Well, a phenomenon that comes as a curse to some business organizations, is the same phenomenon that works as a boon to other businesses. Let us take the scenario of the COVID-19 and lockdown. With the coronavirus outbreak, the whole world came to a standstill for sometime. However, that didn’t stop a lot of business organizations to continue their business as usual. The “new normal” helped them adopt and they flourished.
We all must have heard “desperate times require desperate measures”. This global lockdown was definitely a desperate time for a wide array of businesses. So what caused them to flourish? This blog explores multiple business organizations, startups and brands that showed significant growth during this situation.
| SL NO | Top digital marketing trends in lockdown | Growth in usage |
| 1 | Social media marketing/advertising | 51% of Indians use social media. Social media ad spending reached $730M (+3.4% increase than 2019). |
| 2 | Influencer marketing | Influencer marketing budgets increased by 65% where 19% of the marketers spent between $1000 – $10,000 on influencer marketing. |
| 3 | OTT advertising | Increase in users in OTT platforms by 20%. Ad insertions on OTT platforms increased 35 times in COVID-19.. |
| 4 | Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | 64% marketers actively invest time in SEO and 25% of the companies invest in mobile optimization as their top SEO tactic. |
| 5 | Pay Per Click (PPC) | 30% of the organic web traffic comes from PPC. Google’s responsive ads performed 6% better and generated 9% more conversion. |
| 6 | Content marketing | Use of content marketing as a digital marketing strategy increased by 16.2% in 2020. |
The COVID-19 effect on Indian startup ecosystem
Before we start getting into the companies that are doing great even in the coronavirus situation, let us tell you that there has been a paradigm shift in the thought process of business organizations, especially due to the lockdown. Instead of the sole focus on profits, companies are prioritizing growth.
Now, whether this proves to be effective or not, that is debatable. However, the rising number of startups and the way these companies have grown in this tough time, is commendable. In India, the number of startups have increased from 7000 in 2008 to 50,000 in 2020.
To support the people of the country with tech-enabled innovations a lot of organizations are closely working with state and central government authorities. Overall, this has led to a mass digital awareness among the people in India.
Consider the e-learning startups
The e-learning segment of startups in India was the least expected sector to have a positive impact during the COVID-19. However, the companies like BYJU’s, Unacademy, Vedantu, Whitehat Jr and Toppr have experienced a 3 times surge in their usage since the first phase of lockdown in March 2020.
Since the schools, colleges and universities were closed these startups helped in bridging the gap while taking education to a digital level in India. The e-learning firms, which used to have monthly visits of 102.2 million, recorded almost 130 million visits in the initial 30 days of lockdown.
The overall engagement of students and professionals increased to 8.5% during the lockdown period. E-learning startups saw a rapid growth both in terms of user engagement and new users amidst the lockdown.
The e-pharmacy startups
E-pharmacy has become the backbone of multiple cities in lockdown to fight against the pandemic. Online pharmacies like Medlife, PharmEasy and 1mg are offering contactless home delivery of medicine in bulk. Not only that, you get a wide array of medicines in one platform and also online prescriptions from a registered set of doctors.
Due to these benefits, more and more people are buying essential medicines and supplements from these online platforms. The online pharmacies store and analyze a wide range of customer data. This is very helpful in planning different public health policies. It is beneficial for the Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Moreover, the consumers can check the enrollment materials available or the various health plans for information. The online pharmacies have their own app that sends frequent reminders for medicines. These features have become quite helpful to keep a track of your health.
Online grocery startups
The biggest online grocery startups in India, Grofers and Big Basket, doubled their daily number of deliveries! In fact the demand was so high that it was impossible to get available slots for grocery deliveries for the first few weeks of lockdown. Another reason for lesser available slots was that the migrant workers have returned back to their homes.
However, despite these obstructions BigBasket claims that they delivered almost 2,83,000 orders per day. The number was 1,50,000 before the lockdown. On the other hand, Grofers mentioned that it delivered almost 1,90,000 orders daily which was 1,00,000 before the lockdown.
Both the online grocery startups have ramped up their supplies from different manufacturing partners and brands for meeting their consumer demands. BigBasket and Grofers both have hired a new workforce to meet the increasing consumer demands. While BigBasket hired 10,000 new employees, Grofers hired 4500 new employees.
