For me personally, the passion for cars and the very fact that you can market so many aspects of it in so many different ways was something which excited me the most, and hence I chose this direction for myself! In no way have I reached the highest echelons in my career yet, there is still a lot left to do and achieve!
1. Tell us about your upbringing, and early career days.
I come from a humble family background, and completed my schooling in Lucknow. I have always been a curious person, and a natural inclination to find out ‘How’ of things, kind of gravitated me towards Engineering. I completed my Mechanical Engineering from H.B.T.I. Kanpur, and developed a great interest towards automobiles & cars, which obviously prompted me to join India’s largest automobile manufacturer – Tata Motors.
I started my journey as a Graduate Engineer Trainee, and was fortunate to get a comprehensive hands-on experience with the Automobile manufacturing / development process at the Lucknow plant. Here, I learned everything from Engineering Design, to parts manufacturing, vehicle assembling and plant project management. This kind of satiated my hunger to apply my Engineering learnings on the real world applications.
2. How did you rise to the highest echelons in your career and what advice do you have for our readers?
Very early in my career, I was fortunate to crack the organization’s talent assessment program, FTSS (Fast Track Selection Scheme), which allowed me to work on high-impact projects, and exposed me to larger business challenges. This career transformation pulled me towards the ‘Sales & Marketing’ side of things, where I was able to contribute in the Product Marketing & Brand management of two of the most successful car brands – Nexon & Altroz. For me personally, the passion for cars and the very fact that you can market so many aspects of it in so many different ways was something which excited me the most, and hence I chose this direction for myself! In no way have I reached the highest echelons in my career yet, there is still a lot left to do and achieve!
My advice to the readers here is to firstly identify your interest area, and in some cases it can be a long journey of self-exploration to identify one! But, knowing your interest area will naturally pull you towards making the right decisions for you. When you do something you like, you automatically become better than others, and with more hard-work you can definitely excel at it.
3. How do you analyse whether your marketing activities reached your intended TG and communicated the right messages?
Every business has a different customer journey, and a different purchase funnel. So, as a marketer it is very important to align those marketing metrics with the core objectives & goals of your business. For Eg: In driving more sales for a business, it is imperative to link your awareness & performance led marketing efforts to clearly-defined customer-conversion events such as either Downloading a brochure, Putting up an enquiry or Directly purchasing a product from the e-commerce site. These are different examples of customer conversion events, which can vary for businesses depending upon their respective stage. So, it’s very important to understand the nuances of your business and shape up your marketing & promotions strategy accordingly.
In terms of content, the more relevant & personalised communication you can drive to your consumers, the better it is. Also, the content frequency is important to maintain a healthy engagement with your consumers and audience. To gauge the effectiveness of your content & campaign, the best strategy is to analyse the purchase funnel, which will give you feedback on the quality of leads received. A classic mistake which a lot of marketers do, is to focus on the top of the purchase funnel and ignore the bottom of the funnel, or leave it up to the Sales department to ensure conversion. So, it’s absolutely critical to gauge the ‘Sales quality’ of leads received from the campaign, and take necessary corrective actions going forward. Mind you, it is always an iterative process!
4. How do you think marketing will evolve in the future and how are you preparing for that leap?
It’s all about digital these days, and we all know what the current pandemic has done to push this needle further! The digital technologies are transforming businesses every day, right from design, operations, administration, sales, and of course marketing as well. The widespread penetration of mobile phones and ability to communicate with the consumer in his/her personal mobile phone space has already changed the world of marketing for ever! Through Digital Marketing, you can drive personalized messages directly to the consumer, absolutely at the right moment. I mean such high level of precision was not possible earlier with traditional modes of marketing.
Going forward, with the advent of newer technologies such as AR, VR & FPV the content is going to evolve significantly, and also the Analytics tools shall get more advanced providing deeper insights into the consumer behaviour and enabling more personalised strategies.
5. What would be that one thing that you would do differently now than before?
Considering the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on all our lives, I have certainly become more empathetic towards people, because these are challenging times and each one of us is trying to cope with it in their best possible way. So, while managing teams, one has to be particularly more considerate towards the other person’s situation, and must be patient & empathetic in dealing with your team members.
Another critical aspect which I have come to realize in the past 12 months is the importance of both your physical & mental well-being. The sudden social disconnect & Work from home imposed on all of us has put tremendous pressure on our mental health. Since, our personal & professional spaces have gotten mixed together, therefore it’s absolutely critical to take occasional breaks / leaves from work, and maintain heathy work hours along with a disciplined sleep schedule.
6. What are your future plans?
In today’s fast evolving world, I wish to keep enhancing my knowledge in the areas of Digital Marketing, Big Data Analytics and the influence/impact of AI. If need be, I shall also pursue professional courses to stay abreast with the latest developments in technology. One should never stop learning!
7. What are your thoughts for sponsoring ads during IPL? How do brands measure ROI?
Sorry. As per the company policy, I cannot comment on the organisation’s strategy and future plans.
8. Which is your favourite book and why?
I am not an avid book reader, because I like to consume content mostly through videos and reading on internet, as it works better for me! In terms of content, I like to watch and read about ‘Climate Change’ because I very strongly believe that it is the most important issue of our times, and I would like to suggest a few well-made & latest documentaries on the subject to the readers here – The Inconvenient Truth (by Al Gore), The Inconvenient Sequel (by Al Gore), Ice on Fire (Hotstar), Before the Flood (Hotstar), Chasing Ice (Netflix), Seaspiracy (Netflix), Cowspiracy (Netflix) – These are must watch titles for everyone to educate themselves about the rapid changes in climate, and how we can contribute to stop this change. In the words of Mr Barack Obama – ‘We are the first generation to know about this issue, and the last generation to do something about it!’
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Bio –
Nitesh Tewari is a Car Marketing specialist, with a proven experience in launching multiple car brands and handling the Product & Brand management of the same. After his successful stint as a Brand Manager with Tata Motors PV Marketing, he is now heading the Digital Marketing of International Business for Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles, across 46 countries.
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