Marketing Recoded by Storyboard18 is a series of interviews with marketers at some of India’s buzziest brands. How these marketers define their jobs, which skills they value most, and which they feel are overrated are among the questions we ask, to get fast and sharp insights into their minds. Here’s what Kashyap Vadapalli, the former chief marketing officer and business head of the furniture marketplace Pepperfry, thinks about modem marketing and its practitioners.
Edited excerpts.
Define your job as a marketer
I tell stories. I give out messages to people about my brand and company. The objective of telling these stories is to get people excited about my products and organisation. Finally, I try to show them a path to interact with my organization whether it is online or offline.
Three important skills every modern marketer should possess
1) Curiosity - A marketer should be constantly curious about what is going on in the consumers’ lives and how their habits are changing. Marketers should also be curious about their category and its new substitutes. 2) Crafting and creating - Marketers should have the ability to craft messages and create stories to get consumers excited. 3) Connecting the dots - Today's marketing ecosystem has become extremely fragmented. As a marketer you can get confused. So you should develop a quality to be able to connect the dots to ensure that your campaigns are successful.
The three most overrated traits
1) Give up flamboyance - There was a time when marketers needed to be showmen while pitching to customers and their company’s management. With the availability of data and good quality feedback from customers through social media, marketers don't have to be showmen and they don't have to rely on flamboyance. 2) Marketers should give up on having a fixed mindset. A marketer should adopt a growth mindset. 3) They shouldn’t get lost in financial metrics. Often, the finance team keeps demanding ROI from the marketing folks and what is the benefit that the company is getting out of the marketing spending. During these times, marketers do get defensive. They shouldn’t be worrying about financial metrics. They should look at telling the best stories that they can to the consumers. If they do that on a consistent basis, the financial metrics will show results.
How has the role of a marketer changed after the pandemic hit?
The pandemic brought in a lot of changes to the average customer's life. There was uncertainty about jobs, health, working styles, etc. As a marketer, around this time, we had to support customers. We had to give them the right information at the right time. Marketers couldn’t use FOMO (fear of missing out) as a trick to make customers buy things. Those who built a lot of empathy stood strong. In the pre-pandemic era, my job was to convince or nudge the customers but right now my underlying relationship with the customer is one with empathy.
A current professional life-hack you swear by?
I listen to good-quality podcasts. We can't simply rely on experience or what we learned a long time back in marketing. We have to be learning continuously and podcasts are really helpful. The best part is that you can multitask while listening to podcasts.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever got on the job?
View setbacks as a learning moment. If you are in the business for a long time, failure is going to happen on some projects. Instead of reacting emotionally, accept those failures.
What’s the worst advice you’ve got on the job?
Someone once told me ‘fake it till you make it. Basically, what I was told was that even if you are not ready for something, look like you are set for it. At some level, it’s a good confidence-building measure. I don't deny it. You are not always ready for a particular role. However, honestly, it’s better to communicate that you don’t have the solution and will figure it out. There are many managers out there who use the other approach. My suggestion is don’t follow that advice.
Advice for those entering the world of marketing
In marketing, things are not very well defined. A lot is based on theories. As a new marketer don't rely on theories, understand deeply every single action that you're taking. Don't do it because somebody tells you that this is how it has always been done. Also, act with conscience. What I mean is that customers should be told exactly what you can deliver. Overpromising is a trap that marketers can fall into. Don't ever do that.
(Edited by : Ajay Vaishnav)
Check out our in-depth Market Coverage, Business News & get real-time Stock Market Updates on CNBC-TV18. Also, Watch our channels CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz and CNBC Bajar Live on-the-go!
Supreme Court says it may consider interim bail for Arvind Kejriwal due to ongoing Lok Sabha polls
May 3, 2024 4:57 PM
10% discount on fare on Mumbai Metro lines 2 and 7A on May 20
May 3, 2024 2:40 PM