a lead generation plan. This results in a significant drop in conversion to sales and subsequently, the plan is termed as a failed plan.

Bottom funnel plans are typically tracked with Cost Per Leads, Cost Per Clicks, Cost Per Conversion, etc which are end matrix to be tracked but one forgets the entire funnel. If their focus is always on lead generation, the digital agency will also focus only on lead generation and not on the quality or the overall funnel management. This ultimately results in a performance marketing plan not delivering the expected performance.

For brands to actually take advantage of the digital one needs to understand how a digital marketing plan works and which elements of the plan are critical to the success of the overall activity. Focussing only on things that can be tracked will always result in disappointment. Even D2C brands do alot of digital but support their efforts on digital with more than adequate ATL activities like Traditional TV, Print, Outdoor, etc. Examples of such brands are Licious, Pharmeasy, Country Delight, Lenskart, Mamaearth and many more who started with Digital but eventually ended up with celeb endorsed TV ads.

The Patanjali story began in 2003 with yoga with a channel called “Aastha Tv” where the early morning slot was done by Baba Ramdev, who would come every morning in a saffron dhoti, bare-chested, twisting and twirling his body to eye-popping angles, while elucidating on Yogic rituals. Baba Ramdev also conducted free yoga lessons, his easy-to-follow breathing techniques, combined with his friendly saint appearance made him connect with the mass followers.

The idea of monetizing his popularity came from his close associate Acharya Balkrishna where he envisioned the amalgamation of the yoga guru’s popularity with his knowledge of ancient Ayurveda. This brought about the birth of Patanjali Ayurved Limited that began manufacturing medicinal products and ventured into the market with its dental care, cosmetics, and food range products.

Headquartered out of Haridwar the holy town on the banks of Ganges Ramdev this began his journey from a yoga guru to a business tycoon with the end goal of reaching INR 1 trillion in sales in less than 10 yrs. Already Patanjali has recorded sales INR 2k Cr in 2015 and is on its way to hit INR 5k Cr in 2016. To give a perspective to this no Hindustan Unilever Ltd started in India in 1888 and in 2015 touched net sales of INR 32k Cr, that’s how fast this FMCG is growing. As per FICCI and KPMG this segment was projected to grow by 12-15% over the next 5 yrs and Patanjali targets to grow at almost 3-4 times this pace, that’s the ambition of Baba Ramdev.

Ramdev openly ridicules his multinational competition.“It’s just the start. Ab tak Colgate ka toh gate khul gaya, Nestle ka toh panchhi urne wala hai, Pantene ka toh pant gila hone wala hai; aur do saal me, Unilever ka lever kharab ho jayega (By now, Colgate’s gate has opened; Nestle’s bird has flown (a reference to Nestle India Ltd’s logo), Pantene’s (a shampoo brand by Procter and Gamble India) pants are going to get wet, and in two years, Unilever’s lever will fail),” Ramdev said on 27 April at a press conference in Delhi.

Patanjali’s focus would be on six areas: natural medicine, natural cosmetics, natural dairy products and food, natural cattle feed and feed supplements, bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides, and natural indigenous seeds to meet that growth as per Ramdev.

And it’s not just about entering the right segment but also getting the distribution right, over the next year, Patanjali will increase its retail presence through 4,000 distributors, more than 10,000 company-owned outlets, 100 Patanjali-branded stores and supermarkets. They also plan to set up 6 more factories to make sure production is in line with sales to avoid stock outs.

Baba Ramdev has hit all the right buttons from a 4 Ps perspective as he has managed to get a good product based on ancient Ayurveda that people trust, extremely competitive prices, a good distribution and an expanding production line. And most importantly he has managed to converge the ayurved with the trust/faith people had on his name, which made Patanjali grow so big in such short time. Brands spends millions of dollars and years to build credibility but here Ramdev had that credibility already that took years to build and he just transferred that credibility to the products by endorsing them and by offering no side effect ayurved medicine.

And just to make sure that each Indian was exposed to his products Patanjali spent massively on their A&P spends. Their weekly ad insertions on television jumped 102% from 11,897 in the first week of January to 24,050 in the week ended 25 March, according to BARC. Ad insertions by Patanjali are 20% more than those by the next most-advertised brand on TV—Cadbury, a chocolate brand owned by Mondelez India Foods Pvt. Ltd.

