Brief Profile of Ms. Rapti Gupta
Rapti heads brand marketing at Instamojo – India’s simplest eCommerce platform that helps independent businesses grow on the internet with online stores and online payment solutions.
Rapti comes with 9 years of experience in the content and marketing industry. She started her career as a reporter for Minglebox and International Business Times and soon moved to work with startups like Affimity and Bank Bazaar.
In her 5-year journey at Instamojo, Rapti has built a community of over 15 lakh small businesses and helped give a voice to their stories through different marketing channels. Rapti has launched and managed projects like mojoVersity and the mojoMakers podcast. She has built a content-led brand voice that brings in 40 lakh+ monthly visitors to Instamojo. Her unique brand strategy has helped improve conversions by 50% for the company. In 2019, she was recognized as a top content marketing professional in Asia by World Marketing Congress.
Rapti loves networking and discussing all things brand. She is a huge leadership enthusiast and loves building happy, creative, and healthy teams. In her free time, she likes writing short horror stories and doing some Zumba! She hopes to publish her collection of short horror stories soon.
Passionate in Marketing caught up with Ms. Rapti Gupta to discuss about Instamojo’s Influencer Marketing Campaign
- Introduction of the spokesperson, Rapti Gupta – Director of Brand Marketing.
Rapti heads brand marketing at Instamojo. Rapti comes with 9 years of experience in the content and marketing industry. She started her career as a reporter for Minglebox and International Business Times and soon moved to work with startups like Affimity and Bank Bazaar. Rapti loves networking and discussing all things brand. She is a huge leadership enthusiast and loves building happy, creative, and healthy teams. In her 5-year journey at Instamojo, Rapti has built a community of over 15 lakh small businesses and helped give a voice to their stories through different marketing channels. Rapti has launched and managed projects like mojoVersity and the mojoMakers podcast.
- About Instamojo and its offerings.
Instamojo is the simplest online selling platform for independent businesses. We enable micro, small, and medium business, startups, and DTC brands with online store and online payment solutions. Our DIY e-commerce online store comes integrated with every e-commerce feature available – right from shipping with doorstep pickup and delivery, marketing tools like Email and SMS campaigns, domains, emails and much more. We are simple to use, no developer help required and offer advanced e-Commerce services at affordable prices.
We also offer unique Do-It-For-Me solutions. If a business does not want to build their store or are uncomfortable with our DIY services, our expert team builds the store with hand-picked features that would support the business’ growth and help them scale.
- Brief about the campaign.
Instamojo is currently building the simplest, most affordable online store solutions for small businesses. We wanted to spread more awareness about the launch of our new stores and their unique pricing so we decided to target nano and micro-influencers who could spread awareness about two aspects of the store and our brand:
1. Why should one have their own online store (sell independently and become DTC brands rather than sell on marketplaces and lose out on the customer journey and their own brand essence)
2. Starting an online business is as affordable as having a masala chai today – @ ₹8/day – less than the cost of a masala chai! We also wanted to talk about all the features available on the platform and give the audience a view of the value they can get for such a mind-blowing price.
- About how the campaign was executed.
We identified nano and micro-influencers that create content and awareness about how to build an online business and passive income. We also included influencers that would create content on various aspects of educating entrepreneurs.
For example – Instamojo targeted influencers from the business education category to run its first campaign. We carefully handpicked influencers that created content for digital creators – content that educated people on how to sell digital products online smarter, faster, and cheaper.
We picked YouTube and Instagram as our focus channels because we knew this is where our buyer/primary user hangs out the most – not just for marketing purposes but also to get information about how to grow their business.
- What was the outcome of the campaign?
We have seen a 60% conversion rate with this campaign. We have reached over 1 CR people with about 20-30 micro and nano influencers and for the Month of May – it was our best performing marketing campaign.
- Any learnings that you would like to share with the readers.
Most companies or brands struggle with deriving the right ROI from an activity like influencer marketing because they overlook the importance of a product-influencer fit. At the end of the day, it matters how you are positioning your value. It has to be catchy for sure but it also has to add that much value to the customer. Influencer marketing campaigns have to be treated as brand building exercises – even if people buy or not it’s about influencing their buying decision and being on top of their minds when they do decide to make that purchase decision. One major pain point for several independent and small companies especially in India is to gain customer trust. And influencers can solve that problem to a large extent. Influencer marketing is the new word of mouth and it comes with a trust tag attached to it.
- What is your take about the future of MSMEs?
I feel that everybody in India is an entrepreneur at heart. That’s exactly why the pandemic saw a big spike in people starting their businesses from home. We are cost-conscious people and business is built in our DNA. Today the number of DTC businesses being created in India are multiplying. At Instamojo itself, we have seen a 67% increase in store creations over the last year! Most of our growth came from Tier II and Tier III cities and this instils our faith in local e-commerce. Campaigns like Atma Nirbhar and Vocal for Local also became a big enabler of small businesses.
As more Indians get access to the internet and get familiar with Instagram and Facebook, there’s a mass social selling phenomenon taking place. What’s more? As more city folks go back home (with the remote work culture) and spend time with their families, they’re helping their families and peers set up businesses with the help of technology like ours. For example, we on boarded a 50-year-old woman who resumed her hobby of cross-stitching during the 2020 lockdown. In September, her niece helped her set up the Instamojo store and now they are taking custom orders via Instagram through their Instamojo online store!