A case study on IndiaMart – how the profit doubled during the lockdown
IndiaMart is one of the biggest online marketplaces for business organizations. This company has achieved something that a lot of companies could not during the COVID scenario. In the lockdown period, April to June, the company posted more than 100% jump in profits.
The best part is, IndiaMart founder Dinesh Agarwal was able to do this even though the company was not able to carry out the field sales. We know that IndiaMart depends mostly on field sales, yet when it was impossible to conduct field sales, then too, the organization flourished.
Work from home was never an option for IndiaMart. However, what worked is, the team of IndiaMart was better prepared than any other company. How? From February itself, Agarwal had anticipated a slowdown when China was shutting down. They didn’t expect a complete lockdown though. According to Dinesh Agarwal, ”
“We started figuring out as the demand for sanitizers and health essentials shot up. By the second half of March, our focus was on how to maintain business continuity and how to ensure employee safety while making sure the website was running and the call centre too was operational.”
What are the factors that worked perfectly for IndiaMart?
Innovative Thinking
IndiaMart always incorporated a healthcare category. However, within the initial weeks, they realized that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ‘healthcare essentials’ would be an on-demand category. This is where they turned the tables.
“We started calling up the suppliers, did some innovative thinking. We called up the bike helmet suppliers and asked them since you have a helmet shield can you make face shields? They happily agreed. We also went to the undergarment manufacturers and asked them to make face masks. So, we started to build category by category.”
Variation in Products
Well, to be precise, IndiaMart has got more than 68 million product listings through 1,00,000 categories. Thus, if you don’t find something on Indiamart, chances are, you will not find it on the internet.
However, the variety of products also pumped the revenue, because by then, the companies were not only coming on the platform to get finished products, but also discover different elements like bottle caps and elastic.
Also, this is an important factor that separates IndiaMart from other B2B e-commerce competitors like Alibaba, Walmart, Amazon or TradeIndia. IndiaMart has a different set of targets.
The other companies focus on the top 2000 products that are mostly branded, but IndiaMart doesn’t go like that. “Right from the steel bars to trucks and everything in between is what IndiaMart sells”.
Balancing the costs and customers
In the beginning of the lockdown, the revenue took a massive hit because most of the businesses of the customers were paused. The buyer traffic dropped by 50%. Only one-third of the sales were from telecom or online. This is when IndiaMart started looking for places to reduce costs.
They started automation of multiple processes and eradicated any plans that caused a dent in their pockets. The best thing was, a lot of employees opted to give up the salaries, the company didn’t lay off anyone. According to Agarwal, “We are a slow hiring company, so we didn’t want to fire anyone”.
That was not all. IndiaMart also offered moratoriums to customers that could not pay during the lockdown. With the economy gradually opening up, things started to look better and because of their initiatives, both customers and buyers saw value in IndiaMart.
Technology has been the key driver for IndiaMart
In recent years IndiaMart has added layers into their offerings through technology. IndiaMart enabled buyer and seller interaction with a CRM and it has become a place for price discovery platforms for multiple buyers in India.
Even if you don’t buy from India, they have been able to democratize the prices for the buyers. Out of the total expenses, 20% goes into investment for technology and products, while out of 4500 employees, 20% of them are in technology and innovations.
What worked for IndiaMart as their online marketing strategy during the lockdown?
During the lockdown period, most of us used our smartphones to get our essentials delivered. While the COVID-19 has adversely impacted most businesses, it has opened up opportunities for a lot of e-commerce players.
First of all, IndiaMart was the first company to harness the power of the internet in the industry five years ago. The brand segregets its annual marketing budget of 40-50 crore (roughly 12% of the total turnover). 40% of this budget was allocated for TV, 40% on digital marketing and 20% for outdoor marketing.
Mobile marketing has paved the way for IndiaMart during the COVID-19 scenario. Social media marketing, especially using Facebook and WhatsApp further helped in the growth curve. IndiaMart has got more than 70 offices throughout the country.
