The marketing and communications fields serve as crucial links to connecting brands with their target audiences. With the increasing complexity of consumer needs and the global expansion of businesses, the role of marketing professionals has become more difficult and essential. This industry demands a blend of creativity, strategic thinking, and the ability to adapt to various market demands.
Marketing strategies must resonate deeply with diverse audiences, ensuring that the messages conveyed align with the brand’s goals while also addressing the unique needs of each market segment.
Vibha Thusu, the Global Head of Marketing and Communications, is a seasoned professional with a deep understanding of how to navigate these complexities. Her extensive background in IT, education, FMCG, engineering, energy management, and industrial automation has equipped her with a unique perspective on how to connect brands with people effectively. This wealth of experience allows her to craft innovative marketing strategies that not only meet but exceed the expectations of the market, ensuring that the messages engage with the target audience.
At Himel, Vibha leads a global marketing and communications team with a focus on enhancing brand visibility and driving sustained growth in over 65 countries. Her responsibilities include overseeing eCommerce marketing strategies and ensuring consistent messaging across all channels. Himel, a brand known for its commitment to quality and innovation in electrical products, benefits from Vibha’s strategic vision and her ability to adapt to different market conditions while maintaining a strong brand presence.
Let’s explore Vibha’s innovative leadership journey in marketing and communications:
Bridging Brands and People
The diverse background has fueled Vibha’s passion for connecting brands, businesses, and people. The blend of creativity, business goals, and technology in these fields has shaped her approach to developing impactful marketing and communication strategies.
Her unique skill set enables her to tackle challenges from innovative angles. This wholesome journey, rich with varied experiences, naturally led her to the Himel, where she had an opportunity to apply her insights and creativity on a global stage.
Adapting to Market Dynamics
Her diverse experience across IT, FMCG, engineering, and other sectors has given her a panoramic view of marketing communications. This varied background allows her to blend different strategies and techniques, much like a chef who draws from multiple culinary traditions to create a unique dish.
Vibha believes each industry has its nuances, and understanding these intricacies helps in crafting messages that resonate deeply with the target audience. This eclectic perspective ensures that she can adapt to changing market dynamics and apply creative solutions to complex challenges, making her approach both innovative and effective.
Guiding Through Market Dynamics
Vibha likens marketing communications to a lighthouse guiding a ship through the tumultuous sea of market dynamics. Just as a lighthouse offers a steady beacon for navigators, Vibha believes that marketing communications provide the clarity and direction needed for sales and business development teams. Together, they navigate the complex B2B landscape, ensuring that every initiative is aligned with the organization’s vision and market demands.
Vibha likens this collaboration to a well-oiled machine, where each component works seamlessly to keep the engine running smoothly. By establishing a robust marketing measurement framework, the teams can track progress and adapt strategies in real-time, ensuring that the brand’s growth trajectory remains on course. This approach not only enhances visibility but also drives customer engagement and loyalty.
Conducting the Symphony of Integrated Marketing
Driving integrated marketing and communications across various regions is akin to conducting a symphony for Vibha, where each instrument must harmonize to create a cohesive performance. She ensures seamless integration across digital and physical channels at Himel, be it social media posts or large-scale events. A unified communication strategy governs the strategy. Standardizing the primary brand message across all marketing channels and assets ensures consistency and coherence.
By engaging partners and customers through their preferred channels and tailoring services and recommendations, Himel enhances brand loyalty, boosts revenue, and delights customers. This integrated approach not only strengthens Himel’s brand presence but also ensures that the marketing efforts are effective and resonate deeply with diverse audiences. An example is Himel’s value engineering campaign.
The same message resonates across press releases, web articles, social media campaigns, thought leadership articles, or the forums in which Vibha participates. The goal is to amplify the brand recall in association with a key attribute.
Building a Community of Loyal Advocates
Vibha considers customers to be the co-authors of a brand’s story. She believes that “As a great novel is enriched by multiple perspectives and experiences, a brand’s narrative gains depth and authenticity when it includes the voices of its customers.” In the B2B sphere, she views customer feedback as not just valuable but essential. It’s like a compass that guides a brand’s journey, ensuring it stays on course and resonates with its audience.
