Paul Writer launches The Rise Of The Modern Marketer, 
Video interview series of CXO’s highlighting best practices and trends in the use of technology for marketing.
Sanjay Gupta
Vice President Marketing
Nissan Motor India
Customer engagement across marketing channels
Customer engagement across all marketing channels has to be consistent and same. It should deliver the same experience and the same delight.
“Technology today will define how marketing is done and as we progress in my category Omni channel marketing works because I know that my customer today is not only on one channel. Technology is certainly helping me provide an integrated experience to my customer. ”
Provide an integrated experience to your customers across all touch points
This is not easy. This is the most difficult challenge in marketing. To deliver integrated experience to my customer I need to be talking the same language in all my channels. So first of all being clear about what I want to talk about in first channel and then translating it into all channels. So this is something which we are working on and we would like to keep working on. If I’m able to achieve it, this will deliver only delight to me as well as my customer.
Seamless and integrated experience to your customers
Seamless is something which is already integrated. So once you’ve done an integration, you’ve practiced it and you find that it’s working seamlessly for you. But if you are doing it for the first time it cannot be seamless. So obviously you’ve to become a practitioner of integrated marketing and then it’ll become seamless for you. And the experience delivered to the customer will become a delight only when you have achieved the seamless integrated marketing.
Biggest challenge with respect to Omni Channel Marketing
In my category Omni channel marketing works because I know that my customer today is not only on one channel… he uses every channel. And that channel is not only the conventional ATL channel but also the BTL channel… but also the digital, the social and any other channel available to me. Information today is not restricted to any particular medium. It can go to any medium. So, I have to be present everywhere.
The challenges today I see with respect to the Omni channel marketing is that it is still new and nascent for my industry (automobile). We are still learning the tricks of Omni channel marketing so until and unless we become really abreast with all the good features of Omni channel marketing, we will feel that we are lacking or we are losing out on something specifically with respect to the KPIs which need to be measured and which KPIs and what are those KPIs which need to be identified for each of those channels that we use. So yes, challenges are there but we are going to address it on the job.
About technology helping in providing a omni channel experience to the customers
Technology is certainly helping me provide an integrated experience to my customer. Recent example is the launch of our smallest car in our stable, which is the Datsun RediGo, where we saw that because of technology I could deliver similar experience to the customer be it on TV, be it on print (because on print also you have that QR code), then on the bill board (where it was a technology oriented bill board) and then moving on to our website (website also delivered the same kind of experience) then the mobile, then I delivered it through an app (which was a customized app for the consumer) and then to the dealer also – which is my selling channel. So through all my channels I was able to deliver an integrated experience. So it was all possible because of technology.
We have been capturing data because this is a recent experience so data has been coming back to us, it has been telling us that yes we have made the first inroads to our customers and their mind. And we are now very happy and now we are going to do the data mining about it and then take the next step about it.
Rise of Chief Marketing Technologist
Technology today will define how marketing is done and as we progress, we feel that the chief marketing officer will soon become outdated until and unless he wants to and he does upgrade to the technology side of marketing.
Digital media strategy for 2016
The biggest contribution that we are making to digital marketing is by increasing our investment to it. In the coming year we are thinking of doubling the investment to digital marketing. Secondly, we are aware that today the social media plays one of the most important role in making or breaking the company and from that prospective our investment in technology for social media is going to increase. We want to capture each and every aspect of what has been spoken about us in all of the social media where we will want to address that in a proactive manner so that we are always aware and are always on top of it.
About Marketing changing today esp in automobile sector
The orientation of Asian automobile companies towards marketing and towards social media marketing as of now is not as high as compared to European and western counter parts. This is no more a matter a choice but a necessity and hence it is suggested that people adopt to marketing as well as social media marketing as soon as possible for their own good.
