How to lead multichannel marketing through changing times

Moderated by Vishwadeep Bajaj, CEO and Founder, ValueFirst, the panel discussion on leading multichannel marketing through changing times saw marketers from all walks of life emphasise how can one reach the target audience when they're actually looking into products and choosing the right channels to meet the objectives of the brands.

Speaking at the India Digital Summit 2023, Bajaj stated that the biggest problem for any marketer in doing any campaign is to think about the possible outcomes in terms of the ROAS, CAG, etc. and that there is immense pressure on the marketers to optimise the campaign and to bring the good quality customers in the best possible cost and build on the LTV (Lifetime value).

In the views of Srikanth Bureddy, Co-Founder, Valueleaf, there are various avenues in the marketplace to reach consumers, but the only thing that acts as a gap is the understanding of intelligence that is required for a particular department. He also went on to state that the grasp of performance marketing is still very much low in India.

Moving on, ValueFirst’s Bajaj also said that in the last couple of years, WhatsApp for Business Messaging has really become an important channel for marketing coupled with specific chatbots.

“We saw a lot of marketers talk about how it creates a lot of conversations and interactions amongst others as it is very different from other one-way channels,” he added.

Similarly, Udit Malhotra, Head of Marketing, Morris Garages also stated that when it comes to what is the intervention and when it is not linear as there are some campaigns which are always on and then there is something to solve for a specific problem.

“We believe in talking audience-first so what we’re doing with our first-party data is that we first start acquiring that as a brand and then find out how is technology enabling it all in a through-the-line world,” he said.

Malhotra also went on to add that most digital marketers talk about reach, impression, vanity metrics and MarTech which ends in the digital world, but today what has happened is that the new word CDP (Customer data platform) has started buzzing everybody wherein people are willing to do it even though they are not able to leverage it further.

“The point is how cohesively can one integrate the journey of the users in a seamless online and offline manner,” he added.

In his view, the right way of going about an omnichannel approach is that one needs to first build on online channels of marketing and then complete the consumers’ buying journey on offline channels as a major chunk of consumers (approximately 46%) consumers still want to touch and feel the car before they make the final purchase.

Similarly, Vivek Bhargava, Co-Founder, ProfitWheel, also went on to share that in the past 25 years, the one change that has almost reset the world is the Generative AI as it is allowing one to use all the channels more effectively by having some kind of AI integration on the respective channel.

“When something is reset, then it is very critical for you as a brand to reset your budgets because spending just a very minuscule portion of your budgets won’t be a true test of it. One thing that has happened today is that there has been a huge shift in which every single channel is getting impacted and that impact is going to be on content creation, creatives that you use, audience planning and usage of various channels, etc.,” he said.

Furthermore, he also went on to add that moving on, the goal for the next three years should be to leverage generative AI in some or the other form on every channel that forms the media mix.

“The other change that I see on the AdTech side is that even though the influencer marketing surfaced after other advertising mediums like Print, Radio, etc., it will become more dominant and that advertising on other channels may not be reduced,” he stated.

Pulkit Mathur, Part Leader Digital marketing, LG, also stated that the tonality and the creatives for any campaign need to be consistent across channels, irrespective of the platform.

He also went on to add that first-party data layered with chatbots is definitely an effective media for marketers.

As per Priyang Agarwal, Director Growth, Marketing and Partnerships, Tata 1mg, content is what cuts across all the channels that any marketer may be using albeit performance marketing, email marketing, etc.

He also went on to emphasise that thoughtful content can be a game-changer for any of the brands as when one thinks of content from a user’s perspective and makes it relatable, it is content can give one a right differentiation factor in spite of being in a cluttered market.

Moving on he also went on to add that communication is very important and needs to be consistent because the brand needs to be really cautious about what they say and take stand for.

“If we’re are saying that it is like flat ‘x’ percent off, the perception that becomes is that it is like I will get ‘x’ percent off. But then there are a lot of terms and conditions which often make the customer feel that the communication is not up to the mark. So, it’s better to get the right communication strategy rather than just bringing the customer, increasing the clicks, increasing the traffic and then increasing the bounce off,” he added.

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