According to Vibha, companies can transform feedback into powerful testimonials and case studies by actively listening to and engaging with customers. These authentic stories not only enhance the brand’s credibility but also build a community of loyal advocates. It’s a symbiotic relationship where customers feel valued, and the brand gains invaluable insights that drive continuous improvement. Her guiding principle has been, “We marketers don’t own the brand; it is the consumers who own the brand!”
Creating Campfires in the Digital Age
According to Vibha, the most compelling stories are those that are true and resonate deeply with listeners. In the digital age, B2B brands can create their own campfires through webinars, blogs, and social media, sharing stories that highlight real experiences and behind-the-scenes glimpses.
Authentic storytelling transforms abstract concepts into relatable narratives. It’s not just about showcasing what a product can do but also illustrating how it has impacted real businesses. By involving customers in these stories, brands can create a sense of community and belonging, turning passive readers into active participants and advocates. This approach not only builds trust but also encourages user-generated content, amplifying the brand’s reach and impact.
Personalizing Marketing Efforts through Data Analysis
Vibha believes that a sound marketing tech stack is akin to having a crystal ball. It allows brands to peer into the future by understanding past and present trends. For B2B marketers like her, this means gaining precise insights into what drives decision-makers and crafting strategies that are both effective and measurable.
By analyzing customer data, Vibha and her team can personalize their marketing efforts, ensuring that each message hits the mark. This data-driven approach not only enhances the effectiveness of their campaigns but also informs their future strategies, keeping them agile and responsive in a rapidly changing market.
However, Vibha emphasizes the importance of ensuring the correct tech-stack intensity. While advanced communication technologies have made strides, she cautions that productivity isn’t guaranteed simply by having more tools. Streamlining the tech stack and focusing on quality over quantity is key. Leading with desired outcomes and complementing them with meaningful investments in data and change management ensures that technology serves as an enabler rather than a distraction.
Addressing Unique Aspects and Goals with the Right Tools
Vibha’s team built Himel’s MarTech stack from scratch. From the website to the marketing automation platform, every tool was selected to address Himel’s unique aspects and goals. For example, they needed touchpoints in over 55 countries. The tools and their APIs must operate in all those countries. Especially in European countries with stricter norms of data privacy and residency, multiple factors play out while selecting a platform. They also have stakeholders in China, which has a strikingly different tech ecosystem. The tools needed to work seamlessly there, too.
From selecting a tool to driving adoption and progressive monitoring or attributing ROI, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work in building the marketing tech stack. Many times, the acquisition of a tool is a bigger task than finding the tool for the problem itself. The idea should sit well with the multiple teams they work with. However, the results are mostly more rewarding than the whole process. The efficiency and visibility that technology creates are amazing.
Driving Experiences and Creating Value Across Channels
Vibha believes that brands and organizations must evolve platform ecosystems to meet their communication objectives. Not every piece of data is relevant, and creating data bloat can be even more dangerous to marketing efforts, essentially diluting attention from what matters.
Vibha emphasizes the need to vet a new platform using multiple criteria—technology, automation, and feasibility. Not everything needs machine-learning modeling. Some need common data sense for tangible application. She suggests finding tools that help drive experiences and create value across channels instead of purchasing a tool and exploring its applicability in your use case.
Immediate Engagement through Online Touchpoints
For Vibha, enhancing customer experience and brand loyalty through online and offline touchpoints is like weaving a rich tapestry, where each thread adds to the overall picture. Online touchpoints such as social media, email campaigns, and eCommerce platforms provide immediate and interactive ways to engage with customers.
Offline touchpoints, including events, in-store experiences, and direct mail, offer a tangible and personal connection. By integrating these touchpoints, Vibha’s team creates a holistic customer journey that is seamless and engaging. Consistent messaging, personalized experiences, and attentive customer service across all channels ensure that customers feel valued and loyal to the brand.
Nurturing Feedback for Agile Strategies
In Vibha’s view, engaging with the community is like tending to a garden. Regular interaction with customers provides the fresh soil needed for new ideas and strategies to take root and flourish. In B2B marketing, community engagement is a goldmine of insights, offering a direct line to the pulse of the market.
