PayNearby’s Jayatri Dasgupta on the omnichannel approach to building brand loyalty

In this interview with Adgully, Jayatri Dasgupta, Chief Marketing Officer, PayNearby, discusses the significance of their tagline, ‘Zidd Aage Badhne Ki’, their campaigns, marketing strategies, and the importance of storytelling and omnichannel marketing in building brand loyalty. The CMO explains how PayNearby’s communication has to be targeted, data-driven and omnichannel to engage its diverse user base. PayNearby’s campaigns are centered around highlighting the success stories of their retailers and making communications simple, easy-to-consume and relatable. The CMO also emphasises on the importance of building trust through empathy, care, and dedication. Excerpts:

Please elaborate on the significance of the tagline PayNearby emphasises – ‘Zidd aage badhne ki’?

India is poised to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2030. Bharat is as aspirational as India. To understand the drivers that motivate Bharat, we conducted an independent research and identified the cultural truths of our consumer segment and our retail community. We found that retailers at the last mile aspired to become more than a shop, whereas consumers needed easy access to assisted financial services at nearby stores to lead better lives. The research highlighted the unstoppable ambition in both the retailer and customer segments to move towards a better livelihood and to upgrade themselves and their families to a better standard of living. This ambition binds not only PayNearby but all our stakeholders together and forms the base of our tagline – ‘Zidd Aage Badhne Ki’. It signifies the unrelenting drive of the organisation to bridge the gap between Bharat and India and elevate our core segment of retailers and consumers who want to use our services and grow unabated in life.

How has your experience been in curating campaigns for rural India?

Bharat is at the heart of every campaign we create. Engaging with rural audiences needs relevant and localized content. When the majority of Bharat is tech-shy, constant communication to make them understand the products and services in a form and language that they understand is vital. We build communications that resonate with those that live at the last mile. For instance, our campaign – Pragati Mahotsav – highlighted the stories of those retailers at the last mile who are making their areas financially and digitally inclusive. Through crisp and snackable content formats, we presented the stories of our retail partners that became an inspiration for others to aspire for a better life for themselves.

Our recent Retailers’ Day campaign – Nayi Uunchai Ki Zidd – was a montage of how our retailers have taken up additional services at their stores to serve their customers better and bring scalable and sustainable social change in their catchments. Our creatives are an ode to our retailers, who are the changemakers at the last mile.

Our campaigns are not only aligned with our values - to uplift and transform Bharat - but are also conveyed in a manner that is simple yet eloquent and sticky. Rather than making our communications text-heavy, we prominently feature our retailer stories in simple-to-consume audio and video formats. Our smart storytelling offers value to the audience and helps us establish a quick connection, thus building trust.

What marketing strategies do you consider while engaging with your target audience, retailers and enterprise?

PayNearby’s user base is very diverse, both geographically and demographically. Our retailer community is spread across 20,000+ PIN codes in the country, and our consumers are also present across the spectrum. So, a one-size-fits-all strategy does not work for us. Our communication has to be very targeted, data-driven, and omnichannel to reach the users at the right time via the right medium. It helps us engage with our users and overcome the geographic and demographic barriers.

Consistency in communication across channels is paramount. Capturing micro-moments and enabling communication during these moments backed by a robust marketing technology data platform allows us to relay the right message to the right audience.

Since we are a B2B2C company, and most of our communication goes to the business segment, which leads a very busy life, the content format has to be very simple, upfront and sharp so that we can capture attention. Simplified and strategic content helps us build trust with our retailers and takes the brand or idea right to the doorsteps of our users, augmenting our market reach. Easy-to-consume video content works very well for our target audiences who lack time to read through heavy text-based messaging, thus reducing cognitive overload.

What is your opinion on omnichannel marketing, and how can brands strategically implement them to gain customer loyalty?

Our consumers are present everywhere. Today, users can choose to interact with us via a tweet, WhatsApp or even a Facebook post, apart from the traditional channels available for customer support. For this, we need to ensure relevance in our communications across all touchpoints so that our partners have a seamless experience of the brand at all points in their journey. Hence, it is important to have an omnichannel strategy. We need to reach our retailers and customers when they are most receptive to assimilating our communication, so the right message at the right touchpoints is crucial.

Omnichannel marketing helps us stay agile and allows us to interact with consumers across various platforms and create consistent messaging across all channels. It not only helps us foster brand awareness but also boosts customer loyalty.

How do you, as the CMO, view storytelling as critical in creating a connection between the brand and the target audience?

Facts and numbers do not tug at the heartstrings. Stories do. Storytelling positively impacts the brand image and shapes customer opinion, thereby forging trust. It shows the humane and empathetic side of the brand and establishes a connection with the user base. Stories are easily relatable and understood by the target audience. Hence, our campaigns are high on storytelling as we incorporate the success stories of our retailers. Telling the stories of people, who are from among the users themselves is one of the most effective forms of communication that drives results. When people see people like them progress and make a difference in life, they get motivated to do better themselves. It enables us to build a profound relationship with our retail partners and increase stickiness.

What are the key challenges faced while building trust among retailers, and how are you successfully managing them?

Building trust is a gradual process. It needs empathy, care and dedication to emerge as a trustworthy brand. At PayNearby, we have always believed in building trust among our retailers. We have created a thriving ecosystem for them with all the gears necessary to bring them at par with the current times. We have given our retailers tools for feedback as we constantly try to make our app and services better.

We ensure the highest-level of security for both users’ data and financial transactions on our app. We make judicious use of the data collected to design better products and efficiently and effectively deliver the best to our users. Furthermore, we actively collaborate and seek guidance from regulated entities that ensure our services conform to the highest level of compliance protocols and deliver secure, sustainable and the best experience to our users.

What advice would you like to give the industry around adopting new Martech trends to stay agile in the fintech sector?

Data is of prime importance. Today, the fine line between a CTO, CDO and CMO is rapidly waning. So, now more than ever, it is crucial that any strategy is backed by data so that we touch the customers at the right time in their lifecycle. Therefore, marketing technology and marketing platforms are of extreme importance for us to enable analytics and apt storytelling in our strategy.

How has the retailer’s behaviour changed with the implementation of the voice notification feature on any financial transactions at their stores? How has it helped?

Voice notifications allow retailers to manage day-to-day transactions and simplify accepting digital payments. Now it is easy for merchants to keep tabs on the payments received. Instead of making merchants look up their phones for notifications, an audio confirms it. It has made the lives of retailers easy and enables them to serve customers instead of getting sidetracked by checking for payments. In short, it has made business operations smoother and stress-free and will further help in the adaptation of digital formats at local retail stores.

How has the customer behaviour changed at the last mile? Has digital payment adoption increased in the last mile, and is it bridging the rural-urban divide?

The growing accessibility to smartphones and the availability of services at a neighborhood store in an assisted mode has brought in a behavioral change in customers at the last mile. Owing to its ease, convenience and security, even for small-value transactions, digital payments have witnessed an increased uptake. With our retailers actively assisting the last mile with their digital service needs, they have also been instrumental in propelling the acceptance and the evolution of digital transactions in the country.

As we build more and more form factor agnostic, simple-to-use, digital platforms, we will see more adoption of digital payments amongst consumers and retailers at the last mile. All this will gradually help bridge the rural-urban divide and build an inclusive India.