As a Digital Marketing agency, we always have a hard time convincing legacy business leaders why they should use our services. We can’t blame them either.
Legacy businesses have been up and running for years without the need for modern mumbo-jumbo like SEO or PPC. As a result, the rather aged owners of these legacy businesses think, “Why should I change my marketing strategy?”
Unfortunately, we are standing at a juncture when businesses that don’t get serious about their Digital Marketing strategy will find no place in the subconscious of potential buyers.
This is where Sulekha Ink comes in. Sulekha, too, is a legacy company… Well, to refer to it as a legacy company would be an understatement. The flagship fountain pen and ink manufacturer had been a witness to India’s independence – in fact, it is very much a part of India’s freedom struggle. As such, Sulkeha Ink is the bridge between the past and the present.
Despite being a legacy company, the leaders – the Maitra family and all the other employees of Sulekha don’t shy away from Digital Marketing. This is what makes Sulekha a unique organisation.
Let’s delve deeper.
What's So Special About The Marketing Strategy Undertaken By Sulekha?
Sulekha Ink has just revved up its fountain pen ink business, the leaders at the company take marketing their products very seriously. There are three specific aspects of their Digital Marketing strategy that have captured our attention.
Sulekha Focused On Quality Right From The Beginning
Do you know what’s the most important aspect of a Digital Marketing strategy? No, it’s not content, paid ads or SEO. It’s the product itself!
“If you don’t sell good products, no matter how smart your Digital Marketing strategy is, the net result will be dismal.”
Sulekha focused on manufacturing quality ink. Across the internet, you will find stories of how the Indian company defeated the foreign ink manufacturer – Quink. However, keep in mind that Sulkeha snatched the market share away from domestic ink companies like Supra as well. How? By producing quality ink, and later, quality fountain pens.
Yes, Sulekha was the result of the Nationalist Movement in India – a protest against the British violence, more specifically, against the division of Bengal. However, Sulekha did not have to depend on Nationalist sentiment to sell its products. The products were so good that customers wanted only Sulekha and nothing else.
Available Across All Major E-commerce Channels
Digital Marketing is not just about grabbing eyeballs and earning leads. There is a technical aspect to Digital Marketing. This involves making sure that your product is available to be bought from all the major e-commerce platforms. If you sell a niche product, you have to make sure that you are available to be bought from niche websites like India Mart.
Sulekha already has a great offline presence thanks to its decades-old relationship with distributors and sellers.
But it is very heartening to see that even though Sulekha is a legacy company, it has created a sound e-commerce strategy. At a time when big pen brands like Linc don’t sell their products through their own website, Sulekha has a highly functional website with CCAvenue (a payment processing platform) integration through which it sells all of its products.
Aside from creating a robust e-commerce channel using its website, Sulekha products are also available on Amazon and Flipkart.
During the period between the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Sulekha’s ink and fountain pen business was in hibernation, the company used to sell miscellaneous office products, measuring instruments, solar products etc. The company leveraged India Mart – the niche B2B platform in India – to sell its products.
This easy availability has gone a long way in keeping the name of the brand alive in the subconscious of potential buyers.
The website of Sulekha gets around 1000 visitors every month. Even if we assume that only 20% of these 1000 visitors buy Sulekha ink products through the website, it is really a great achievement for a company that has just revived itself (around the year 2020).
Sulekha Is Stretching Its Legs As Far As The Blanket Allows - Not Farther
Sulekha has a big legacy, but it does not have unlimited resources. In this scenario, the company is doing exactly what it should do. It is shaping its marketing strategy keeping its limited resource in mind. The company has not indulged in any elaborate marketing efforts that would burn a lot of money. Instead, the company is focusing on simple-but-practical Digital Marketing strategies.
In this day and age when earning followers for your Facebook business page has become extremely difficult, Sulekha has adopted a unique approach. It has created a Facebook Group – Sulekha Ink Lovers. The group is growing at an exponential pace. The admins of the group have leveraged the people’s love for Sulekha to expand the group . Today, Sulekha Ink Lovers has almost 5000 followers.
The fact that the Managing Director of Sulekha Ink – Mr Kaushik Maitra himself is working hard to grow the Facebook group is so awesome to see for a young Digital Marketer like me. We have rarely seen any aged business leader investing so much time in Digital Marketing.
Bottomline is, Sulekha hasn’t hired any big agency. Most of the online marketing is done by Mr Maitra. Yes, veteran marketers and writers like Chawm Ganguly and other IT experts work in the back – but the cost of the combined effort is multiple times more affordable than what the cost would have been if the company hired jazzy agencies.
In most of its PR materials, Sulekha has time and again mentioned how plastic pens are causing too much land pollution. This is a smart move by the company. This is the age of sustainability. Businesses and even individual people are looking for affordable ways to protect the environment. Using fountain pens is one such affordable way to save the planet.
Like a Phoenix, Sulekha has been reborn. It HAS to make sure that it does not burn money by indulging in an expensive but useless marketing strategy.
Two Pieces of Advice To Sulekha On Future Digital Marketing Strategies
If we were to analyse Sulekha’s Digital Marketing Strategy, its biggest strength is its biggest weakness.
Solution: Sulekha Needs To Create an Account On Google Merchant Portal. This will be a good start.
Every company has an X factor because of which it succeeds. In the case of Sulekha, it is Kaushik Maitra and his core team of experts who are doing a fabulous job in reviving the ink and fountain pen company.
“If Amul is the Taste of India, Sulekha is the Creative Spirit of India”
