Unlock the Future of E-commerce: SEO and AI Strategies

Shishir Kataria :- Zudio is growing so fast and so vastly in India right I mean they just give give great fashion at a very convenient price and it’s grow Leaps and Bounds they have not spent a single rupee in marketing them  and the growth story is there businesses are still optimizing for text SEO I think it’s also High time when people start you know optimizing for voice SEO and third is with the Advent of AI people might be just scanning and searching right personalization gives you a better Roi targeting advertising gives you better Roi with the Advent of you know from from Master digital platforms you can also have more control on your AR earlier you know you are playing let’s say addon TV you know not sure you are not sure if it’s working not working by the time you know it’s not working you have already burned quite a lot of money now with digital you can at least do a experimentation you can know what’s working what’s not working so you have more control on cost more control on.

Mehul Ashar:- Hello ladies and gentlemen welcome to yet another exciting episode of the growth genius powered by the specialists in SEO this is where we bring you growth stories in marketing and business today we have a very special growth genius with us as he calls himself a youngish marketeer has worked across various Brands across various Industries and he’s going to give us insights on how marketing happens in an e-commerce brand so join me in welcoming Mr. Shishir Kataria who is the director of marketing at Tatacliq hi Shishir thanks a lot for coming to the growth genius podcast. Thanks a lot for your time. We are very grateful to you.

Shishir:- Thanks I am excited to be here and very very grateful for the invitation I am looking forward to some exciting chat with you so let’s jump in

Mehul:-  Absolutely absolutely Shishir. My first question is to understand your role so how do you define Your Role at Tatacliq?

Shishir:- I think it’s been quite quite a long journey at tat click I joined back in Jan of 202 so it’s been over two years now and I’ve been blessed to sort of work in I would say multiple facets of marketing I joined as head of brand marketing and just to give you a bit of context new Tataclick essentially has three business units there is Tataclick M stay app there is Tataclick luxury and we have few months back we launched the new baby from tlick is called tlick pallet it focuses on all things new and I joined as head of brand marketing for the main State T app and over the time I was blessed to work across performance and retention also for T and very recently I have  taken the Mandate as the entire brand marketing chter for all three views so now I take care of brand for T click M app tlick luxury and T essentially if I mean designations and and nures apart I think I would say that  how I personally like to define the role for myself and for for the team  for my team members is like first of all be the voice of the consumer in the in the system you are as a brand Team we the closest to the consumer we have to bring in the consumer perspective first so that that’s number one second is essentially need the I would say vision for the brand to deliver on business goals it can’t live in isolation as a as a brand it has to Del on business goals so how are you essentially linking brand and business goals that’s that’s number two for me I think the third third tenet of my role I would say is making all the three brands of T Lake T Lake M St have t luxury T par a very beloved and culturally loved Brands in in India and hopefully globally at some point  but those are the three big tenets I see consumer first business value will we ated and making something which consumers isn’t that.

Mehul:- Very interesting  and coming to your professional Journey you know your professional Journey has been through various Brands and various Industries so tell us more about your journey.

Shishir:- Sure Mehul I would again say like I’ve been blessed to work across multiple sectors I never thought like you know over a span of a decade I would be able to touch multiple sectors able to touch multiple small scale and large scale Brands I mean I mean I started my journey back in 2012 with an fmcg firm called craft Hinds it’s one of the globally leading food foods and beverage company and India that time they used to have Brands like comp plan londi niale and High and I started my journey with them mostly in sales did a few years of sales and then transitioned to marketing role there and luckily found myself enough to be starting with Innovation I think it’s a great Segway into marketing because as an as if you have a role in Innovations you essentially get to see all these stages of a brand coming to life from a piece of paper to an actual product on the ship um and  did The Innovation goal there for for some time move into moved into the core brand building for complain and post almost sply 4 and a half years in fmcg I moved to media and entertainment with star sport star India and I think I probably worked on the brand which is as common as common salt in India which is Cricket I mean people have love for it people have the passion for it I think every every Indian you know has an association with Cricket so I was working in the cricket vertical as a marketing manager and once we took over the IPL rights  I was leading the IPL Charter with with the cricket lead out there and I think that was a great learning experience I mean essentially scaling a Big Brand like IPL like IP when we took over it was such a big brand how do you essentially take such such a huge Goliath and take make it even bigger I think that’s that’s something that was a great learning experience then eventually moved to consum Tech by internal transition into hotar where I was leing Sports vertical and  you know did very interesting Innovation there was not at scale but was very close to my heart something called hot star those essentially we got the best of standup comics of India like Zakir, Abishek Upmananu, Bassi Anubhav singh Bassi all these guys into the commentary boxs and they did live commentary on IPL  at Hot on hot star exclusively for hotstar.’

