Paul Writer launches Innovative Marketer Dialogue, 
Video interview series with CMOs highlights marketing best practices
Lata Subramanian
VP Marketing
Sterling Holidays Resorts (India) Ltd
On Multi-channel marketing program and their synergies …
I can’t imagine a single organization or a single marketer who doesn’t have a multi-channel program. Is that a choice? First there was only the World Wide Web, now there is social media. Within social media, we have Facebook, Whatsapp, Google + and Twitter, that itself is multi-channel.
Over and above that, Sterling is a service organization, and service organization by definition of their business must have a multiple channel communication. We have multiple channels of communication from which we reach out to and interact with our existing members and to our other guests who sometime holiday with us as a one time leisure guest. We also have multiple channels through which we reach out to prospective customers, obviously like any business we want to grow our market share, member acquisition and asking more and more people to either come back and holiday with us as repeat guests or experience the kind of holiday we deliver.
So yes, we do have multiple channels, but how do we make sure that everything is in sync? Fortunately a service organization, culturally is used to a high degree of coordination. Let me draw a parallel and give you an example from the aviation industry and then I will talk about our own industry which is leisure hospitality. There are a number of departments within an airline that is involved in making sure that the flight pushes back to the departure gate on time, for instance there is flight operation, in-flight service, cabin crew scheduling and something called the ‘ill management department’, there is marketing and they may also have in-flight program. Similarly, in leisure hospitality, from the time that a customer makes a booking till the end, there is a welcome message that goes out and thank you message before that and as he nears his holiday, the resort will get in touch with the member or guest saying ‘we are looking forward to you coming, we’ve got your room ready’. After the holiday, we ask for feedback and we sometimes send a little photograph.
The coordination is in our DNA so we don’t have a problem but if you look at it from a purely branding perspective or a marketing perspective, you can see the marketing department at sterling as a conductor who conducts the orchestra to produce what we hope is a beautiful symphony, of course now and then there will be a note here or there, somebody goes off key. All business go through it now and then but we quickly recover therefore marketing acts as a conductor of the orchestra which would be agencies, colleagues or other key functions. we make sure that there is a standardized look and feel and a standardized voice is used across our channels of communication.
“So yes, we do have multiple channels, but how do we make sure that everything is in sync? Fortunately a service organization, culturally is used to a high degree of coordination.”
