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D2C Marketing

How Wakefit earned Rs. 410 crores in 2021.

Well…by helping customers get a good night’s sleep!

A famous British writer once said,“When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.”

Tired Nap GIF by Wiz Khalifa

And with an aim to provide the best naps and revolutionize the quality of sleep among Indians, while clocking a revenue of Rs 410 crore in FY21, a 2X growth from FY20, is the D2C startup Wakefit.

How did this Bengaluru-based sleep and home solutions startup manage to achieve this in India?

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to grasp that sound sleep can do wonders for one’s body and mind. It can help you improve immunity, increase concentration, stay in shape, and look younger. Fascinating, isn’t it?

However, not all are lucky enough to fall asleep in a jiffy. A worldwide survey for ranking sleep patterns revealed that Indians fell under the most sleep- deprived segment. Wakefit was established to tackle this very issue and eliminate the menace of sleep deprivation once and for all.

Tough days should end in a comfortable bed. That’s what they aim to provide.

Wakefit is a Bengaluru-based startup which operates with an overall objective of bringing sleep into Indians’ consciousness and helps them take steps to improve their sleep health through effective products.

Founded in 2016 by Chaitanya Ramalingegowda and Ankit Garg, this direct-to-consumer startup started by offering premium mattresses at affordable prices. Eventually, it launched sleep accessories like back pillows, neck support pillows, comforters, etc. 

The Wakefit team believes that quality sleep is a basic need and not a luxury; this mantra motivates the team to focus on innovation in product development, efficiency in processes and cost optimization, and excellence in customer experience. This makes Wakefit’s superior quality products 40%-50% cheaper than those sold by established brands.

The motivation to start-up was born out of Ankit Garg’s personal experience of buying a mattress. He comes from a strong ‘foaming’ background, having worked with a German multinational in the space. 

When he experienced the journey of buying a mattress through the traditional business model, he realized that there was no innovation in the product that was being sold; it was highly overpriced and the sales representatives of retail stores had no knowledge of the science of sleep. This sparked the drive to change the way Indians accessed sleep products in the country.

Wakefit Orthopedic Memory Foam 8-inch Queen Size Mattress (78x60x8 Inches, Medium Firm, White) : Amazon.in: Furniture

One day over a cup of coffee, Ankit and Chaitanya Ramalingegowda decided the time was ripe to revolutionize sleep and make good-quality sleep products accessible to larger masses in the country by bringing in efficiencies in the business model. The growing popularity of D2C brands fuelled the idea to start an online model where products were manufactured at a centrally located plant and shipped directly to customer households.

Before launching Wakefit officially, Ankit bought a few hundred mattresses and sold them on Amazon in 2015 to understand the unit economics. He made a profit of INR 60 lakh in this trial period.

Cut to 2020. In just four years, Wakefit had galloped to become a ₹200-crore brand in revenue. From selling a paltry four mattresses per day during the first few months, the startup now clocks a daily rate of 1,500, and caters to over 5 lakh customers across 19,000 pin codes in India.

When they started Wakefit , Ankit and Chaitanya undertook the deliveries themselves for the first 100 customers to closely understand and learn in terms of customer behavior, attitudes, and pain points.

Ankit shares that those experiences taught them how to improve their product in terms of longevity, aesthetics, packaging, thickness (soft/medium/hard), and helped them understand customer pain points better. The direct feedback received from the customers aided a lot in the development of the core offerings that Wakefit provides today.

Experts opine that the comfort and adaptability to a mattress can only be judged by an individual once he or she sleeps on it and experiences it for at least 14 days. A cursory visit to the store cannot give an indication of the quality. That is why Wakefit provides a 100 day free trial with 100% return policy. This policy also helped build confidence among customers in the online mode of purchase. The insights enabled Wakefit to model its organizational structure such that the customer pain points are adequately addressed right from the product development stage till the post-sale customer experience stage.

Wakefit.co has built a community of over 4 lakh customers and has garnered more than 12,000 positive reviews online that have propelled the business forward. The company never spent heavily on advertisement. Word-of-mouth marketing has been the most potent tool that has helped the Wakefit team build the business in a steady and sustainable manner. The firm also does a lot of online content marketing on the importance of sound sleep and health.

Today, Wakefit mattresses are among the best sellers in the category on Amazon. The company claims that it sells more mattresses than Urban Ladder and Pepperfry put together. 

There is of course much more to the success of Wakefit than the 100-day offer. 

If you want to learn more about the marketing and growth strategies that fuelled the success of this D2C startup , you can do so from the expert driving growth at wakefit himself- Parasar Sarma , VP Growth – Wakefit.

Apply to be on the waitlist for our next D2C marketing cohort!

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D2C Marketing

Rs. 100 Crore in 4 years:

How MamaEarth became India’s fastest growing D2C brand.

