SNAPDEAL's DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY DECODED

The $4 billion Indian e-commerce market is witnessing aggressive competition from global giants as well as home-grown players. Led by increasing Internet penetration and youngsters shopping online, India's e-commerce market has seen huge growth in the past few years.

Given the country's large consuming public, people do not have the required access to goods but e-retailing today is one of the hottest form of marketing and has a good potential in the country 65cr people of the country are the consuming public.

This is in continuation to my earlier 2 blogs written on decoding Flipkart's and Amazon's Digital Marketing Strategy.

Here I have to come with study of 3rd largest player in term of valuation of eCommerce Industry of India. Recently this company has been in the news as giant investors like Ratan Tata and Softbank has invested in Snapdeal considering eCommerce potential and growth in India which has been very impressive and remarkable from Investor's point of view.

eCommerce Giant		Snapdeal
Founders		Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal. Owned and Operated by Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
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		2010
Headquarters		New Delhi, India
Business Model		Online 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 - 50000 Unique Visitors per day - 15mn(Oct'14) Registered Users - 25mn Product Categories - 24 Products Listed(Catalog) - 5mn Fulfillment Centres - 40 Total Sales FY 12-13 - $330mn
Financial Scenario		1) Recently raised funds from Tata 2) Market Valuation - $1bn 3) $340bn funds raised in 5 rounds since its launch
Top Investors		Nexus Partners, Bessemer Patners, eBay, Indo-US Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Kalaari Capital, Saama Capital
VAS		Same Day Express Delivery, Cash on Delivery, SD Cash, 7 day return policy, 100% money back guarantee, Order Tracking,
Inhouse Products/Service		1) TrustPay - Buyer/Seller Online Protection Service 2) Snapdeal Express - same day delivery 3) Safeship - Logistics for Sellers 4) SmartFeed - Personal Shopping Guide 5) Courier Service delivery method
Payment Options		1) Internet Banking (Tie up with 22 banks) 2) EMI (HDFC, Citi bank credit card) min. value of Rs.3000/- 3) Cash on Delivery (on certain products only) 4) Credit card/Debit card - Visa, Master Card 5) SD cash 6) Mobile payment
Sales Promotion Techniques		Deals, Offers, Coupons, Promo codes, Discounted vouchers, referal reward system, Savings Day
Advertising budget 2014-15		Rs. 40-50cr
Ad Agencies		FCB Ulka
Digital Marketing Startegy Focus		1) Building Brand equity 2) Increase Repeat Purchases 3) New Customer acquisition 4) Providing unique online service
Website Rank		Google Page Rank - 5/10 Alexa Website world Rank - #265 Daily Page Views - 4.2mn
SEO		Load Speed - 2.8 sec Backlinks - 3923 User Interface - very Good Alexa Site Navigation Rating - 4.7/5 Keywords - Snapdeal, Online Shopping, Buy books online, online book store, online shopping India, online shopping website, online shopping store Organic SEO Rank - 6 or 7
Consumer Search Trends of Past 12 Months (Google) Part1		Web Search - 36 Image Search -34 News Search - 15 YouTube Search - 0
Consumer Search Trends of Past 12 Months (Google) Part2		Top Web Searches - Mizoram, Tripura, Meghlaya, Goa Top Image Searches -Tamilnadu, Gujarat, UP, WB Top News Searches - Tamilnadu, Delhi, karnataka, Gujarat YouTube - NA
Google Adwords		PPC Search ad- Category based text ads Display - Product's offers based ad images Gmail - Content/Topic based Text ads Keyword Targeted - All category based keywords Paid ad rank - 8 or 9 Overall Paid Search Performance - Below Average
Re marketing		Remarketing activates if customer visits site and clicks any display/search ad
Successgul Brand Campaigns		"Bachatey Raho", "Yam - Dude", "Shake Karo aur Save Karo", "Big Savings Day"