Mehul:- Interesting.

Shishir:- I think there was like very a great it was sort of a great product/ marketing conglomeration and Innovation um and post that I moved to D click  after spending five years in sports and media just wanted to do something different and ended up in e- retail e-commerce and  been here for some time now and very glad to work across verticals of you know Mass M fashion luxury fashion and Beauty at the same time.

Mehul:- Very interesting very very interesting coming to the next question you know I wanted to understand your perspective on the changing consumer needs specifically in the e-commerce industry.

Shishir:- When it comes to Consumer needs I think we have to understand well who is the biggest sort of consumer  in this category and  just for some data reference 70% of the  fashion Shoppers in India are below the age of 3 and this quot is only getting young I mean genz is taking the line share of the I would say e-commerce when it comes to fashion fashion and and you know  Beauty large right and essentially all the consumer Trends and needs start to Branch from what are these genZ and young Millennials asking and looking for and I think there are a lot of big consumer needs which I’ll touch upon but I think the first one which is very big is this need for individuality this need for personalization as a especi a lot of most of the genz and young Clans they don’t want to be talked in a mass they they they say I in my own personality I have my own individuality and how can your brand how can your business cater to me in the most personal way  is a big consumer and I think e-commerce have been trying to crack that the help of you know the whole personalization of site merchandising and all tring the holy Grill of e-commerce when it comes to personalization is when you would be able to do something equivalent of Netflix for example if you open your Netflix and your friend’s Netflix you will never see the same content T there different content different content buckets so imagine a where you open your e-commerce app and your friend opens your e-commerce app there different tiles basis what you shop there are also let’s say suppose you have Shop black shirts in the past and their friend has shop white shirts in the past for the same article you see a black and the your friend SE the white but for the same how do you essentially get to that level of personalization color choices fit choice choices is the holy deal when it comes to this consumer need I think the other other big consumer need is I think this this entire younger thought they seek convenience for Tech I mean they they want their life to be as convenient as possible when it comes to Tech that’s why this the whole two Commerce is thriving because it primarily essentially relies on the technological convenience so how do you essentially leverage Tech into building convenience into the e-commerce business models for example with let’s say virtual reality what lens card has cracked with the virtual trons how do you take it to now to to clothes to foot beeer to beauty makeup a lot of players are trying to do a lot in this area and I think we’ll see a lot of Innovations with the Advent of AI in this even voice search as a big convenience right you go to any 15 year old they are not using their thumbs to type and search they using their voice to search how are you going to essentially make your app and your business more voice search and voice SEO oriented is is Big so how to essentially serve the need for convenience into business is the second one third is essentially how do you look when it comes to value consumption and value consumption essentially is different for the affluence deal so someone who is more affluent is now more cognizant of conscious consumption so they want to have consumption which is circular economies which is more sustainable which is better for the Earth better for the climate you know and  how are they making sure that they fashion choices their consumption choices is ensuring that it goes back to let’s say  a carers in some small village how does it make sure that it’s not having a negative impact on a carbon from footprint lens that’s on the conscious consumption part but there’s we can’t ignore there’s also huge value consumer sitting at the bottom of the  and there’s a huge ask for a value consumption and that’s the reason why let’s say zudio is growing so fast and so vastly in India right I mean they just give give great fashion at a very convenient price and it’s growing Leaps and Bounds they have not spent a single rupee in marketing tip and the growth story is there so there are different ask from the brands and the businesses when it comes to consumption and basis which category or which sort of affluent affluence level you play to you have to keep that in mind but these are the three I would say three big needs I see in this genz young Millennials demographic one essentially need for personalization to express individuality second is essentially I would say tech-based convenience and third is my value consumption my value consumption for a top tier is conscious consumption for a bom of the pyramid it’s great affordable f so I would say those three pillars.

