Sanjay Tripathy, Senior Executive VP (Marketing, Product, Digital & Direct Channels), HDFC Life
Our digital strategy is focusing on multiple fronts, not just marketing. Our aim is use technology to remove barriers. We are investing a lot in content and conversation. Another thing that is emerging in digital is that I can convert my engagement to business. So, we are working on how the customer can get an end-to-end interactive experience online, whether it is purchase, discovery, education or engagement. The dream is to make HDFC Life a truly online insurance company.
Our digital strategy is focusing on multiple fronts, not just marketing. Our aim is use technology to remove barriers. We are investing a lot in content and conversation. Another thing that is emerging in digital is that I can convert my engagement to business. So, we are working on how the customer can get an end-to-end interactive experience online, whether it is purchase, discovery, education or engagement. The dream is to make HDFC Life a truly online insurance company.Sanjay Tripathy is Executive Vice President, (Marketing, Product, Digital, and Direct Channels) and member of the executive management committee at HDFC Life. He has worked with various organisations such as Frito-Lay (PepsiCo), Mattel and Reliance Communications (erstwhile Reliance Infocomm). He is also a board member at Media Research Users Council (MRUC), an advisory board member at DMAi (Direct Marketing Association - India) and a member of the awareness sub-committee of the Life Insurance Council.
In a wide-ranging discussion with exchange4media’s Abhinn Shreshtha, Tripathy speaks about HDFC’s plans to create a “truly digital life insurance brand” and gives his views on social strategy, the ad cap issue, among other things. Q. Digital has been a very important facet of your marketing strategy recently. Do you see this changing or remaining constant? For every campaign there is a target segment and the choice of the medium is decided by consumption of media by the target segment, as well as the objective of the campaign. TV is still the preferred medium because it is the cheapest way to get the maximum reach in urban, semi-urban and rural areas. For example, if I just put my ad during a cricket match, I can reach almost the entire country.
However, digital marketing forms 30 per cent of our overall spend. This is because we have taken a conscious call to maximize digital as part of our internal strategy. The other side to our strategy is how we can substitute digital for other media wherever possible. Basically, we are looking at how we can have digital-led campaigns rather than TV-led campaigns. There is still a long way to go but this is something we are looking at. TV spends for us have anyway not really gone up in the last couple of years. In fact, we spoke to a few agencies about the possibility of creating a digital-led campaign and most of them said that it can be done.
Q. What dictated this focus on the digital platform? Digital media is making an impact because all of us have started spending a lot of time on digital platforms, whether it is reading news, e-books, etc., or on social platforms. It not only helps to get my content across but also facilitates interaction. It is also more targeted. For example, one of our target group (TG) is working women. If we want to market a specific plan for working women, I will be wasting a lot of time and money by doing a campaign on TV. I need a more specific medium.
The key thing that is changing in online is the philosophy of “Research online, Buy offline”. If you look at e-commerce sites today; people are buying stuff, which they would have probably gone to buy in a brick and mortar store earlier. These days, the research is online, the experience is online and people are even buying the products online. In fact, even after sales support is being done online. This is how my customer is changing, so my communication should also change accordingly. Communication on TV is one-to-many but customers expect a more two-way communication and digital is the primary mode which is helping achieve this. Every brand wants to interact with the customer, so digital medium’s importance will keep increasing. Also, digital can be integrated with offline media, for example, by using QR codes, so the final culmination is happening on the digital medium.
Q. What are the cornerstones of your digital strategy? Our digital strategy is to focus on multiple fronts, not just marketing. Our aim is use technology to remove barriers. We are investing a lot in content and conversation. Another thing that is emerging in digital is that I can convert my engagement to business. So, we are working on how the customer can get an end-to-end interactive experience online, whether it is purchase, discovery, education or engagement. The dream is to make HDFC Life a truly online insurance company.
We did a study recently, which told us that young adults consume two or three media at the same time. They might be watching TV while simultaneously sending a message on Whatsapp. What we need to think is how we can change our digital strategy to suit this changing nature. For example, a customer might see our ad on TV and want to visit our website through his smartphone, so we made our website design responsive or device independent so it is no longer restrictive. We are also working on how our sales force can provide a better experience, for example, enabling customers to fill up forms along with the signature online and carry out underwriting online based on the user profile, etc.
Q. You spoke about e-commerce, but it is still a nascent segment for most BFSI companies... Our online portal was launched in January 2012 and we have already sold more than 1 lakh policies online. We are the number one player when it comes to selling online products. Currently, it is about 2.5 per cent of our business, but we expect it to grow up to 10 per cent in the near future.
Currently, online purchases are mainly in particular segments like protection and health, but we believe in the near future it will move to savings and investments and pension segments too and these are the areas that hold a lot of promise for us.
