Companies are increasingly turning to digital media marketing for marketing their brands as it is cost-effective and has maximum reach, since people spend a lot of time online. EFYTimes spoke exclusively to Manjunatha Kutarahalli, co-founder and CEO, Kenscio Digital Marketing Pvt Ltd about the scope and future of digital marketing.

What is the main difference between digital media marketing and social media marketing?

Digital media marketing is marketing using a broad set of digital media, which also includes social media. Digital Media marketing encompasses all digital media like websites, search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), video advertising, viral marketing, e-mail marketing and social media marketing.

How much have businesses started considering the seriousness and importance of social/ digital media marketing?

Businesses have understood the consumer behaviour for a long time and are using those channels where consumers are spending time, whether at home, or out of home or the places they are in or the newspapers, magazine they read, etc. As Consumer behavior and time is being spent more and more online, businesses are soon realising this and using the digital mediums (website visits, searches, e-mail, social, etc.) to reach, influence and engage with them. While in the West most of the people are online, businesses are spending more of their marketing budgets online, Indian business trend will soon follow the footsteps of Western businesses as Indian consumers are going online.

How and when was Kenscio Digital Pvt Ltd rolled out? Why the name Kenscio?

Kenscio started its roots as Sprinklr India in mid of 2009 and got its present name as Kenscio in mid of 2010, when it became a full-fledged company focusing on marketing solutions and services using digital direct mediums. It was founded by enterprising hard core experienced global digital media experts from e-mail and social background.
Ken means an expert or a guide and Scio is for social and e-mail. Hence, Kenscio was formed to assist marketers in reaching out to their customers through digital direct mediums of e-mail and social with the expert knowledge and solutions from Kenscio.

Everyone is online these days. How do you filter the right target audience? What is the most challenging task in your business?

People are getting online and spending much of the time online. Hence, businesses are trying to utilise the online medium in reaching out to them. Kenscio is focused on serving emerging high growth Internet based companies and large enterprises, which have successful digital marketing channels. The most challenging campaign for us is to get the marketers to send their campaigns to the right customer segments and measure the success by analytics beyond opens and clicks.

What is the importance of digital media marketing for SMBs? How can they leverage its benefits without spending too much?

Digital Marketing offers the most cost effective medium for SMBs, who don’t have big marketing budgets. Moreover, the digital media is directly measurable. From building a website, optimising it for Search engines, collecting the footprints of the visitors, communicating with the visitors, branding on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, YouTube and articles, case studies on blogs etc are very cost effective.
Platforms like Facebook, Twitter allow companies to set up their own marketing pages. Do you see it as diluting the effects of the medium or is it viewed as an emerging trend for the industry?
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and YouTube have more than several hundred online audiences and people spend considerable time on these mediums. Hence, companies are setting up their marketing pages on these social networking sites to get the audience that are hooked to these networks and build brand engagement, recall and sales. Facebook commerce is already happening now and now companies may not need a website as they can do everything on the Facebook itself from building a microsite, getting visitors and selling stuff. This makes the SMBs to get to market quickly without spending too much.

Can you share your clients and popular campaigns that received overwhelming response?

All of our client campaigns are receiving better responses through our expert advises and better targeting. One campaign can perform better than the other campaign of the same client, as the offer is better or timelier. Hence, it is very difficult to classify in general. One of our clients, Rupeemail recently launched the first newsletter which received an overwhelming response, with a CTR (Click-through rate, a measure of clicks to opens as a percentage) in excess of 200 per cent which is phenomenal for any campaign.

Original article at efytimes.com

For SMEs in India and abroad looking to make their mark online and connect to millions of potential customers, the Internet represents a golden opportunity. Developing a web presence is a natural extension for any business. However, Saurav Patnaik, Co-Founder and VP Marketing, Kenscio Digital Marketing Private Limited, an internet marketing company tells ITBizFocus.com that building a website is not enough and that small companies need good

(SEO) strategy in place to ensure that their websites generate a high quality traffic that can be converted into paying customers.

Why is email marketing important? How does it help a business generate revenue?

Emails help the businesses to reach the audience directly. It is measurable, economical and can be done faster compared to other traditional ways of doing marketing. Now, going back to the basics, to earn revenue, these businesses need to understand who are the people which are interested in buying proposition, what time can they be contacted, whether or not they qualify to buy your product and how are they willing to make a purchase. All this information can be captured analyzed and acted upon using emails… Once you know all this, businesses will be able to send individualized, relevant communications to generate revenue.

How important is branding to SMEs and startups? Is small business branding efforts wasted in direct marketing and sales?

