Archit Batlaw: Building The CPG Businesses We Want To See

What kind of marketing strategy have you and your team created for your business? While virtually every entrepreneur’s dream is to see their startup venture or company achieve the fabled “unicorn” status of a $1 billion valuation, such a feat is all but impossible if you, your employees, and your branding aren’t properly aligned with your high-level goals. Creating marketing strategies that align those goals is easier said than done, but that isn’t to say that it can’t be done, according to Archit Batlaw.

Batlaw is a digital/growth marketer whose career in the field truly kicked off during his time at Facebook. It was there that Batlaw worked with the social media giant’s Global Business Group helping Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) and e-commerce businesses achieve rapid growth by improving their digital marketing performance. As Batlaw explains, it was his time at Facebook that helped him realize the importance of aligning digital marketing strategies with the right channels in order to help businesses meet their goals and fuel revenue growth.

“My time at Facebook was incredibly valuable in helping me recognize what it takes to be a successful CPG brand in e-commerce,” says Batlaw. “I was able to see what worked and what didn’t for specific businesses and their products, but also that it was more valuable for businesses to attribute their marketing efforts towards generating digital impact compared to more traditional mediums like printed retail ads.”

As Batlaw explains, digital marketing is the best way to grow a business focused around a CPG brand and/or product for one simple reason: the ability to tap into an aggregated data source of consumers who are interested in your unique offering. Talking to those customers is not only a great way to better understand their persona as a consumer, but also to focus marketing efforts (and more importantly, dollars) to help the consumers who want to hear from your brand and learn more about its products.

“Digital marketing for growth is an interesting space,” Batlaw continues. “I’ve seen and spoken to a lot of founders who view aspects of their marketing strategy in silos. They may want to run ads on Facebook or decide they need a great video to tell their story, but the best way to implement a digital marketing strategy is to always start with the goal of their digital roadmap in mind first.”

In order to help businesses establish that goal, Batlaw provided us with the following formula:

Revenue = (Online Traffic) x (Conversion Rate) x (Order Value)

This formula allows marketers to think about their digital marketing strategy using the question, “which lever in this equation am I pulling?” If you see a great conversion rate on your website, but your web traffic is down, the strategy should employ factors to increase web traffic such as including an additional channel or platform in the strategy or even additional hires. Batlaw says he has utilized this formula to help his clients – both during his time at Facebook and with his own digital marketing firm, Reach Digital – gain perspective in order to simplify the more complex elements of their marketing strategy and digital roadmap.

“A good digital marketing strategy will allow your small wins to compound exponentially because it will tell you what not to focus on,” Batlaw continues, “which is just as important as deciding what you do want to focus on. Many founders tend to want to do as much marketing as possible, but this can dilute the message your brand is attempting to get across to your customers. Instead, focus on one thing your business or brand does well, and then a second thing it does well, and so on.”

The point that Batlaw describes expands upon the matter of incremental marketing regarding total dollars spent for the goal of generating higher overall revenue. 

For instance, Batlaw mentions how during his time at Facebook, he helped one CPG brand – Olly Vitamins – run advertisements for their brand on both Facebook and television One-third of the brand’s consumer market was targeted solely via Facebook. Another third was targeted only via television, and the final third was targeted via both.

“What we found was that both channels together delivered a better revenue outcome than either one alone,” Batlaw says. “When you’re advertising at that kind of level, the attraction of incremental marketing is what you want to orient yourself and your brand against. In this case, it’s vital to identify where dollars need to be spent across all media to get the highest overall revenue and margin expansion.”

When a brand’s overall goal is generating higher revenue, the goals of its marketing strategy should align with that high-level objective. Many marketers assume that simply funneling dollars into a digital roadmap strategy is equivalent to the strategy itself, but Batlaw warns against this approach. He mentions that while this approach is a great way to fuel a marketing strategy while also generating higher visibility for the brand, but, “these tactics should not be confused with strategy.”