Mehul:- Very nicely summed up thank you so much Shishir for that we’ll just come to the next question so how has advertising changed in the digital Age and what are the benefits and pitfalls of this change wanted.

Shishir:- I think God it has changed tremendously you know since since I joined marketing over the past 8 to 10 years it’s been a roller coaster and I jokingly call you know  the this generation of my generation of marketers as the gine Market because there are so many shiny objects which keep coming and you know senior stakeholders keep asking how are you going to leverage this new thing which has come in the market right how are you leveraging AI in marketing you know so so it has changed quite a bit quite quite a bit I think  you know the the biggest change which I have seen and observed is how the advertising has become from more mass to more personal  you know now you have ability and platforms tools to create micro segments tailor your message as per those micro segments and push multiple benefits basis the segment right so targeted advertising from Mass advertising has been a big change  for sure second is which stems from the consumer is the lack of attention span I think like attention span is just getting shorter and shorter earlier people had the you know  I would say patience to sit through a 2 minute Grand people are like tell me the story in 20 seconds pass like do not beliv your point I am watching a real please tell your story in 20 seconds and tell your brand proposition 20 seconds true how do you how do you essentially tailor your messaging from long form to short form is is very very important  and the third is how do you make advertising and coms more uned I think consumers especially M consumers want the brands to talk to them more like a peer or like their BFFs and not like coming from a mod High Ground  so how do you essentially make the messaging more relatable how do you essentially make messaging which is more consumable by them short short form versus long form and the whole you know how do you make messaging and advertising from Mass to personal is are the three big changes I’ve seen over time  and of course you know there are you know benefits pros and cons of of everything right for example  personalization gives you a better Roi targeting advertising gives you better Roi with the Advent of you know from from Master digital platforms you can also have more control on your AR earlier you know you are playing let’s say add on TV  you know not sure you are not sure if it’s working not working by the time you know it’s not working you have already burned quite a lot of money now with digital you can at least do a experimentation you can know what’s working what’s not working so you have more control of cost more control on Roi but that also means that there’s a need for multiple creating multiple messaging  instead of just one message  so I mean you take anything there obvious pros and cons of it  but yeah I think the the three ways which I was to say  Mass versus targeted short form versus long  and being more relatable are essentially three big changes I’ve seen over the past six years and

Mehul:- And I think the  Pros actually  gives you a lot of opportunity to experiment and to do new things and create bus value as compared to what it was earlier correct so 

Shishir:- Correct Mehul also the the the kind of  you know  Avenues and contents you have to do  storytelling right you can tell the story in a podcast you can tell a story in a read you can tell a story in a  in in the traditional 30 second advertising we have everything available for you you can tell the story via by a two influencers chatting on an insta line you know right the way you can storytelling has just expanded so much now in this world I think that’s that’s been a big change

Mehul:- True very true like we mentioned that you know marketing has changed a lot over the past few years so how do you build an e-commerce brand ground up since it is either digital first or a completely digital brand that you have to work upon?

Shishir:- I think I would definitely not call myself an expert on building a brand from a ground I’ve never done that Z to one Journey To be honest with you but I think you know from whatever whatever  you know I I understand and drawing from my experiences I think building a brand essentially has very familiar  I would say steps  and I would say pretty linear steps but are you doing the steps in the right way  and are you asking yourself the right questions is very important I mean it always starts with you know  can you find  an idea  which no one is serving is there need gap in the market you know if you can find the need gap in the market are you able to fulfill it in a cost effective way  is always the second question is there is the product Market fit is it viable for the business  is it economically viable you know whether it’s let’s say whether you are  building a brand for 100 million Indians when theying building a brand for 1 million Indians doesn’t matter has economically viable  you know and I think  I see a lot of early stage Brands  they get muddled  into trying to be cool rather than trying to be distinctive so they want to I think a lot of you know young brands that I see advertising  instead of telling why you should  buy them and why they are relevant for the consumer it’s mostly like hey here is another attractive brand and this is why  you know  why I’m attracted  so it’s less on relevance and more on the novelty  that I’m also here now  so you know come and check me out versus this is the reason why you should check me and I think lot of  lot of d2c and e-commerce Brands probably fall in that place because there’s of course the ability to segregate distinctiveness in a cled category gets tougher and tougher  but I think having at least internally very strong USP for yourself and  being being sure that that’s what you want to communicate with the consumers is is very important  so I think I I would say lastly that having an idea and having a lot of consumer backing of the idea to make sure it’s a great fit for the consumer and it’s great fit economically that’s I would say the first paper to concept  like it’s it it exists in the air how do you take that idea and write it on a piece of paper and you do research on it you do your modeling on it that’s the first step and second step is when you’re taking that on paper brand to actually in the world to the to the consumers you are making the right choices when it comes to what are you saying to the consumer those two big life stages are very important for learning

