In today’s world if the business is not digital, then probably it has not unlocked its maximum potential. Digital Marketing is the complete solution that many businesses across different industries are looking for. Providing a wide range of services from social media marketing to helping companies establish their online presence, digital marketing agencies are today the key that allows businesses to take their venture online.
When digital marketing was gaining popularity in India, Avinash Chandra studied the growing market and started one of the highly recognized digital branding and digital marketing companies in India. BrandLoom, since its launch in 2017 has made it big across seven major cities across three different countries, with a single vision of complete digital branding and marketing.
In an interview with Insights Success, Avinash Chandra, Founder and CEO, of BrandLoom, discussed the insights of his company. Following are the highlights of the interview:
Please brief our audience about your company, its values, vision, and mission.
BrandLoom is one of India’s most sought-after digital marketing/branding agencies today. We started in 2017 in a small studio in Gurgaon- and today, we have offices in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Delhi. We are also expanding our footprint overseas in USA and UK.
Our focus is on delivering Return on Investment (ROI), and we are always delivering the results that we promise. We are a full services agency. We offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO), web development, content marketing, social media marketing, online advertising, paid marketing, and more services.
On the branding front, we help our clients with brand identity design, positioning, and brand building.
Our vision is to enable Brands and Startups to resonate with their audience affordably and efficiently. Our mission is to apply Branding, Digital/eCommerce, and Design capabilities to enable start-ups and brands, to develop world-class skills and abilities to meet consumers’ needs efficiently. Because we grow only when our clients do.
All our decisions and actions are informed by our core values:
- Doing the right thing – even when nobody is watching
- Depending on each other – facilitating a culture of supporting each other and our clients so that everybody wins
- Develop self and others- constantly learning and evolving, and helping our clients do the same
- Drive efforts like an entrepreneur- putting our clients first, and taking accountability for all our actions
- Delivering results- Following the others helps us deliver results
Brief us about the featured person and their journey in the business world.
Avinash Chandra: BrandLoom is my dream come true. I started my journey in marketing over 20 years ago. Over the years, having worked with brands like Philips, Bausch & Lomb, Hanes, Opple, etc- I had the privilege of working with people from all walks of life. Gradually making my way up the corporate ladder, I acquired a lot of insights. Having built sustainable and profitable brands across the sectors, I grew confident in myself and decided to strike out on my own. So, I founded my own digital marketing/branding services company.
After some years, some mistakes, many triumphs and even more smiles- I feel happy that I took that leap of faith. We are growing and we can’t wait to do more.
What sets you apart from the rest of your competitors?
What sets us apart is that we focus on creating entire brand ecosystems rather than piecemeal work. Our unique branding-eCommerce approach helps us build a long-term roadmap to ensure that our clients grow organically. This also helps us generate the best ROI in our field for our clients.
On top of that, we are a full-service agency with everything in our kitty. This cross-sectional expertise helps us deliver results that help our clients give their best to their customers in return.
What or who motivates/inspires you to be a business leader?
I wish there is any one person who has been my inspiration. Truth is, I admire many business and thought leaders, and their journeys and words continue to inspire me. However, I will take the name of my father here- who supported me in my unconventional career choice when everyone else was going for more mainstream options.
The other person I would like to name here is Jack Ma. He is truly an inspiration- coming from humble beginnings and then rising to the top of the world. And through all of this, he retains his down-to-earth attitude and remains low key. He is pretty much the ideal I have in mind.
What were the challenges you came across when you started a business for the first time?
Starting a business is always hard. The first hurdle was the absolute shock of discovering that you were truly on your own the first time something went wrong. When I struck out, I was confident that my clients will follow me. A few months down the lane, I was sitting wondering what happened? Because the same clients moved on after discovering that a start-up did not have
the capabilities they needed. Then there was the question of finding the right team. But I decided to hang on, and today- I have a great team, we are doing good work across industries and are on the way to expanding overseas.
How the adaptation of new technology in the respective industry you are catering to have helped transform your company’s operations and what more could be expected in the future?
Being in the digital marketing domain means advances in technology has impacted the way we work and our strategies for clients. For one, remote working has become the norm- and since we already had a flexible model pre-pandemic, for us, the switch over was easy.
The improvement in communication also allowed us take on projects from overseas- something unthought of just a decade ago. Today, we are experimenting with AI so that we can be more productive and deliver more innovative solutions to our clients.
I think we can expect to see AI take on a bigger role in the near future. Be it automating your operations or serving your customers better- it will be very influential. We don’t think it will be about AI replacing humans though. Rather, we see it become an indispensable tool- and the people who are willing to master it will have the advantage over others.
How has the ongoing pandemic affected the operations of your company? How are you driving your firm to sustain its operations and ensuring safety of your employees at the same time?
As I said, we already had a flexible model for working before the pandemic hit. It was born out of necessity, as we had to coordinate with different team members and clients across cities. However, the pandemic made us shift faster- and I can say we have adapted to it much faster than a lot of other companies. As a result, our deliveries never suffered.
Of course, what this has meant is that for many clients- face to face interactions have become a no. But we have ensured that we are available for them whenever they need us and have been actively staying in touch with them via phones, email, and video calls. This has helped us retain clients and smooth over their concerns despite the distance.
Our team’s safety is our top priority. We immediately went remote when the pandemic hit, because it is better to be safe than sorry. We interact as a team every day and our managers proactively check on their teams, to ensure that communication and coordination remains smooth.
What would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the business world?
Be kinder to yourself. Those little mistakes that you make, or the stumbles you have along the way are inevitable and they will teach you valuable lessons. The main thing is to treat them as
learning opportunities and not give up. Believe me, if you persevere, a year down the line- you will see that they are just little blips on your radar.
Where do you envision yourself and your company to be in the long run and what are your future goals?
We aim to be counted among India’s top digital marketing agencies, and we are working towards it. Our goal is to establish ourselves overseas and to keep innovating. We already have a number of long-term overseas clients- and we want to expand our portfolio further. 10 years down the line, we want to be the first option that everyone turns to when looking for services in our field.
What is the current scenario of the respective industry you are catering to in India?
A lot of agencies have mushroomed across the board- but are unable to sustain themselves in the long run. The pandemic has only accelerated this phenomenon. We are seeing consolidation happening- and the trend will only intensify in the coming years.
