Finding the Secret Sauce to Zomato Success (A Case Study)
Here we got the chance to write about the Zomato case study. This case study about Zomato truly inspire very Indian in doing business in this digital era. Zomato and swiggy (Read Swiggy case study here) are going well in Indian market. We have also published case study about Paytm and Delhi air pollution.
Indians love their food. They live to eat. But it is the food-tech unicorn Zomato that revolutionised the way Indians perceived their food. Bringing food to the doorsteps, easing out ‘where to dine’ worries with the bonus of superb discounts and excellent ‘Live’ tracking features, Zomatoturned the food into a business, a profitable one at that.
It started its operations in 2010 from Delhi-NCR. Who knew that the simple rebranding of food directory website, Foodiebay would go on to become India’s first foodtech unicorn?
Zomato Case Study Inspire Every Indian
Founded by IIT graduates, Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, the restaurant aggregator and food Delivery Company is now serving in more than 10,000 cities and 24 countries. Zomato went overseas with its expansion in Sri Lanka, UAE, Qatar, UK, the Philippines, Brazil, Turkey, New Zealand and South Africa.
Zomato has received tremendous support and raised multiple rounds of funding. It boasts of a reputable portfolio of investors such as Singapore-based firm Temasek, Sequoia, Info Edge India and Vy Capital. The startup raised $200 billion through Alibaba’s Ant Financial, which shot its valuation over $1 billion.
The success of the unicorn is incompletewithout the mention of its digital marketing strategy that led to its popularity and made it a household name.
This case study analyses the growth of Zomato through its digital marketing initiatives. What makes customers log in to the app and order? How does the startup keep its customers happy, addressing their concerns on social media while managing the restaurants and keeping a stern eye on the ratings?
Can social media be attributed to the growth of the customer base of Zomato?
How Zomato has good Digital Presence?
Target Audience:
The primarily targeted customer base for Zomato is between 18 and 35 years of age.This section of customers has access to a smartphone, likes to eat out and lazes around too.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Here’s the screenshot for search traffic case study for Zomato vis-à-vis other restaurants. While the real restaurants like Dominoes and Pizza Hut are making for less than one per cent of search traffic, Zomato alone makes for more than forty per cent of voice traffic and almost two per cent of top keyword traffic.
The traffic sources Case Study
This grab from Alexa showsthat Zomato receives more than sixty per cent of its traffic from search.
Referral
The referral sites (affiliates, guest blogs, and ads) redirects some traffic to the website, which isn’t much compared to its international counterparts. However, when it is compared to its domestic competitor back home, it is still remarkable.
As per the latest data by Uber suggest, Zomato holds an “amazing” hold over search engines. Organic monthly traffic is tremendous. The 35.6 M organic visitors per month sure look beautiful on the chart as well.
The stats for top keywords by countries show a marginal difference between the US and India keywords, signalling the best SEO strategy that Zomato team has put into action.
Zomato has blocked the website for scanning, and this is why nobody gets ahold of the SEO techniques and approach used by the site, but here’s a wise guess.
URL Keywords
Zomato takes top keywords and makes them into web URLs. The tried-and-tested approach to tell the search engines what entails and let them know that the web page is relevant to the user intent.
Thereby accomplishing what the search engines want from a website
- Redirecting them to the website
- Fulfilling users’ intent
Backlinks
Backlinks lend domain authority to a website and push it up further in the search rankings. Zomato has more than 233 backlinks from credible sources and high authority domains such as .edu and .gov.
On-Page Optimisation
Zomato SEO case study shows that, Its on-page SEO game is as strong as ever. All primary keywords are used on the page, such as ‘order food online’, ‘restaurants near me’, ‘meal for one’ and many more. It redirects search engines to relevant search queries.
Social Media Marketing
When it comes to SMM, Zomato plays the shot. Its social media presence makes it popular among netizens and sometimes, the butt of all jokes too. The fact that the founder DeependraGoyal is quite active on Twitter only adds to the fun and excitement the startup brings aboard.
Here are the stats for Zomato’s social media handles as of now:
- Twitter: 1.4M followers
- Facebook: 1.9M followers
- Instagram: 173 K followers
How is Zomato’s Social Media Case Study?
The social media strategy for Zomato has been quite simple. Be crazy and be creative. Cash in on the trends. Play with memes, talk in the regional language and never lose the ‘friendly’ touch with your customers.
The startup uses third-party tools to manage the Twitter account. One of them is Twitter-owned Tweetdeck that has been proven to be very useful in managing interactions and keeping real-time track of the conversations. It lets the handler respond to the customers in an easy and streamlined way.
Also, Twitter is beyond conversations. There are hashtags, mentions and specific accounts that nobody would like to miss. Tweet deck simplifies the feed for an easier view.
Zomato is Doing Good Over Social Platforms
The company also admits experimenting with Sprout social as it lets multiple users handle one social media account and handle email and in-app chat queries in a better manner. The follow-up tasks can be assigned rather quickly and seamlessly.
Monitoring the performance and listening in on social media also becomes easier than ever. The metrics used by Sprout social are also quite useful for performance analysis as well.
The brand emphasises on engaging with customers and does a pretty well good job at it too. Look for yourself.
One of the best aspects of Zomato’s social media strategy is that it is not just the handlers that are responding and putting an effort to stay connected with the customers. However, there is no set pattern or strategy that the brand follows. A young team keeps experimenting and works together to maintain a creative touch.
