The Vanca Case: Reworking Digital Marketing Strategy

1. How successful has The Vanca been in the retailing space in terms of conversion?
Identify the reasons behind it.
Answer:
The Vanca is quite not successful in conversion in the retailing space. The Vanca’s
expected conversion target was 1-2 percent of daily visits while in fact they only got 0.5
percent of 2000 daily visits. The Vanca used digital marketing such as search engine
optimization, search engine marketing blogs, content building, display remarketing
advertisements, affiliate marketing, email marketing, text messages, paid ads (e.g., On
Google, Facebook, and Twitter), app-based promotional campaigns, and social
networking sites. These are expected to create brand awareness and already helped the
brand got customers’ sight, but the fact that Mehra couldn’t remember the brand name
and The Vanca name itself didn’t appear in the first page of Google search results
means that there was a mismatch between site visits and conversions, this resulted The
Vanca received a higher number of hits but the number of sales wasn’t the highest on
e-commerce platforms. The reason why the conversion rate is low can be caused by the
idea that on-the-spot advice or assistance in digital platforms before making a decision in
purchasing is not executed well. The Vanca already implemented this strategy but
however the questions from the customers were not replied quickly, so the customers
lost their interests to continue their purchases.

2. What traffic building strategies has The Vanca adopted? Is the traffic building enough?
Answer:
Traffic building that The Vanca applied for its digital marketing around search engine
optimization, search engine marketing blogs, content building, display remarketing
advertisements, affiliate marketing, email marketing, text messages, paid ads (e.g., On
Google, Facebook, and Twitter), app-based promotional campaigns, and social
networking sites. These tools were for accomplishing the core objectives of The Vanca
for using digital marketing strategy: to increase traffic and conversions, build the brand
through value addition, and generate brand loyalty at retail. These digital marketing
accounted for 5-7 percent of The Vanca marketing budget.
Those tools had already made The Vanca sold its products to 1 million customers.
However, the target market for The Vanca was approximately 20-30 million consumers
based on the customer persona. The digital marketing used by The Vanca generated the
traffic but somehow didn’t give value addition so that no significant conversions rate.

3. What role has web analytics played in enhancing the overall customer experience? How
can the customer journey be mapped?
Answer:
Until 2015, The Vanca had used Intelligence Node, then moved to StoreHippo to
prepare the requirements of automated processing of large amounts of data
(data-crunching) and give analysis of how a brand and its competitors have performed in
a certain period. The Vanca also used SEMrush, SimilarWeb, and others to analyze the
 competitors. From those online tools, it found that every e-commerce company was
focusing on remarketing display ads. Other important analytics parameters should be
considered thus The Vanca used social media mailers, social media branding ads,
affiliate marketing, and Google Ads. Google Analytics also provided real time user data.

The people who went to The Vanca’s website could be from WOM, direct marketing,
traditional advertising, social media marketing, e-marketplaces, referral sites, and social
networking sites. This gave information about guest customers, first time registered
customers, and existing registered customers. Next, there will be suggestions based on
past purchasing activities (except for the first time registered customers). From this
activity, there are several actions. Some of the customers may leave the sites without
purchasing anything and some of them will purchase the products (and it could be a
probability that they will purchase other products). These activities resulted in the
company’s action to send the new launch at intervals.

4. What are the key imperatives to building a brand in the digital world?
Answer:
● Determine the online customer persona
The Vanca already defined their customer persona. From the customer profiling,
women between 18 and 40 years who are independent and working very socially
active and liked to party, The Vanca created wardrobes which matched those
persona such as workplace wardrobes, evening wear wardrobes, party wear
wardrobes, and so on.
● Adopt the digital channels
By using collaborative sites, the brand increased the traffic. Email marketing did
effort to generate traffic. Social media channels created brand awareness,
knowledge, and customer retention.
● Good customer experience
The Vanca had started a chat room on its website to help customers make
on-the-spot advice or assistance. One of the in-house designers would enter the
chat room and answer queries that had piled up. But this didn’t execute well, thus
to improve this, The Vanca’s initiative was to answer it within a time frame of 30
minutes. Furthermore, The Vanca was to acquire an official fashion blogger to
improve the customer experience and leverage it as a differentiator.
● Enhance optimization
Site optimization for The Vanca website was managed by professionals to focus
on ascertaining the right high-ranking keywords and inserted them to the
company website also certain keywords that had an organic link to the website.
● Value addition
Sinha, Chief executive officer of The Vanca, realized that the brand should give
the value addition to increase the conversions. Sinha stated that it’s the key to
online success.
● Crafting the customer journey seamlessly and unobtrusively
 The Vanca wanted to greet without intrusion to customers’ privacy and record
their journey. The offers are also based on the customers’ permissions.

