Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, IIT Kanpur successfully organised Pragyan, the guest lecture series of annual business conclave Prabandhan'16. The second day of Prabandhan witnessed a seminar by Mr Sourav Shah (Head Digital Marketing and CRM, Jubilant Foodworks) as part of the guest lecture series Pragyan. The prime emphasis was upon Digital Marketing - A key perspective and future.
The seminar began with some interesting and insightful discussion on the Digital adoption rate vis a vis the traditional media like TV, print media, telephone, etc. It was concluded that digital media had seen a far greater adoption rate than any other. He strongly emphasised that going digital was the way to go for present and future marketers and it would be the most crucial medium and competition platform for business. Being innovative and proactive in the digital space would be quintessential for competitive advantage very soon if not already. He bolstered this argument with several examples such as WhatsApp, Facebook, smartphones, etc., each of which had offered unique value propositions and were being adopted at a rapid pace not just by people but also by businesses.
Mr. Shah cited the case of an insurance company, which despite having a relatively lower share in the conventional agent-based insurance market, managed to create a niche for itself in the "term plan" insurance by taking and promoting itself online. Within a period of two years, the insurer became the largest insurer in the Indian digital space. This was made possible by exploiting the reluctance of conventional insurance agents in selling "term plans" and combined with some smart digital marketing to improve the reach to the customer. The results had been overwhelming.
Mr. Shah extended the discussion into the cost effectiveness of digital marketing over conventional marketing. The equivalent effect of a traditional TV advertisement costing billions could be generated by systematic online target marketing in mere one-hundredth of the cost. He added, however, that unlike traditional marketing media, digital marketing worked mostly on the pull mechanism and thus thrived on creativity and innovation to reach the target audience.
Talking about the scope of digital market in India, he indicated that the number of internet users in India was 462 million while the internet penetration was only 30 percent. This gives immense virgin opportunities to companies like Facebook and Google who had also been seen competing to launch Internet.Org and Loon projects in India.
He apprised us that the presence in digital space was exceptionally vital for any company. Even if the selling channel of a company was not online, its presence in the digital space in the form of reviews, websites, social media etc., had become an integral part of its existence. S.E.O., S.M.O., S.E.M., YouTube, Emails were some of the digital marketing tools discussed with each one being equally significant.
In the context of Domino's, he informed how, through the use of digital medium, Domino's had been able to increase its target base, reach customers in a much more significant manner, increase its brand equity and also track and optimise the business through the use of analytics. The job of a digital marketer was about reaching the significant audience. He concluded the lecture by citing various live examples of smart digital marketing which were unequivocally applauded by the audience.
The seminar was a great learning experience wherein students got various insights on marketing media and channels of digital media and their roles in brand promotion.