Marketing Lessons: Govinda Goooooooovinda!

Marketing is amazingly easy to learn. And learn from unexpected sources too - people, products, places....and hell, even from places of worship!

Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD). How about learning some marketing from the world’s richest Temple authority – the BCCI of Hindu temples, so to speak!

You know the colossal crowds in Tirupathi Temple every single day. The titanic turnout is a sight to behold – provided you aren’t one among the crowd and only sight it from a distance! From sinners to sincere devotees; from people who come with a request to people who return to payback, Tirupathi is one cosmic ecosystem in itself! While the crowds are a testimony to Tirupathi’s brand pull, it also serves as a turn off!

So, what do you do as a marketer? Simple; you open new branches! When your shop gets huge crowds in a city, you open new outlets. And when it keeps growing, you expand across to other cities. So you get more walk-ins; they go back contended, having consumed your brand; word of mouth spreads; and voila, you increase your revenues!

TTD is doing precisely that. It’s planning to build Venkateswara Temples at various places across the country. New distribution outlets – allow me to say so – are to come up at Navi Mumbai, Kanyakumari and New Delhi. Plans are also afoot to convert the guesthouse and rooms at the TTD’s Chennai Information centre in T.Nagar and convert it into a full-fledged Temple....another branch that is.

Thus, increased footfalls and enhanced market share too!

Now how do you augment revenue – not from new customers but from existing ones? Simple, you go hi-tech, partner with professionals, take the e-route and profit from your existing customers....when they bow in the temple. Literally!

TTD has tied up with MSTC Ltd., the public sector trading house known for facilitating electronic auction of commodities and products – coal, manganese, scrap etc., - to profitably dispose of the huge stock of 471 tonnes of hair, offered by lakhs of devotees.

Raw hair, in general, is cleaned and categorized by local buyers and finds a huge market abroad, mostly for manufacture of wigs. So far, TTD had been selling hair through the traditional auction route. The Internet based e-auction has completely changed the rules of the game. The last sale was effected at a hair-raising (pardon my pun) Rs.133 crore (at approximately Rs. 2,824 a kg). This was 27% higher than the reserve price of Rs. 105 crores set earlier.

And this is set to swell. The last auction did not see foreign users participating directly. But MSTC is hopeful that they would soon take direct interest, raising the hair....I mean the proceeds!

This is just the tip of the icebergian hair growth! TTD is contemplating using the services of MSTC to auction the tonnes of silver and gold that devotees are only too happy to drop in the Temple’s humongous hundis everyday! Read revenues!

And there’s more. The Temple also gets, from its patrons, pots of provisions everyday - grapes, fresh fruits, dry fruits etc., worth Rs. 300–400 crores a year. They are to be auctioned too. The coffers are set to swell.

I think TTD could do much more. How about official Tirupathi memorabilia sold through authorized TTD outlets in and around the Temple? How about selling official Venkateswara merchandise around the country by exploring the franchisee route? How about banded Tirupathi Laddus sold through stores across the country using the distribution might of a company like Levers or ITC? How about Tirupathi and Venkateswara branded screen savers, ring tones, caller tunes.....you name it!

Yedukundala vaada Govinda Goooooooovinda!