The in-house team works in tandem with different crews and head of departments to give a correct version and respond aptly on specific queries. This isn’t it. Zomato’s social media posts are always the talk of the town. Recently, it gave its social media to one of the delivery guys,Sonu after his TikTok video went viral.
The Zomato social media posts
Zomato’ssocial media platforms deserve a special mention here as they are apt, witty and well-timed.
The quick response and timely updates of the social media team make its social media platform worth a follow.
The social media posts often become viral, gaining tremendous footfall and grabbing eyeballs for the company. These posts become a feature in several publications online and offline, making it an organic search listing for the company. A win-win for sure.
It is not that the startup doesn’t have its share of keyboard activists and trigger-happy trolls. But then, trust its team to clamp the nonsensical tirade of a customer in nine words.
A Strong Food Network
Zomato as a Food Network
The foodtech startup is way ahead of its competitor in combining tech and social media for its advantage. The website or app of Zomato isn’t limited to being just a platform to bring food to your table (quite, literally) or suggesting you the restaurants.
To extend its vision of making Zomatoa more extensive food community, it has launched Zomatoland and in-app videos. This is also why when a user signs up or log in with his email or Facebook account, Zomato pulls up a list of their friends who are registered with the website and follow it on the social media. The user, in turn, has access to their recommendations, reviews and ratings for the restaurants and food.
This isn’t it.
The website also keeps a scoreboard and encourages healthy competition between the users (friends). The competitors have to try as many restaurants and as much food.
The users have taken quite a liking to it as well. The social features have been received well, and the footfall has increased on the website. The review count per day has increased up to a whopping seventy-five per cent, whereas the number of ratings per day has shown a growth of a hundred per cent!
And Zomato users are following each other on the website too, making it a big, happy food community eventually.
Campaigns and User Behaviour Tracking on Social Media
The startup uses Google analytics data and Facebook open graph insights to monitor the visitors dropping by from the social media platforms. The campaigns are evaluated by tracking user behaviour too.
The paid promotions are used rarely and quite selectively by the startup as it wants social media to be a means of active and mutual connection with the customers. And it is also the reason Zomato does not estimate the ROI of social media.
The Zomato blog
The Zomato blog is called ‘munchies’ and aptly so. It shares anecdotes, company culture, and friendly banter, and most importantly,technology and the valuable lessons the startup has learnt over time. The staff share and talk about different segmentsranging from hiring to product development, marketing andtraining.
The blogs are promoted on social media platforms, and life comes to a full circle for Zomato as they bring footfall and gain traction for the website.
Email marketing
Zomato has aced the concept of email marketing. It is talking to the customers directly, telling them that being a foodie isn’t that bad or bringing out different ways to indulge in food.
Like any other business, Zomato was one of the many companies that got hit due to coronavirus. In the process of doing Zomato case study about outgoing email marketing, we observed that the team sent out the following email to assure its customers of hygiene of its list of restaurants.
It even initiated contact-less delivery and proper training of its delivery boys, ensuring that the customers don’t have to worry about the food delivered to them.
As they say, the presentation matters in the hospitality industry. This is why people pay a premium price of food and drinks in a five-star. Zomato primarily uses its colour, red and white to send emails. And its emails are tempting, and one shouldn’t open them when one’s hungry.
Cashing in on current trends has been a Zomato speciality. Nobody gets it as right, clear, concise and timely as the startup.
Paid advertising
Zomato uses Google Adwords to search ad campaigns. In doing a case study of Zomato, we found its paid advertisement is doing very well. The targeted keywords are mainly the name of a few notable restaurants, ordering food online, food delivery and many more. The food startup also runs Google Display ads on third-party apps and websites. Promotions on Facebook and Instagram are also a regular feature of its digital marketing strategy that focuses the users on these platforms.
Best Mobile App in Industry
Zomato mobile app
Zomato is now mainly an app-based startup. Be it the SEO, neat interface, clean layout orspecial filters including rating, hygiene, fastest delivery, cost and cuisines, the app is a winner in all departments. It is available for both iOS and Android. It has reached 2.5 million downloads, and more than 40 per cent traffic comes via its app.
The app offers ‘Live’ tracking of an order. The users can connect with the in-built app support, add a card or netbanking option to pay, add a tip for a rider and get his contact details.
Conclusion:
Zomato’s digital marketing strategy is not only successful but also paves the way for other startups. While doing Zomato case study, we found that, It proves that digital marketing can contribute to a brand’s success and make it auniquename to reckon with. The company spends a fraction of traditional marketing budget on digital marketingand manages to resonate with billions of people out there.
While its digital marketing strategy and approach may change with time and situations, the company’s firm grasp on fundamentals and crystal-clear approach makes it easier to gain traction and customers’ attention.
Startups that don’t consider digital marketing an essential part of their marketing plan are missing out on the customers. And the online businesses that aren’t doing it right are not getting anywhere either.
It is when Zomato’s big bang success comes into the picture and is worth emulating.
Update: Even during coronavirus lockdown, Zomato like billion other businesses worked from home, managed to strike the chord with people and ace the social media strategy. The tweet takes people down the memory lane, not more than two months ago, when things were all good, and Indians could gorge on their favourite street-side snack, panipuri!
References:
https://yourstory.com/2020/03/zomato-swiggy-contactless-food-delivery-coronavirus-foodtech