A UC-Berkeley Alumnus, Mr. Hitesh Malhotra (Chief marketing officer, Nykaa) visited IIM-Indore on 29-July-2017 for Colloquium, the Annual Business Conclave of IIM Indore. The theme of this year was “The Strategy Spectrum” and Mr. Hitesh spoke about India’s premier beauty and wellness portal – Nykaa.com and what differentiates it from other e-commerce players. We caught up with him after the talk, for a small interview. Here is what he had to say about e commerce, Nykaa and digital marketing:-
Nishant: How did you get into digital marketing and what interested you in digital marketing?
Hitesh: I was in brand marketing first and digital wasn’t big enough in 2005 when I finished my engineering, and I was focusing mainly on the retail marketing, but then something very weird happened. I was in a mobile company and then suddenly we realized that the return on ads that we are getting just out of one simple Google ad were 10 times cheaper and stronger than what we were getting in the retail. So we thought that if one small Google ad can make such a big difference in terms of return on ads spent then how big it will be if we scale all of this together, so then I got interested into the science and got deeper into it and realized that in next 10 years digital marketing will lead the race of marketing.
Nishant: According to you, what will be the impact of GST implementation on Nykaa’s Sales?
Hitesh: There could be a little period, till the time, people are used to pay certain taxes, on certain line of products, some products will be benefited, some will stay where they are in terms of pricing, some product pricing will increase, but eventually people will understand that they are getting benefited some way or the other. They might be paying more for a beauty product but they are also paying less for eating out in restaurants. Once they get their expenses balanced, it will be neutralized.
Nishant: Do you plan to acquire more number of male customers or go into the male segment too?
Hitesh: That’s not my business model. I am focusing on women customers at a larger scale and I want to stick to the core only.
Nishant: Are there any advantages of conventional marketing over digital marketing?
Hitesh: Both have their own strengths, conventional marketing has a very good ability, you can talk good stories about a brand, and you can build brands very strongly on offline marketing. The benefit of digital marketing is that the results are measurable whereas in conventional marketing, you have to work through different methods to arrive to a result and that too could have a high level of inaccuracy.
Nishant: What are your favorite tools related to digital marketing?
Hitesh: I think the best are analytics tools; either you work on Google analytics or Omniture Adobe. After that I would say, the typical marketing efficiency tools or the typical digital marketing outreach tools like Facebook marketing, Google AdWords are my favorites.
Nishant: How do you see the future of digital marketing? What trends do you foresee?
Hitesh: The trends are already here, every day the future is shaping for digital marketing. A lot of platforms are coming, and every platform has a new science around it. Earlier TV was the main media, then it moved to Youtube and now it has moved to OTT platforms like Amazon Prime, Netflix and Sony liv or Voot. I think new platforms will keep on emerging and with every new platform, there will be more consumption digitally.
About Hitesh Malhotra: He is a UC-Berkeley Alumnus, and has held roles in strategy formation and all level analytics at Levi Strauss, USA and best in class engagement practices with MakeMyTrip.com. He excels in performance marketing, integrated communication and engagement strategy for brands. As Chief Marketing Officer at Nykaa.com, he spearheads digital, main line and customer relationship marketing -controlling 20% P&L at organization level.
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