Innovative Marketing for Disruptive Markets

Marketing in today’s time is evolving in major way. While things are becoming advanced, entrepreneurs are facing disruptive changes in the market dynamics and innovative marketing strategies are getting considered as a solution. On such quest, a startup Pangram came into the market with a young team of co-founders. In an conversation with Faiz Askari of SMEStreet, the co-founders of Pangram explained their market edge and customer needs.

Edited excerpts:

Please explain the edge of Pangram in the market. What are the key differentiators you carry in the market?

We are complete service marketing and solutions agency comprised of creative graphic designers, tech nerds, mind-boggling storytellers and cunning strategists.

Our primary goal is to create awareness for brands at a reasonable cost, while portraying them according to their unique qualities, what appeals to their potential customers and in a modern, attractive profile that is in conjunction with the leaders in the social media space.

According to you, what are the key advantages of marketing outsourcing for SMEs?

Founding a business is like jumping of a building and parachute on the way down. While sustaining a business is like inventing a gadget to avoid crash landing. It requires dedication, guts, faith and a kickass idea. You already have your entire business plan in place but one of the biggest challenge arises when you have to get your potential customers to see your brand and product or service as not-just-another in the market. Marketing is a whole different stunt all together, something that an SME should not mess up. As an SME you will be faced with numerous problems when trying to market, like; Selecting the best suited marketing channel for your type of business, Competition in reaching out to customers, Staying true and focused to your brand, Using your limited marketing budget wisely, Time factor, Not enough Knowledge of the dynamic field of marketing, generating new leads, measuring returns etc.

How this marketing outsourcing model works for SMEs?

SME does not always have the internal capacity to deal with this gamete of marketing and it is advisable to seek an external marketing agency that has the ability to not only handle the vast scope of work but also take the load off your shoulder. Here are a few advantages to outsourcing marketing:

• Having experts on your side

Marketing agencies are a team of industry experts with experienced gained from working with various businesses in different industries. You not only have a dedicated team at your disposal but also a well learned and experienced account manager. An SME may argue that they can hire a marketing professional in-house but an agency can offer beyond just marketing with its team of professionals in SEO, SEM, Website handling, Events etc. Another advantage is that your marketing employee will be able to grasp some knowledge overtime and improve the functioning within the organization as well.

• Access to innovative marketing knowledge and technology trends

Staying up-to-date with the ever evolving marketing trends and technologies is time consuming, exhausting, takes up too many man-hours and steers away from the focus of growing the business. Therefore outsourcing marketing lets you enjoy the ease of having all trend at your fingertips without having to dwell deep into the taxing research process.

• Cost efficient

Now some SMEs may argue that hiring an external agency is more expensive than hiring an in-house employee for marketing but the fact of the matter is, spending on an agency is a long term investment that reaps assured benefits. SMEs can save a lot considering there is no salary, medical benefits, training (the most expensive) etc involved.

• Saves time

Getting an in-house team up-to-date with trends, briefing them, then coming with a strategy and lastly executing it is a time exhausting process that deviates from the core of the business. On the other hand, hiring an external marketing agency is beneficial because they already have the resources (training, application and software) to execute the plan and also because the dedicated team is working simultaneously towards a strategy without consuming the organization’s time.

• Bottom-Line benefits

Research has shown that an external marketing agency is more cost effective than hiring an in-house team. It is agreed that initially the briefings and process of understanding the brand takes time but it is for the long term benefit of the organization. It frees time for the employees in the company to focus on more immediate affairs. Moreover, companies with a slick inbound approach are 60% more cost effective than an in-house team.

• Concentration on the core business

Given the other listed benefits, the employers, employees and managers can focus more on the overall marketing strategy and growth of the business.

After having understood the benefits of outsourcing marketing for SMEs, it is essential to make the right decision based on the following tips: Being clear about what you are looking for in terms of much of the marketing job you want to outsource, for what period-long term or short term, always identify the cost benefit of it, evaluate your outsourced marketing agency like you would evaluate an employee, check the reference work, set objectives and define your relationship with the external agency. If you look into these pointers as an SME then you are good to go with a professional and out-of-the-box thinking external marketing agency!

About the founders:

Pangram, unlike many companies, uses its core team’s diversity to its advantage, with,

Ridhvi- 22 years, Specialised in marketing, is at the center of Strategy, Creative content, Marketing Research, Marketing platforms and Analysis. Having previously worked on a number of leading brands, makes her the right person to lead the strategy department at Pangram.

Anushhraay- 22 years, Specialised in finance, Pursuing Law and the focal point for Business Development, Client Relations and Sales. He has the knack of coming up with highly innovative pitches along with guarding Pangram's financial capabilities, making him the right person to lead the client relations and finance team.

Param- 23 years, Specialised in Marketing and Chemistry, but involved in the technology and the design angle at Pangram, forms one hell of a combination. He leads the design and production team at Pangram, ensuring that all the designs delivered by us is of the best possible quality.

Gurangad- 22 years, Specialised in Financial Markets with a keen interest in drums, heads  the content team at Pangram, making  him another interesting fit in the Pangram world. Quality Content is the most important aspect in the marketing world, he surely has his work cut out.