What are the ingredients of a successful marketing campaign?

New Delhi

Anjali, the biggest ingredient of a marketing programme is that of consumer insight.

Imagine you are cooking a spicy and dry potato dish. In this dish, the biggest component is the potato. The consumer insight proportion in your marketing strategy must be just like this. Ninety per cent of your marketing programme must be the ingredient of consumer insight.

And then you prepare the marinade. While the percentage of this marinade is minimal, with all the masalas that you put in, it is important as well. Do ensure that you focus well on the 10 per cent of the marinade and the onions and garlic paste and all. But remember this percentage well. Don’t do it the other way round as some marketers do.

And finally there is the garnish of coriander leaves and curry leaves. Remember this is totally of cosmetic orientation to improve your presentation. It hardly affects nutrition and it is not the dominant component at all. Go easy on that.

If I am to correlate an activity to this garnish, it is the PR plan you will put for your marketing programme. Don’t over-do it, as that will heighten expectation beyond delivery. Be real, stay real, and stay close to the grain of truth in your final offering. Everything has a proportion, and you must stick to it. If not, your marketing dish will be over-cooked, over-done, look good, but taste lousy. Ouch!

In sum, remember one thing for sure. Brand-building is the garnish. Not the dish itself. Focus equally on the dish for sure.

I run an online cook and delivery services business in Bangalore. I am stuck as to what to do next.

Bengaluru

Rupesh, all businesses, big and small, come to this point some time or the other.

When a small entrepreneur starts a business, it typically starts with passion. Businesses that start with a basic passion always tend to satisfy. The first thing it satisfies is the personal need.

Some entrepreneurs stay satisfied with what they have achieved. Others want to move forward. You seem to be at that point.

Online cook and delivery services is a labour and delivery-intensive business. It will thrive just as long as you wish it to, with investments in terms of people and investments that will look to ramp up the offering with decentralised kitchens all around.

Cooking and delivering are two different competences. Cooking is related to the chef and delivery is related to the logistics of food delivery which every quick service restaurant (QSR) should follow to high standards. Incidentally, both these spaces are competition-intensive. You will soon have the likes of even a taxi-cab aggregator jumping into this space. You need to differentiate yourself in a way that consumers will remember, crave and not forget, as more and more competitors step in.

Cooking is an ability of a chef. Have you branded that carefully? Do your current customers swear by your taste? Will they miss you if you vanish suddenly? Ask these questions. If the answer is positive, you are in the right business. You need to deepen your brand memorability score by investing in the cooking end more rather than the delivery end. While cooking is a specific, delivery is a generic.

What next? You can ramp up with decentralised kitchens. You can invest in branding your name in every locality. You can tie up the delivery end with a front-end delivery aggregator and focus possibly on the back end alone. And finally, you might want to sell out your existing customer orders to someone who is willing to buy you out for just that.

Harish Bijoor is a brand strategy expert and CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. Mail your queries to cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in

Related Topics