Content marketing will evolve to be more real-time in 2021: Smita Murarka of Duroflex

Continuing with its hyper-growth journey this year, sleep solutions brand Duroflex plans to increase its content marketing budget with a greater focus on video content in 2021.

“We are churning out fresh content every month. Definitely, substantial investments will go in that as we focus a lot on content creation. We will invest heavily in video format,” said Smita Murarka, Vice-President, Marketing and E-commerce at Duroflex.

And for that, the brand plans to hire more people for its in-house content team. It also has a boutique agency, Sunny Side Up, to help with its content initiatives.

Talking about how content marketing has been the backbone for most of 2020, she said the medium will only strengthen in the coming year.

She added, “Mediums right from textual to video will take over a lot more this year. Content marketing will evolve to be more real-time in terms of real-time conversations around real-time events. I think brands will start to participate and take a stand on a lot of things that are happening around in real-time and this will definitely take centre stage. A lot of content around product detailing will also come up.”

Murarka says brands will continue to use the strength of digital and powerful content to stay engaged with their consumers in 2021.

“Merging of boundaries between retail and e-commerce with more brands leveraging omnichannel strategies will be another key trend. Voice search and local SEO will see more adaptability,” she said.

As the brand’s e-commerce business grew exponentially last year, she suggested that keenly listening and responding to changing consumer needs either with product solutions or with engaging content is what really helped it as a brand to achieve the growth.

In terms of influencer marketing, the brand tends to combine celebrity influencers with real-life influencers who have more of a direct impact on the consumers’ choices, which in the past has worked well for it, and will continue to focus on the same.

Over the years, a lot of brands have bombarded the sleep solutions market by creating content around the importance of sleep. When asked how Duroflex differentiates itself, she said it has positioned itself as a solution expert instead.

“We've done a lot of coaching to consumers and helped them feel better. Our conversations are solution-driven, rather than just highlighting facts that probably a lot of brands do. With our research division, we always have a lot of data to put out there. The way we look at our conversations and content is very practical and consumers are able to relate to it,” she said.

She pointed out the importance of tonality of content. As everybody has a language of the brand, Murarka said it is about giving solutions and helping consumers of Duroflex.

While it has been experimenting on the vernacular front as well, she said the product launch videos and content are mainly done in English. But depending on the occasion, seasonality and market, it also produces content in various other languages including Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, etc.