Disruption is always good and in this era of startups and uberization every company’s wants to project that they are innovative but very few actually are disruptive. Patanjali Ayurveda Limited (PAL) scores high on creating a new market and beat competition on the pricing front as well. In a relatively crowded FMCG space dominated by the HULs and ITCs, PAL has emerged as a dark horse posing a serious challenge to the erstwhile barons.

Their goal of making products available to the consumer at the most reasonable price, and giving substantial discount to existing alternatives. The price differential itself may be enough for some consumers to make the shift and for those in the low income class to become loyal customers of the given product category. Given its significant price discounts vis-à-vis competitor brands, one wonders whether the competition will eventually cut prices to lock horns with the PAL challenge.

It will force the MNC counterparts to either lower prices of come up with low cost products which may be inferior in quality in comparison to Patanjali’s line up. A mystic who started his journey by offering free yoga camps to the masses and strongly propagating ancient Ayurveda to the world, is today, the cause of a frown for many FMCG companies in India and globally.

But there is a twist in the tale this FMCG sector may be in for some more disruption as after Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Sri Sri Ayurveda (SSA) products will now make the going tougher for the existing consumer players and for Patanjali as well. Sri Sri is yet another more popular monk who has entered this market in 2003 and plans to roll out the same way as Patanjali. This may spell doom for existing players if they don’t act quickly. Sri Sri has 37 crore followers, estimated to be more than five times that of Baba Ramdev, owner of the Patanjali brand. Sri Sri has products across categories such as breakfast cereals, health drinks, oil, spices, personal care, oral care, cookies and ready-to-cook items. But unlike Patanjali, which has a strong presence, SSA has still to develop a network that can sell its products.

Other spiritual gurus such as Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Guru Ram Rahim and Aurobindo Ashram are planning to take the same route to exploit this lucrative segment and I look forward to this and the answer that the MNC giants have to give. This I feel will be the true test for these MNC giants which may lead to consolidation in the industry or some players leaving the playground has to be closely watched.

In highly competitive industries, top brass  resist making R&D too dominant to dazzle customers with a steady stream of new products and the latest technologies. But this would mean significant investments in NPD and even more investments in the marketing of those products. Therefore role of marketing is extremely important to keep the organization abreast with the market and its future trends. But that being said a brilliant idea or proposal can come from anywhere and R&D also needs to constantly updating their knowledge via any sources to come up with new breakthrough innovations.

But I think what’s missing in this race of gaining market share is the end benefit for the consumer as brands push for market share and equity scores. Select organizations actually deliver products or services that actually resolve a real consumer problem.

But I think what’s missing in this race of gaining market share is the end benefit for the consumer as brands push for market share and equity scores. Select organizations actually deliver products or services that actually resolve a real consumer problem.

But I think for any brand to be successful the first thing they need to do is define why do they exist and more importantly how can they resolve a real consumer problem. Take an example of Uber in 2008, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp had trouble hailing a cab. So they came up with a simple idea—tap a button, get a ride.

What they started as an app now has taken the globe by surprise that empires can be built atop a great insightful idea with literally no investment. Uber is now changing the way we travel today across major cities around the world. When you make transportation as reliable as running water, everyone benefits. Especially when it’s snowing outside.

And if the insight is genuine that really resolves a problem incase of Uber of getting a cab during difficult times then there is no better brand ambassador for the brand. Business will follow without you breaking your head about how can I scale my business now.

Hence the mission is extremely important and then later it’s important to wow the consumer at every touch point. It would start with the communication which needs to hit the right chords emotionally and functionally to drive consideration. Post which there has to be a fantastic distribution to make sure availability and a good incentive for the sales channel to promote the brand. Then there has to be a wow offer or hook point at the point of sale to make sure that once the consumer is in to shop he is directed straight to the product and feels that the product has excellent value for money. Take an example of IKEA, their mission statement could have been a promise for beautiful, affordable furniture, but instead, they decided their mission is to make everyday life better for their customers. It’s a partnership: IKEA finds deals all over the world and buys in bulk, then we choose the furniture and pick it up at a self-service warehouse.

Next is the packaging which helps breaks clutter on the shelf and just does not look attractive but also functionally differentiates itself. Then comes the product itself that has to wow them the most via its efficacy or performance to make sure repeat purchases. In certain cases like electronics or automobiles after sales also plays an equally important role to push the decision-making.

