5 Indians who testify that ‘content is the king’

In today’s market, customers’ expectations, products, technologies, competitors, market leaders are changing rapidly. Advertising campaigns that looked promising before now look obsolete. Any amount of advertising, discounts, free gifts, and best slogans showcasing a company as No 1 can’t save it from losing its market share. Initially, customers may visit a store due to heavy discounts, but in the long run they regularly visit store due to 3 Rs: Relationships, Reliability & Reputation. Due to heavy competition, it has become very important for brands to focus on winning heart share rather than winning mind share i.e. build relationships with their prospects and customers and not just bank upon traditional marketing techniques.

When a brand educates customers then it not only gains their attention, but also gets an opportunity to build strong relationships with them. To create their own paths in a highly competitive world a few market leaders in their respective fields such as Sanjeev Kapoor in Food, Baba Ramdev in Health, Devdutt Pattanaik in Mythology, Harsha Bhogle in Cricket and Kapil Sharma in Comedy have used the right content to connect with people and have been able to create space in their hearts & minds.

Building Trust through Content Marketing requires Time, Patience & Frequency

Advertising campaigns require a lot of money and can increase sales for a short period of time, but in the long run, people forget advertisements. Moreover, advertisements are not considered trustworthy and are not frequently shared by people. On the other hand, good content slowly builds trust, is shareable and is referred by people in the future.

Sanjeev Kapoor: Since 1993, Sanjeev Kapoor has been hosting in Khana Khazana, which is one of the oldest running food shows. He offers many recipes on portal www.sanjeevkapoor.com and runs a popular channel Food Food. The food recipes content acts as an incentive to establish a strong connection with people and make them to watch the show/visit the site regularly.

People started trusting Sanjeev Kapoor because of his recipes and his great content delivery style. They accepted him as a restaurateur & brand endorser and became customers of his cookery books, restaurants such as Khazana, The Yellow Chilli etc., food products under the name Sanjeev Kapoor’s Khazana and cookware under the name Wonderchef.

Baba Ramdev: In 2003, Aastha TV began featuring Baba Ramdev in its morning yoga slot and today, he is best known for popularizing yoga among Indians. His yoga exercises and content on health related issues and their solutions act as incentives for people to watch his programs and attend his camps.

People started trusting Baba Ramdev because of his health related content and became customers of Patanjali products. Today, Patanjali franchise stores are selling medicines & FMCG products and are giving strong competition to the well established players in the market.

Devdutt Pattanaik: Devdutt Pattanaik is a leadership consultant, mythologist, speaker and an author. He derives management insights from mythology and shares a new approach to modern business. He has been providing valuable content since late 90s and became very popular through his TED talk in 2009. His knowledge on various incidences, stories and characters in mythology and delivery of the same in an interesting way with relevance in modern business world acts as an incentive for people to listen him.

People started admiring him for his knowledge, insights & content delivery style and became customers of his books, speeches and consulting advice.

Harsha Bhogle: Harsha Bhogle began his career as a commentator at the age of 19 with All India Radio and has been associated with many sports channels. His cricket content made him a household name and he got opportunities to host many TV shows & competitions. TV show "Harsha ki khoj" was named after him. He has authored number of books and has written columns for many newspapers and has been in brand commercials for various popular brands.

Kapil Sharma: Kapil Sharma performed for many years at theatres in Punjab, social gatherings and parties. He has won many comedy contests including the Great Indian Laughter Challenge and his humor content has helped him in getting huge fan following. Today, he is regarded as the funniest man in India and his show Comedy Nights with Kapil has become perfect fit for movie promotions. He is in high demand as a host, standup comedian, actor, and has appeared in a few popular brand commercials.

Advertising is an interruption, but the right content gets people’s attention. The above examples give a strong message for brands that by choosing the right niche, right audience, right content and a wonderful delivery style with the right frequency, they can get customers attention. By sharing the right content regularly, attention can lead to trust, which is the major factor that drives customers’ buying decisions.

(About the author: This article has been written by Harsh Pamnani, who is an alumnus of XLRI & Smitu Malhotra, who is Professor of Marketing at XLRI)