For the past two years Omobono has conducted WWW in the UK with input from our clients in Europe and the US. But the world is changing and the requirements of many global corporates to spread their marketing efforts into BRIC countries means that we need to know whether the things we hold true as marketers in the West are held true elsewhere. Is there one universal way or not? If there are differences, what are they? Omobono set out to find answers to these questions by extending its What Works Where study to India in 2012.

1. WWW India
The state of digital marketing
in B2B in India
November 2012

2. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 2
Intro
The state of digital marketing
in B2B in India
For the past two years, Omobono has conducted WWW in the UK with input from our clients in
Europe and the US.
But the world is changing, and the requirements of many global corporates to spread their
marketing efforts into BRIC countries means that we need to know whether the things we hold
true as marketers in the West are held true elsewhere. Is there one universal way or not? If
there are differences, what are they?
Omobono set out to find answers to these questions by extending its What Works Where study
to India in 2012.

3. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 3
What Works Where in India The state of digital marketing in India
As anyone who has been to India will know, it’s another The simple fact is it’s pretty undocumented.
country; they do things differently there. In fact it is, in our
The internet is transforming lives in India but the way that it is being
opinion, not one India but 3.
used by businesses to communicate with other businesses is, as yet,
There is the simple fact of the numbers. 1.2bn people, of whom 120 unknown. As our literature review conducted as part of this project
million (around 10%) are internet users (Source: Economic Times of tells us, our survey is the first time anyone has looked at the topic. So
India, April 2012). there’s much to learn.
But 500 million people are below the poverty line, they are barely Findings
literate, with no access to the internet at all. That’s one India.
We’re all familiar with the Google stat that says that 95% of
Another is the establishment India, where traditional bureaucracy business purchases start on the web. Whilst not as high, that
and systems associated (and partly left by) the Raj still operate. This is point of view is certainly supported by our own WWW
an India where everyone has their place and in order to get ahead you
research which cites search as being the start point for over
have to know the right people (e.g. be a member of the Delhi Golf Club).
As we will see later, one of digital’s great challenges in India as in other half of the audience.
markets, is how to augment these personal relationships, not to try to So perhaps it’s no surprise that in the India survey too, 86% of
supplant them. respondents felt that digital was critical or important.
Then there’s new India. With a new professional class and 600,000 As we’ll see later, the most important digital elements were web,
people graduating in technology subjects from India’s excellent search and social - the three broadcast techniques which help
Universities each year, India is provoking deep interest from global businesses span this massive continent.
corporates, who have headquartered in the new towns that have grown
up around Delhi, like Noida and Gulgaon, which simply didn’t exist 25 Over the next 12 months digital spend is set to continue, with the
years ago. And of course similarly in Mumbai and Bangalore. majority of the businesses surveyed committing 10 – 30% of their
budget to digital, with a small group (10%) some committing as much
But with over 50% of the population under 35, this is the India most as 70%.
people are now growing up aware of.
In the UK and other markets the mean is more like 40%, so digital’s
In the digital landscape it’s this third version of India which is most share of the marketing wallet in India lags slightly behind.
relevant. But any plan has to take into account India’s 1 and 2 as well,
depending on the business sector you are targeting.

4. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 4
Marketing priorities
The top three marketing priorities from the mean scores
were:
 developing a brand position
 deepening customer relationships
 lead generation.
Ensuring the organisation is living the brand and building brand
awareness are close behind however. This is unlike in the UK where
bringing the organisation along with you on the marketing journey is
just not on marketers radars.
Interestingly, this priority list does not change according to company
size, again unlike in the UK, where building thought leadership (which
is the third most important priority) overtakes building brand
awareness to become the second most important priority for larger
companies.
What do we read into that? That Indian B2B marketers have a better
understanding of the importance of lining up everyone within the
organisation behind the brand or that they just don’t have a separate
resource to handle this, so it stays with the marketing community.
And, probably, that in a market of the size of India, awareness is still
the key game to be played, as opposed to saturated mature markets
where the names of bigger companies are known and telling the
difference between companies is harder.
Digital channel priorities
As we found in our UK study – and as might be expected,
websites are the backbone of companies’ digital presence.

5. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 5
Unlike here though, where search is underinvested in (despite buyers
being highly reliant on it), SEO comes up as the second most important
digital channel in India, whilst social media overtakes email as the next
most important marketing tool. Again this seems to point to the fact
that in a market the size of India it’s more realistic to try to ensure that
your customers find you than to market to them directly – particularly
as data in India is still a nascent business.
This seems to be backed up by the fact that the only people who were
using email were the larger companies – who perhaps have a more
email orientated customer base.
Small companies seem to be underusing this channel. Perhaps data is
at the heart of this problem. We’re not sure it’s as extreme as one
digital pundit’s comment that ‘all databases in India are stolen’, but
clearly for email marketing to be widely used you need the data.

6. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 6
From What Works Where in B2B? 2012
Perceptions of effectiveness - what works in
India?
As might be expected, perceptions of effectiveness follow
usage, with the most frequently relied on channels being the
ones that people think work best.
Here there were some differences in terms of the size of company, with
larger companies favouring intranets (presumably because they have
them) and the biggest being strongest promoters of mobile.
Given that 98% of our respondents’ marketing teams were under 40
and the stats on mobile usage, mobile’s appearance at the bottom of
the range is interesting. The number of mobile phone subscribers in
India rose to 929.37 million in May according to the Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India.

7. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 7
However, perhaps it only suffers in comparison to other channels,
because overall, the levels are comparatively high. A third of the
respondents use mobile channels, and 42% feel mobile is effective.
This suggests a higher engagement level with mobile compared to the
UK, where only 7% of budget is allocated to mobile, and perceptions of
effectiveness peak at 24/25% (for optimisation and apps respectively).
In India, looking at where effort is likely to be invested over the next 12
months mobile looks to continue its role as a support channel, whilst
over here mobile is felt to be the critical business tool.
As one recent stat that Google shared at the BMA UK conference in
October 2012, ‘57% of business users who have a bad experience of a
corporate website on mobile would reconsider buying from that
company.’
Twitter statistic from the BMA UK conference in October 2012
Challenges and resource – the vicious circle
Indian companies do more of their digital marketing in
house.
In comparison with the UK, where only a third of work is handled in
house on average, in India 50% of companies handle the majority of
their digital work in house.

8. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 8
A mere 20% mostly outsourced digital work and this tends to coalesce
around paid search, SEO and audio, video and interactive marketing
activities. There are some dissimilarities between the size of company
and what they outsource, as can be seen on the chart to the left.
At the other end of this telescope however, as highlighted in the main
challenges facing B2B marketers, this tendency to retain things in
house creates pressures which need to be managed.
From What Works Where in B2B? 2012
As can be seen from the previous chart, the most significant challenges
is measuring ROI. But the next two relate directly to the quality and
availability of resource, followed by two others which also relate
directly to resource. So 80% of the audience cite challenges which are
resource dependent.
Interestingly, lack of technology did not seem to be an issue in the
Indian market, with only one in in 8 putting it as their top 3 issue and
only 1% saying it was their top priority. In other words, the plumbing
exists; it’s what goes through the pipes that is creating the problems.
Indian marketers believe that they are in a fast moving environment,
with most companies citing speed and innovation as a significant
challenge. In the UK the issues are the same.

9. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 9
And beyond digital?
India is in many ways, a very traditional market, where who
you know is as important (or even more) than what you
know.
As the chart to the left shows, this means that although digital can
contribute much to marketing practice, face-to-face still cannot be
ignored.
This is similar to the findings in B2B in other markets. The preferred
way to do business is about meeting people face to face and making a
judgment about whether you can work with them.
In our UK survey 36% of B2B buyers said they were more likely to buy
as a result of face-to-face contact.
This does not mean however, that digital cannot play a really significant
role in the buying process, as this UK chart on the top right shows.
The challenge, or opportunity, is to make digital work hand in hand
with face-to-face contact, augmenting the interaction by inviting,
sharing and reaching out to people at other times.
Buyers react most positively to digital content tailored to their
requirements.
Measuring effectiveness
Indian marketers cut to the quick. They look for lead
generation statistics to drive their digital judgments, using
web analytics, brand awareness and sales to add to their ROI
arguments.

10. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 10
What’s interesting however is that the two most effective techniques
are non-digital channels, face to face and customer referrals, and these
cannot be measured on digital ROI metrics.
Perhaps ROI’s inability to capture the things that really influence
business success is the reason that over half the respondents are
dissatisfied with the accuracy of their ROI measurement.
Implications
There is much that global marketers can learn from this
study. At the core is the same message we discovered
elsewhere, that the basics – web, search or social are all
critical channels in the Indian market.
Email seems to be an underused vehicle and therein lies an opportunity
for those companies who can dedicate the resource to finding the data.
From What Works Where in B2B? 2012
As one CMO stated at the London BMA conference in October 2012, “In
India there is no data. I have people walking down the streets with
notepads making a note of the company name.”
Finally, remember one of the other startling facts about India is how
young it is demographically. People under 35 account for over half the
population and this will grow. This is the digital generation. India is
the 2nd biggest Facebook nation on the planet.
Before too long, they will come into business, increasing the
normalisation of digital channels in relationship building as well as
more traditional broadcast techniques.
And this brings us to the final challenge for India – which is to work out
how best to use digital to augment the other ways in which people do
business, in particular personal relationships and customer referrals.
In our view, building an approach which uses digital mechanisms to
engage customers on an on-going basis is at the heart of how to do this.

11. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 11
Given the importance of who you know in India harnessing the power
of recommendation via digital could be a game changing strategy.
Companies that can do this effectively are set to win.
How we conducted it
The study of the Indian B2B digital market place was
undertaken in partnership with Durham University Business
School, whose MBA students undertake embedded business
projects as part of their end of study dissertations. Our
research was conducted by Kiran Ramakrishna, now
Business Development Manager to ISEA plc. in Paris, to
whom we extend our thanks.
Kiran worked with us to develop a questionnaire pertinent to the
Indian market place, build the online survey and ensure a high quality
response sample. His subsequent analysis of the data, using research
techniques including Kruskall-Wallis and T-tests mean the findings are
extremely robust.
As anyone who has worked with a top class business school will know,
it’s a great experience to have a first class brain working with you on a
business project. We highly recommend it.

12. The State of Digital Marketing in B2B in India Page 12
Thank you
For further information on the research or on how Omobono can help you tackle the
challenges outlined please contact:
Francesca Brosan on 01223 307000 or email fran@omobono.co.uk
For further information about Durham University Business School, visit:
www.dur.ac.uk/business
© 2012 Omobono Ltd.
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