As we roll out the May edition of The Smart CEO, I’d like to share some exciting news about our new endeavor; a foray into offering content marketing solutions for clients in the India and U.S.
No doubt, the platform is finding increasing acceptance and acknowledgement among clients and agencies alike. But, there were a few questions, we felt, that needed answering, to create a differentiation for ourselves. We began by asking; what exactly is content marketing? Is it creating marketing collateral – like brochures or website content? Or, is it yet another been there, done that communication channel?
And, we found an answer in a blog written by Joe Pullizzi, the founder of Content Marketing Institute. He actually published a post in 2012 that included six definitions of content marketing. I am going to republish one of these definitions here:
“Your customers don’t care about you, your products, your services…they care about themselves, their wants and their needs. Content marketing is about creating interesting information your customers are passionate about so they actually pay attention to you”
When I pitch this to clients, I often use the phrase ‘humanizing a brand’, to help define what we do in the content marketing SBU. In our mind, content marketing is all about getting the leadership team of an enterprise to share their experience and expertise, in such a way that it is useful to others. The example I often quote is that of Mindtree, the IT services firm. The company’s brand was not only built around its service offerings but also using thought leadership in the form of books, articles and interviews by its founders – Subroto Bagchi and Krishnakumar Natarajan. The Mindtree brand is associated with ‘entrepreneurship’ as much as it is thought of as an ‘IT Services’ brand.
That being said, if you’d like us to add a new dimension to your marketing process, by using your company’s influence and know-how, feel free to reach out to me.
Back to this edition, we feature the story of Zia Mody, founder and senior partner of one of India’s most powerful law firms. She built her early reputation around her expertise in outbound M&As, before transforming AZB into a full-service powerhouse.
Also in this edition, we feature the story of Yes Bank’s Foundation, which is spearheaded by Prerana Langa. We were excited about their creative approach to implement CSR, which revolves around creating short films and videos, to inspire Indian youth to contribute to solving societal problems.
And finally, this edition also features the scaling up journey of several firms in the healthcare sector. Dr. Lal Path Labs scaled up revenues to Rs. 662 crore in 2015 from Rs. 43 crore in 2005. We also capture the early-stage growth journey of several other healthcare startups including Care24, the home healthcare services company, Diabetacare, the diabetes management startup and Stempeutics, which is working towards building stem-cell based medicinal products.
We’ve put together yet another edition with a carefully handpicked collection of entrepreneurial journeys.
Hope you enjoy reading this edition.
Editor
Prem Sivakumaran
