Pitch CMO Summit: Must implement consumer feedback to stay relevant: Shankar Nath, Paytm
Shankar Nath, SVP Marketing Paytm, on how listening to consumers can help brands stay relevant in the long run.
Listening to consumers actively has always been the forte of visionary marketers. Changing, evolving and adapting to customers’ needs is what successful brands are known for. At the recent Pitch CMO Summit in New Delhi, Shankar Nath, SVP Marketing Paytm, spoke about how listening to consumers can help brands stay relevant in the long run.
“There are a lot of changes that are happening and it is important to observe those trends, take some action to exploit that particular trend, because if we don’t, we might become obsolete very quickly. This is especially true on the mobile and technology front. It is important to listen and observe both at the micro and macro level”, said Nath.
According to Nath, we are witnessing a lot of disruption in many industries. For example appointment viewing on TV is no longer relevant, so it is important to see alternatives which exist. “Today as a marketer, if I keep spending money on genres like soaps, I may not be able to reach that particular person. So, what we have done as a counter measure is to pick up sports in a big way. Perhaps that is the only real time content which people watch”, he added.
Sharing the Paytm way of keeping a close tab on the pulse of its users and evolving according to their needs and demands, Nath said, “At the micro level we observe our users closely. Today we have 12-13 crore people who have downloaded the Paytm App. About 4 to 5 crore people use it once a day, which is a significant number. However, we have realized that there is an upper ceiling which we will hit soon. Now, we see a lot of people who are using the app in English and whatever they are writing about the app is essentially in their mother tongue but written in English script. So as a marketer one needs to see that if you don’t go vernacular over the next two years you will hit the ceiling. Now those trends are very obvious and if we don’t take enough steps about going vernacular, then we fear becoming irrelevant.”
Stating that the biggest reason Paytm has been able to establish itself as a big brand was because it constantly listens to few isolated consumers and acts upon their insights to stay relevant, Nath added, “As stated, we monitor the users very closely and we realize that even one extra step that we may have in the transaction flow will essentially mean a 10% drop out rate. So we need to really listen and observe what the customers want. We as marketers need to change our mindset too because we at times have tendency to do things the way we have always done before. I would say the scale of change and the pace of change has become so much that if you don’t listen to what consumers say then there is a good chance that some development in the industry will make you completely obsolete.”
“There are a lot of changes that are happening and it is important to observe those trends, take some action to exploit that particular trend, because if we don’t, we might become obsolete very quickly. This is especially true on the mobile and technology front. It is important to listen and observe both at the micro and macro level”, said Nath.
According to Nath, we are witnessing a lot of disruption in many industries. For example appointment viewing on TV is no longer relevant, so it is important to see alternatives which exist. “Today as a marketer, if I keep spending money on genres like soaps, I may not be able to reach that particular person. So, what we have done as a counter measure is to pick up sports in a big way. Perhaps that is the only real time content which people watch”, he added.
Sharing the Paytm way of keeping a close tab on the pulse of its users and evolving according to their needs and demands, Nath said, “At the micro level we observe our users closely. Today we have 12-13 crore people who have downloaded the Paytm App. About 4 to 5 crore people use it once a day, which is a significant number. However, we have realized that there is an upper ceiling which we will hit soon. Now, we see a lot of people who are using the app in English and whatever they are writing about the app is essentially in their mother tongue but written in English script. So as a marketer one needs to see that if you don’t go vernacular over the next two years you will hit the ceiling. Now those trends are very obvious and if we don’t take enough steps about going vernacular, then we fear becoming irrelevant.”
Stating that the biggest reason Paytm has been able to establish itself as a big brand was because it constantly listens to few isolated consumers and acts upon their insights to stay relevant, Nath added, “As stated, we monitor the users very closely and we realize that even one extra step that we may have in the transaction flow will essentially mean a 10% drop out rate. So we need to really listen and observe what the customers want. We as marketers need to change our mindset too because we at times have tendency to do things the way we have always done before. I would say the scale of change and the pace of change has become so much that if you don’t listen to what consumers say then there is a good chance that some development in the industry will make you completely obsolete.”
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marketing