MamaEarth case study

Unless you are living under a rock, you must have heard about Mamaearth -Asia’s first personal care brand with MadeSafe certified, toxin-free products for mothers and children…

And then you must also be familiar with its rapid growth – according to a report published by the investment bank, Jefferies, the company may cross Rs 500 crore mark in FY21!

Pay Me Kim Kardashian GIF by GQ

But what is the story behind this brand  that is revolutionizing the personal care space…

Let’s dive in a bit!

A personal challenge for Ghazal and Varun Alagh, the founders led this husband-wife duo to launch Gurugram-based baby and mother care startup Mamaearth-the first company in Asia that has been certified by Made Safe – a US-based non-profit organisation that provides a comprehensive human health-focussed certification for making non-toxic products.

Every mother wishes to extend unconditional love and care to her child. She wants to shower all her affection and make sure she can protect her offspring in every way–every day.

When Ghazal Alagh and Varun Alagh were expecting their baby, they wanted to ensure that they could do everything to keep their baby safe. Like any other caring parent, the two browsed the internet, searching for do’s and don’ts for the little one and also what products they can buy to pamper their bundle of joy.

But they were shocked to see the results. Not a single product was available in the market that matched the safety standards. Every product they saw contained chemicals harmful to their newborn – driving the duo to create a brand by a parent for a parent: Mamaearth.

Finally in 2016, the couple launched the brand under the parent company Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd, in Gurugram using the best available ingredients – natural, plant-based or manmade, which are both certified safe as well as effective. The ingredients are procured from the best sources around the world, which are ISO, GMP and Non-GMO compliant.

“The brand’s proposition and the dire need for toxin-free products in the baby care segment made us reach where we are today. ‘Jahan chah hai wahan raha hai’ (where there is a will, there is a way). We believed that we will be able to fill the vacuum in the industry and with love and luck we made it happen.”-the founders shared in an interview. 

The Mamaearth team believes in mum-power and decided to directly target mothers. The founders were confident that once the customers used Mamaearth products, word of mouth publicity would work wonders for the company.The primary strategy was to resonate with like-minded parents who wanted nothing but the best for their babies.

In just four years, Mamaearth became Asia’s first brand to get the MadeSafe certification for its toxin-free products. The company is aiming at reducing parental stress and is continually improving and innovating to make the world a safer place for both the babies and their parents.

Started with six products in the baby care range, Mamaearth has now diversified into skin and hair care products for men and women across 80 SKUs as well as products designed specially for pregnant women. The natural and toxin-free products are used by over 1.5 million Indian consumers across 500 cities.

Mamaearth witnessed a growth in its operating revenue, which jumped to Rs 110 crores in FY20 from Rs 16.8 crores at the end of FY19. And according to a report published by the investment bank, Jefferies, the company may cross Rs 500 crore mark in FY21!

When a brand does something that helps them achieve what they are looking for,like in this case, then the mind behind this is their marketing team.

Here are a few things which the founders think set their marketing game plan apart from the rest-

  1. Brand Message -According to the founders,Ghazal and Varun Alagh ,having a purpose led brand really helped them scale the company from scratch. Being part of the target audience themselves , they understood and heard  the consumers’ needs and innovated accordingly to give solutions through their products! They also made sure to keep the message precise, clear, and engaging as it presents your brand in a nutshell. The brand’s mission and slogan are “Goodness Inside.”-ensuring that the brand should not jeopardize the consumers’ wellbeing.
Social Media Marketing GIF by Trazoz
  1. Enhancing Customer Base – It is critical to learn that by the time you have to enhance your customer base you can’t be limited, the world is your oyster. If we follow the pattern Apple started from the CPU then personal computer then iPhones, iPods, and much more. All this time they tried to grow. The same goes with Mamaearth, initially, they started out to be the company of mothers and babies, however, it gradually began to grow its client base. The company has now branched out into skincare. It offers bathing ingredients, skincare serums and ointments, face wash, moisturizers, hair oils, and a variety of other items. The greatest thing is that none of these items contain any chemicals which was and is their brand’s original and sole purpose !
  1. Concentrating on Digital Platforms first – This helped them to reach a  wider base of customers in a short time all over India. All brands and companies know the value of digital platforms. We are in the digitalization era so we can’t overlook this factor, Mamaearth knows it very well.
  1. Word of Mouth – Now this technique might seem vague, odd, old school and sham to some of you but it was the game plan for these parent turned founders! You might have heard that the words spread faster than air and it is actually true. When you hear something from someone you know, you believe what they say with zero doubts and this is exactly what Mamaearth planned. They start approaching the Mom bloggers and the customers who have a huge fan base and asked them to write their experience about the product.  Since the company trusts its products, they took the risk of channeling the  influence of mothers. It opted for a word-of-mouth approach in which mothers can inform people about the company and how it provides the best product for their children.

There are obviously heaps of more such strategies that helped MamaEarth reach where it stands today. And here at Xpert we think that the best way to learn is from the experts who have actually engineered those results. 

