“There’s a very thin line between using data for user experience & invading user’s privacy”

Every entrepreneur of a start-up should have a fair understanding of marketing. It is important to assess demand and have the right marketing strategy. It is important to know the maturity of the category. In this podcast, Radha Radhakrishnan discusses the importance of communication for start-ups with Sanjay OS, Lead – Digital Marketing, BYJU’s, the importance of communication for start-ups.

Listen to the podcast here.

For many start-ups, digital marketing is a black box. Something they don’t understand. So, where should they begin?

Let me answer that question by answering why it is important for the founder to be familiar with digital marketing. When an entrepreneur ventures into a business, it is important to understand the market size and the maturity of the category.

How to go about market strategy and how to assess the demand is important. Digital marketing comes in handy here. This is one of the primary reasons any entrepreneur should be familiar with digital marketing. Where do they start? There are a lot of free resources available online. Google and Facebook have their programs. There is a lot of free content available online, on YouTube especially. These are great places to start.

Do you think people tend to underplay the importance of websites? How important is it for a start-up to invest in their own website?

Website is important. However, the level of importance depends on the product or the service the business is offering. Google came up with this study called Zero Moment of Truth in 2011. The study explained that more users are searching for things online before shopping or even before considering a purchase. So, a business needs to be discoverable. And the website is a very prominent property to own to ensure better discoverability.

When we talk of targeted marketing, data privacy is a concern. How can start-ups manage this better?

Data is important because it helps enhance the overall user experience. One needs to ensure that there is consent. Ensure the user understands why information is being captured. And there’s a very thin line between using data for user experience and invading a user’s privacy. There are many forms which capture user information, and they actually monetise it by selling it to third party firms. This is a serious No. But leveraging data for user experience, if it is done with consent, should be good.

What kind of budget should start-ups set aside for digital marketing and branding?

Again, it depends on the stage the start-up is in. And start-ups need to know what to expect of each marketing platform, and what role it plays in the overall marketing strategy. So, for a smaller start-up, digital marketing is ideal. If they want to go mass media, I will say, TV is still the number one option to drive awareness. If you want to drive performance and maximise returns, digital is still the best option.

How did you start digital marketing at Byju’s?

We started as a small team and experimented with different messaging, different creatives, and we were aggressive in our approach. We were a smaller brand. We were trying to figure out our target audience and what message resonates best with them. That has evolved now into a stage where we have stronger data analytics. We know what works. We know which user profile resonates to what message. We are more efficient in terms of our marketing spend. However, we are still scaling and growing.

What are some of the key learnings that you had?

Businesses need to understand who their customer is and what is their expectation. Also, clarity in communication is essential. As we may have parents who may not be digitally savvy, we had to ensure the message we put across addressed their problem. We don’t want to talk about products that do not resonate with them.

What are some of the high moments for you?

So, we have had a few successes, I would say great success was when we scaled our app installs while keeping our costs intact. So, we were able to drive a larger scale at the same efficiency. We have experimented a lot in terms of creatives and messaging. We have taken many risks. But as we have grown, we now see that we are very clear in terms of what messaging works, most of the time.

How has TV campaigns and celebrity endorsements helped you? Have you been able to measure that?

TV has had a big impact on brand awareness and brand recognition. We have measured it. Increase in Google search and increase in organic app installs are few indicators of measuring how effective our TV campaign is.

Marketing
@adgully

News in the domain of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Business of Entertainment