FLIPKART's DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY DECODED

India has been recently added into emerging and ever shining Digital world and eCommerce has played very vital role besides mobile and internet penetration. In such scenario, every top investors are trying their best to leverage this opportunity as every top leader of the world has admitted that 21st Century belongs to India and the pace at which innovations are taking place in this realm is something I would say unstoppable and incredible.

So keeping this new digital wave into consideration, I was curious to know about what these top eCommerce giants are doing in this space as this concept has now shifted from introduction to growing stage and how they are taking an advantage of this 24*7 connected world. I have started analyzing top 3 leaders of eCommerce industry that actually drive the major part of the eCommerce show.

To begin with, Here I wanted to show you the comparison of all 3 big giants of eCommerce Industry but due to space constraint, I opted for sharing my study by each company as an individual. In next 2 blogs, I would like to share my study of other two companies and in the 4th blog, I would like to share my common observations and recommendations based on my study and understanding.

eCommerce Giant		Flipkart
Founders		Sachin Banssal & Binny Bansal. Owned by Singapore based holding company
eCommerce Drivers		Mobile and Internet for location-based marketing , Personalization and Customization to meet the needs of each customer, User friendly shopping experience, Easy accessibility and availability, Wide range of products, Competitive price through offers and discounts
Started in		2007
Headquarters		Bangalore, India
Business Model		Online Inventory and Market Place
Revenue Model of eCommerce Industry Comprise of		Pricing, Packaging, Shipping, VAS etc. Selling goods it stocked to consumers at prices lower than traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Working with min. profit and gaining from economic of scale is how it works. Selling Inhouse branded services and products to customers.
Size of the Market Place		No of Sellers - 3000 Unique Visitors per month - 28mn(Oct'14) Registered Users - 22mn Product Categories - 24 Products Listed(Catalog) - 15mn Total Sales FY12-13  - $1bn
Financial Scenario		1) Recently raised $1bn funding from investors 2) $1.7bn total funding raised since its launch 2007 2) Valuation - $5bn to $7bn
Top Investors		Naspers, Tiger Global Management LLC, Accel Partners, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, GIC, ICONIQ, Sofina and Vulcan, Dragoneer Investment
VAS		30 day return policy, Delivery withini 2 days, cash on delivery, Free Shiping, Card Swipe on Delivery
Inhouse Products/Service		1)Flipkart Flyte - Online Music Store 2) Flipkart DigiFlip- online digital products store 3) FlipkartFirst- Annual Subscription Service,Free shiping In a day & same day guarantee, 24*7 service 4) PayZippy - Payment Gateway Solution 5) eKart - Logistics Service arm 6) Fliptomania - First Brick and Motor Store
Payment Options		1) Internet Banking (Tie up with 45 banks) 2) E-Gift Vouchers 3) Cash on Delivery (max order value of Rs 50,000) 4) Credit card swipe on delivery 5) Credit card/Debit card - Visa, Master Card 6) Wallet (Topped up, Store credit, Promotional balance) 7) mobile payment 8) EMI (HDFC, Citi, SBI, ICICI) min order value of Rs 4000/-
Sales Promotion Techniques		Rebate, Deals, Refunds, Coupans, Qunatity Deals/gifts, Full Finance @0%, Instant cashback
Advertising budget 2014-15		Rs. 75cr
Ad Agencies		Happy Cretive Services
Digital Marketing Startegy Focus		1) Customer Service Information 2) Brand Building and Positioning 3) Customer Enagagement and acquisition 4) Trageting Youth
Website Rank		Google Page Rank - 6/10 Alexa Website world Rank - #109 Daily Page Views - 10.1mn
SEO		Load Speed - 3 sec Backlinks - 12214 User Interface - very Good Alexa Site Navigation Rating - 4.5/5 Keywords - Flipkart, Online Shopping, Buy books online, online book store, online shopping India, online shopping website, online shopping store Organic SEO Rank - 1
Consumer Search Trends of Past 12 Months (Google) Part1		Web Search -100 Image Search - 100 News Search - 70 YouTube Search - 16
Consumer Search Trends of Past 12 Months (Google) Part2		Top Web Searches - Goa, Tripura, Mizoram, Meghlaya Top Image Searches -Haryana, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Top News Searches - Haryana, Odisha, kerala, karnataka, Tamilnadu Top YouTube Searches -karnataka,Maharashtra,Tamilnadu, AP
Google Adwords		PPC Search ad- Category based text ads Display - Product's offers based ad images Gmail - Content/Topic based Text ads Keywords missing - Online books shopping, online shopping are not showing top of page 1 rank for flipkart Keyword Targeted - FLIPKART Paid ad rank - 6 or 7 Overall Paid Search Performance - Good
Remarketing		Remarekting activates if customer visits site and clicks any display/search ad
Successgul Brand Campaigns		“Fairy tale”, “No kidding, No worries”, “Shopping Ka Naya Address” and "Don't Shop, Flipkart It”, "Shope Anytime, Anywhere!" "Big Billion Day", "Singles Day"