Want to explore growth strategies with Abhishek , the VP of Growth at MamaEarth?

Then apply to be on the waitlist for our next D2C Marketing Bootcamp and get to learn from leading experts from successful D2C brands like MyGlamm,WakeFit and so on!

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D2C Marketing

Conquering Branding: Redefining Shaving at the Bombay Shaving Company.

Selling a shaving kit to men for Rs.3000 was unheard of until the Bombay Shaving Company, a D2C startup, disrupted the market.

Bombay Shaving Company is a D2C startup that specializes in men’s grooming, personal care, shaving, beard grooming, skincare, and handmade soaps and mainly caters to men. With thousands of customers and a unique perspective of branding, that is progressive and projects masculinity peculiarly to a new market, the Bombay Shaving Company has mastered the art of branding and positioning and is here to stay .

Now, Branding and Positioning are undeniable cornerstones of D2C marketing. They create a unique image of the company’s product and help in acquiring a space in the customer’s mind among competitor brands.

Let’s see how this budding D2C startup conquered them.

Beginnings-

When four friends from Bombay saw that men’s grooming and beard care was becoming a prevalent topic in many conversations, they recognized an opportunity and a problem to solve and decided to capture this untapped market. 

Grooming for men was always looked at as a trivial task, something “for the sake of it.” Even with India’s beauty and personal care market projected to reach $32.7 billion by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 8.1 percent,grooming products were traditionally targeted at the female gender.

However, with changing times and perceptions, the Bombay Shaving Company has redefined men’s grooming and their shaving experience. Through effective positioning they have transformed men’s grooming from a mundane to-do task to an experience to look forward to and they have created their space in the market.

They did so by bringing in their signature razor and what the marketing head at BSC calls the “Rolls Royce of razors” -India’s first and only precision razor, that was titanium plated,single blade and could even have your name engraved on it!

Their sole agenda was to make the shaving experience for men more enjoyable and practical in India !

The Bombay Shaving Company has always been consistent with its purpose of offering shaving as a joyful and premium experience , with the help of the strategies discussed in the end. 

 And we all know how important purpose is, 64% of global consumers are attracted towards brands that constantly convey their purpose.

Even the brand name has a reason behind it . ‘Bombay’ not only reflects the origin if the founders but has a certain rustic yet modern India vibe to it along with a spirit of coolness.

The words ‘Shaving Company’ demonstrate their commitment and sincerity towards making the shaving experience more joyful and give the feeling that there is a big force behind this operation, helping build the trust in the mind of the consumers.

But selling a shaving kit for Rs.3000 was not easy in a value-driven market. Changing shaving habits that have been ingrained for decades, at scale, was a challenging task.

Since their inception in 2015, a lot of competitors have also cropped up in the arena of men’s grooming but they still remain an unique brand.

Because they believe in mentoring the right way to groom. They do not cut corners and spend an ample amount of time in thoughtfully designing every part of the grooming experience to provide complete and uncompromising care. As a brand, they are also more progressive in how one thinks about and projects masculinity. They stay away from the brotherhood, macho and ‘men will be men’ codes often used by men’s brands.

Given these efforts, they have successfully curated an image of their products that is elite, niche, necessary, yet one of a kind .

So what were the key strategies behind their storytelling that registered their brand in their target audience’s mind?

  1. From the very beginning, they made it clear how they are different from Gillette and Dollar Shave Club. Their signature 6-Part Shaving System provided a complete, uncompromising shaving experience, the polar opposite to the ‘sat-a-sat’ and convenient norm set by the category. But since they did not have the big budgets to spend on marketing, they did a few more interesting things.
  1. For the first 6 months,  they only sold the complete 6-part kit  so as to enforce the shaving philosophy into the minds of the consumer.
  1. Premium Experience:They  packaged the complete kit in a really premium way to evoke a sense of luxury. 
  1. Personalization- They offered users to get their names engraved on the metal razor at no additional cost. This gave users a sense of pride to hold the heavy razor, and also served as a great trigger for personalised gifting.
  1. Emotional Marketing: To quote Dale Carnegie, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”  Bombay Shaving Company rode on occasions like Father’s Day and Rakshabandhan to position its offerings as the perfect gift for fathers and brothers. They released a series of short videos in the #DadLogic series urging consumers to gift their dad a razor that is sharper than his wit.

In 2020 the brand also weaved a narrative around the festival of Rakshabandhan, through the campaign #SurakhshaBandhan. The users were encouraged to share their sibling stories with the campaign hashtags and social media influencers were roped in to promote the campaign. A call-to-action of discounts and offers was provided with every post to drive sales.

  1. User-Generated Content: The concept of premium packaging worked wonders when users posted their unboxing experiences on social media. This gave the brand a lot of positive word-of-mouth.

Clearly, the Bombay Shaving Club has an incredible marketing and positioning strategy in place and this is obviously  just a fraction of what went into their phenomenal success.

