Meet Shahnawaz Mansoori; a Dreamer, Explorer and a Digital Geek!
Shahnawaz did his schooling from the Maharana Mewar Public School, Udaipur and later went on to study engineering in electronics & communication. He played bass guitar in a couple of bands and learned a great deal about music during his graduation days. After he graduated, Shahnawaz joined DailyObjects at a very early stage as a category manager, music accessories before he transitioned to heading digital marketing & strategy for the company.
He has over 4 years of experience in driving growth in the e-commerce segment and specializes in digital marketing, business analytics and strategy.
Mr. Mansoori took a session for students of Digication while on a Delhi excursion and offered valuable insights into the world of Digital Marketing.
With his vast knowledge, he explained the students about the thrills and the challenges of growing a startup and how to equip yourself with the knowledge to stand out in this constantly changing digital world.
Lastly, he discussed the projects handled by the students and with his amazing ideas and analogies briefed them on understanding and attracting the right audience for a product.
Wondering how Shahnawaz got into Digital marketing? That was our first question too.
Chatting with Shahnawaz Mansoori meanwhile experimenting with Chai at Chaayos, Delhi.
1. Tell us about your journey to digital marketing.
Shahnawaz: It’s been a rollercoaster ride – from knowing nothing about digital marketing to being at the helm of growing a startup to become one of the most promising lifestyle brands today in India.
It all started in the final year of my Engineering; a friend of mine introduced me to the exciting world of startups and their developing ecosystem in India. After clearing all my doubts and reservations. I was finally convinced to take the road less taken and joined DailyObjects straight out of college to launch a new category related to music. I was soon assigned the responsibility of driving digital marketing as everyone in a startup is expected to wear multiple hats. I started enjoying the work as digital marketing demanded the right balance of art and science.
There was no looking back.”
DailyObjects at that time had only 8 to 10 people in the team now boasts a team of over 100 and is working with 80+ artists from 28 countries and has reached a remarkable figure of 5 Lac+ unique products on the website and on the apps. Backed by some of the most astute investors in the country like Unilazer Ventures, Seedfund, redBus co-founder Phanindra Sama, and Lenskart CEO and co-founder Peyush Bansal. You can imagine the learning that came with it.
2.What is the importance of having a growth mindset?
Shahnawaz: I have been a passionate learner since childhood which led me to exciting roles in life such as sports captain of the school, head of organising committees of various fests during graduation, part of entrepreneurship cells and a part of a couple of bands. Moreover, I backed all of it with decent grades. I made sure to surround myself with passionate individuals who shared the same mindset. All the credit goes to having a growth mindset – brains and talent is just the starting point.
What is a growth mindset? Perfectly summarised in a post by Harvard Business Review:
“Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts).”
3.Do you feel data plays a major role in digital marketing?
Shahnawaz: If content is the king then data is the queen in marketing – the abundance of available data in the digital space increases its importance, exponentially. You’ll have to work with data day in and day out to be remarkable in this field. I’d like to explain the importance of data through data itself;
| Attitude | Budget | Return on Investment | Return | |
| Marketer 1 | Data Driven | 1 million | 5x | 5 million |
| Marketer 2 | Gut Driven | 1 million | 4x | 4 million |
Imagine the impact a data-driven marketer can have on the performance of a company at scale.
One should be savvy enough to be able to extract the invaluable insights hidden in raw data. Marketing in the digital world requires a combination of Madmen & Mathmen.
You don’t want to be in such a position, do you?
4.Describe your creative process of coming up with creating Facebook ads for DailyObjects. What are the major steps?
Shahnawaz: Facebook is one of the most interesting channels that I have had a chance to work on. The platform is so powerful and fast that you can implement an idea within no time. We were featured in Success Stories section of Facebook for the way we used the platform to reach our goals. You can read about it here <hyperlink> (https://www.facebook.com/business/success/dailyobjects)
There isn’t a process that we follow to generate ideas but I would definitely like to share how a campaign takes shape;
- Starts with defining a concept for a Target audience.
- Defining objective for the campaign (Sales, Awareness, Re-engagement, etc.).
- Planning the marketing mix across channels.
- Ideating multiple creative based on historical data and hypothesis for A/B or multivariate testing.
- Explaining it to the designers.
- Structuring and implementing the campaigns.
- Optimise! Optimise! Optimise!
We are always working on coming up with innovative creative and messaging for our ads. As a result of it, our content is highly admired by the online community today. The key is to keep experimenting and getting better.
It’s very important to test your hypotheses before making changes at scale as it can cause huge fluctuations in the performance. One miscalculated move and you can end up losing thousands, even lacs depending on your scale.
4.Do you think digital marketing is a good field for students to enter into?
Shahnawaz: Absolutely, the internet users in India are growing rapidly and the ways to market online are increasing everyday. Traditional brands are updating their strategies to excel in the online world and a large number of new players are emerging. To fuel this transition, a huge pool of digital talent will be required. It is undoubtedly the best time to be a digital marketer.
You can read about it here.
You can connect with Shahnawaz on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Linkedin.
We are thankful to Mr. Mansoori for being a part of our Delhi Meetup Programme and for sharing Digital Marketing practical insights and strategies for Social Media Marketing. For more information write to us at hi@getdigication.com and stay tuned with us to know more about upcoming meetup sessions.