TV Commercial Strategy		1) Objective is to build brand as a verb for shopping 2Target biggest event of the year i.e. IPL T20 2014 3) Total 29 ads released since 2011 4) Portraying kids as adults in ads gives higher brand recall 5) Ads targeted at Pan India shoppers of all generation 6) Ads aimed to popularise the brand as a verb 7) Testimonial based creative campaigns to demystify the fear of online shopping experience 8) Mobile App download TV ad to increase mcommerce value 9) Luanching Campaign i.e. The Big Billion Day on 6th oct'14
Facebook Strategy		1) Category Focused FB page i.e. books, gaming, fashion etc. which is for building engagement with fans 2) Deals and Offers based FB page which is for customer acquisition 3) Likes - 3.3mn 4) Seasons to Festives to Birthday based cover photos 5) Avg. 3-4 posts per day basis 5) Updates on new products and customer quiries 6) response on customer complaint is average and inconsistent 7) Running contests/gamification 8) Exclusive customer tab for support 9) Avg Response per Post - 40-50 10) Focus is on customer acquisition and engagement 11) Customer queries response is area of impro. 12) Social Listening/Emotional Connect - Average
Twitter Strategy		Engagement Based Marketing 1) Followers - 160K 2) Updates on new product, offers and discounts using appealing videos and images 3) Tech@Flipkart execlusive channel on tech updates 4) Running Product/Service based contest like Flipkartfirst, AcerA1onFlipkart 5) Avg. 2-3 product offer/launch based posts per day basis 6)FlipkartSupport Exclusive channel on quiries solution 7) Flipkart-Offers Special offers based channel 8) 24*7 customer service channel 9) Real time connect 10) response on customer query is on real time 11) Focus is on customer service, engagement and acquisition 12) Social Listening/Emotional Connect - Good
Linkedin Strategy		1) uodate on company info updates 2) Followers - 70K
Youtube Strategy		1) It does not have its own channel 2) It executes lots of youtube campaigns i.e. search page, display ad, video ad etc. 3) Total 29 videos uploaded 4) Total Video Views -1.4mn
Pinterest Strategy		1) Pinterest startegy is very unclear 2) deals/offer based pinterest 3) 8 boards and 290 followers.
Google+ Strategy		Theme Based Marketing 1) Followers - 500K 2) 1-2 Posts on per day bsis 3) Less focus on deals/offer 4) More focus on company updates, product launch update besides Festive/season/customer mood based posts 5) focus is on more on engagement and brand building rather customer acqusition 6) Interaction/engagement with follower is area of improvement
Content Marketing Strategy		1) It has its own official blog page(http://blog.flipkart.com/) 2) Blog page gives updates about company, Industry, tech etc. 3) It has its own unique tech focused blog too(http://tech-blog.flipkart.net/) 4) PR release page also exists 5) PR release about company info, events, exclusive product/service updates
Integrated Channel Across social media platforms		1) No of offers post varies across social platforms 2) No of post per day per platform also varies 3) quality of experience management/query response /service also varies across all platforms. 4) Level of engagement with users/followers also varies across platforms
Mobile Marketing Strategy		1) Mobile optimized website is available 2) Mobile app on all platforms(iOS, Android, Windows) 3) 5mn downloads, 4.3 rating, responding to each negative review 4) 25% sales via mobile 5) Campaigns aiming towards Product launch, Acquisition, Engagement and Retention 6) Mobile Remarketing does not seem to be part of strategy 7) Mobile weekend offers to target repeat purchases.
Affiliate Marketing Straetgy		1) Earn upto 15% for each purchase on website 2) Payment via Gift Voucher and EFT options 3) Referral Payout for each month/category is communicated 4) Payments made 45days after the month of sale 5) offer lower commission compared to competition 6) various reports are released to help Affiliates 7) lack of transperancy and inaccuracy in the program
Brand Association and Acquisition		1) Flipkart + OLX Joint Marketing Campaign 2) Flipkart Acquired Myntra - Online Fashion Portal 3) Tie ups for Exclusive Electronic Launches i.e. Xiomi, MSI gaming laptops, Samsung Galaxy S5 mini, MOTO G etc. 4) Recently, company has tied up with Spice for exlcusive launch of thier Android one based low cost phone.

It would be very interesting if I get to know more about from you guyz. As they say, everybody has different perception for the same situation so keeping learning agility as one of the strengths into consideration, I would love to welcome all inputs from all of you.

Please share this article as it may reach out to others and probably, that is how we can maximize our learning.

And yes, I would request to read my next 3 blogs which would be on decoding Amazon's and Snapdeal's Digital Marketing  besides one blog specific to my common observations of how these 3 top giants are actually performing and recommendations in order to make out unique brand image.