Case Studies - Best Practices in Online Marketing by Gaurav Gupta (General Motors), Nikhil Rungta (Yatra) and Vasant Singal (NIIT) at OMCAR 2009

Post lunch we again gather for yet another interesting session at OMCAR 2009 : ‘Case Studies - Best Practices in Online Marketing, presented by Nikhil Rungta (Marketing Head, Yatra), Vasant Singhal (NIIT) and Gaurav Gupta (General Motors). Kapil welcomes the audience and remarks that the post-lunch turnout is much bigger than what was expected and he introduces the panelists. I am very pleased to be LIVE Blogging this session. Gaurav begins the session by asking the audience profile. okay so we have Gaurav introducing the GM portfolio in India. Sharing his thoughts on Internet usage in India, Gaurav is now sharing with the audience the impediments for the digital today! Interesting to know how GM has its Digital Architecture defined, im sure this is going to be an amazing case study! There are 3 pillars of Digital Architecture at GM. Gaurav shared about various campaigns they launched under their Digital Marketing strategy. The 1st pillar of their strategy is about Innovation. One of the key campaigns was around the launch of Captiva. They did a Viral on Spark brand. Under this they’d almost 16,000 games being played in less than 3 weeks. Aveo U-VA campaign on Yahoo was another innovation under digital marketing at GM. 2nd Pillar is Strategic Partnerships. Under this, they leveraged a Guaranteed Return Deal, through which they almost doubled their ROI - 15% ROI versus 7% average. Given that GM’s potential/customers have gizmos, they exploited SMS to get captive attention to create traction. It included Mobile Gaming. They achieved a CTR of over 4% through this. The 3rd pillar is about Sustenance & continuity under which they used SEO, SEM & SMM including directly interacting with the customers to get valuable research & feedback, which is now an integral part of their marketing. Before their focus they’d over 15% negative feedback on blogs which improved later to around 5%. One of their latest cars, was promoted only using Online, a classic and a very unconventional approach. In short, Gaurav’s message is about how innovation and openness, when embraced over a period of time can create exponential & surprising results. Gaurav thanked Quasar, their digital marketing agency and his own time for their wonderful contribution. ‘SIP’, consisting of Specialize (development of media), Involve (key stake holders) and Proactively (share early success) is the model which is not formally instituted at GM. Digital now has become so integral to their strategy today and if digital is absent in any of their marketing plans at GM, questions are posed by management. So now we have the Head sales at Yatra.com speaking about Yatra’s yatra…Nikhil shares Yatra’s state in the present times. I see that the company has really churned good numbers here. Nikhil is now talking about how they launched their website in august 2006, when they still had enough competition around as MakeMyTrip.com and the rest of course. Interestingly Nikhil is pointing out the challenges that they faced at that time. Task at Hand: Nikhil is now sharing the marketing plan that they thought of and how did they really get on to deciding on the best available options at that point in time, when Yahoo and the rest were still non existant. So we used various channels. in 2006 when there were fewer web sites, we went to the TOP sites, advertising on them, though now we have a much more diverse portfolio. And well, now comes the real deal, Nikhil shares some amazing numbers and they have grown over time, I am amazed how being online has helped yatra. The question that we ask as a marketer, initially is HOW MANY? That is how many leads would we have? but one key difference of the same question in the online world is: WHO? Its who you are targeting and how you are doing it and with what! Nikhil shares his learnings now. How traditional marketing is like spray and pray - which is i’ll spray someone with a message and well, I’ll pray for sales. But the Online industry is about aiming and shooting. This is the online budget I have and I am clear about it. Also the best part is, I can be fairly highly specific in my advertising. I can reach out to a filtered customer and then only target these customers, says Nikhil while comparing online marketing with traditional marketing. Taking the learnings further, Nikhil talks about targets and budgets and how they are being focused in seizing the opportunity by prioritizing the market. Nikhil now shares how they decide on the marketing spend online and well I feel it is pretty interesting methodology and a great way to assess your ROI! great going Nikhil! DEFINE YOUR OBJECTIVES Nikhil shares how it is very critical to be defining the outcomes for the marketing efforts that you are implementing. How you need to create metrics for the business that you are in. Interestingly we are now discussing the NEW CONSUMER BEHAVIOR! Hinting upon how the new consumer has lack of time! The mantra is when your customer comes to you online: dont make him think! Keep your message as short - simple and easy to understand. When it comes to online, companies like yatra are also to blame: banners like zero value fares! We need to define transparency in the online domain. “Ek baar teer chhod diya toh use wapas nahi laa sakte” - this is what is the advantage with the online media and which is not present with the traditional media. Nikhil now recaps the session in some important pointers and wallah we have some amazing case studies opening more than just few eyes, in fact opening brains Nikhil now shares the power of mobile and how it is going and getting bigger, 3G, bigger screens, GPRS And finally NIkhil shares his love, the video ads! on various sites, the click to play ads, we pay only when someone clicks, video ads is captive viewing, coz its a story you are waiting for! And now we have a few laughs towards the end of the session

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