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Interview with Ashish Jain, Godrej and Boyce, Head – Ecommerce and Digital

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PhotoAshish Jain is a leading Digital and E-commerce initiative of Godrej and Boyce. Godrej and Boyce has 14 diverse business divisions including Godrej interio, appliances, security solutions and locks. His role is to act as a catalyst in digital transformation and build best practices in the field of Digital Marketing, Analytics and E-commerce. 

In past, Ashish built and led e-commerce business in grocery space in Reliance Retail as Business Head.

Prior to that, he was leading development and growth of Reliance Digital Xpress format and it was focused on experiential retailing of technology products.

Ashish is passionate towards building customer-centric digital businesses, processes and organizational structure with a strong bias towards action.

In his current role, Digital Marketing plays a significant role as they are vying to lead Omni-channel retail through innovative campaigns and communication ideas.

How did you get into Digital Marketing? What interested you in learning Digital?

Ashish Jain: When we started E-commerce, Customer acquisition was the biggest challenge for us. Globally also, buying grocery online is the least popular category in the e-commerce space. This is when I turned towards Digital Marketing and Digital marketing is an extremely efficient marcom medium as most of our audience were digitally active. 

Connecting with today’s digital customer is an art and science which is interwoven beautifully in Digital marketing practices. This pulled me towards learning and deploying the same to achieve our business objectives. Digital marketing also provides lot of information about audience, behaviour and buying patterns which were precious inputs for our subsequent business plans.

According to you, what are the advantages of conventional marketing over Digital Marketing? Do you think that Digital Marketing is a threat to the future of conventional marketing?

Ashish Jain: 360 Degree marketing is required, both conventional and Digital are complimentary to each other. Digital has unique advantages in terms of capability to target micro segments, exact measurement of KPI and data collection while instant reach and visibility is offered by conventional medium. Customers are present across both platforms so it makes sense for brands also to be present on both.

“Data is new oil” mantra is ubiquitous in today’s world and Digital generates lot of relevant data about customers which is critical for future success.

Digital marketing is not an immediate threat to conventional marketing but both will compete each other for marketing dollars. As Data consumption is increasing, customers are watching more videos and programs on digital platform which gives a unique opportunity for any brand to reach their relevant customer base.

Why do you think it’s important for entrepreneurs, marketing professionals and students to learn Digital Marketing today?

Ashish Jain: It has become essential for entrepreneurs, marketing professionals and students to learn Digital marketing. 

For Entrepreneur’s:  Digital platform provides best medium to test new concepts among small targeted audience and verify business assumptions to avoid costly errors. This also gives direct feedback as compared to any other medium.

For Marketing Professionals: Marketing is evolved to a level where mere pushing of more and more advertisements through conventional medium is not helping brand. Customers have evolved to a level where they want brand to communicate with them in a seamless manner. Customers are spending most of their time on Digital platforms and hence marketing professionals should connect with them over the same.

For Students: Opportunity to get a rewarding career. Some of the platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest… are very important part of student life and will be interesting for them to build something valuable on these platforms as their career goals. Digital marketing is most sought out skill and will give them a chance to get faster recognition in their organization.

Share the names of 3 people you respect when it comes to Digital Marketing.

Ashish Jain: I follow many from this industry through my twitter and LinkedIn account. Neil Patel (www.nielpatel.com) and Brian Clark (www.copyblogger.com) are the most distinguished one which keep on sharing their learnings and I enjoy reading their content regularly.

According to you, what are the top 3 mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging Digital Marketing?

Ashish Jain: Three mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging Digital marketing are: 

  • Lack of audience insights: Fundamentals of management theory taught by Peter F Drucker starts with “know your customer” first. Most of the organizations fail to get audience insights and start with “me too” campaigns with broader customer base and ultimately struggle for results.
  • Digital Marketing as a standalone piece and not integrated with rest of the functions. Digital marketing needs to have close integration with all stakeholders starting from manufacturing, design, sales, service…. This helps in effective communication about brand story which is essential for today’s customer.
  • Adapting media and communication from traditional media and pushing the same communication in Digital media. Digital media is separate in terms of acceptability of type, content and formats of message and need to be optimized for better performance.

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Between Agency and In-house, which approach would you recommend for maximum value of Digital Marketing? Why?

Ashish Jain: Between Agency and In-house, I will recommend both. SEO/SEM efforts are more technical in nature and a good team member can efficiently handle the same. Content and social marketing need elevated level of creativity and hence multiple minds in the agencies working on diverse projects can bring better ideas.

How do you ensure increasing Digital Marketing’s relevance and influence in the organization?

Ashish Jain: Organizations are very much exposed to Digital transformation and Digital marketing. While there is lack of complete understanding about the same, everyone is seeing them with both awe and intrigue. I am building capabilities and foundation to lead forward by ensuring organization invest in all relevant aspects like human resources, tools and platforms to maximize the benefits. I am also working on culture of KPI based investments to ensure that investment can be justified easily using definite ROI.

Which are your 3 favorite Digital Marketing Tools?

Ashish Jain: Three marketing tools used by us

  • Google AdWords:  Contextual and hence ensure brand presence in front of relevant audience.
  • Buzzsumo: Give good details about audience targeting and influencer strength.
  • Moz tools: to get information about SEO strength of websites and suggest actions require to optimize website for desired results

What are the top 3-5 skills you look for when hiring a candidate for Digital Marketing profile?

Ashish Jain: When I do hiring, I look for following skills

  • Attitude towards learning
  • Use cases methodology to assess the aptitude of the candidate
  • Bend towards use of analytics in problem-solving
  • Capability to work in team

What is your advice for newbies, who are looking at building a career in Digital Marketing industry?

Ashish Jain: Digital Marketing field will have phenomenal growth in coming years. People looking for career in this field will find lot of opportunities in coming years to establish themselves. As all rules are not written yet, there is lot of opportunity to create something of your own in this space.

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How do you see Digital Media evolving in future? What are the top 3 trends do you foresee for 2018?

Ashish Jain: Top 3 trends which I foresee for 2018

  • Customer stories will come to life through a right mix of technology and creativity and will gain momentum
  • Videos have overtaken any other format and we will see more and more video consumption this year also.
  • Technology enabled audience targeting will be used by more and more brands to get better ROI

Would you like to share few words about the work we are doing at Digital Vidya?

Ashish Jain: 

Digital Vidya is a great platform for students, entrepreneurs and marketing professionals to learn effective tools and methods to build their career and business. Your ability to link professionals with learners give a unique learning advantage to implement acquired knowledge in practise quickly.

Are you inspired by the opportunity of Digital Marketing? Start your journey by attending our upcoming orientation session on Digital Marketing for Career & Business Growth. It’s online and Free :).

Avatar of jasleen kaur
Jasleen Kaur
[Sr. Associate - Content Marketing] A content passionate, Jasleen handles content writing & marketing activities. Also, she leads Digital Marketing Internship Program. She is in the content writing and marketing fraternity for 10+ years now & is proficient in writing content for blogs, articles, books, brochures and social media. She embraces practical knowledge of WordPress CMS.

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