Mehul:- Got it got it very interesting next question for you shashir is you know can you share some insights on the role of influencers  in marketing a brand 

Shishir:- Yeah I think influencers are are a are a very very I would say interesting Media vle or or marketing I think the three big factors which they bring to the table for for me as as as a marketeer are um I think trust and relatability I think there is an inherent trust amongst a certain set of audiences towards their influencers and they feel whatever this person is saying is genuine and authentic so authenticity and trust is soled and relatability is soled  for that segment who follows the influenc that’s number one second is ability to create content and innovate in content right I don’t have to go to a creative agency I don’t have to go to production to create content I can give a brief to influencer and they’ll create a content for me so my content creation  headache is taken away from so they’re solving for trust and relatability they’re solving for Content creation Innovation because I mean there lot of iners will give you lot of innovative ideas probably you know they will bring alive the idea let’s say having a conversation with another influencer or  sort of showing showcasing the brand in a in in a regular life so that’s number two how you can have different content soles um with influencers and third is you can solve for multiple challenges or benefits with influencers for example if you want to solve for reviews and and demonstration your product is tough to demonstrate tough to use you can essentially leverage influencers for that if you want to just build awareness for your brand you can build influences you can use influences for that if you want to show the the width of let’s for Ecommerce brand the width of your catalog width of your assortment right you can take one influencer for every category that you see and every brand you see so it it the ability to solve for multiple challenges  I think that’s what influencers bring to the table other than of course trust authenticity relatability and solving the headache which is big for markers the content creation right I mean I mean I’m sure we have all been there that you know we have the we have the brief how to create content out of this I think that whole  headache is taken I think that’s three big benefits I would say

Mehul:- Nice very nicely put Shishir thanks for that coming to one of my favorite questions where do you see organic search in the Journey of building and growing an e-commerce brand

Shishir:- I think of extreme importance I mean the number one way people discover  the brand  I mean till now hopefully  is Google search I mean it’s it’s people people are looking for something they just go and and you know search for could be any random any damn random people right I think  for any brand figuring out what is the ecosystem of your searches and keywords is Parable  you know there have been so many funny examples um like very simple example right for example if you  an affluent and a tr1 consumer  would be searching for trousers and jeans  probably a tr2 consumer would be searching with PS  and how do you essentially very with very simple examples and how do essentially make sure that you’re catering through the entire width of you search ecosystem and keywords  is very important so I think  because it’s it’s such a big Discovery and browsing medium and I think now Google is integrating more and more of the shopping journey into the SE I think if you go go and look at the West entire shopping journey is integrated people can just search Google s shopping options you can click there you can buy you can add to card you can check out without leaving the Google so if you are not optimized for SEO  I mean if you are not optimized for rankings I think in near future if not immediately I think right now you must be only losing Click Share and mind share but very soon we’ll also start losing wallet share  on the SE so I think  purly I think yeah Long Point short as the shopping Journeys get more and more merged in the search itself it’s very important to essentially tailor your brand  for the for the entire SEO ecosystem that you have and also which what we touched upon right  the one of the consumer needs the tech based convenience and the voice search a lot of Brands you know I I talk to my Pier set and my PE group they a lot of you know Brands and business businesses are still optimizing for text SE I think it’s also High time when people start you know  optimizing for voice seu and third is with the Advent of AI people might be just scanning and searching right oh you know I saw that  I right now watching TV I see the outfit I pause the TV I take a picture I do search for it are you optimizing your business for image SEO also in future I think it has to be more holistic so very important  and very exciting work coming very soon.

