How upGrad aims to transform itself via its content marketing strategy

The discourse over whether television or digital is the right forum for distributing and delivering content is in the minds of brands and not at all a matter of debate for consumers who consider them to be just screens, says Archana Tiwari Nayudu, Director, Content and Communications, upGrad, an online higher education platform.

“There's a whole lot of debate around TV versus digital versus other channels for content distribution. These are just screens in the mind of viewers and they do not care about them. So, brands have to be very conscious of this fact as this clutter or the divide of media is just in their minds. It is the content that needs to be original and more humane. Brands need to have a high EQ in content to build relationships with consumers,” she said.

Nayudu said in the times of hyper-digital activated content and communication space today, content marketing has become a very confused identity. Everybody is a content producer—selling a product, service or a persona. Storytelling has become mainstream and brands are paying very little attention on what value to add to consumers’ lives, she said.

So, what one can do to not be just another conventional brand trying its hands in the content marketing space?

Brands need to relook at how they are perceived and how much space they are occupying in the lives of consumers, she said.

“A consumer doesn’t care whether a brand is putting out their digital or content marketing campaign. For them, it is another message, and this message has to be powerful. It is time for brands to relook at the messaging part and add value to the lives of consumers. Consumers today are spoilt for choice, so there has to be continuous passage of conversation with them. One cannot leave them high and dry.”

Nayudu had some advice for start-ups. “Generally, start-ups are greenhorns. They come with a lot of excitement and ideas and the mistake they commit is to look at somebody else to craft their own digital journey. They ought to know their own business, customers and focus on being individualistic in the approach to content. They usually invest a lot of time in product development and not much in being an original content thinker. Spend maximum time with consumers. There has to be a mechanism of continuous information exchange between them and the TG. They need to know who they are serving and what problem they are solving in consumers’ lives. Ensure to simplify the complex and distribute content in the language that is understood by India and not just by metros.”

Nayudu believes now is the best time to be original in storytelling as there is a lot of chaos with content being democratised. And the same has become the philosophy of the company as well.

Being just two months old in the content marketing space, upGrad is transforming itself from pedagogy to be a life-long partner in learning with its TG, providing original, non-fiction content in learning and livelihood space through its YouTube channel.

“We are in a very ambitious space and we are multiplying our teams. Through content, we are trying to turn dormant learners into active learners. We want to extend the horizons and claim a bigger bandwidth of our customer becoming lifelong learning partner to our consumers,” she said.

Through its recently released series #RahoAmbitious, the company is trying to ensure learners stay relevant today and tomorrow.

Prior to this, it had launched a ‘Stand-up Book’ series along with its brand ambassador Vicky Kaushal.

The company has produced three series till now, and plans to launch six more soon.

“Through these series, we are ensuring that we are creating continuous engagement with our audience who are customers right now. Maybe in future, we will have a very value-driven experience. More than content marketing, it is value creation. We are very practical with our approach as we are trying to provide relevance to our TG in this hyper-dynamic economy,” she said.

Along with video and mobile, Nayudu believes regional content is the future. And with this, it plans to launch content for its channel in Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali and Telugu as well.

To measure the ROI of these campaigns and series, the company along with the regular metrics such as CTR and engagement, focuses on a very non-traditional approach through ‘impact’.

“We always keep a check on what kind of impact we are deriving out from each of the initiatives. It is measured by how much we are engaging and influencing the viewers and what role we are serving in the lives of our TG. I believe this is something everyone should follow,” she said.

The company in the past has collaborated with The Viral Fever (TVF) and FilterCopy to shed light on its campaign, #RahoAmbitious.

It has planned a web series along with FilterCopy for this year and plans to launch a content piece along with Zee5.

“We are open to collaborate with like-minded creators and producers. We will curate content which is promising,” she said.

The company also creates content for its two applications—Growth app and Learning upGrad app.

On the Learning app, most of its paid learners consume content via mobile phones. The Growth app has its own captive audience through alumni. It creates relatable content for the masses on the app.

Talking about the budget for content marketing, she said as the company has just begun in the content space, there is no embargo for any kind of budget.

Asked about plans in the branded content space, she said, “We will go where our audience is and there is no point in doing branded content just for the heck of it. After a month, we might have at least five projects in this space with the b2c brands.”

Asked if there is a need for a separate content team in brands and if it should be a job for all the people in the marketing team, she said, “Collaboration is a very key word. The magic happens when every team collaborates to work on a content piece. Working in silos, which mostly people do, creates problems. There has to be a combined matrix on the performance evaluation of each of the teams.”