According to an estimate, Asian sub-continent which includes India and China is contributing over 44 per cent of the overall internet population of the world. The internet space in India has grown about six times over the last decade. Along with this, the fast growing internet-friendly mobile base in India is adding more and more internet users in Tier-II and Tier-III cities. Obviously, the online population in the country is growing rapidly, and Flipkart, an e-commerce website, finds its potential customer in every internet user in India.
The Challenge
But the challenge for Flipkart was to talk to the right kind of potential customers in a right manner. Another challenge for the brand was to engage more frequently as the average time spent on internet in India is still very low in comparison to US and other western markets.
Strategy and implementation
As an online player, Flipkart wanted to ensure that internet users not only notice the brand but also click on it, engage with the brand, and eventually become its customer and place their orders.
Ravi Vora, Marketing Head, Flipkart.com, feels that marketing activity for online space requires a separate strategy and it should not be based on a percentage of the marketing budget. “Online space is very different in nature and engagement with internet users is of utmost importance for an online player. Therefore, rather than going for a certain percentage of online marketing budget, a marketer should have a clear objective for online space.”
“Just making audience to visit home page does not really yield any result. So, after a click, comes the lead and here lies an opportunity to get the customers registered for a brand, take them to activities on social media platforms, show them video ads and engage with them. This is how an e-commerce site actually gets customers,” he adds.
Considering that online formats work only when the TG is internet savvy, Flipkart basically targeted early teens and young adults which were adapting to the medium at a much faster rate than the rest of the population. It designed messages in an informative way and kept the creative as simple as possible so that the internet users can register the impression quickly.
Ravi Vora, Marketing Head, Flipkart.com
Also, it segmented its TG and reached out to them through selected and niche websites. It worked on the genre base targeting, as Vora says, “Psychographic mapping of the consumers worked better than demographic. So, we figured out psychographics of our TG and then looked for the kind of sites our audience would be visiting.”
For example, to reach out to male of SEC AB in the age group of 18-30, it went through entertainment, sports and social media sites. To approach males of over 35 years of age in SEC A, it used the sites related to business news and finance. Similarly, it targeted housewives in the age group of 24-35 through social media, cooking and recipe sites.
Results
The website began with selling books from its website, but the products available on its website now range from electronic and consumer goods to mobile phones and laptops. With its engaging content, Flipkart website has close to nine lakh people on its page. On an average one and a half lakh people are interacting with the brand though its Facebook page.
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