If you want to learn more , you can do so from the man behind it all – the marketing head at the Bombay Shaving Club, Samriddh Dasgupta himself.

Join our D2C marketing Bootcamp to decode marketing strategies from experts who have been there and done that!

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Growth Marketing

Identifying your Company’s North Star Metric

Heard of Spotify, right?

It has been in the music business for a while, but they have also started pushing into the growing podcast space. 

For driving growth for this new “product”, they focussed on “average # of followed podcasts”. This metric would look at how many podcasts a user follows, which has an assumption that following a podcast is a stronger show of interest than simply playing an episode.

While for their music, they would focus on “Time Spent Listening”

This metric that organisations focus on for growth is nothing but your NORTH STAR METRIC.

It is the PRIMARY OUTCOME that HAS to grow to call our growth strategies a success.

Airbnb’s North Star Metric is “nights booked”. This captures value delivered to both guests and hosts. Facebook’s NSM is “Daily Active Users”. With more users on the Facebook platform, the team is able to optimize everyone’s feed to deliver more value to users.

Optimizing your efforts to grow this metric is key to driving sustainable growth across your full customer base. It helps teams move beyond driving fleeting, surface-level growth to instead focus on generating long-term retained customer growth.

So North Star Metric or NSM is the single metric that best captures the core value that your product delivers to customers.

But there could be many of these for your org. How do we know our NSM is THE metric to focus on for growth?

  • Your NSM should ideally impact your entire funnel. It should focus on all growth levers-Acquisition, Activation,Retention and Monetisation.
  • If it’s just increasing the numbers for your acquisition team, its not the best NSM for you.

But there is more to it.

Let’s take the case of an online learning platform that has, say, identified “No. of Daily Live Classes” as their North Star Metric. They focussed all efforts on driving this number up.

Impact-

Acquisition: More organic views because of longer time duration, multiple instances, etc

Activation: More sign-ups as more branding will occur

Retention: More people will retain as due to engagement churn rate will drop

Monetization: More visibility of paid offers

But this approach to North Star Metric is still incomplete…

It misses the measurement of three elements:

  • Value your consumers get (Core Value Prop)
  • Quality of Value
  • Frequency of Value

Now consider the NSM- 

Number of Daily Classes Taken Per Member Per Week

This is a good NSM for the org as it measures all the 3 elements-

  • Value consumers get (Core Value Prop) – Number of Classes Taken Per Member
  • Quality of Value – Classes taken /Per Member
  • Frequency of Value – Per Week

Obviously, there is more to this concept than this. 

Want to explore further and decode more growth strategies with experts at leading companies and startups in India?

Then, you are a perfect fit for our next cohort.

Here’s more info about the program, if you’re curious :

https://www.xpert.chat/growth-marketing-bootcamp-update.php

Harneet Bhalla, Program Director at Xpert
He leads Growth at Glance|ex-1mg. He has empowered more than 5 Fortune 500 companies, multiple start-ups, celebrities and thousands of others through his growth marketing insights. Has been an active speaker at various forums and conferences including TEDx GLAU and IIT Bombay. Featured on a number of podcasts across USA, UK, Canada and India.
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Growth Marketing

Powering your retention tactics with customer engagement

Why do you think Amazon shows you recommendations of exactly what you might need, based on your past purchases, right when you open their app?

Hint-It drives existing customers to the products that they are most likely to want, need and buy.

Fun Fact: 35% of Amazon’s revenue comes from its recommendation engine.

Why do you think Starbucks came up with their rewards programs that help customers earn free food and drinks, place and pay for their orders, and receive personalized offers? 

Hint-It encourages customers to return by giving them discounts, exclusive access, or special offers.

Why do you think Hubspot came up with Hubspot Academy or Canva came up with Canva Design School?

Hint-They provide resources, how-to guides, and step-by-step videos that help customers use their product as well as hone their skills.

In short, all these are tactics used by organisations to RETAIN USERS. 

Because guess what’s better than acquiring one new customer?

It sounds like a trick question, but the answer isn’t “acquiring two customers.” It’s actually retaining an existing customer.

HERE’s WHY, 

  • Retaining a customer is 10 times cheaper than acquiring a new customer. 
  • However, increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can boost your profits by 25% to 95%! 
  • Existing customers are 50% more likely than new customers to try new products

As a growth guy, you know that encouraging customers to return is easier said than done.

Here are few things to keep in mind when framing a sound retention strategy –

  • One of the keys to improving your customer retention rate is understanding the underlying metrics. And the only metric you should focus on is ENGAGEMENT-as it is what drives Retention, not the other way round. 
  • This is why Swiggy sends you push notifications at 5pm for an evening cuppa …their goal is to keep you ENGAGED!
  • All your retention levers are ULTIMATELY your engagement levers.

Then HOW can we improve ENGAGEMENT?

  1. ADD USE CASES

The best companies with infrequent use cases develop other, more frequent use cases to stay top of your mind.

