The Vanca: Digital Marketing Strategy

Jones Mathew & Banasree Dey

Introduction

The Vanca is a fashion e-tailer company in India that has in house factory facility to make a

high-quality product with western designs. They have described their customers as Vanca

Women - between 18 and 40 years, independent and working, very socially active, and liked

to party. Target this customer base can help them to get the desired results so they have tried

different approaches like Store – in-store, where they can rent a place in large retailer space and

they have got some of the increased sales. Indian E-commerce is growing at high-speed pace and

which is why the norms of the industry are changing with time to time which affects the small

business retailers who use the marketplaces to reach a vast and incredibly diverse audience of

India as small budgets do not have the power to do that. Which is why Vanca have started to sell

on marketplaces and they have got positive results but their heavy embroidery pieces were

selling slow, and brand awareness is low in the market, People are interested in the product but

not buying it. So, Vanca has hired StoreHippo for better analytics to understand the marketplace

conversions and competition analysis while doing that Mr.Sinha has realized that they need in

the house and strong digital marketing team and most important leader to develop the growth

plan. High bounce rate, low brand awareness, and challenging market as the major players like

Reliance’s Ajio.com, Adity Brila’s ABOF.com have already failed even if they had the big

budgets, built up brands and quality but though they have been unable and Vanca is a self-funded

start-up which is why they have low budgets and for digital media, they only have 10% of the

profit which is very low to tap the market, and now their conversion should be higher for the

growth and survival of the brand as they can run out of the fund overtime or sales can drop with

the time.
Hypothesis

Mr.Rajiv Sinha has realized that they need to invest and develop more and more omnichannel to

scale up the business and brand awareness also. They have developed the six pillars for that

which are, (1) 24/7 customer service,(2) integrate all digital sales channels, (3) optimized

customer experience, (4) leverage co-creation opportunity, (5) Pursue Target Customer profiling,

(6) Innovations for value addition. These pillars have worked in many different ways as

VancaWomen have defined by the company and to target them they have started selling into a

store- in- store model and other marketplaces as they have realized that they can survive on their

own, other than that providing chat room service have created opportunities to scaleup the

business and connection to customers. After doing all their innovation and digital marketing

efforts like hiring a better analytical agency, the digital marketing agency for Search Engine

Optimisation and Google Ads, Providing best customer service, social media audience building

with blogs, pages, influencers leads to get the eyeballs and more traffic but low conversion rate

which is common in India as conversion rate 2-3% of daily visitor and if we add up all the costs

for digital and traditional media marketing with operational cost and most important market

place costs like commission of marketplaces and COD charges (15% of order value) can lead to

cash shortage for small self-funded startups like the Vanca. The only way to survive and get the

growth is to develop a low budget strategy for digital marketing as traditional media is costly and

not efficient. Abhishek Dhiman has done very well done job as per Indian digital marketing

standards and as a digital marketing manager, but he needs a better budget to get the result which

is leading problem Vanca facing, distribution of budget in digital channels to get the desired

results while conversion is low after all the efforts of the company.
Alternatives
(1) Referral Discounts – India is a populated and strongly socialized country where people

tend to buy from peers' advice and review of the product and service. If Vanca can

provide the additional discount to the customers and referred person, can develop a

mouth to mouth publicity which can only be conducted on the Vanca’s website only and

not on any marketplaces.

(2) Exclusive Marketplace Partnership – Every marketplace has some brands and specifically

fashion labels in its portfolio for an overall better image but they provide the only number

of brands after strict quality checking and agreement of exclusively selling on their

platform only. The low commission rate, Better support form marketplace, priority

marketing for the label, etc. are the benefits for it. A small budget and high conversions

can be possible from this alternative. Ex., If Vanca has an exclusive partnership with

myntra then myntra will get more sales to Vanca with low commission rate and other

benefits, but Vanca will not be able to sell their product online on any other marketplaces

(3) Outsource Digital Marketing – Several successful agencies in India have the experience

of building a fashion e-commerce brand with a limited budget, in which they include all

the services of e-commerce. They have all the tools and services from the third party

which are expensive for a company to acquire and skilled teams to deliver the results as

per the clients' needs. It can be more costly for starting but as they have the capacity to

provide results which they have proved with past client’s success makes it an ideal option

for the Vanca to go with. The human resource problem can also be solved with this

alternative. This is an optimal alternative.

Recommendation

E-commerce agencies can plan out the blueprint as per the client’s needs and required results.

A 360-degree marketing plan with expected ROI result may need an initial high investment,

but high conversion is what Vanca is looking for and, Vanca have scaled up their operation

without forecast the human resource problems which can be a problem as budget is a

constraint and hiring more people can destroy the strategy. The agency has the required

human resources to initiate the champaign and manage the spending budget with highly

impactful marketing. Vanca can save money on human resources and spend that money into

campaigns to get the desired ROI. Product launching to build the influencer team and build

up the online community to engage with the customer on social media are the leading

implementation by the agency in which lower bounce rate, high advertisement ROI because

of graphical and impactful content plays a vital part. Online reputation building is the most

important as it is the basic need for the brand image, and, as new startup Vanca, agencies can

build a better brand then in-house operations. Data security is the only problem for the Vanca

but with the time if the Vanca gets the loyal customer base, then they can start the operation

in-house as they will possibly going to generate a good amount of revenue from the sales.

Generating good numbers in the Indian E-commerce environment is fierce as people’s lives

are not as digitize as western countries. That’s why relying upon the group of people who

have done it successfully can be the best option.

Implementation & Control

The implementation becomes the easiest part as implementation is quite easy as Vanca needs

to list out all the successful agencies and look at their past track record and reputation to get

the results. Agencies can provide the quotation with the initial blueprint for the Vanca and,

choosing the perfect fit will be easier after it. Controlling all the aspects from the basic team

in-house is needed but it is already there. Vanca can map the results of the agency after

appointing one and work out the scale up the sales and conversion to the level where Vanca

can do it in-house. Data security is a major concern that should be in a legal contact between

Vanca and agency which can prevent the future breach or misuse of data against Vanca.
References

1. #ARM Worldwide. (2017, November 20). 10 Benefits of Outsourcing Digital Marketing

Services to India. Retrieved January 23, 2020, from https://armworldwide.com/10-

benefits-outsourcing/

2. Kristensen, E. (2019, March 7). E-Commerce Referral Marketing: How to Get More

Sales (on Autopilot). Retrieved January 23, 2020, from

https://sleeknote.com/blog/referral-marketing

3. Kiernan 1, D. (2015, January 29). Weighing Exclusive vs. Non-Exclusive Partner

Agreements. Retrieved January 23, 2020, from https://www.channelfutures.com/channel-

programs/weighing-exclusive-vs-non-exclusive-partner-agreements