It is very important for an SME or, a startup as it becomes all the more important for them to be in the minds of their customers and take communication to a much higher level (super personalized and individualized). So that their customers know that these companies really care and understand the needs.

What are your thoughts on small businesses relying on SEO?  How important it is for them to outsource their email marketing and social media marketing to specialists?

Search Marketing does help to get traffic on your website, however in the long run we need to engage them in the meaningful conversions. Thus, relying on SEO only will actually result in footfalls but to get these conversations you need emails and social media.

What are some emerging marketing opportunities in social media advertising? Could you kindly elaborate?

To be able to start the conversations over social media, businesses will need to provide clear call for actions….It need not necessarily be a Like or a follow on Facebook and Twitter respectively, it can also be an invitation to join the CEO for breakfast. I see an opportunity for Advertisements on Fan pages, cross promotional tweets, Email campaigns and lot more. The market in the US has already started doing such Social Advertising campaigns; you can see players like Daily Candy doing it over Facebook.

What advice would you give entrepreneurs looking to use email marketing and also to small business owners who are just starting on the Internet?

My only advice is that focus on your audience, be relevant (talk about your customers, not what you sell) and be aware of where your target audience is over internet to know which tool to use.

Original article posted at itbizfocus.com

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is a possibility to make an email sender more easily identifiable for the email service providers (ESPs) who receive and filter email. The message is identified by the domain it is sent from, that is, the part of the address after the @.

If the delivery address differs from that that has been registered with the DNS server (Domain Name Server), there is an increased likelihood that the email will be classified as Spam by the email service provider.

Why it is needed?

It is because ISPs like yahoo, gmail, hotmail dictate it!  Look at their bulk mailing guidelines, which must be followed by all email marketers and their email marketing solution providers.

https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81126#authentication

http://mail.live.com/mail/policies.aspx

http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=content&y=PROD_MAIL_ML&locale=en_US&id=SLN3435&impressions=true

If your bulk or mass email marketing solution provider doesn’t provide it, it is time for you to ask for it. If they are unable to do it, look for other email service providers who can provide it.

Digital Direct Marketing has emerged to become among the more cost-effective, efficient, real-time marketing channels, challenging the traditional methods of customer contact. Marketers are increasingly demanding e-execution capabilities within their marketing toolkit as this medium provides them a direct, personal, interactive and measurable customer communication capability. Digital marketers are slowly waking up to the fact that more than 50% of the online population in India is spending time on emails compared to 18% – 25% , who spend their time searching for information, and companies and brands would be able to reach out effectively to a significant percentage of their customers through this channel.

Founded in June 2009, Kenscio (earlier known as Sprinklr India), identified the opportunity and built a niche focus in the fast growing market for Digital Direct Marketing. From go to market strategy to acquisition to engagement, Kenscio’s solution spectrum covers the entire customer life cycle spectrum from a DDM perspective and its service portfolio includes email marketing products and services. The name Kenscio is derived from Ken and Social graph of consumers, Ken means understanding and knowledge and Kenscio stands for the strength of understanding the social graph of the audience of their clients.

We at YourStory.in, caught up with Saurav Patnaik, Co-Founder & VP, Marketing, a digital marketing expert who has handled mandates for some of India’ s most reputed brands like Hero Honda, Coca cola, India Today, CII, Virgin Mobile, Nestle and many more. Saurav talks about the Digital marketing space in India today, how startups can utilize it effectively and how it continues to serve a significant purpose. Read on for more!

There are many companies in the digital marketing space. What makes Kenscio different?
Yes there are a lot of companies in this space; so when we started the organization we had a clear focus on why we wanted to do this.  India has been very mass media heavy and as the competition of the brands increased, the need of one on one communication was becoming a true challenge. We believe that in today’s world when a user has already realized the power he possesses, it is important that brands also get assistance to address them. Kenscio focuses on that particular piece of one on one communication and specializes in it. We believe that the only way we can be successful is if our clients are successful- our relationship managers are called Client Success managers. This kind of commitment and specialization makes us stand apart. Kenscio’s client portfolio has grown by 10 times and its email volume by 15 times to 100 million plus emails every month. This commitment has also helped us win the Top 100 Red Herring Asia award

Being one of the first few companies in this space, what are the challenges you faced?
As I had mentioned earlier that India is mass media heavy, we had to face a lot of challenges, as we wanted to change the status quo. Every marketer was interested in only looking at trying to get in touch with as many people as possible and not considering identifying their buzz epicenters or people who have the affinity to consume their communication. Today, a lot of our clients who have kept their patience are enjoying much larger businesses that they could only dream of via their existing customer base. In order to reach this, we worked really hard to educate and assist enterprises at all levels to understand how communication affinity works and how it can be used in marketing- basically focusing on profit making rather than chasing an undefined growth.