And today there is more to this, consumer engagement that happens not just during the purchase cycle but post that as well in the form of updates and upgrades on the current product and secondly sharing relevant insightful content which today, is considered to be the biggest thing in Marketing. And one needs to wow the consumer here as well by being able to share the right content at the right time and today in the right medium as well.

I know this is an ideal scenario and most marketers face resource crunch but we should in our capacity try to wow the consumer wherever we can to make it a memorable experience. The more pleasant experience, the better will be the brand pyramid. It takes time a lot of effort and patience to make this happen, and for this the learning or understanding of the consumer should never stop. Complacency is the brands worst enemy and will completely destroy all the goodwill created over time.

Data integration is also currently happening with the help of technology and combined with big little data, it will throw insights that may change the way we see at information and decision-making. For e.g. models based on not just industry data but sentiment data, inflation, demographics or any other predictive models which may seem unrelated.

But the transition to big little data isn’t going to be easy, as there is tons of information stored in HTML tables across the web that may look ambiguous but will have contextual relevance. Leading this phase are companies like Google & University of Michigan who are looking at these smaller sets and how to make sense of them, so that it can be made user-friendly.

Data integration has been spoken about for sometime but currently its limited due to human intervention. Its needed since massive data sets need a human mind to figure common aspects between otherwise 2 unrelated pieces of data. Currently the algorithms can relate 2 sets of known data sets which are linked but cleaning the data, resolving issues with data and then finding a pattern by its own is still a challenge which can be tackled only by a beautiful mind now. Although there are noticeable breakthroughs achieved this by crowd-sourced data repositories but there is still some way to go. Yet one of the biggest sources of big little data will be the smart phone that houses tons of data which isn’t available out in the market once that comes out data integration will reach another level.

Now the most interesting one – Video data. This actually means extracting streams of data from video. Today world is moving towards video and everywhere videos have taken precedence over pictorial data and this trends has just started and growing. This make big data seem like big little data tomorrow.

All 3 are game changing innovations that are currently worked upon and highly anticipated, just cant wait to see how they change the way we see the world.

One of the keys things that can turn any window shopper to an real consumer is that if a brand can get them to take an action. If the shopper is actually forced to take an action and it could be as simple as taking a peek at the price tag or feeling the fabric or go online and research more about it, half the job’s done. And the focus on the call to action at every touch point is extremely crucial. And adding a call to action can be about different things at different touch points at POS it should shout buy now on the site it could be sign up the newsletter on a hoarding it could be visit the website, etc.

Brands should take one step at a time to make sure that overselling or brand dilution does not happen. Every touch point or communication needs to have specific aim and should build positive perception about the brand. To take a look at the example visit my earlier blog:

http://wp.me/p6kIEO-29

Sampling in certain industries help to convert a lot of shoppers to real consumers. They key reason could be that the shopper isn’t sure of the benefits of using a particular brand and hence doesn’t find value for money. Or there are consumers who want the product to be accepted by earlier adopter and post looking at reviews they may buy the product. This brings in another critical aspect of marketing which is testimonial marketing which in today’s online world is one of the biggest promoters for the brand. The more positive comments the likelihood of the brand picked up is higher. Take an example of the hotel industry without looking at Tripadvisor ratings hotels aren’t being booked or hotels choices are changed basis their ratings.

If it’s the store a shopper can be converted to a consumer even by the most basic of human action of a greeting the consumer with a smile and wishing them. Still believe first impression is the last impression and if impressed while you enter the store then 20-25% of the selling is already done. Secondly treat every shopper as a potential consumer and not someone who will waste time. If this shopper doesn’t convert he/she will tell 10 people about the fantastic experience at the shop and other will come in and convert. Customer experience today has a lot of importance and not too many brands focus on this. Read another article on this at http://wp.me/p6kIEO-34

Finally if you know the shopper isn’t going to convert then the best thing to do is to counsel them about where he would get what he/she is looking for. This will build an extremely positive perception of the store/brand and is very likely to become your future consumer. Treating the shopper well and ensuring that he/she leaves a positive feeling will help the brand in the long run. But do remember to get contact details so that the brand could be in touch via various online mediums and keep the shopper engaged with the brand.

All 3 are game changing innovations that are currently worked upon and highly anticipated, just cant wait to see how they change the way we see the world.