Mehul:– Yeah absolutely throws open a lot of doors for people to actually drive value through marketing campaigns or in organic search especially wonderful and  shishir  what is your take on AI in marketing

Shishir:- Funny I think yeah 

Mehul:- This question had to come 

Shishir:- Yeah I mean it’s just n number of people you ask get you will get n number of opinions on this  but I think for me it’s it’s like any scientific tool right I mean depends on how you want to use the tool it would be it could give you meaningful results in that so I think AI is great  as of course technology right and it’s not like AI has not been there you know Google and meta have been using AI to optimize and prioritize their segmentation and the invent of course I think  what we are seeing now becoming big is generative a you know and  the second is conversational are  these are the two big things  which will take marketing forward  how do you use generative AI in creating let’s say imagery and content  which is relevant for your consumers what does it mean for the industry right me  you know for example earlier you had to go and do a photo shoot to create a bank of Statics for yourand now if you can use generative Ai and create Statics  you know  what does it mean for the other side of the ecosystem does it does that mean that soon we will have people just giving rights to their face usage take my face as inspiration create a generative AI  you know you don’t need to do a photo shoot so people might be licensing their images and faces versus you know  trying to sort of  charge for their time  so  generative AI is Big conversational AI is humously big in customer service and support  you know because people I think the the biggest  drawback of chat Bots was that people did not feel that  personalized Tater connection they always felt it’s very  you know  very they could sense they could tell if it’s machine driven or if there’s human sitting on the others I think with conversational AI that Gap is bridging more and more so how how do you essentially use conversational a in customer service customer support and conversational Journeys on let’s say WhatsApp  shopping Journeys on WhatsApp I think that’s that’s important so my take is it’s a great tool I think it solves a lot of problems  in marketing  I think e has been historically used for predictive analysis projections inventory buyers Shopper segmentation I think now how does it solve for  the content in Creative  is big  because that’s been a big I would say part of marketing ecosystem which was not automated for the longest  so good things great things but I think we have also think of the ecosystem bit holistically what impact does it make on the the other related parties that’s important very true and can you share  some examples of AI that you have used in marketing that would be great sure as I was saying lot of AIML has been implemented in Shopper segment segmentation so we have done a lot of personalization of our  cohorts lot of segmentation of our cohorts first party data ver is for example we you know few months back we  essentially  used AIML to segregate segment our Shoppers essentially our Shoppers names into east west north south you know  essentially if there’s a certain kind of sun name  what is the more likelihood of  the person being  in in which  Zone and geograph and can you personalize bases  so Shopper segmentation personalization is big how do you also show the content Bas is the browsing history  Bas is the categories they purchase basus their age gender  I think these all are predictive AI Trends and Analysis which is done in e-commerce  to display products in your site um I think what we’re using AI actively is for dynamic content creation so  if we we give inputs to the AI in the way that these are the 10 cohorts which you want to Target and these are the attributes now we want to we want to put out a sale message this up sale is upcoming and this is the this is the core offering and the AI essentially tailor the entire message bases the cohorts B is the behavior attributes we have bed that you know this is a young college goer this is  a job this is a job  this is essentially a male job  goer so it just sort of divides bases that  we have we have been using generative AI for imagery  so a lot of images  you know  and you won’t be able to even tell me like if you go to T platform and I’m not don’t that which one is AI generated which one is not but a lot of image  we use mes AI  we have actively used AI for our creative adaptations  essentially that you know  these are the three Masters right and it has to be converted in X number of sizes  and the copy has to be tailored Bas is the segmentation  it just does it on a click of a  I think on social with the one partner we use it for Trend and sentiment analysis  that if there’s a if there’s a certain topic there’s a certain topicality how would a young Shopper how would an old Shopper is is expected to behave and what’s the right what are the right conversation PS  for that for that cohort essentially and of course I mean AI power chat Bots are there now in our customer support so yeah across the funnel multiple stages we using different you know examples and different usages of a very very interesting thanks for sharing those examples sishir those will be very insightful for the audience as well 

Mehul:- Coming to the last leg of the podcast  any specific growth story you would like to share from your career 

