Inbound Marketing in India is in nascent stage.However, if you observe keenly, many Indian companies and political parties have started practicing it subconsciously! Don’t believe me? What do you think is one of the major reasons behind India’s Prime Minister – Narendra Modi’s victory in 2014 elections? If the question ‘What’ comes to your mind, your answer is – ‘INBOUND MARKETING’
Let’s start from the scratch. So what is Inbound Marketing exactly? It’s a method of promotion of a company or organization through various content marketing practices that attract customers through different stages of marketing funnel. The 4 steps of Inbound Methodology are: Attract >> Convert >> Close >> Delight.
Let’s take a look at how NaMo leveraged Inbound Marketing in his political career. You can get a sense of how his campaigns had an inbound marketing approach to it.
Campaign Stages (Marketing Funnel)
ATTRACT – “Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat”
CONVERT – “Chai Par Charcha”
CLOSE – “3D campaign”
DELIGHT – “Digital India”, “Make In India”, “Selfie With Daughter”.
Many of you see Narendra Modi only as a great politician of India but the fact is that he is one of the most updated tech geek. He foresaw the power of technology or digital India and used the above stated 4 methodologies to deliver a campaign that became the juggernaut in history of Indian political elections. You remember the campaign? The campaign was – ‘Ab Ki Bar Modi Sarkar‘ . So how did he do it?
Attract – Right content, right place, right time
The messaging used by BJP was what people of India could relate to. It addressed the problems of the common Indian people like inflation, women empowerment and promised growth and brighter future for India. Their campaign was ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat‘ i.e United India, Great India. Now, compare it to the campaign used by Congress i.e ‘Kattar Soch Nahi Yuva Josh‘ i.e ‘Youthful energy not hard line views’. The messaging only focused on providing a young leader to the youth of India. It was not something that the mass audience could relate to. The reason it failed was for it did not answer the Call-to-Action objective of Indians which was ‘Why they should vote for that party?’
BJP also made sure that the message was delivered across all the platforms including social media. In the 16th General Elections, 814 million of 125 crore populace were eligible to vote, out of which 150 million were first time voters between an age group of 18-23 years old who were social media savvy and had mobile-centric lifestyles. Hence, all the channels including digital and offline were covered.
Convert – Take voluntarily shared personal information to target better
NaMo made sure that the campaigns encouraged engagement from people and most importantly the youth. His two-way communication campaigns like ‘Chai Par Charcha’ involved people from different income groups to connect and share their thoughts in a direct conversation with NaMo. For youth, websites like namonumber.com and india272.com were launched where NaMo asked students to give topics and suggestions to be incorporated in his rally-speeches. These activities made people feel that their thoughts were being heard and hence augmented the follower base for NaMo. The Facebook page ‘I support Narendra Modi’ was launched and received 8 million likes overall. Narendra Modi gained 13.7 million followers on Twitter during elections and had 3rd most famous Twitter handle after Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan. With 29 million Facebook likes and 2,54,611 YouTube followers, NaMo generated massive following which made it very easy for him to get heard among people.
Close – Seal the deal
As the ‘Election Day’ came closer, 5800 rallies were conducted, of which 100 were high tech 3D Rallies. The ‘3D campaign‘ gained the attention of both supporters and non supporters. Apart from using the mobile phone to reach out to electorates, a number of apps were launched to provide information on the candidates, latest news and quotes from the BJP leaders. The apps got 50,000 downloads which was five times the expected number. Hence, the acquired leads or supporters in this case were closed into BJP voters on the ‘Election Day’ which marked a glorious win for NaMo in the history of Indian Politics.
Delight – Talk about me with everybody
With all the campaigns and initiatives like Digital India, Make In India, Selfie With Daughter, Swachh Bharat, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and now the surgical strike on Black Money, NaMo keeps delighting his supporters by fulfilling the promises he made for a brighter future of India. This evokes a sense of patriotism and deep commitment towards the Prime Minister, in the hearts of the nation’s citizens. Hence, they become the brand promoters of #NaMo.