Why do you think KFC came up with the Wednesday offers? Or BookMyShow came out with their streaming feature in the pandemic?

  1. INCREASE INTENSITY OF EACH USE CASE

Why do you think Amazon has the Frequently Bought together feature?

  1. INCREASE FREQUENCY OF CURRENT USE CASE

Uber does so by notifying you whenever prices are low for rides so that you don’t consider other options.

  1. INCREASE FEATURE USAGE 

Orgs can have multiple feature offerings. Amazon has fresh, prime, alexa….Not all amazon customers use all these, but they keep you engaged by connecting all their features to each other. Amazon Music on alexa…alexa ad once you open amazon and so on.

Found this exciting?

Want to decode more growth strategies with experts at leading companies and startups of India?

Then, you are a perfect fit for our next cohort.

Apply now to be on the waitlist and join our Growth Marketing Bootcamp with an exclusive, growing community of marketers and professionals like you.

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Harneet Bhalla, Program Director at Xpert
He leads Growth at Glance|ex-1mg. He has empowered more than 5 Fortune 500 companies, multiple start-ups, celebrities and thousands of others through his growth marketing insights. Has been an active speaker at various forums and conferences including TEDx GLAU and IIT Bombay. Featured on a number of podcasts across USA, UK, Canada and India.
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Growth Marketing

Breaking down Positioning

Why do you think a cup of coffee at Starbucks can rob you of 300 rupees while you wouldn’t pay more than Rs. 30 for probably much better tasting cuppa at the nearest street shop even in your wildest dream?

Alos, thinking of exclusivity, luxury and elegance in technology?

Apple immediately comes to mind, doesn’t it ? 

This is where positioning comes in.Positioning equals setting the context for the product. It basically defines how your product is a leader at delivering something that a well defined set of customers cares a lot about.

 It should provide the customer clues to the following imminent questions-

·       What is the product?

·       Who is it for?

·       Why should they even care for it?

Let’s also explore what positioning is NOT about. And this might make the MBA peeps furious.

1.    Tag Line

2.    Point of View

3.    Vision

4.    Brand

5.    Messaging

6.    “Marketing”

7.    GTM Strategy

Positioning is not just a marketing or sales strategy; positioning is a business strategy. It identifies what market segment you’re competing in and the customer expectations in that segment, which will help you develop your best go-to-market strategy.

It is simply a process of how to best communicate your organization’s unique attributes to your target customers based on their needs and to counter competitive pressures.

It means making your already happy customers even happier!

Speaking of happiness…when talking about positioning, Coca-Cola is a pioneer.No wonder that the company has been able to survive for more than 125 years. The brand has always tried to bring out the value of happiness, friendship, joy, and sharing to position itself in the market. This has helped to promote engagement in consumers and in turn encouraged them to share happy experiences and moments.

How do we go about positioning, then?

It is clearly an important task for engineering growth. Here is how you can approach it –

1. Figure out your competitive alternatives

If you didn’t exist, what would your customers use?

2.    Find your unique attributes.

What features do you have that your competitors lack?

3.    Discover the value you are unlocking.

What value do the identified attributes enable for the customers?

4.    Identify the customers who care.

Who will appreciate the value that you are adding?

5.    Decide on the market segment you want to win over.

What context makes your value obvious to the target customers?

Here is a glimpse of what Harneet Bhalla, Senior Manager Growth Marketing at Glance, had to say on overcoming positioning in an org-

 Most of the time you’re in the middle of the org and not at the CEO level. 

So there is an existing point of view on positioning and a growth model. To bring in change and growth,here is how you can start off in order to influence leadership to factor in your goals-

  •  Ask questions to the leadership–what do they feel could be a positioning statement
  •  Arrange qualitative interviews with customers–ask them what they use your product for, who they feel are your competitors.
  • Use the gap between the answers from the leadership and the consumers to start a conversation about why the take on positioning needs to be revised.
  • Then you can pitch how you want to bridge the gap .

This is just a snippet of what you can learn by joining our growth marketing bootcamp .

Apply now to join the upcoming cohort & talk with leading experts from top companies, decode growth strategies and allow those conversations to boost your career in the right direction!

apply to the growth marketing cohort program
Harneet Bhalla, Program Director at Xpert
He leads Growth at Glance|ex-1mg. He has empowered more than 5 Fortune 500 companies, multiple start-ups, celebrities and thousands of others through his growth marketing insights. Has been an active speaker at various forums and conferences including TEDx GLAU and IIT Bombay. Featured on a number of podcasts across USA, UK, Canada and India.
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Growth Marketing

Are you missing User Activation in the process of Growth?

Think about the time when you signed up for LinkedIn. 

Didn’t they push you continuously to keep adding contacts to your profile, fill in the about section, the achievements column, grow your network and so on for “making your profile more visible to recruiters”?

Or think back on when you finally gave in and downloaded the Zomato App… And “get 50 percent off on the first order” made you order the pizza even if you didn’t want it!