Shishir:- There’s one story which is like which is very very personal to me  and I think it’s also because I me because I’m very very ENT sports fan and huge level of people  I think the the first season of IPL Star Sports  I think the way we took a big property and make it just bigger I think it’s very very close to my heart um so just to give you some context na  we acquired IPL rights and when I say we I mean star star acquired IPL rights  from Sony back in 2017 September  for the five for the 5e cycle 2018 19 20 21 and 22 and previous to that the 10 editions had been broadcasted on the earlier broadcast which was  and they had paid eight at the time at their time they had paid 8,000 crores for a 10-e cycle and we paid 16,000 crores for a 5year cycle so essentially we quadrupled the the per match right fee  you know and because we had quadrupled the per match right fee it also meant we have to charge a very heavy monetization but how do you charge a heavy monetization without increasing consump consump disproportionate so the whole idea was that if you want to recover the money the consumption has to be increased not  in the usual Trend which it has been growing let’s say the C at that point for IPL consumption was and when it’s IP consumption it’s measured in watch time so how many minutes of watch time IPM is getting  on broadcast  across the Indian televisions  and of course Digital streaming also so at that that time um when the last edition of IPL happened  the consumption of IPL was at 250 billion minutes  250 billion minutes across India on TV  and  essentially the growth rate was around 6 to 8%  cagr that’s the kind of growth it had seen over the 10 years and  so we just went to the drawboard and we tried to figure out what are the what are the levers from from the way we can essentially redefine IP  and reimagine IP I think the internal project keyword we use was reimagination it has to be reimagined from ground up from product marketing broadcast everything  and we went to a lot of consumers  to figure out what are the gaps what are the need States we can f and we found a very interesting Insight we we found that there are lot of heavy Cricket viewers who watch international cricket are not consuming IPL to the same extent so they would watch watching let’s say 30 40 matches of a T20 World Cup but watching only 6 to eight matches of and when you go and ask them why is that happening they say because they feel IPL is tamasha it’s not serious  you know it’s so many cheer leaders colorful Bollywood celebrities so much rasit as it is not serious Cricket boss I’m I’m a serious Cricket level I’m a sports level I’m not an entertainment level this is not for me so the first so the first consumption unlock became that we have to make it from an entertainment to sports perspec because even even the light viewers of IPL were coming in for the fours and sixes so they were coming for the entertainment but entertainment stemming out of cricket so the first then it became converting it from an entertainment to sports first  so from an India we went to game B that’s our marketing position second was  Sony was essentially mostly broadcasting it in  English and Hindi  you know with very little focus on the  other languages and  we had seen a lot of success from a broadcast of I think that’s true for any continent people love to watch content in their native language even if it’s Cricket not Cricket I think there is this this was earlier used to be like you know um there used to a lot of believe that Cricket as a sport is is best consumed in English right like if you start commentating in Hindi how would it sound like you know but  just to give us a number M  after all the languages have been introduced Cricket the English consumption of cricket is only 8% 92% of cricket is watched in Hindi or Regal languag which is Tam oh is it yes very interesting and Hindi broadcast started so late I think if I remember correctly and I would be a bit off here but it only started somewhere around 2010 the Hindi broadcast and you know Cricket broadcast is happening in India since 95 even earlier you know correct correct correct it took like 15 years to take that leave that you know Hindi can give a great unlock  and you know we had seen that Tamil also so we of course expanded to Tamil telu Canada Malayalam Bangla marati in the first year of I so made made it from just  bilingual to multilingual IP and not just language you know we also brought in Regional Affinity to the broadcast for example if you are watching IPL in Tamil the broadcast that you will see  let’s say on a CSK match would be different from what we seeing on a Star Sports Hindi you will see more and G time of CSK of let’s say d if anything happens how is D reacting versus let’s say on the Hindi broadcast so it was regionally tailored for just not just in language but in product also so making just from a you know and I would say biling language is not even the right word I would say two ipls to multiple IPS  so that was second unlock Third unlock was people used to lose interest during the  middle of the two very interested what is happening in the beginning very interested what is happening in the end but losing interest in the in the middle so we essentially created weekly tent poles weekly hooks you know this is  this is a  a week of  Rivals so you will see Delhi versus Delhi versus Bangalore Regional rival essentially this is a this is a week where you know Young Guns will take take on big NS so let’s say you know rishab versus  so we created weekly tent poles weekly properties to continue interest during the IP  so these are the three big tenant baces which we unlocked and the consumption  growth that year was  close to 25%  in terms of increase so making just a big property extremely bigger  you know making a sport which India loves already just making them more  essentially making India more passionate about IPL and that’s very close to my heart I would well you got to work with my you know the so the my favorite sports stars and heroes and you know whatnot so so yeah very close sorry I think I I went on quite