What is your business model?
Ours is an agency model where we assist the clients to achieve success in their digital direct marketing initiative and we charge them for consulting and services.

What is your marketing strategy? What is the size of the market you are targeting and how do you think the market will pan out in the near future?
As we call our strategy team as Client Success Team, it is very clear that we want more successful clients and grow with them. The total market size is around Rs 250 Crores as of now and we wish to cater to all the clients and prospective clients who share our belief of empowering their customers and being a part of their success. The market is going to see a vast expansion as the number of end users is only going to increase.  However, there is going to be a big dearth of specialized work force, so there are a lot of opportunities for the youth to grow fast in their marketing career if they choose digital marketing as a specialization.

Any specific trends you’ve noticed in the digital marketing space?
The marketer is much more mature today; and to a great extent has the clarity in terms of the business objectives he has to meet via the digital medium. Clients are asking for higher levels of professional services and are ready to invest in intelligence rather than just shooting emails. They want to marry the backend data with consumer insight to have more impactful communication. Today, they are asking how they can focus on Revenue per user to understand and utilize it for cross promotion and up-selling.

What advice/tips would you give to startups looking to market via digital media?
This medium is just like any other medium; it is just that the end user is very mature and you must respect it. It is not always about what you have to say or sell but its more about why they should believe you and trust you. You figure that out, a big part of the battle is taken care of.

Future plans.
We have recently announced expansion of our operations in the country with larger facilities in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.  These bigger facilities will meet the increasing customer demand and support the rapidly evolving market in India. Indeed, the market has identified Kenscio as a leader in strategy, consulting and professional services in this particular niche. Soon we are planning to expand in Australia as well.
As a part of this expansion plan, Mr. Hemal Patel, Director, Data Services has joined its Mumbai operations. With our stronger presence and expanding teams, we are dedicated to get the best talent on board in terms of strategists, retailists etc, to provide support to customers across India.
We have taken a very close look at the Indian economy and the marketing industry and we foresee a great need of a database marketing product which will suit this kind of quo.

Original article posted at yourstory.in

Kenscio Digital Marketing, one among leading digital marketing companies, has expanded its operations in the country with larger facilities in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. These bigger facilities will meet the increasing customer demand and support the rapidly evolving market in India, that is expected to grow to Rs 250 crores in the next two years. As a part of this expansion plan, Hemal Patel, director at Data Services has joined its Mumbai operations. With a world class technology platform and in depth expertise in digital marketing Kenscio’s clientele covers India’s leading companies across sectors in need of intelligent and measurable email marketing solutions.

Winner of the 2011 Red Herring top 100 Asia Award, Kenscio is looking at doubling its headcount by 2015 by tapping into the world class engineering and digital marketing talent pool available. Since its inception three years ago, it has increased its client portfolio by 10 times and its email volume by 15 times to 200 million plus business emails every month which answers the company’s exponential growth and potential in the digital direct marketing segment. The market has identified Kenscio as a leader in strategy, consulting and professional services in this particular niche.

Manjunatha K.G, co-founder and CEO of Kenscio Digital said, “Today we are positioned to address the growing need in the digital direct marketing space across the country and this expansion represents the next phase in Kenscio’s growth strategy. With our larger presence, we are now better equipped to cater to more than 50 per cent of this market with broader and depth of solutions and services. Our expansion plan reflects our thriving business and financial performance YOY, besides maintaining our customer retention rate at cent percent”.

Saurav Patnaik, co-founder and vice president, marketing at Kenscio Digital added, “With our stronger presence and expanding teams, we are dedicated to get the best talent on board in terms of strategists, retailists etc, to provide support to customers across India. We are completely aware of the positive impact talented employees have on customers, more-so now with Indian CEOs, CIOs and CMOs beginning to discover the value of DDM. Kenscio’s aggressive growth plans, not just covers the Indian market, but global markets such as Australia as well’.

About Kenscio Digital Marketing: Founded in early 2009 by digital marketing experts- Manjunatha K G, Ragy Thomas, Saurav Patnaik and Sunny Saxena, Kenscio is among India’s early pioneers and a leading provider of Digital Direct Marketing solutions and services. With a combination of a world class email marketing platform and in depth expertise and experience in digital marketing, Kenscio is uniquely positioned within the broader digital marketing space in India today. It is among the few players to effectively plan, develop, manage and execute digital one to one communication campaigns for a large number of reputed brands in the BFSI, retail, ecommerce, media and NGO sectors in India. For further details visit: www.kenscio.com.

original article at: afaqs!