We have to invoke extreme emotion for it to make an impact: Snehil Khanor, TrulyMadly

With collaborations, influencers, and branded content, TrulyMadly is making its way into the lives of their TG, we dissect their marketing strategy.

From Creep Qawwali to #WorstProposalEver, TrulyMadly has been trying to evolve its communication to portray the nuances of serious dating in India. Collaborations and content pieces are helping them share #relatable narratives, reeling in more young persons to give the platform a shot. On the influencer end, they have tied up with comic influencers such as Anubhav Bassi, Viraj Gehlani, and Rahul Subramanian to encourage single persons to take charge of their lives and find their happily ever afters. We talk to Snehil Khanor, CEO and Founder, TrulyMadly to understand more about the brand's content strategy.

How does collaborating for storytelling with digital publishers and content platforms like AIB and STAGE differ from releasing content on a brand's YouTube channel?

Publishing content on publishers like AIB/STAGE serves a very different purpose from our own YouTube or other social channels. Publishing on our own social platforms mostly limits our reach to the audience which already knows about TrulyMadly and follows the brand on social, so the purpose there is mostly of recall and re-engagement. But, when we publish on other creator's or publisher's channels, the objective is to reach out to a newer audience base.

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How do you ensure that content, whether produced by the brand or via creators, doesn't feel like an ad?

If we are engaging with a creator's audience then it's best to let them do what they want as they understand their audience more than anyone else.

At the same time, it has to be a very subtle but prominent enough integration that it should land the message that you are trying to deliver. If it feels too much like an ad, viewers will not watch it. So it's better to not control too much in the case of creator content as it's their audience that you want to engage with. Whereas while working on our own content, there may be full control on the creative side but then you need to figure out the distribution of that content on your own. So both have their own pros and cons and ideally, it has to be a mix of both.

When it comes to the category of dating apps — do you feel more can be done to make narratives inclusive in regards to gender identity?

Yes! Definitely. In fact, that's what we tried to do in our latest brand film — Worst Proposal Ever. We have tried to highlight in the form of satire, how little freedom unmarried Indians and especially women used to have in finding their partner for life. We believe we are the first generation of India, who are responsible for their own marriage. More and more users now want to find a compatible life partner on their own.

Also Read: Virtual dating emerges as a recurrent theme in lockdown brand campaigns

What are TrulyMadly's goals and objectives when it comes to content creation and marketing? What does RoI look like in such cases?

The biggest objective is brand visibility in the right corridors in terms of user demography, For example, we always assess a distribution channel, be it an influencer or be it a publishing platform, on the basis of what % of their audience is women, 25 above and what's their Metro-Non-metro split. Once a channel is finalised, we look at the estimated views that we would get from that platform in a best-case and worst-case scenario and then we try and average at a price per view depending upon the audience demography that we have chosen.

What role do branded content and collaborations play in the content strategy of TrulyMadly?

We have done and plan on keep doing a lot of creator-led content marketing as well as branded content. We feel it's not about this or that. One has to hit all possible digital distribution channels for 360-degree marketing.

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What are some of the things you keep in mind when creating the social media plan for these content pieces?

In social, we have to invoke extreme emotion for it to make an impact on the viewer's mind. All of us consume hours of content on a daily basis nowadays. So if we are just making just another feel-good content, we risk not getting a very good recall as viewers may not even register the brand that created/sponsored the content. So it's extremely important to invoke extreme emotion in the viewer for him to register your brand.