What Are the Marketing Communication Goals of Naukri.Com?

What are the marketing communication goals of Naukri.com? Is the present mix across media and modes an optimal one? Why or not? If not, suggest an alternative integrated marketing communications campaign?

Naukri.com’s marketing communication goals are two-fold:

1. Make job seekers aware of the quality of services offered by the Company. Attract high quality applicants to use Naukri’s portal as their preferred job site to upload their resume, and search and apply for jobs. Further, with the growing applicant pool, help push the Company’s B2C services including resume services.
2. With high quality talent pool, create a pull affect amongst employers and recruiters. In addition, grow its B2B business by incentivizing employers, recruiters, and external hiring agencies to use the Company’s platform to avail paid services including job postings, access to resume database, and application screening and processing services. And all these at highly competitive prices.

Present Marketing and Advertising Mix

Till 2003, the Company’s marketing and advertising budgets were relatively low (< INR 65 lakhs) and the Company could only do so much with the allocated budget. Considering the same, Naukri.com opted for cost efficient activities including PR, print media, HR event sponsorships, emails, and maybe one-off TV advertisement.

However, in 2004, with the help of recent financing from ICICI Ventures, the Company was able to allocate a budget of INR 2 Crores (~ 210% Y-O-Y growth) towards media and advertising activities. With the help of this capital infusion, the Company was not only able to continue with all the above activities but was also able to debut into TV advertisements in a big way. Naurki.com ads were being aired on HBO, CNBC, Star, Zee, AXN and the likes. The Company hit a homerun by running its advertisements during some of the most important cricket matches including India V/s Pakistan in November 2004. In addition, the Company also spent a substantial amount of the budget on online and radio ads as well.

Is the mix Optimal?

Given the above, one thing we are sure of is that the Company left no stone unturned to create awareness and catch eyeballs. All these communication and promotional activities helped company get the attention and pull effect it needed and that it was craving for.

We also agree that, for the most part, the Company had the right mix of marketing efforts considering the customer segments being targeted for various services. For its B2B customers including employers and recruiters, the Company used event sponsorship and relationship management as the key tools which are considered ideal to target classes and quality. As for its B2C business, the Company had to target masses, and for such kind of target audience TV, Radio, Print, email, and online ads were most appropriate and cost effective.