Every industrial area comprises a service and sales office with the objective to explain the concept of online/internet and how it can solve a wide array of problems. 70% of the businesses started their journey with IndiaMart.
The use of mobile marketing
Mobile marketing has played a crucial role for a large B2B category player like IndiaMart. In the B2B category, IndiaMart is the only app that crossed two million downloads in a year. However, IndiaMart clearly stated that they will not shift to an app-only model because there will always be businesses that are comfortable on desktops.
The target group of IndiaMart includes corporate houses where a wide array of procurement or purchase officers access their platform through desktops. The core target groups include purchase managers, small or large businesses and suppliers in the age group of 25-45 years.
Mobile has become a conversion tool for IndiaMart where 57% of the traffic comes from mobile. As a part of digital marketing or online marketing, IndiaMart mostly spends on online events, digital and direct mailing. In collaboration with Zee Business, Indiamart targeted tier II cities where they reached 60,000 SMEs in 40 cities.
As stated by Dinesh Agarwal,
“Given the overall uncertainty of how long this continues, our strong balance sheet and a resilient business model will help us navigate the ongoing crisis. As businesses realise the need to migrate online, our strong value proposition will help us get back to growth soon“.
The extraordinary performance and potential attracted long-term investors. On July 23, the Government Pension Fund Global and Norway’s Oil fund bought a stake in the company.
A case study on how BigBasket managed to double its sales in lockdown
Online grocery retailer BigBasket faced a disrupted supply chain and manual labor exodus due to the lockdown. It reduced the operational capacity by 50%. At one point of time, the online grocery store had to shut down its services.
Dealing with the crisis
The Janata Curfew was announced on 22nd March and the whole country went into complete lockdown from 24th March. The day before that, BigBasket had obtained all the local permissions to operate. However, because of the on-field confusions, all the deliveries were stopped by the local authorities and warehouses were shut down.
According to BigBasket Co-Owner Hari Menon, “We had to shut down our delivery services immediately after the lockdown announcement due to a lack of awareness around ‘essential workers’ like our delivery service team. They were repeatedly halted at checkpoints or sent back home.”
The single biggest issue was the shortage of staff because the majority of migrant workers were leaving for their hometowns. This is when BigBasket had to switch only to the essential supplies. From a listing of 32,000 stock keeping units, it came down to 3,500 units. They were able to deliver only 30,000 orders a day while the usual number of orders were 1,50,000 per day.
However, in the last few years, BigBasket had invested heavily in the development of the infrastructure capabilities, supply chain and network warehouse. This proved useful in the lockdown.The farmer partners, mills and fast-moving consumer goods helped with the supply-chain. Also, BigBasket partnered with the National Restaurant Association of India, Uber, etc. to ensure that it was possible for them to deliver to more people.
Bouncing back to full-on operations
With the limited workforce, BigBasket carried out a lot of tweaks and automation. With all the changes the productivity increased to 23% and it was possible to deliver more orders with lesser people. What were the changes?
BigBasket started by thinking how to get more people to utilize one slot. They encouraged people to buy together. For instance, they urged people to encourage their neighbours to place orders together or use WhatsApp to order together or call them.
They also introduced a concept called “community selling” where they asked the residents of apartments or complexes to order together. It was very helpful for the last-mile delivery optimization. Earlier people would visit a single apartment to provide a delivery three to four times in the same area. Now, they are out for deliveries three times a week.
BigBasket also optimized the resources. They rationalized the stock keeping units in different areas and cities in case of shortage of manpower. Also, the government support enabled them in scaling up the operations. Business process re-engineering has been the key to deliver and increase productivity.
At present, the BB Accelerator program has worked as a launchpad for a lot of new brands. The BB Accelerator team will work with a lot of potential new startups and get emerging brands on BigBasket platform.
As stated by Hari Menon, “Our sales have since doubled however, but what’s even more important is that our business has become profitable. We were one of the earliest players to adopt contactless delivery. And we saw a great demand from tier 2 cities and we continue to see exponential growth from tier 2 cities even today.
How BigBasket worked on its online marketing strategy amidst the lockdown?
Search engine optimization – BigBasket used search engine optimization to improve the organic search rankings for attracting authentic traffic on the website. They targeted the use of keywords like grocery shopping online, online grocery, online grocery shopping and more.
