Interview with Manish Kalra – Marketing Head – MakeMyTrip.com
PW: How important is technology for the success of the modern marketer?
MK: Technology is the backbone of any business & it is even more important in case of E-commerce companies like us. In our scenario, technology plays a vital role in product experience & service delivery to our customers. Today’s marketer needs to be clued into customer experience more so than ever considering the Competitive clutter. Understanding technology and leveraging it successfully is extremely important for understanding customer behavior, mining for relevant customer insights and developing appropriate marketing strategy to reach out to the relevant target audience.
PW: What are your current marketing priorities & how does that translate to technology?
MK: Online marketing is heavily dependent on technology and our business is no different. Attracting a bigger chunk of relevant traffic to our portal, using display & search engine marketing tools for sourcing quality potential customers and use of robust analytics for sharp insights on customer trends & usage patterns; all these key priorities require a heavy dependence on technology. Post acquisition CRM and retention programs hold a high priority as well for us.
PW: In your organization how has technology played a role in customer acquisition or retention?
MK: Our entire online customer acquisition and retention process is purely dependent on technology. Technology helps us understand customer behavior as well as design relevant products, offering and communication relevant to their needs, which in turn promotes retention and reduces the cost of acquisition.
PW: How has technology played a role in new product development, market expansion or other areas?
MK: Our new product development process involves multiple levels of online trials, design testing & customer navigation behavior testing & impact on measuring impact on marketing parameters. With appropriate use of technology, understanding online customer behavior & developing new online products is a key for our success. Our communication is also driven to a big extent through these insights.
PW: Would you say the level of collaboration between the CMO and CIO in your organization was:
MK: It is highly collaborative approach considering the interdependencies of technology & marketing on each other in an E-commerce company like ours. We brainstorm together on how to make products simpler as well design communication using these products.