Zomato Digital Marketing Strategy – Shiksha Online

Zomato needs no introduction when it comes to branding. Its quirky social media memes, unique campaigns, and clickworthy emails are all so memorable. Learn how today.

What comes to mind first when you have to order food online after a long day? 

For many, Zomato is the first choice. Then comes other food delivery services. 

Zomato’s first quarterly revenue in 2022 is ₹ 11.6 billion (Statista). As of December 2021, the total visits to its desktop site and Zomato app on mobile were 22.83 million (Similarweb). Currently, there are 12000 restaurant partners and 1.4 million restaurant listings. 

Today you will know how this leading Indian food-tech platform is a market leader. So, take a dive into Zomato’s digital marketing strategy. With this Zomato case study, you may get your own ideas for your startup business. 

So, buckle up to learn

• About Zomato
• Zomato Business Model
• Zomato Digital Marketing Strategy

All You Need to Know About Zomato’s Digital Marketing Strategy

Zomato is one of the world’s largest food aggregators. It believes in offering hygienic food that is affordable. 

About Zomato

Zomato launched around 2010. Earlier, it was a Delhi-based startup – FoodieBay that was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. These IIT alumni observed the long queues in offices to see the menu card. That’s how FoodieBay became the largest online directory of restaurants in the city. 

Today, Zomato is popular as a restaurant discovery, online food delivery and dine-out platform. Along with India, it is available across 24 nations including Sri Lanka, Australia, parts of the Middle East and more. 

Zomato Business Model 

Value Proposition of Zomato 

The business model of Zomato revolves around four parameters, QAAA. 

• Quality – Initiatives such as Hyperpure that provide hygienic ingredients and kitchen supplies to restaurant partners
• Assortment – A variety of tastes from different geographical locations with precise information
• Affordability – Affordable food through daily deals and discounts, the Zomato Gold programme, etc 
• Accessibility – From table reservations to corporate catering

These four factors contribute to a successful marketing mix of Zomato – product, price, place and promotion. 

Revenue Model of Zomato

The Zomato revenue model is multifaceted. Only 2% of its total revenue comes from online food orders. While restaurant advertising contributes to 72%. See below for how Zomato earns money. 

Target Audience of Zomato

Zomato does in-depth marketing research. The consumers of Zomato are between 18-35 years. This age group is important because they have smartphones.

Secondly, they dine out with colleagues and/or friends. They research the best restaurants near their locations.

In this way, the Zomato app is a go-to tool for restaurant discovery.  The third parameter that works in Zomato’s favour is the target audience. They are college students and working professionals. 

Company Partners of Zomato

The major company partners of this food delivery platform are London & Partners and Uber. The former is for extending virtual operations in European nations. 

In 2020, Zomato acquired Uber Eats. And, Uber has 9.99% ownership. This collaboration aligns with Uber’s objective of ‘creating opportunity through movement’. So any Uber rider can quickly search for restaurants while on the move. 

Sustainability

The target audience of Zomato is the modern-day consumer. Such a demographic prefer brands that reduce the carbon footprint. Even according to net0, 73% of online consumers prefer brands that reduce the impact of climate change. 

Zomato is aware of that.

When you open the Zomato app, you will see the option – Climate Conscious Delivery. Here you can choose – ‘Don’t send cutlery, tissues and straws’. By opting for that, restaurants save 0.5 to 1% of the order value (Zomato website). 

Zomato Digital Marketing Strategy

Zomato is India’s first food tech unicorn. It has tapped into the minds and emotions of the Indian youth with its friendly, all-rounded digital marketing strategy. 

SEO

Zomato has great visibility on search engines through paid and organic traffic. It has a strong SEO strategy for its user base.

Learn what is SEO to find out what the domain entails.

So, when you do a quick domain analysis of the Zomato website on Moz, you will see these results. 

• Ranking Keywords – 587.6K
• Top Ranking Keyword – Zomato
• Domain Authority – 87 out of 100
• Top Search Competitors – First is the Zomato website with 46.70 visibility. Then comes Facebook and Yelp.  
• Top Linking Domains – These are sites such as Google, YouTube, Linkedin, Microsoft and others. 

Do a Google search using keywords such as ‘online food order’, ‘online food delivery near me’ etc.

Zomato will have paid ads on top of the search results.

On Google Keyword Planner, these keywords have an average monthly search volume of 1K to 100K. 

Zomato also ranks for low monthly search volume keywords. They are ‘freshly meals’, ‘healthy food delivery’, ‘best food delivery’. These have 10 to 100 monthly searches.   

So you know now it targets all volumes of keywords. 

Apart from the above, the restaurants that are on the Zomato app rank on search engines. The app is mobile-friendly and easily navigable. Just type a dish and find the best restaurants.

The results meet the search intent of the user. S/he can select restaurants based on price, popularity, deals and discounts, etc. According to the Chandigarh Institute of Digital Marketing, over 40% of traffic comes from the app. 

Social Media Marketing

Zomato has a unique approach to social media. In an old interview with Social Samosa, Zomato’s Vice President of Marketing, Pramod Rao spoke about its marketing approach. 

“We enjoy having fun conversations with our users on social media and it always feels like we are talking to our friends and this has worked best for us”, he said. 

On Instagram, Zomato has 606K followers. With 1.5 million followers on Twitter, it won the Best Brand Voice in 2020.

On both, you will find posts that are always trendy and topical. They range from comparisons to mainstream culture references. And the posts are always funny. This drives a lot of engagement from the target audience. 

But Zomato also segregates the intent of their posts for each social media channel. On Instagram, it shares memes or images of delectable dishes. It runs contests on Twitter.  On Facebook, it updates blogs and YouTube videos. 

Online Marketing Campaigns

There are many successful ad campaigns of Zomato.

The company uses Google Analytics. Its core team also track user behaviour to determine the success of the campaign. 

Let’s look into the Zomato Premier League marketing campaign. 

Zomato knew the target audience in India follows cricket. It could gamify its marketing campaign. All the Zomato app users had to do was predict the winner. When the users bet on the winning team, they would get great deals. 

This campaign was a massive success. 4 million users participated. 

Email Marketing

Consumers prefer personalisation in every marketing communication. 80% of them will make a purchase from a brand that offers personalised experiences (Epsilon).

Have a look at what email marketing is and know the benefits

Now Zomato is no outsider to this. Its email marketing strategy looks into the target audience’s eating and ordering behaviour. But, it conveys the right message with humour.  

Those of you who have used the Zomato app during the lockdown will know about its funny ‘Hire Biryani’ email. During quarantine, there were over 44 lakh orders of the dish. Even the CTA or call to action was unique – ‘Hire Now’. 

Parting Thoughts

Hope this success story has helped you understand a digital marketing strategy for a brand. While this case study on Zomato is one of many digital marketing strategy examples, you can find more. Check out digital marketing courses too. 

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