A Closer Look into Zomato's Successful Digital Marketing Strategy

In July 2020, Zomato launched one of the most compelling Ad campaigns across all digital channels. Heralded as ‘Safety levels: Mom Approved’, this campaign made its way to the hearts of men and women reeling under the pressure of having another round of ‘dal-chawal’. In this ad, the protagonist orders hearty meals from Zomato and labels them as food sent by his friend's mom just to avoid the wrath of his mother. This whole ad campaign takes the concerns around ordering food from restaurants during the pandemic head-on. The ad then ends with an assurance of the Max Safety measures taken by both the restaurants and the delivery partners in preparing and delivering the ordered food.

Convergence, the core of Zomato’s Digital Strategy

The key to Zomato’s success can be accredited to its philosophy of being one with its target customer when it comes to hunger pangs and food concerns. Zomato's digital strategy is all about the convergence and the confluence of various approaches, each directed to one particular marketing channel. Zomato's marketing strategy and techniques is directed to two sets of target customers – one who loves home delivery and the other who loves to eat out in fine-dining restaurants. Zomato's greatest strength was its understanding of the channels that ushered in the traffic to the application.

For example, 66.41% of the total traffic came from search engines, while 31.36% was directly from repeat customers. The remaining was the result of social media and emails. To be able to tap all the channels, Zomato’s digital marketing team crafted a multi-channel approach. This approach or marketing strategy rested on four major pillars as Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Visual Advertising, and Email Marketing. It gives an idea about what step comes after there is a digital marketing strategy in place.

Let’s take a look at each of these strategies independently to understand Zomato’s visionary approach:

• Search Engine Optimization:
  • Zomato's paid searches amount to only a minor fraction of 0.56%, whereas their organic search inches closer to 99.4%. This in total, makes up for 66.41% of the app traffic from SEO initiatives.
  • As per industry reports, the restaurant aggregator targets a herculean number of almost 900 k high-ranking keywords that exactly map with the user's thought process.
  • The company adopted this very competitive strategy of enabling restaurants to launch their web pages highlighting their menu, reviews, and themes on the company app and website interface.
  • Furthermore, adding to the SEO bandwagon is its URL linking with the keywords and deriving authentic backlinks from .gov and .edu domains.
     
• Social Media Marketing:
  • Getting audiences hooked to social media handles is pure art and communication. Out of 73% of the traffic derived from social media marketing, 34.41% is derived from Youtube and 31.82% from Facebook.
  • The remaining are contributed from Instagram and Web WhatsApp. One look at the number of followers on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook can give even give global brands a run for their money. Twitter alone has 1.4 million followers, and this is followed by 1.8 million on Facebook and 430k on Instagram.
  • This success results from meticulous campaigns that engage users from the age group of 18-35 years. Zomato's Twitter handle is also known as the meme page. Look at the post below to understand the kind of memes on Twitter that keeps the target audience glued to its page. Mixed languages, popular memes, simple creatives, and witty language has been the greatest weapon in Zomato's social media arsenal.

• Visual Advertising: Zomato's visual advertising is a creative delight. Right from their social media handles, video ads, and billboards, the visual creatives are one of the most powerful digital marketing strategy project when it comes to Zomato.

Just like the other channels, Zomato’s email marketing copies borders on wit and emotions. Each email aims to trigger a desire to visit the app and checking out the menu.

Understanding how to tap into the hearts and minds of the audience through appropriate channels is the key to remaining at the top of one's game. One of the best ways to really acquire digital marketing strategy for a brand knowledge to remain at the top of one's game is to enroll in the Executive Programme on Digital & Social Media Marketing Strategy (EPDSMMS) offered by IIM Calcutta in collaboration with Hughes. This executive program empowers millennial marketers with a winning foundation of digital marketing strategies and marketing analytics.

Published with permission from our partner Hughes Global Education

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