As a growth marketer, your job isn’t just acquiring customers and getting them to visit your website/download the app, your Job Description goes beyond that.

It also includes activating your users – which is taking a user from downloading your app/visiting your website to actually consuming the value of your product.

Clearly, while Activation may sound like simply activating a user account, it’s a lot more than just clicking a link in a confirmation email.

Go back to the old adage- 

20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your sales.

Following this statement, you might feel like you are ignoring something- because YOU ARE. You are focusing on that 20% set majorly. For this 20%, your customer activation strategy must be prim and proper.

Now, a lot of organisations struggle with activation because they don’t have focused activation efforts in place.

They mostly have teams optimizing acquisition and retention, and the activation in between remains forgotten. But Successful growth marketers don’t just grow a larger user base; they build a highly engaged audience that will help to reduce churn, as well as increase the lifetime value of each individual user.

Then, when can we be positive that we have an ACTIVATED user?

What is the moment where you can say that the user is now ACTIVATED?

Let’s use a few examples.

Consider these 3 milestones: 

  1. Set up moment

The stage where you collect whatever information is necessary to make your user experience your product.

If we take 1Mg or Netmeds, for instance, the setup moment would be the first order which gives you the details of your consumer- address, preferences, etc.

(Yes, the first order is NOT equal to an activated user!)

  1. Aha moment

Place where your buyer suddenly sees the benefit they get from using your product, and says to themselves, “Wow! This is great!”. It’s also the moment where you have converted them into a fan who is likely to buy.

  • This Aha moment is often not a feature. But what that feature makes possible.
  • It conveys much more value than effort required – (i.e. they are Low Effort, High Value, or LEHV, activities)

Say for 1Mg – Aha moment could be when the medicines are delivered within 24 hours and your user didn’t have to step out. Or when one needs a particular painkiller urgently that is unavailable in the local pharmacies, but 1Mg has it.

For Naukri.com – it could be a call from a recruiter within 24 hours of your user signing up.

COMMON MISTAKE
Define your AHA moment very carefully as you are competing with a lot of such AHA moments in the market.

  • Say for 1Mg,  the local chemist can deliver the medicines within an hour.
  • So choose wisely and decode how you want to deliver that AHA moment.

 This is a defining step in the Activation process and ensures you can deliver your AHA moment!

  1. Habit moment 

Think about how you immediately rush to the Amazon app on your phone when you need a random product…

Wanted medicines? Opened 1Mg immediately?

This is the stage where your product is a part of the user’s life.

For example – Calm,a meditation and mindfulness app, knew their product’s core value was helping people to learn and build a meditation practice.

 When they proactively prompted new users to set a daily reminder after completing their first meditation session, Calm saw a 3x increase in daily retention. They increased the success of their product by making it easier for their users to remember to use the app for its core product value and making it their HABIT.

If you make web or mobile products, you’re actually in the business of task management. You’re counting on your product to become a recurring part of your customers’ lives. In order to accomplish that, motivate your users to build a new habit.

After crossing these three milestones, you ultimately have an ENGAGED and ACTIVATED user for your organisations !

There is obviously much more to explore on this topic.

To do so and decode more such growth strategies for your org with leading experts at top companies-

Apply now to be in the waitlist for our next cohort!

And join our bootcamp with other marketers eager to learn together and boost their careers in GROWTH.

apply to the growth marketing cohort program
Harneet Bhalla, Program Director at Xpert
He leads Growth at Glance|ex-1mg. He has empowered more than 5 Fortune 500 companies, multiple start-ups, celebrities and thousands of others through his growth marketing insights. Has been an active speaker at various forums and conferences including TEDx GLAU and IIT Bombay. Featured on a number of podcasts across USA, UK, Canada and India.
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Growth Marketing

Struggling with User Acquisition? Here’s the key…

Tasked with driving growth and acquiring customers?

Struggling and think you can do better? You are not alone.

Since you are a GROWTH GUY, let’s talk data…

57% of marketers say that customer acquisition is the most important part of their marketing expenditure and when asked to share their biggest hurdle for growth, nearly half pointed to the rising acquisition costs from online and social advertising networks

Now, as a Growth Marketer, you have many tools, tactics and strategies to help grow your business. But you need to decide where to invest the resources. This could include growing market share, increasing customer share of wallet or improving churn rates. 

But for many companies, acquisition tops the priority list.

And why shouldn’t it?

Doesn’t take an MBA to grasp that without new customers, a company will eventually grind to a halt.

 Businesses cannot survive or thrive by only focusing on their existing customers. 

Then you must also know that given the post-pandemic digital explosion, there’s access to more channels to reach and interact with customers than ever before. 

It’s never been easier to acquire new customers, but it’s also never been easier for your competition to take them away, either. 

That means you have to stay consistently on top of your game, despite the many challenges you face day to day.

