1. Do’s and dont’s of digital marketing- Amit
Pandey 09653443066(call for the
marketing Guru )
1) You have worked with an array of brands such as Maruti Suzuki Nexa,
HomeShop18, Blackberrys Menswear, Volvo Eicher, PepperTap, etc. across different
aspects of digital media. Looking back, what were the key factors that best helped
your teams in running successful campaigns?
IDEA, IDEA and IDEA! That is the key factor that defines the success of any campaign. In
Grapes Digital, we believe that there are 4 main ingredients that make a great idea: Product
USP& application, contextuality, consumer trends & behavior and technology. A
permutation and combination of them actually makes or breaks an idea. Apart from this,
content dissemination also plays a key role – because a good idea not distributed well
enough is equivalent to a bad idea.
(2) This is the age of inflation. The audience has become increasingly spoilt in terms
of choice & the days of easy funding are gone. Would you say tough times are here
for marketers?
Long gone are the days when people used to consider the e-commerce platform for buying
things on discounts. Now, they make their purchase decisions online on the basis
of convenience, accessibility and market influence.
So obviously the competition is tough because internet – the domain of cash-rich mega
brands – is now seeing a lot of fast-moving, ambitious startups giving neck-to-neck
competition to big players. The only difference is in terms of volume driven by insane
discounts offered by larger brands. This too will soon change due to the reduction in funding
options and the new FDI ruling of not influencing the seller’s price through discounts.
3) How should a marketer or a digital marketer, in particular, spend his/her working
time? Do you find them spending enough time & efforts on gaining the right skill set?

2. That’s a very tough question to answer because theoretically speaking, everyone says the
digital space is new and one should spend a considerable amount of time learning new
methods, technologies and case studies. However, one just doesn’t get the time to delve
deep and research about the latest digital marketing trends.
There’s so much data released by different brands in the form of case studies, white
papers, blogs, podcasts and videos (deconstructing successful campaigns) that it’s an
absolute goldmine of data for anyone who has the time (and most importantly the will) to
consume and understand the information.
But, such is the pace of work in an agency that we rarely get the time to do any amount of
reading. Execution takes up almost all of our time. That’s why the smart thing to do is to
read, learn and execute everything simultaneously.
I tend to read on-the-go and jot down stuff which would come in handy later. During
campaign brainstorming sessions, my notes often come to the rescue. For marketers,
knowing the latest trends is of critical importance, which is why I make a conscious effort to
maintain a reading list that I follow religiously.
4) Content is on the rise and creativity is getting its due. Which roles or career paths
have evolved & gained more respect and attention from brands in the past one year?
Content, craft and creativity are crucial to the success of any marketing campaign. As far as
digital marketing is concerned, traditional profiles as used by mainline agencies can no
longer accommodate the diversity of roles in a digital agency. ‘Creativity’ is in itself such an
open-ended term that we keep coining new terminologies to define the kind of talent we are
trying to hire.
For instance; how would you define a professional who began his career as a blogger (and
learnt Search Engine Optimization to promote his blog) and then moved on to copy writing
(and mastered the nuances of social media promotions)?
Moreover, working closely with designers honed his ability to think visually and helping in
website development opened his intellect to the fascinating world of HTML.
Constant interactions with clients and PR agencies further fueled his appetite to perfect his
client servicing skills.

3. While in mainline agencies, super-specialization is the key to success; but to succeed in the
digital space and that also at an upper -managerial level, the perfect blend of creativity and
marketing acumen will really make you stand out.
He or she can hold the position of a Creative Catalyst in a digital agency. Brands love
working with such individuals because they have fought, learnt and survived in the trenches.
They can come up with brilliant ideas and turn them into a powerful campaign.
Such a person is a true ‘Growth Hacker’ who can take a nameless company and turn it into
a supernova brand. Further, he or she displays an insatiable appetite for awards which
pushes him or her to create award-winning campaigns.
I would personally define such an individual as a Digital Prophet!
5) What is it that digital marketers miss out on during campaign planning &
execution?
While in an ideal scenario a well thought-out campaign plan should result in flawless
execution, it rarely happens in real life. That’s why the person who’s planning the campaign
and the one implementing it, should be on the same page.
In order to do this, what we need to do is follow the old school process of maintaining
worksheets and schedule charts to ensure that the necessary KPIs are being met. In the
digital space, especially, numerous little factors decide the success or failure of a campaign.
So it is important to invest a lot of time and planning on offline planning as well to ensure
online success.