Q. How are you using video content as part of your content strategy? We believe that video has a big role to play, especially since in our category it is important to provide the right advice and product information to customers. Our video strategy is around five verticals – imparting information about the product, brand communication, educating the customer, providing sales-related or transaction-related information (purchase information, payment information, etc.) and customer-related information (how to lodge a complaint, etc). Whenever we send any communication to a customer we embed a video in it. People love to consume content and we have seen a huge increase in the DIY phenomenon. So, videos not only help educate customers but they also encourage the DIY philosophy.
Q. HDFC Life has a very strong presence on social media with 80,000+ followers on Twitter and 17 lakh plus likes on Facebook. What do you think you have done right? My fundamental theory about social media is that, like your house, you will only invite people with whom you are happy to interact with. Similarly, people will only follow brands with which they can have meaningful interactions. What we really look at is keeping the engagement going without making it forceful by just sending brand messages. Our Facebook page is a platform for us to provide good content and create interactions.
The aim is to let people talk and discuss; in fact, we ensure that our brand messaging is less than 10 per cent. Also, we get our followers and fans involved in our CSR activities (‘Swabhiman Careers’) too.
Q. So, what is your content strategy and how do you measure the effectiveness of your social media campaigns? Likes and follower count is hardly the most accurate measurement. On social media, we follow the theme of “Life”. Also, safety and security is what we provide to people, so we think about how we play around these broader themes. Now, our core brand motto is “Sar Utha Ke Jiyo”, so we try and integrate it into our day-to-day activities. For example, on Father’s Day, there might be a communication that asks people to tell us about the most important values that their father taught them; so it becomes more contextual. We can take out different themes on different days around the core concept of Life and “Sar Utha Ke Jiyo”. Similarly, on Twitter we focussed on providing informative content to our followers. We can’t keep talking about insurance or HDFC Life, our followers will be bored. What we really want is for our followers to have discussions; Likes and number of followers is secondary.
We track our interaction index to analyse how the content is working and for this we use Unmetrix. We also pay attention to online reputation management to keep track of good and bad comments. We have also tied up with TCS for a tracking tool. The thing is, one cannot buy all the tools personally but we have tied up with the right partners to help us.
Q. Apart from Facebook and Twitter, how does HDFC Life leverage other social platforms? Every social media page is different and people come there for different reasons. We have presence on Pinterest and we are also looking at Google+. What we realised is that it takes a few months to understand a new platform. For example, on Pinterest we realized that there are more women and it had more infographic material. So, we are now looking at how we can put graphic material with insurance-related posts so people can share the content and read it.
Google + has not really taken off but the way Google is integrating it across its products most brands will have to make Google + a part of their online strategy, whether they like it or not. For now, Google+ is like the fourth read newspaper. I think we have done a good job and have developed a strong understanding of Facebook and Twitter. Now, we are closely looking at the other two and trying to figure out how best to leverage them.
Q. Where does mobile figure in your digital strategy? India is a mobile country. All of us spend a huge amount of time outdoors and mobile has become the first screen for almost everyone. Going forward, every new initiative will have to be first thought from a mobile perspective.
We look at digital primarily from two aspects – engagement and business, so we need to have a mobile strategy that fulfils both these purposes. The customer should not have to go back to a desktop to carry out any transaction. Our focus is on making our features and offerings available to the user on the mobile screen. For example, if someone has to fill a form, how do we make it easier for him to open it on a smaller screen? Or, can our customer fill fewer pages of details?
Q. Please tell us something about the corporate blog initiative. The challenge in our industry is that the right information is not easily available. People have to depend on newspaper articles and other sources for information and most of the times, these sources are very contradictory, because there are so many different financial products, for example, someone might say mutual fund is better, someone else will say another plan is better. This leads to a lot of confusion about what is right or wrong. So, we decided to start a blog and invite external experts to write about these subjects. This is available for anyone who wants to read about topics related to our industry like taxation, annuity, product availability, product launch, etc. It’s a one stop repository for all data on insurance and related subjects.
Q. What is your take on the ad cap issue? It will do two things. It will make the channels which are doing well pricy and it will make the smaller channels more vulnerable. As a brand, my media budget is not going to increase because ad rates have gone up. Brands might decide to move to other options rather than pay more. One thing that will have to change is that my scheduling and planning will have to be done well in advance because the channel might run out of inventory if I leave it too late. If I want to start a TV campaign in 15 days, my backend chain will need to get more structured, which is not currently the case.
Q. Do you think it will have any significant effect on marketing budgets with brands opting for other alternatives? If you think about it, digital marketing grew during the recession when budgets were low. Currently, the options are deemed to be less because brands have not tried a lot. Once you start trying out new alternatives, you will probably realise what else is available.