On your sleepless nights, you must constantly think about these questions-

(If you aren’t, you should 🙂 )

  • How do we bring in new customers – or convince people to buy our products?
  • How do we then scale and gain lakhs of users? 
  • How can we make the process cost effective and easy to accomplish?
  • How do you prioritize which channel to use when & how, and for how long ?
  • How do you set up a process to drive and scale acquisition?

But when talking about user acquisition, growth marketers automatically get in the mode of running ads.

Sound familiar?

What’s the problem with running ads, you ask?

  •  It’s 2021. There is zero competitive edge to your secret mantra of google or Facebook Ads which form your “Acquisition Model” as there is no strategic angle to it which can’t be replicated in a jiffy by your competitors.
  • Every marketing team, from small startups to major corporations, understands the necessity of advertising on platforms like Google and Facebook. But as more and more companies advertise on those networks, it inevitably leads to higher costs.

And guess what? Higher costs are not translating into higher conversions.

  • Also, you end up ignoring the entire journey that a user goes through when an ad is shown to a prospect.
  • You don’t know how many ad impressions you will end up wasting your money on till your user finally transacts 

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Whether you’re a company of five or 5,000, having a roadmap for customer acquisition is a smart move.

But a solid customer acquisition strategy should be four things: SUSTAINABLE, FLEXIBLE, TARGETED, AND DIVERSIFIED.

 How can you develop the right acquisition model?

Sadly, there’s no silver bullet or magic incantation to capture customers.

But there is PLENTY to learn from experienced growth experts who have been there, done that.

Here are a few fundamental things to keep in mind according to experts for acquisition. 

By the end, you’ll have an idea of how to build an acquisition strategy so agile, it’ll withstand the test of time and ever-changing trends.

FUNDAMENTALS OF ACQUISITION

Acquisition Channels & their Dynamics

  • Understand that your consumers already have habits.
  •  Posting organically on social media may seem like shouting into a void, and with 3.8 billion active users. The key is accessing the right networks — and this all comes back to consumer habits.

They spend time on certain platforms for specific purposes. 

You don’t scroll on LinkedIn and find ads about the new Nike sneakers…if lucky, you might find ads for jobs at Nike. 

  • Every acquisition channel is built on top of these existing habits. So identify your consumer segments and their habits.

If you’re targeting an audience mostly comprised of men, Pinterest would have little value for you as only 14% of men use Pinterest.

COMMON MISTAKE!

The unfortunate thing with most acquisition models is that the question -TILL WHAT TIME DO WE USE THE CHANNEL? gets missed out on.

  • Ensure you know till what time to use the channels. If you don’t have a set end date for your acquisition campaign, you don’t have the right model set up as you need to monitor the derailment in consumer behaviour at regular intervals to remain sustainable.
  • Accept that You have no control over that channel & its dynamics. You can only exploit past learnings.
  • So,reduce the dependability on only ONE channel to build a real acquisition model.

Acquisition Channels & Products

  • Consumer’s attention keeps shifting, new habits are formed. A product needs to be evolved to fit a channel. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. 
  • Forcing a product to a channel doesn’t work. Facebook games in desktop v/s facebook games in app. Desktop games on Facebook were extremely popular like Zynga’s Farmville. Seems like ages ago, right ? Because when users shifted from desktop to the app, the game didn’t evolve with this shift and now those games are history!Whenever a new acquisition channel comes into the market,

Go back to your org’s strategy and ASK:

  • Is it going to fundamentally shift my consumers’ behaviour?If yes, revamp your product to fit the channel to remain sustainable!

Acquisition Channels & Business Models

  • Choose channels that fit your models.
  • Identify your ARPU (Average Revenue Per Users)

Then compare that with your CAC( Customer Acquisition Cost)   and choose your channel.

  • If Low ARPU – You can afford Low CAC channels &  vice versa.
  • What worked for others MAY NOT work for you! Referral Strategy worked wonders for Airbnb given their ARPU and other parameters…..might not be the case for you.
  • Content companies keep their CAC in cents, v/s B2C companies which can afford 100-1000 CAC, B2B Sales can afford way higher than that.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to building growth-oriented acquisition models.

To decode more such growth strategies for your org and scale acquisition with leading experts at top companies-

Apply now to be on the waitlist for our next cohort!

And join the growth marketing bootcamp with other marketers eager to learn together and boost their careers in GROWTH. Here’s the link to join the program and learn from growth experts who have created astonishing growth loops for their company: https://www.xpert.chat/growth-marketing-bootcamp-update.php

Harneet Bhalla, Program Director at Xpert
He leads Growth at Glance|ex-1mg. He has empowered more than 5 Fortune 500 companies, multiple start-ups, celebrities and thousands of others through his growth marketing insights. Has been an active speaker at various forums and conferences including TEDx GLAU and IIT Bombay. Featured on a number of podcasts across USA, UK, Canada and India.
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Growth Marketing

Why and How to build the right Growth Mindset?

