Evolution key to digital marketing: HDFC Life

Since the digital medium is so dynamic and is evolving every single day, the way brands approach their digital marketing strategies also has to evolve and change at the same pace, says Sanjay Tripathy, Senior Executive Vice President, HDFC Life, who is overseeing the digital marketing and e-commerce initiatives at the insurer. “Quick evolution and adapting to change is the key to success in digital marketing. And since content is truly the king for digital marketing, it has to evolve and take the shape or format of whichever platform it is used on,” he told moneycontrol.com.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: What prompted you to set up a separate digital marketing and e-commerce team two years back?

A: Digital marketing has evolved as a new vertical in marketing during the past decade. The skill sets to manage new media like this are very distinct as compared to those required to manage traditional media channels, which have been in existence ever since.

While HDFC Life does have a robust marketing team, I believe having a team of ‘digital natives’ as opposed to ‘digital immigrants’ will always help in work being more efficient. A team that has skill sets specific to the digital medium but yet can support other marketing functions to make our marketing efforts “integrated’ in the true sense, is what the idea was, while creating the team. We are the first company in the category to set up a dedicated team for Digital Marketing & Ecommerce 2 years back. This team is also leading all digital customer experience initiatives within the organization. Additionally, we have ensured that we get specialists on board and put a large team in place comprising social media, ecommerce and digital/mobile marketing specialists.

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Sanjay Tripathy

Sr Executive VP|HDFC Life

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Q: What has been your experience so far?

The difference is visible in the impact and progress we have made over a short period of time. On Ecommerce, we were late entrants in the category. But within a years, time, we have established clear leadership in this space. I feel proud to say that we have an extensive suite of 10+ online life insurance products that suit the needs of every customer segments – youth, women, parents, and wisdom investors. Our online term plan Click2Protect is the leading product in its category in the market and we have already insured over a lakh lives during the period of two years.

Q: How different are your digital initiatives as compared to your peers?

As I have said in other forums & discussions before, we’ve made a consistent effort to be Digitally First as an organisation, internally as well as for the external world. Be it driving our presence across social media networks, creation of digital content, redesigning our digital assets to match industry standards or internally in the form of an Employee Social Network, we’ve ensured that the organization is digitally enabled.

Q: How do you see the digital marketing space evolve over the next couple of years?

Since the digital medium is so dynamic and is evolving every single day, the way brands approach their digital marketing strategies also has to evolve and change at the same pace. For example, a decade ago we wouldn't have imagined Google Search to be such a huge contributor to the BFSI business. Today, Google Search ads form a major portion of the entire digital communication & creative strategy for brands like ours. Social media was non-existent earlier but today it is the most important medium of engagement for us with our consumers! Video content was never thought of, but today not only YouTube, but crisper forms of video content on platforms like Instagram & Vine is being extensively produced by brands. The list of such changes, innovations & new developments is growing day by day.

Hence, quick evolution and adapting to change is the key to success in digital marketing. And since content is truly the king for digital marketing, it has to evolve and take the shape or format of whichever platform it is used on.

Q: What do you see as the shortcomings of digital marketing?

In terms of shortcomings, I can think of barely a few, if at all you’d qualify them as shortcomings. The biggest challenge with communication on the digital front is ‘personalization’. While some forms of traditional media may still take care of this issue adequately, to make a virtual presence seem as close to a personal experience for the customer, is a task in itself. Also, with the abundance of information or options that the digital consumer has access to these days, it is a challenge for any brand to be visible, stand out & ensure top of the mind awareness digitally.