Chief Marketing Officer / India
Where the marketing plan changed
- Marketing colleagues
- 28
- Four heads; 560 employees across the lender
- Marketing envelope
- ₹14 crore
- Approved FY2026–27 expenditure
- Branches served
- 31
- Across six Indian states at March 2026
Decisions & consequences
01Narrowing a manufacturing campaign after most enquiries did not fit
Our first campaign in a manufacturing cluster described a broad business-finance proposition and attracted 96 enquiries over eight weeks. Branch teams reported that many discussions ended before a relevant application could even be considered. We reviewed the enquiries against the proposition we had actually published, without revisiting credit decisions or treating every non-fitting business as a poor borrower. Only 28 matched the business circumstances the campaign was intended to address. The other 68 included firms seeking a different purpose or operating arrangement from the one we offered.
The agency proposed stronger follow-up and another round of broad promotion. I thought that would purchase more of the same mismatch. With distribution and credit colleagues, we described the narrower segment and the situations outside it. We changed the audience selection, examples and branch briefing. The message became less expansive, and the regional team worried that it would appear to retreat from a promising cluster. I accepted that commercial cost because the first campaign had offered little evidence that wider attention was useful.
The revision cost ₹8 lakh and displaced a planned second creative concept. In a subsequent eight-week group, 58 of 92 enquiries fitted the proposition. These were separate campaign groups, not a controlled experiment proving that wording alone caused the difference. The result also did not mean that 58 loans were approved. It meant that more initial discussions concerned a service the lender could meaningfully consider. We kept application outcomes and credit assessment in their own reporting.
The lesson was to define relevance before declaring a lead-generation success. I had approved the original broad brief, so the correction included my own decision. We retained the narrower segment for the next quarter and asked branch teams to record new sources of mismatch before expanding again.
Withdrawing a trade-fair plan before prestige became its purpose
We proposed a ₹44 lakh presence at a regional industrial trade fair. The plan included a substantial stand, a speaking session and a hospitality area. By the time the final investment discussion took place, ₹11 lakh had already been spent on design, deposits and preparation. The initial argument for continuing leaned heavily on the event's prominence and the fact that we had participated before. I asked what a business owner would be able to accomplish there that justified this particular use of our budget.
Interviews with twenty-four existing and prospective customers suggested a different need: a small discussion of working-capital questions with enough time to understand the lender's process. The interviews were not a representative market survey, but they challenged the assumption behind the stand. Distribution colleagues also said they could not provide the follow-up capacity proposed in the event plan without delaying existing work. I recommended withdrawal rather than a smaller stand that preserved the appearance of participation while leaving the purpose unresolved.
The chief executive accepted the recommendation. The ₹11 lakh remained an incurred cost; we did not describe the whole ₹44 lakh proposal as a saving. We separately approved ₹19 lakh for six local discussions, with a defined invitation process and a clear distinction between general discussion and an application. Ninety-three business representatives attended across the six sessions. Thirty-one requested a later conversation with the lender; attendance did not itself create a commitment to borrow or permission for unrelated promotion.
We lost the visibility of the trade fair and disappointed an agency that had already completed useful work. The smaller format also required more coordination than one large event. I would still make the same decision because it gave the programme a defensible purpose. The enduring change was to require that purpose before deposits and production costs made withdrawal emotionally harder.
Testing an additional route when three introducers dominated a region
A regional acquisition report showed healthy enquiry volume, but three established introducers accounted for 61% of it over the preceding six months. The relationships were legitimate and commercially useful. There was no finding that the introducers had acted improperly. My concern was that our plan assumed their continued participation without making the dependence explicit. If one relationship changed, the region had little evidence about how quickly another route could develop.
I proposed a twelve-week direct-outreach trial in two industrial areas where we already had servicing capacity. The regional head preferred to put the same money into supporting the existing introducers, whose results were better understood. We agreed a ₹12 lakh trial ceiling and protected the existing relationship budget. The trial involved a small dedicated team, a defined list of businesses and scheduled branch support. We did not purchase an indiscriminate contact database or claim that a direct relationship would automatically produce better borrowers.
The team reached 180 businesses through agreed business-contact routes. Forty-seven requested a substantive discussion and twenty-two proceeded to an application conversation. Those numbers did not establish approval, disbursement or profitability. Cost per substantive discussion was higher than in the established introducer route, and two branch colleagues reported that the scheduling burden had been underestimated. We included both findings in the review rather than presenting the existence of another source as sufficient proof of success.
Management approved a smaller continuation with revised scheduling, not a regional replacement of introducers. The original three relationships remained important. The value of the trial was a clearer choice: we knew something about the cost and pace of another route, and could decide how much resilience to buy. I learnt to frame channel concentration in those practical terms rather than make diversification sound automatically beneficial.