Low Cost Marketing Secrets: Workshop at IIT-Delhi Entrepreneurship Summit -- YS Exclusive

In a much anticipated event, Gaurav Mishra, the founder of 2020 Social organized his workshop on the topic of Low Cost Marketing Secrets at Entrepreneurship Summit organized by IIT-Delhi on 20^th February in the Dogra Hall to a huge crowd. Venture 2020 Social builds and nurtures online communities for Indian and international clients to connect their customers, partners and employees and help them achieve their business partners.

Gaurav in the past has held senior marketing roles at the Tata Group, co-founded Vote Report India and holds an MBA from IIM Bangalore.

The objective of the event was answering on how to scale marketing costs and connecting with people who won’t spend much. In the initial statement, he stated about three major ways to scale a person, beginning with ‘Asking the big question, and designing for the next billion’.

To clarify the ostensibly complex remark, Gaurav sighted the example of mobile social networks in India: Question Box which helps in providing answers and gives easy access to information in areas with illiteracy, language and technical barriers. Another classic example was Babajob, which helps people find unskilled labour like servants, cooks, housemates, through mobile social networking.

Shifting to the next important feature, he stressed on the importance of building a community using the example of SEA-EAT blog (South East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami), where people had posted Youtube videos and text messages and this community became the hub. This emphasized an important point, Gaurav wanted to point out, how communities get built around social objectives like Tsunami. Another start-up, serving as a social objective: Pink Chadhi Campaign received 50,000 members in 6 weeks.

The most important point he felt for low-cost marketing for a start-up was bringing together an ecosystem, which necessarily required treating people as simple human beings, and not just buyers of our products. Most essentially, he believed all deserved an equal right to speak in the community which required evangelizing all the people alongside.

Gaurav was of the opinion that it is ridiculously difficult to earn out of a start-up. He clearly explained the instances when one fantasizes something, but it fails to work and the passion which was required to stay in the game, which wasn’t there because of the obsession with money.

To another person’s query on the best method to seek initial volunteers, he answered it straight-forward as ‘Go out and search’ while adding how passion increases the probability of meeting someone with similar aims. He also advised against newspapers, in the early phases. He advised against working with beneficiaries, and rather investing in microfinance systems which he believed should be small and local to be effective.

His seminar was very well received by the students and budding entrepreneurs.