I think content will become more premium on TV, when you know people are definitely going to be watching, the rates will shoot up. Something like what happens during a cricket match or the Super Bowl. The usual RODP (Run Of Day Part) spots will really have no value because brands might probably not have enough budget to invest in them.
Q. What are your expectations from your digital agency? What was happening earlier was that digital agencies were mostly tactical. They need to be strategic and need to think for the brand. Once we have a campaign or communication objective, they need to figure out how it can be carried out with digital as the core. It is important for them to understand the campaign objective and find a creative route before taking it to other media.
In a wide-ranging discussion with exchange4media’s Abhinn Shreshtha, Tripathy speaks about HDFC’s plans to create a “truly digital life insurance brand” and gives his views on social strategy, the ad cap issue, among other things. Q. Digital has been a very important facet of your marketing strategy recently. Do you see this changing or remaining constant? For every campaign there is a target segment and the choice of the medium is decided by consumption of media by the target segment, as well as the objective of the campaign. TV is still the preferred medium because it is the cheapest way to get the maximum reach in urban, semi-urban and rural areas. For example, if I just put my ad during a cricket match, I can reach almost the entire country.
However, digital marketing forms 30 per cent of our overall spend. This is because we have taken a conscious call to maximize digital as part of our internal strategy. The other side to our strategy is how we can substitute digital for other media wherever possible. Basically, we are looking at how we can have digital-led campaigns rather than TV-led campaigns. There is still a long way to go but this is something we are looking at. TV spends for us have anyway not really gone up in the last couple of years. In fact, we spoke to a few agencies about the possibility of creating a digital-led campaign and most of them said that it can be done.
Q. What dictated this focus on the digital platform? Digital media is making an impact because all of us have started spending a lot of time on digital platforms, whether it is reading news, e-books, etc., or on social platforms. It not only helps to get my content across but also facilitates interaction. It is also more targeted. For example, one of our target group (TG) is working women. If we want to market a specific plan for working women, I will be wasting a lot of time and money by doing a campaign on TV. I need a more specific medium.
The key thing that is changing in online is the philosophy of “Research online, Buy offline”. If you look at e-commerce sites today; people are buying stuff, which they would have probably gone to buy in a brick and mortar store earlier. These days, the research is online, the experience is online and people are even buying the products online. In fact, even after sales support is being done online. This is how my customer is changing, so my communication should also change accordingly. Communication on TV is one-to-many but customers expect a more two-way communication and digital is the primary mode which is helping achieve this. Every brand wants to interact with the customer, so digital medium’s importance will keep increasing. Also, digital can be integrated with offline media, for example, by using QR codes, so the final culmination is happening on the digital medium.
Q. What are the cornerstones of your digital strategy? Our digital strategy is to focus on multiple fronts, not just marketing. Our aim is use technology to remove barriers. We are investing a lot in content and conversation. Another thing that is emerging in digital is that I can convert my engagement to business. So, we are working on how the customer can get an end-to-end interactive experience online, whether it is purchase, discovery, education or engagement. The dream is to make HDFC Life a truly online insurance company.
We did a study recently, which told us that young adults consume two or three media at the same time. They might be watching TV while simultaneously sending a message on Whatsapp. What we need to think is how we can change our digital strategy to suit this changing nature. For example, a customer might see our ad on TV and want to visit our website through his smartphone, so we made our website design responsive or device independent so it is no longer restrictive. We are also working on how our sales force can provide a better experience, for example, enabling customers to fill up forms along with the signature online and carry out underwriting online based on the user profile, etc.
Q. You spoke about e-commerce, but it is still a nascent segment for most BFSI companies... Our online portal was launched in January 2012 and we have already sold more than 1 lakh policies online. We are the number one player when it comes to selling online products. Currently, it is about 2.5 per cent of our business, but we expect it to grow up to 10 per cent in the near future.
Currently, online purchases are mainly in particular segments like protection and health, but we believe in the near future it will move to savings and investments and pension segments too and these are the areas that hold a lot of promise for us.
Q. How are you using video content as part of your content strategy? We believe that video has a big role to play, especially since in our category it is important to provide the right advice and product information to customers. Our video strategy is around five verticals – imparting information about the product, brand communication, educating the customer, providing sales-related or transaction-related information (purchase information, payment information, etc.) and customer-related information (how to lodge a complaint, etc). Whenever we send any communication to a customer we embed a video in it. People love to consume content and we have seen a huge increase in the DIY phenomenon. So, videos not only help educate customers but they also encourage the DIY philosophy.
