”Can empathetic content be generated via a smart AI-driven system using a few select keywords, with a massive, proprietary data set to play around with?” The question struck Sharmin Ali after she completed her neuro marketing programme in the U.S. Shortly after, in 2019, she founded Instoried, a short format, AI-driven content firm that initially operated in the U.S market before moving to India.
Instoried’s philosophy revolves around incorporating one of the five basic emotions in content — joy, sadness, anger, surprise and fear. Once the client’s written sample (blogs, articles or social media posts) is inputted, the emotional intelligence tool analyses it, and suggests replacements for negative words with positive ones and aligns the ‘emotional’ words so that the content is relatable to the target audience. For the client, this reduces time spent on research, strategy, curation, publishing and measuring engagement.
Instoried works with both B2B such as MNCs, FMCG giants, digital marketing and media agencies as well as B2C businesses such as start-ups, freelancers and content writers on a subscription basis. Currently it has a select clientele of 30. “For larger B2B clients we also offer paid pilots with an option to create a multi-year contract of unlimited users and agreement, provide API integrations for our tool for content, and marketing related tools with payment based on the number of API calls,” she adds.
The 300% growth Instoried has had in the last three years, says Sharmin, is because it has a sound tech proprietary data system with its own platform in India. “Our user engagement and stickiness quotient are high for the same reason.”
With $10 million in funding till date, Instoried has grown into a 30-plus team, with 2,50,000 users in B2C already in the last six months. The brand is expanding in West Asia and North America.
Instoried’s growth strategy is pegged around multiplying its channel partners, in addition to reaching out to customers via conventional, digital and social media, adding more features and cross-selling. Sharmin sees herself creating multiple start-ups in the future. As for Instoried, she wants to make it the go-to leader in empathetic content with premium, paid users and a global presence. “I can’t wait to see Instoried go public,” she signs off. — Vijayalakshmi Sridhar