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Tag: Social Beat

  • The Summit also had a session on how brands can grow and innovate through digital

    Social Beat hosts Digital Leadership Summit 2.0

    By A Correspondent

     

    Social Beat organised the second edition of its Digital Leadership Summit and saw a convergence of several business leaders across industries. The first edition took place at Chennai with a focus on driving ROI from digital marketing. One of the biggest talking points of the Summit this year was innovation through Voice, Video and Vernacular with CMOs from various sectors sharing their insights and experiences.

     

    The keynote speaker, Omkar Rajadyaksha, Managed Partners Lead – New Business at from Google, kickstarted the event on what businesses can scale up with Google in 2019. The Summit also focused on driving business results through digital marketing with marketers and brands voicing out common challenges they face and upcoming trends. While there are around 450 million internet users in India currently, this number is set to hit 650 million by 2021. These numbers prove even more significant as the vast majority of new internet users will come from Tier II and Tier III cities. The summit highlighted the importance of tapping into India’s next billion internet users by harnessing the power of Voice, Vernacular and Video for an effective digital marketing strategy.

     

    The keynote session was followed by a panel discussion on building a brand through digital marketing. This session included Ajit Narasimhan, CMO of Sundaram Mutual Fund and Vipin Guliani, Group Head – Digital Marketing at Piramal Group. Moderating the panel, Suneil Chawla, Cofounder of Social Beat, said: “Digital spending is expected to grow 2.5x from $40 billion to $100 billion. This goes to show how businesses are leveraging the power of digital and how it will only continue to grow.”

     

    Added David Appasamy, Head – Brand and Strategy: “Digital platforms have, over the last decade, redefined the way we communicate, build our businesses or entertain ourselves at anytime, anywhere. Now artificial intelligence and augmented reality are taking it to a whole new level in terms of efficiency and experience while vernacular is opening up the platforms to native language speakers and new markets.” Appasamy was joined by Channan Sawhney, Head of Digital Marketing at Johnson and Johnson and Pratyush Kukreja, Head – Product Monetisation at Haptic.

     

    The next session focused on measuring return on investment through digital marketing. The speakers of the session were Prashin Jhobalia, Vice President – Marketing Strategy from House of Hiranandani, Monish Ghatalia, Founder of Focus Communications and Pradeep Nidamarthi, Head of Digital at Reliance Capital. Moderating the panel, Vikas Chawla, Co-Founder, Social Beat, said, “Today we can track not just online customer acquisitions, but also store visits, leads, calls and brand awareness lifts. This allows marketers to truly attribute how much of an impact digital has on businesses across industries.” The Summit also had a session on how brands can grow and innovate through digital by Abraham Alapatt, Group President and Head – Marketing, Service Quality and Innovation at Thomas Cook.

     

     

  • Brand awareness and lead generation are the primary goals for most brands

    Digital Marketing Industry report highlights future trends

    By A Correspondent

     

    Digital Marketing agency Social Beat recently unveiled its report ‘The Digital Marketing Industry Report 2016’ in India. The report is based on a survey conducted in May-June 2016. A total of 376 CMOs and Marketing Heads across India participated in the survey. The companies that participated in the study were from various sectors and verticals including e-Commerce, FMCG, Media/Entertainment, Healthcare, Education, Real Estate, and Travel.

     

    Vikas Chawla

    Speaking on the report, Social Beat Co-Founder Vikas Chawla said, “The report highlights the rise of digital marketing, though brands continue to use television and print mediums to have a 360-degree approach. It was encouraging to see that 87% of the brands surveyed leverage digital marketing. While brand awareness and lead generation/sales seem to be the primary goals set by the CMOs, digital marketing is increasingly being leveraged for Customer Engagement (46%) and customer service (35) too.”

     

    The responses from the survey indicate that digital marketing spends are about one-third of the total marketing spends. The results here are considerably different from the IAMAI – IMRB International Report which pegs the digital spends at 12 per cent of the total marketing spends.

     

    Speaking about the survey, Suneil  Chawla, Co-Founder of Social Beat, said “Around 10 per cent brands surveyed spend more than Rs. 1 crore annually on digital marketing while around 50 per cent brands spend more than Rs. 6 Lakhs annually. Overall, 20 per cent brands plan to increase their digital marketing spends by 25 per cent in the next financial year. This is important in the context of growing internet and digital penetration in India – brands understand that digital is the way forward. With an expected 500 million internet users in India by 2017, brands understand the massive opportunity to reach out to their consumers.”

     

    David Appasamy, who has recently joined Social Beat as Head of Brand & Strategy, added “The survey reflects the growing acceptance of digital platforms as an excellent means of engaging meaningfully with consumers, generating leads and increasing sales. It was particularly interesting to see that the digital marketing channels are already contributing to more than 30% sales for at least 40% of the brands surveyed.”

     

    Tracking Return on Investment (ROI) is the biggest challenge being faced by brands, closely followed by content creation, quality lead generation and attracting talent. Currently, CMOs are using Sales / Leads, Engagement, Brand Reach and Mentions as the metrics to track the effectiveness of their campaigns.

     

    Most of the respondents said they focus on Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing and Emailers for marketing their brand online. Not surprisingly, Facebook (89 per cent) and Google (78 per cent) have emerged as the most popular platforms followed by Twitter (56 per cent) and LinkedIn (51 per cent). Penetration of smartphones, faster internet connectivity and interesting video content have resulted in 51 per cent brands targeting YouTube for marketing their brand. It would be interesting to track the growth of newer channels like Instagram and Snapchat in India for brand marketing in the near future.

     

    Vikas added, “Most of CMOs that took the survey felt that they there is a lot of scope for improvement in quality lead generation, result tracking and creative campaigns. This presents a massive opportunity to digital marketers to fill the gap and help leverage the digital medium more effectively for brands”