HDCF Confluence XIV, Hyderabad

Hyderabad, 24th August 2013: Hyderabad Director / CEO Forum has organised its Confluence XIV with a Panel Discussion on "Dynamics of New Age Marketing" at Hyderabad Marriott Hotel & Convention Center on Saturday, 24th August 2013.

The exciting event started with Mrs. Mahua Gorthi, Founder & CEO — Transforming Images welcoming the guests, members and other dignitaries to the event. After lighting the special ceremonial lamp by guests, the main panel discussion took place.

The main Panel discussion started with the theme introduction by Mr. Chandra Kuchibhotla, Assistant Vice President - Card Technology Services at Bank of America who is a seasoned software professional and serial entrepreneur with 20 years in Software, ERP and Mobile delivery platforms. Mr. Chandra has explained about new trend of Marketing i.e., 'Digital Marketing' which is now encompass several activities such as SEO, inbound marketing, social media marketing, etc. He then compared between traditional marketing activities that most of the people aware and contrast/correlate that to the digital marketing activities.

Ms. Gayathri, Founder — DataPub has participated as one of the Panelists. DataPub is the company that has provided Digital Marketing Analytics to reputed clients such as CNN, Nokia, XBOX, Airtel, Samsung, Taj, etc. She extolled on the importance of various kinds of Analytics such as Marketing, Media & Site, Ad-inventory, Search, Content, Social Media, eCommerce and Mobile. She shared that Web/Online presence is now fast picking ifp among traditional businesses and this investment could only be recouped if proper digital marketing is employed to generate leads that could convert into sales. She quoted that India has 143.2 Million mobile Internet users and total net connections stand at 164.8 million. This large online market could no longer be ignored.

Mr. Prashant Jain, an independent Consultant and Serial Entrepreneur who were behind many companies like Ctrl S, Gifting Happiness and India Domains for more for more than two decades, shared his views on theme that any person / company exploring all the facets of digital marketing, it could be bewildering to distinguish between SEO, inbound marketing, website presence, outbound campaigns etc. He said one needs to have a good website to begin with. The website has to be backed up by strong business practices as the speed of customer engagement through this channel is very fast and if not nurtured carefully, it could have negative consequences on the brand image/reputation.

Mr. Naidu Darapaneni, Founder & CEO - Versant Online Solutions who was familiar as the creator of Mera Events and MoozUp shared that many people seem to think that establishing a digital presence is the end of it. But, actually it is the beginning that leads to build additional capabilities and ultimately achieve respectable ROI for digital marketing. He then shared various facets of Digital Marketing like Basic, Tactical, Optimized, Automated, Engaging, etc.

Mr. Prashanth Meka who is currently running an incubator for tech start ups in IIIT Hyderabad shared that now people / companies are familiar with digital marketing and are eager to know how much it costs. He opined that it can start very low with just a website to very high with high traffic, customer engaging sites.

Informative and intriguing discussions made the rounds this Saturday evening with over 200 attendees getting their various questions answered by these eminent experts in the panel.