Mehul:- That’s a great experience that you shared thank you no no thanks a lot for sharing I think that is something that  you know gives a lot of insights in terms of how you can  change something like an IPL not just  in I mean not just through language but also through the visual experience I mean that is something which is you know taking customization to another level altogether wonderful thanks a lot for sharing that that was a very interesting story  coming to the last question what are the four takeaways for budding professionals you would like to end up with before signing off 

Shishir:- I don’t four but I think  there are three things which I tell a lot to you know young marketeers not like I am yeah I am old now I guess but but yeah I mean yeah youngish like younger than me marketeers who are maybe starting their career you know I think first is  be as close to the consumer as possible you have to it’s it’s your  it’s the only ask company has from you as in marketing being in marketing as marketing manager that you tell as customer perspective so if you are not listening to your consumer if you are not having live consumer interactions every month if you’re not talking in something I call consumer hours you know that what is the face to face first what is face to face time with a consumer or on phone  you are not getting with consumers if you’re not getting that it’s a sin it’s a CME  you know if you’re not reading about your consumers if you’re not talking to your consumers in something it’s a sin so be as close to your consumer as possible second is act as investment managers I think I see this this you know  this thing creeping in now that because of silos of marketing digital marketing brand marketing retention marketing lot of people say that you know what  I’m just going to make add for the black and now you know look how many conversations have happened on the Twitter look how many conversations X now how many con conversations have happened on Insta look how much engagement you know my vs got but unless you until unless you’re not tying it up back to business matrics it doesn’t matter I mean  marketing is an investment and you have to have the mindset of an investment manager that I have to give return on investment not via conversations not via Buzz  not via engagement but bya hardcore sales and profits so act as an investment manager  and always be questioning yourself on what is the ROI of the investment man even if it’s small even if it’s large even if it’s like money spent on but 30,000 spent on like a anual influencer or 30 spent on a TV plan you know you have to ask yourself what is the investment  return return on investment and the third is um I mean  it’s it’s more personal to be  and I think that  because there’s so much advancement happening in the marketing it’s become such a broad spectrum now there’s social media retention digital meta and Google platforms have their own specialist now you know they band specialist now  so people have this there’s SEO of course you know there there’s this tendency of people trying to touch upon everything and try to become trying to become a generalist very soon I think  the the young marketers the advice I give is be specialist first then a journalist if you have to first buy a seat at the table it will come from a core competency so you have to essentially make sure that you are specialist specialist at something before you start start expanding a horizon  and widening your spectrum essentially invest first 2 3 four five years of your career in learning something which no one can beat you you know you are essentially the voice of an expert in that domain and then then comes widening of Horizons  very soon widening of Horizons before specializing could be a bit I would say not the best way to build a so yeah these these three things I would say consumer first investment Investment Management mentality and  being a specialist first are the three big

Mehul:- Jack of all and master of one

Shishir:- Yes very very wisely put yes

Mehul:- Great great thanks a lot Shishir for your valuable insights and for coming on to the podcast The Growth Genius I think  you shared a lot of valuable insights for our  viewers and they would be delighted to you go through this episode so

Shishir:– It was wonderful and thanks again for wonderful great yeah thanks 

Mehul:- Thanks, thanks Shishir. Hello everyone so this was truly an insightful episode on the Growth Genius podcast yet again and  something that actually I will take back from Shishir is the word that he coined that was investment manager so every marketer has to be an investment manager focusing on how he generates value in terms of Roi so having said that I hope you enjoy the episode and like share and follow us on various platforms be it audio or video platforms The Links of all of them are given in the descriptor below so till the next episode of the growth genius keep learning and keep inspiring thank you