For instance, if you search with the keyword ‘grocery shopping online’, you will find BigBasket in the 1st rank of the SERP. BigBasket also optimized the articles and blogs for easy crawling and searching through Google.
Social Media Marketing – BigBasket has a strong social media presence and leveraged Facebook and Instagram for engagement, promotions, campaigns, and inbound lead generation. Also, it advertises a wide array of products, offers and posts videos of a lot of influencers on Instagram.
Content Marketing – BigBasket used the power of content marketing to keep their customers engaged. They used different content strategies like blogs, reviews, how-to videos, DIY videos, funny contents, memes, GIFs and collaborated with influencers to promote different contests and offers.
YouTube Marketing – Amidst the lockdown, BigBasket used YouTube to keep their audience engaged. BigBasket kept posting YouTube videos on different contents like how-to videos, DIY guides, food recipes, beauty and wellness tips and more.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzI3vmX5uVNPpVl8Y2-GbmA/videos
Also, BigBasket tapped into the power of online reputation management by using platforms like Trusted Company, Quora, Mouth Shut, Google Play Store and Yahoo.
A case study on how Practo increased its services in lockdown
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for digital health solutions have continued to increase. It highlighted the importance of a strong technical ecosystem with healthcare, not only in India but across the globe.
Patients are now opting for telemedicines as an alternative to healthcare. Also, the doctors are promoting this new digital technology. Corroborating this fact, Practo has observed a surge of 500% since March 1st, 2020.
Practo’s response to COVID-19
- The online consultation and queries on Practo increased 16% per week which previously was 20% per month.
- Most of the queries were regarding the symptoms of COVID-19 like high fever, cough, cold, sore throat and more. The number of queries increased to 200% in one week after lockdown.
- There has been a 250% increase in the query on Gynecology.
- Practo typically consults 25-30 patients every day while in the last few months, the consultation requests spiked significantly.
To deal with this, Practo changed its operating model significantly.
Firstly, Practo developed an Artificial Intelligence for collecting the basic information from the patients by guiding them through a set of questions related to their age, health and symptoms. The tool uses WHO protocols for profiling high-risk people by noting their travel and contact history.
Secondly, Practo increased the doctor base close to 50% in a month to handle the increased consultation requests. Practo also created a rich pipeline of doctors and hospitals. It has created a unique task force of senior doctors that are exclusively recruited to train the practitioners through digital media to encourage high-quality consultations.
Thirdly, Practo also launched a monthly healthcare plan that offers unlimited online doctor consultations for COVID-19 symptoms. The patient will be able to consult with doctors without worrying about the fees everytime.
Fourthly, Practo collaborated with Thyrocare, a diagnostic lab from the Govt. of India for conducting COVID-19 detection tests. When the test is booked through the Practo app, a phlebotomist will collect the samples from the patient’s home directly. The patient will not have to step out of the home for testing. You can have the report on the Practo website in 24 to 48 hours after the collection of samples.
How Practo used digital marketing to grow amidst lockdown
Google Display – Practo used Google Display ads for targeting options like age, profession, geo-location and more. It helped the brand to reach out to the relevant set of audience and helped in generating awareness and website traffic.
Google Search – With Google Search Ads, Practo drove website traffic directly from people that are looking for online healthcare services, online healthcare consultations, or purchasing medicines online.
Hotstar – Since Hotstar offers advanced targeting options like age, gender and category interest like healthcare services, it helped Practo in generating awareness among the relevant group of audience.
The YouTube Ads and influencer marketing also helped Practo in getting the necessary highlight and engagement.
Also, they launched a digital initiative of India Health Hour for offering free consultation to all Indians for an hour through the platform. With this initiative, the doctors have the opportunity to volunteer and offer free services for the needy.
Apart from that Practo also used digital resources like video conferences to enable doctors in handling the COVID-19 symptoms and online consultations.
Also, Practo launched an online campaign called #BeingADocto on National Doctor’s Day. This campaign was a tribute to the doctors and the sacrifices that they made during this period. The video showcases the struggles, trials, tribunals, responsibilities and also the joy of being a doctor.