Q. HDFC Life has a very strong presence on social media with 80,000+ followers on Twitter and 17 lakh plus likes on Facebook. What do you think you have done right? My fundamental theory about social media is that, like your house, you will only invite people with whom you are happy to interact with. Similarly, people will only follow brands with which they can have meaningful interactions. What we really look at is keeping the engagement going without making it forceful by just sending brand messages. Our Facebook page is a platform for us to provide good content and create interactions.
The aim is to let people talk and discuss; in fact, we ensure that our brand messaging is less than 10 per cent. Also, we get our followers and fans involved in our CSR activities (‘Swabhiman Careers’) too.
Q. So, what is your content strategy and how do you measure the effectiveness of your social media campaigns? Likes and follower count is hardly the most accurate measurement. On social media, we follow the theme of “Life”. Also, safety and security is what we provide to people, so we think about how we play around these broader themes. Now, our core brand motto is “Sar Utha Ke Jiyo”, so we try and integrate it into our day-to-day activities. For example, on Father’s Day, there might be a communication that asks people to tell us about the most important values that their father taught them; so it becomes more contextual. We can take out different themes on different days around the core concept of Life and “Sar Utha Ke Jiyo”. Similarly, on Twitter we focussed on providing informative content to our followers. We can’t keep talking about insurance or HDFC Life, our followers will be bored. What we really want is for our followers to have discussions; Likes and number of followers is secondary.
We track our interaction index to analyse how the content is working and for this we use Unmetrix. We also pay attention to online reputation management to keep track of good and bad comments. We have also tied up with TCS for a tracking tool. The thing is, one cannot buy all the tools personally but we have tied up with the right partners to help us.
Q. Apart from Facebook and Twitter, how does HDFC Life leverage other social platforms? Every social media page is different and people come there for different reasons. We have presence on Pinterest and we are also looking at Google+. What we realised is that it takes a few months to understand a new platform. For example, on Pinterest we realized that there are more women and it had more infographic material. So, we are now looking at how we can put graphic material with insurance-related posts so people can share the content and read it.
Google + has not really taken off but the way Google is integrating it across its products most brands will have to make Google + a part of their online strategy, whether they like it or not. For now, Google+ is like the fourth read newspaper. I think we have done a good job and have developed a strong understanding of Facebook and Twitter. Now, we are closely looking at the other two and trying to figure out how best to leverage them.
Q. Where does mobile figure in your digital strategy? India is a mobile country. All of us spend a huge amount of time outdoors and mobile has become the first screen for almost everyone. Going forward, every new initiative will have to be first thought from a mobile perspective.
We look at digital primarily from two aspects – engagement and business, so we need to have a mobile strategy that fulfils both these purposes. The customer should not have to go back to a desktop to carry out any transaction. Our focus is on making our features and offerings available to the user on the mobile screen. For example, if someone has to fill a form, how do we make it easier for him to open it on a smaller screen? Or, can our customer fill fewer pages of details?
Q. Please tell us something about the corporate blog initiative. The challenge in our industry is that the right information is not easily available. People have to depend on newspaper articles and other sources for information and most of the times, these sources are very contradictory, because there are so many different financial products, for example, someone might say mutual fund is better, someone else will say another plan is better. This leads to a lot of confusion about what is right or wrong. So, we decided to start a blog and invite external experts to write about these subjects. This is available for anyone who wants to read about topics related to our industry like taxation, annuity, product availability, product launch, etc. It’s a one stop repository for all data on insurance and related subjects.
Q. What is your take on the ad cap issue? It will do two things. It will make the channels which are doing well pricy and it will make the smaller channels more vulnerable. As a brand, my media budget is not going to increase because ad rates have gone up. Brands might decide to move to other options rather than pay more. One thing that will have to change is that my scheduling and planning will have to be done well in advance because the channel might run out of inventory if I leave it too late. If I want to start a TV campaign in 15 days, my backend chain will need to get more structured, which is not currently the case.
Q. Do you think it will have any significant effect on marketing budgets with brands opting for other alternatives? If you think about it, digital marketing grew during the recession when budgets were low. Currently, the options are deemed to be less because brands have not tried a lot. Once you start trying out new alternatives, you will probably realise what else is available.
I think content will become more premium on TV, when you know people are definitely going to be watching, the rates will shoot up. Something like what happens during a cricket match or the Super Bowl. The usual RODP (Run Of Day Part) spots will really have no value because brands might probably not have enough budget to invest in them.
Q. What are your expectations from your digital agency? What was happening earlier was that digital agencies were mostly tactical. They need to be strategic and need to think for the brand. Once we have a campaign or communication objective, they need to figure out how it can be carried out with digital as the core. It is important for them to understand the campaign objective and find a creative route before taking it to other media.
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