MarCom professionals act as gardeners, carefully collecting and nurturing feedback from various customer touchpoints. This feedback is then shared across the organization, ensuring that every department benefits from the insights gained. This collaborative, shared learning approach allows brands to remain agile and responsive, continually refining their strategies to meet evolving consumer needs.
Another vital aspect is a strong demand-generation program. Developing brand awareness and authority through engaging content that drives interest and cultivates leads is essential. A healthy demand generation strategy requires nurturing leads from the first contact through to the decision and purchase stages. This comprehensive approach ensures a steady stream of qualified leads, driving sustainable growth and success in the B2B marketplace.
By embracing these principles and fostering a culture of collaboration, authenticity, and data-driven decision-making, brands can navigate the complexities of modern B2B marketing with confidence and agility, forging lasting connections and driving continuous innovation.
Ensuring Brand Value Growth Over Time
Organic growth requires patience and nurturing, but once it takes root, it becomes a robust and enduring presence. In B2B marketing, Vibha believes that organic efforts build a foundation that paid campaigns can amplify. It’s like building a strong house (organic) and then adding the perfect exterior finish (paid) to enhance its appeal.
Balancing organic and paid marketing efforts is akin to a well-blended diet. Organic strategies provide the essential nutrients needed for long-term health, while paid campaigns offer the quick energy boosts required for immediate performance. By prioritizing organic growth while strategically utilizing paid efforts, brands can achieve a harmonious blend that maximizes both short-term gains and long-term sustainability. This balanced approach ensures that the brand remains top-of-mind for clients and continues to grow in value over time.
Tailoring Messages for Relevance and Impact
Vibha’s approach to change management communications has been rather clinical—clear, transparent, comprehensive, and consistent messaging. Communicating change isn’t a one-and-done effort; the message needs to stick, too.
It needs to answer the question for every stakeholder: What is in it for me? The idea is to ensure that everybody understands the vision and benefits of the change by using multiple communication channels, such as emails, town halls, and internal employee engagement platforms.
Engaging employees early and often, addressing concerns, and providing regular updates are crucial. Tailoring messages to different audiences ensures relevance and impact. By fostering an open dialogue and creating a supportive environment, Vibha’s team can successfully navigate change and achieve program goals.
Embracing Innovation in Marketing
Building future-ready, scalable marketing teams is akin to constructing a resilient bridge—strong foundations are essential. Vibha’s key principles include fostering a culture of continuous learning, encouraging innovation, and embracing flexibility. She believes that teams must be adept at using data-driven insights to inform their strategies while also being open to creative experimentation.
She emphasizes investing in the right technology and tools, along with robust training programs, to ensure that teams are equipped to handle evolving market trends. Additionally, she promotes cross-functional collaboration and empowers team members to take ownership of their projects, helping build a dynamic and adaptable marketing force.
Balancing Work and Life in a Leadership Role
In Vibha’s opinion, maintaining a healthy work-life balance while overseeing marketing communications for a vast region requires strategic time management and a clear prioritization of tasks. Vibha relies on a supportive and well-coordinated team, delegating responsibilities effectively to ensure no single person is overwhelmed.
Setting boundaries is crucial—she makes sure to carve out time for personal activities and family, treating these commitments with the same importance as work deadlines. Additionally, staying organized and using productivity tools helps her manage the workload efficiently. Regularly reassessing and adjusting her schedule allows her to stay balanced and ensure both professional and personal well-being.
Foundational Principles for Aspiring Marketers
According to Vibha, tools, technologies, and trends will continually evolve. For those who aspire to build a career in the dynamic fields of marketing and advertising, it’s crucial to focus on foundational principles. These include fostering organic engagement through word of mouth, crafting compelling stories with genuine proof points, and building connections from the ground up with end customers.
Vibha advises aspirants to consistently ask themselves the right questions: “How will this idea enhance the customer experience?” and “How will it drive sales?”
She emphasizes that aligning marketing and advertising strategies with the organization’s broader goals is crucial for sustained success. She also believes that the drive to foster growth should be an ongoing pursuit.
