Case Study on: Identiti Designer Name Plates
Client: Mumbai
Year: 2011-2012
Website: www.idenitit.in
This is a social media and paid
advertising case study for my first client called Identiti Home Pvt Ltd. based in
Mumbai, India.
Who is Identiti and what does it do?
Identiti designs, manufactures designer
name plates to customers who are building or improving homes. In a short span
of time Identiti has created niche market for itself which is fast catching the
imagination of all the home makers. Since inception, Identiti has been enabling
proud home owners with artistically designed hand crafted nameplates and
interesting fusion of glass, wood, fiber, stone and metal. Identiti is focused
towards making a difference in the way people design their home entrances.
What was the challenge?
Identiti owned one store in
Mumbai and partnered with several other home decor brands across India to
display their products and sell their products. Their products ranged from wooden
name plates to glass name plates. Operating a physical store was obviously an
expensive affair and so was it dealing with their partners. In 2011, small
businesses were approaching the web halfheartedly to sell their products
online. At the same time, Facebook started becoming a very popular networking
site surpassing the then famous Orkut networking site. Like most SMB, Identiti
had plans to go digital. The problem was obviously how and what to do?
Identiti wanted to incorporate
Facebook as a part of their marketing and advertising plan but didn’t want 1M
likes on their fan page. They wanted something more solid, something that will
boost sales and bring in more revenue. At the same time, another major issue
was driving traffic on their website. Since their website wasn’t modern, they faced a major challenge of getting into
good books with search engines Google and Bing.
Being a SMB, Identiti did not
have a budget to hire a full fledged digital marketing team, neither were they
comfortable hiring an agency especially without a clear business strategy w.r.t
the Internet.
The Solution
This is where I came into the
picture. Spending a few days with the owner of Identiti, I quickly realized
there was only 1 thing expected if money was invested online i.e. Sales. It had
to be quick because time was running out and profits coming in from physical
stores was deteriorating each day.
I made two suggestions, Google
Adwords and Facebook.
In 2011, Google adwords was very
new to SMB in Mumbai which meant there were host of opportunities to acquire
new markets and yet at the same time was difficult to convince the owner for
funds.
Problem 1: No SEO
The website was built by a third
party web development company who had little or no experience in search engine
optimization. There were 10 keywords that were being tracked by this agency,
all of which were suggested by the owner of Identiti. These keywords were chosen
based on assumptions and ideas that came to the owners mind on the basis of his
experience and vocabulary.
Solution 1: Don’t guess, believe in scientific data and facts
I spent a couple of days using
the google keyword tool to find the potential market available, keyword suggestions,
competition etc and found vast opportunities that could be targeted. It was
fairly easy to convince the owner with facts, supply and demand as he
understood it. This is where introduction of google adwords happened.
Initially we spent a few hundred
rupees, created 25-30 ads tested different images etc. Once we saw which ads
were converting we quickly increased the budget for those ads and the results
were incredible. From merely doing sales of Rs 15,000 each month online,
Identiti was now selling stuff worth Rs 3,50,000 each month in less than half a
year. We spent on average 20-30k and noticed sales improved at 50% every month.
This was directly in proportion to the money we were spending on ads. We ran
text ads and display ads. Another observation we made was that products that
were on the expensive side, sold more online and these were acquired by a text or display ad.
We used all kinds of image sizes provided by Google.
Solution 2: Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/myidentiti)
During my pow vow session with the owner I
was explaining the way people were using Facebook. The trend has never changed
since then, people use Facebook only to brag or vent their frustration or
anger. They could be bragging about
their new smart phone, new dress, new hair style, holiday destination etc. This
meant every time a person bought something new he/she would update their status.
So, here was my big idea..make our customers brag about their new designer name
plate.
Yes, whenever a customer booked a
product on our site or in the store we made it a compulsion to collect their
email address and Facebook name. We also invested in a small studio in the factory where the name plate was being manufactured. So here’s how things would turn out
Step 1: Customer orders online or
offline, provides email address and Facebook name
Step 2: Once the custom name
plate is ready for delivery, a HQ picture is taken and sent over to the
corporate office
Step 3: This HQ picture is uploaded on
Identiti business page, through the Identiti personal account we friend the
customer, so that we can tag them
Step 4: Once the customer gets
tagged, this picture is visible on their wall which means all their friends can see it when
they visit the customers Facebook wall. Additionally, if the customer is not
happy with the finished product it can be replaced before delivering which means
we save delivery and pick up costs.
This provided a much needed
impetus to Identiti and grew their business.
Recommended by Mr. Rattan Joneja
(CEO & MD)
CEO at Marigold
Ventures
Cilvan is a highly
self motivated, intelligent and hard working. He launched the Web Business at
Identiti and grew it by 200% in 6 months time.