TV Commercial Strategy		1) Objective is to build brand and increase brand recall value 2) Targeting biggest event of the year Big Boss 8 as lead sponsor in a deal of Rs35cr to penetrate into tier 2 market. 3) 50 ad films, 30 celebs, 85 national and regional channels until Diwali to make history in sales nos. 4) Mobile shopping app download TV ad aiming at shopping at anytime anywhere besides offering monetary savings. 5) use of celebrity in tv ad to convey strong message of Savings in your hands which goes inline with its slogan "Bachatey Raho" 6) Launching campiagn i.e. biggest sale of the year to gain maximum volume share
Facebook Strategy		1) only one official Facebook Page 2) Likes - 2.4mn 3) Facebook ads with image and into title 4) Product launch based cover photos 5) Updates on new products and offers 6) Avg posts per day - 1 or 2 7) Response on customer complaint is above average 8) Runing contest to ensure user engagement 9) Avg response rate per post - 40-45 10) Focus is on customer engagement and service 11) Social Listening/Emotional Connect - Above Average 12) Recently they launched campaign called Selfie with Snapdeal 13) SuperSavingsDay campaign for user engagement
Twitter Strategy		Engagement Based Marketing 1) Followers - 54,000 2) Updates on new product based contest besides offers and discounts using interactive title and images 3) Other Inhhouse Products/Services focused twitter channel 4) Avg. 6-7 tweets on product/contenst based  per day 5) Launched Mega Campaign on Micromax Canvas Nitro 6) 24*7 customer service channel - Snapdeal_Help 7) Real time connect 8) response on customer query is on real time 9) Focus is on customer service and engagement 10) Social Listening/Emotional Connect - Good
Linkedin Strategy		1) update on company info, news, events, culture, technology, hiring updates via posts, video, image ads 2) Followers - 22,000 3) Interaction with followers is zero
Youtube Strategy		1) Exclusive channel on youtube 2) Subscribers Base- 1500 3) Total Video views - 3.8mn 4) Service/Product launch/Brand Promotion specific video 5) Good Partcipation from viewers on Snapdeal channel platform 6) Engagement/partcipation with viewers is lacking
Pinterest Strategy		1) Followers - 750 2) Teme based 55 boards i.e. Nail art, DIY, Excl offers, perfumes, watchubuy, worth a read etc. 3) Each Pin is redirected to its official webpage 4) Each board and image is very appealing
Google+ Strategy		1) Followers - 6,37,000 2) 1 or 2 category based Posts everyday. 3) Less focus on Deals/offer specific posts 4) Category/Product feature based posts with attractive image ads 4) Follower engagement is area of improvement
Content Marketing Strategy		1) It has its own official blog page(http://blog.snapdeal.com/) 2) Blog posts on "how to"on categories i.e.fashion, home, travel, gadgets, health, entertainment etc. 3) PR release page also exists 4) 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) 1mn downloads, 4.2 rating, doesn't reply to negative reviews 3) 18% sales via mobile 4) Exclusive Cashback offers for shopping on mobile app 5) Campaigns - Shake Karo aur save Karo 6) Product offers, Order Tracking, Seamless experience  Secure payments are mobile apps specific features 7) mobile website - m.snapdeal.com
Affiliate Marketing Straetgy		1) Earn upto 20% for each purchase via content site and upto 12% for each purchase via shopping site 2) Payment via EFT options 3) Referral Payout for each month/category is communicated 4) Payments made 60days after the month of sale 5) various reports are released to help Affiliates 6) very transparent and accurate program
Brand Association and Acquisition		1) Grabbon.com, esportsbuy.com, Shopo.in, Doozton.com 2) Tie ups for exlcusive electronic launches i.e. Micromax Canvas Nitro, Micromax LED TV, Karbon mobile, Kriya Jewelllery, Intex mobile 3) Recently, company has tied up with Karbon 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 and unique takes 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 blog which would be on my observations about which things these 3 companies are doing in common and recommendations in order to make out unique brand image.