Agency Feature: Meraqi

How do we define Meraqi?

We are an independent digital marketing consultancy with strategy at the core of everything we do. With our global and national experience, Meraqi aims to create effective marketing communications that help businesses grow.

As an agency, we aim to exploit the space where data, content, and technology collide to create memorable experiences for people and brands. The organization is headed by Ankit Saraf and Snehja Sanganeria.

What's in the name?

We decided not to go down the complete abstract route. Meraki or Meraqi basically means doing something with soul, creativity or love.

When we started, this word seemed apt for what we set out to do. Q or K was more of because of the unavailability of the domain and we couldn’t afford to buy premium domains when we had started.

What do we do?

To put it in a phrase– we aim to be like the digital guardians for our brands. We do everything and anything to do with the digital space for them.

Core areas we focus on are strategic consulting,
experience design, marketing communication and science, content and production,
influencer engagement, and marketing.

Along with this we also have a tailor-made presentation design service – Design My Slides which is targeted towards corporates, students and startups.

Why we do it?

We started
with the Kolkata market and wanted to create a shop that offers the best
combination of three things - Strategy + Data+ Creative. Our research indicated
that for small and medium-sized companies, there were very few agencies that
could offer all the three and bigger agencies were out of reach.

Besides this, we also wanted to create a space where people come and enjoy working. We, to some extent, wanted to bring the International working culture to Kolkata – be it working with clients or be it the team members we have. We are a team of 22 people right now.

How do we evolve?

As we all know, today’s challenges in marketing demands constant updates and upgrades.

As an agency, we truly believe in training and sharing. We even set SMART objectives for each team member in the agency to help them grow, share ideas and then implement it on live projects, releasing white papers, etc along with other initiatives.

Social responsibility in social media

The first question we always ask all our clients before they even come on board is – what is your objective? Basically knowing ‘Why you’re getting online’ and not just doing it because everyone is doing it. For brands, technology is a means to an end – the dialogue that we are looking to create is more important. 

As an agency it is on us to create content or communication that is finding the right audience for them, being authentic and credible, tell stories (brand or people) and holding up your POV when you’re right, being consistent by going deep and finally just doing it.

The need of the hour

The digital environment is a rapidly changing one, where trends come and go by the minute. Staying updated with these trends is definitely what agencies and brands need to focus on while staying rooted in their true self.

Along with that, social media strategies need to be adapted based on the digital behavior of consumers rather than just communicating about their products and services.

We learned the hard way

As we are young and growing rapidly, every day is a new learning experience for us. However, one important thing we have learned is that the client will never be 100% satisfied. At times, it is better to deliver the work within the given deadline than to keep on improving it.

Additionally, we also realized when needed, we have to stand our ground and not avoid being exploited.

Also read: Agency Feature: Divo

Did we just share that?

Only a few, fortunately: Mixing up posts, posting a personal story on a brand page, wrong URL usage and a few more we would not like to talk about!

They work with us

RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, WOW! Momo, Emami Group, Emami, Healthy and Tasty AMRI Hospitals, Jindal Steel, PC Chandra Jewellers, Sreeleathers, Srijan Realty, PC Chandra, Hyatt Regency, and more.

The industry as we foresee

Content consumption is becoming extremely personal. The focus is shifting to platforms where authenticity can be achieved. We foresee the number of users on Instagram increasing every year and we think social media marketers will need to shift their focus more towards marketing on this platform.

Strategies will need to revolve around the algorithm, the look and feel of Instagram handles, story content and Instagram ad placement. Small, independent companies are running their business only via Instagram pages nowadays and if they focus on increasing followers, the Instagram shops can really help drive up sales in the future for e-commerce business – organically as well.

A day without Internet

Digital apocalypse. But we manage to use this as an opportunity to channel our internal workstreams and use the detox to connect with the offline world.

Lastly, are you hiring?

Yes.