5. How can Vanca's Brand become a part of the consideration set of customers?
Answer:
Based on Marketing 7p:
● Product
According to the existing customers, they are happy with the designs, fabric
quality, and the colour palettes of The Vanca products. To become part of
consideration, The Vanca could improve more on its augmented product.
Improving the engagement on the website should be considered by serving a
quick response of on-the-spot assistance to answer the complaints from the
customers. On the other hand, giving the guarantee for safer delivery also
improves the quality of The Vanca products.
● Price
The Vanca could consider Cash On Delivery (COD) for the payment method.
This payment method can generate trust from the customers in the India
e-commerce market. On the other hand, The Vanca could use discounting for
previous products when the new collection launched. The Vanca could also use
the couponing on the offline retails which the discount load shares between the
vendor and marketplace.
● Place
The Vanca was originally focused on operating independently but then decided to
have partnership with national marketplaces. Different marketplaces mean
different mix of The Vanca products. By doing this, it was expected to give
benefits for genuine and loyal customers. The Vanca also used a reversed
omnichannel approach so that not only sells online but both online and offline
stores.The other channels including social media had also identified as different
functions. Focusing on Google search for the brand recognition and brand recall,
this could help The Vanca to connect with other related channels.
● Promotion
SEO got the main role for the promotion, for building the website traffic. But the
problem is how to build the traffic and keep it. As mentioned by Sinha, value
addition is the key success. The informative, relevant and unique content is what
the customers will attract their attention for. Keywords and links are also
important. Focus on popular words and related links. The Vanca also could
encourage its customers to do e-WOM by using their social media, doing
challenges or campaigns with the winner on every period.
As Sinha said, India is too vast to make an impact with a small budget. Digital
promotion could be considered as long as there is the adding of value for its
product for pushing sales on The Vanca website.
● People
Customers won’t tolerate bad services thus the on-the-spot assistance on the
website should be executed effectively. The quick-reply complaints and advice,
 the privacy of the customers, auto-response for specific keywords can be applied
to tighten the engagement between the company and its customers. Besides,
The Vanca also should manage its workforce for the excellent service experience
to online customers. Acquiring official fashion bloggers, who (together with a chat
room expert) would give the customer a rich feel for the brand with very useful
information that would help the decision-making process. The new DMM also has
the responsibility to plan an effective digital marketing course of action.
● Processes
The Vanca is already excellent at its value chain because of its spending on IT
support. The Vanca also has already mapped its consumer online journey. To
support the excellent process in online shopping, the company could consider the
features and design on the website which can add more value to the customers’
experience. Another strategy could be by paying attention to the website speed
so the company won’t lose its potential customers. Furthermore, the important
thing is to optimize the conversion.
● Physical Evidence
The physical evidence in online platforms is somehow crucial consideration for
the customers. Review and ratings for the products from the customers will give
the new point of view and consideration for the desired products. A website with
well-designed and good-contents is also one of the physical evidence to shape
the customers’ belief of a good brand. A good customer service will also be the
proof of the good brand itself.
● Partnerships
○ Service
The Vanca had already made partnership with the e-marketplaces such
as Myntra (high-volume, affordable fashion), Jabong (showcasing
international brand), Flipkart (large active customer base), and Amazon
(logistically strong for delivery in e-marketplaces).
○ Product
The Vanca could make collaboration with famous fashion designers to
make the seasonal or limited edition collection. Not only famous
designers, The Vanca could still collaborate its in-house designers with
celebrities who are passionate about fashion. A new collection for
collaboration with certain celebrities will encourage customers who have
the role model on one of them.

6. What should be the key focus areas for The Vanca's new Digital Marketing Manager?
Answer:
The new Digital Marketing Manager (DMM) task is to control and synergize the
marketing activities:
● Evaluate the existing digital marketing if there is an ineffective marketing, it
should be removed or analyzed based on the traffic and the budget
● Enhance the site optimization to get a better conversion rate
● Track the progress of the digital performance between The Vanca and
competitors
● Evaluate the customer journey to improve the customer experience
● Recruiting staff to regularly develop fashion-related content for use on company
website, social media and to maintain partnerships with fashion bloggers