First, let’s talk about being the “That Growth Guy” in an organization. Off the bat, it is an extremely challenging role and is not your usual 9 to 5 desk job and take your regular paycheck home kind of situation. In reality, you assume the role of an entrepreneur in residence as your goal is the same as that of the CEO, you’re essentially solving the same problem-driving growth and increasing the customer base!

You can’t bluff growth. You are either driving growth or you aren’t. 

In other words, it is an accountability driven role where your good old growth excel sheet becomes your friend, your enemy and your manager.

A million variables affect your metric.

And pointing fingers won’t do you any good. You’re the go-to person when it comes to fixing the problems, and that’s why you can spot a growth guy even if you are 100 feet away! They are always poking their noses in other departments …

In the words of the former vice-chair of General Electric, “Growth and Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day.”

If you’re still reading and not scared away yet, it means you must really like this field!

Given the fair share of challenges that the role carries, it also brings with itself a multitude of benefits. Everyone in the organization knows you and you have a constant spotlight on you as your goal supersedes the ULTIMATE goal that the organization has. This direct flashlight, no matter how big the org is, that follows you gives way to a great degree of networking and tons of opportunities. You can also quite logically leverage the results that you’re delivering to negotiate a higher compensation, appraisals or other benefits.

So what does it mean to have a growth mindset?

While normal marketers use a ‘let’s throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks’ approach, having a growth mindset means using a methodical approach based on data. You talk to customers, figure out what the wants, challenges and needs of customers are and make decisions based on that.

Ask yourself the following questions to see if you’re on the right track as these are a few of the challenges when it comes to growth mindsets in organizations:

  1. Is your organization focussing on month over month growth or quarterly growth?

Growth driven people and MOM results don’t go hand in hand. If your MOM growth graph is heavily fluctuating in comparison to your rivals’s smooth “ swoosh” quarterly growth graph,  it’s a HUGE red flag in terms of mindset for your organization. If not changed, down the lane it can lead to a heaven and hell difference in numbers.

2. For bringing in growth, are you using tactics or strategies?

If you’re experiencing exponential growth, good for you, but sit down and ask yourself whether you found a tactic or a strategy. Because while a tactic is a hack that will show instant, too good to be true results, these will be short-lived and will be followed by a huge dip in growth, as it’s only a matter of a few months until your competitors catch up.

On the other hand, a strategy, which unlike tactics, is harder to replicate, will go a long way and separate you from your competitors in the long run. Developing unique strategies and not relying on instantly gratifying tactics is what differentiates a growth guy from the rest.

If you think about it, a growth mindset almost means having more in common with engineers than with traditional marketers. That is because most of the principles growth hackers work by, such as testing, iterating and basing decisions off of data, are modelled after the engineering world.

3. Is your thinking towards results linear or recurring?

A person devoid of a growth mindset thinks linearly and takes decisions irrespective of their impacts on other areas of business and gets linear and often disappointing results in the longer run.

The recurring approach leads to your results compounding on different metrics and having exponential growth come back to you in the long run as opposed to linear results.

Thus, the ‘Me and mine’ mindset doesn’t really go hand in hand with that of growth, bringing us to the next question!

4. Is your organization working in silos or is it cross-functional?

While agricultural silos refer to the separation and storage of assets vital to a farm, organizational silos refer to the separation of a different kind of asset vital to an organization: people.

 When a specific department, say marketing, works efficiently, like a well-oiled machine. One would think this is an obvious plus for the business as a whole, even though it could be that half of the leads provided are junk. The marketing department might think that this problem is not their headache and needs to be dealt with by the salespeople as their job is only to get the leads!

Hence, when employees in one department fail to interact effectively and efficiently with those in other departments, business operations can start to suffer, resulting in lost revenue and even turf wars between departments.

Having a growth mindset means that you have to get down to the root of the problem–find out why the leads are not converting, get feedback from sales, etc. You need to ensure cross-functionality and that the different teams and departments are not independent entities simply pursuing their own targets.

The answers to these questions are crucial to ensure that the people hired for manufacturing growth will do their job effectively. Because if the answers are the former of each choice, neither Sundar Pichai nor Jeff Bezos will bring you growth.

To develop a growth mindset and engineer lasting results is clearly not an easy task and there is no straitjacket solution. This is where the growth marketing bootcamp comes in and takes you closer to achieving the outlook needed for generating growth in your organization. To gain in-depth, practical knowledge and have one on one conversations with leaders in the fields of growth and marketing, join our next cohort to give your career the boost it needs!

https://www.xpert.chat/growth-marketing-bootcamp-update.php.

Harneet Bhalla, Program Director at Xpert
He leads Growth at Glance|ex-1mg. He has empowered more than 5 Fortune 500 companies, multiple start-ups, celebrities and thousands of others through his growth marketing insights. Has been an active speaker at various forums and conferences including TEDx GLAU and IIT Bombay. Featured on a number of podcasts across USA, UK, Canada and India.
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