Telecom Product Marketing is precursor of Modern Day internet marketing !
This is an Ode to all the Telecom product, Telecom VAS Marketing professionals. You did amazing job in all these years of Telecom. Worked Day & Night, Innovated Relentlessly.
Telecom Marketing professionals worked on earliest versions of most all things which we call internet today with services like Instagram, Spotify, shazam, Zomato, Make my Trip and more, Pioneered Subscription economy and Subscription engines, Worked on complex CDPs like Adobe/Joomla. Let’s deep Dive.
As a Telecom Marketing professional, The products are invisible, It is usually Data packs Subscription, SMS Packs, Music subscription, Dating, Movies and so on. Innovation was the key in reaching and communicating with the customers, even though to some extent the customer was a captive one.
There wasn’t an option to advertise on internet like Netflix. Innovation/branding is the key to reach the customers. You started sending Bulk to get a 2% traction. It was amazing if you got 3% to 4% conversions. SMS Copy was extremely important and had to be exceptional all the time without fail. Soon It followed with Messaging after call balance alerts. USSD Code messages to reach the customers to tell about various products/packs and so on.
You started with what the new age internet world calls Notifications today, Small alerts without any sound started for customer who subscribed for it. Yes You asked people to Pay for Flash messages and asked them if they want to send it. The most early method of what can be called Snap messaging.
You launched the first versions of Internet with GPRS on phone. People suddenly had access to rich media like Music, Photos, small Videos. You made sure people adopted internet with Numerous workshops/brand activation and so on. You popularising Gaming by getting people to buy what we can call early games and internet packs especially made for gaming. You promoted Nokia phones which were made for Gaming.
You started with what we call email marketing today when you asked people to unsubscribe from physically paper bills to share email id to receive billing and offers on email. You led that revolution of Bulk emailers from the front and soon regular emailers were part of your marketing campaigns as well.
You were the first to sell the touchscreen phones, made by HTC, which was powered by what we call windows software, this is even before people heard about Apple or Android.
Email access on go with BlackBerry, Push email messaging on Nokia was pioneered by you. Nokia communicator was your phone of choice, flip to access, internet, messaging office, Just like in any Bond movie of that time.
You also began with precall messages (Before the call connects, a message a caller has to hear). You launched caller Tunes so that other people can hear a welcome song. You innovated to bring the earliest versions of shazam, Spotify and Pandora.
You pioneered what people calls Subscription economy, asking people to experience internet, other services first and then subscribe if they liked it. You were the first to work on what we called then a Subscription engine and made sure that it worked in the most complex of the highly technical network and IT infrastructure. Compared with what we see today the complexity looks effortless.
You were the first to launch the earliest versions of Zomato or Swiggy, Make my trip or which is with order a pizza with Dominos, Order flowers, Cakes, Book a Movie ticket, Book a Train/Bus Ticket and so on.
You were the first ones to launch, work on any form of CDP/SDP. A platform which you can now compare with Adobe CDP, Joomla, Magento. You managed more than 100 vendors or partners at any given point of time.
As a Telecom Marketing professional, You worked in one of the most complex of Technology Environments, You pioneering what we call internet marketing today. Regardless of what people think about you, you remain a superstar. Your contributions in making people aware, shift and adopt the new technology is commendable.
Even after doing all this, a few People say, Oh you don’t have relevant product marketing experience, a SAAS, PAAS, CDP or Subscription experience. Clearly they haven’t worked with any Telecom company.
As a Telecom Professional your impact on Society is huge. You made sure that the world adopts this method of the communication which is a game changer and will bring in new economy in future which is called the Internet economy.
I will once again say thanks for all the tremendous experience I had with all of you. Pl share and forward it to all the telecom professionals from engineering, IT, Networks, Customer services, Marketing, Sales and all other Departments like Retail without which It wasn’t possible to ensure the service is available to even in the remotest of villages and people.
