Mamaearth is a direct-to-customer personal care brand, which concerns about baby care, skincare, and haircare toxin-free products. This brand was led by a husband and wife duo Ghazal Alagh and Varun Alagh in 2016, today its valuation is 1.2 billion dollars.
In 2020, it generated more than 109 crores revenue. This all started when Ghazal and Varun became parents, they always wanted to use chemical free products for their child. They already knew that there is no chemical free products in the market, so they decided to order baby care products from overseas.
It was obvious that they had to pay extra amount while ordering from overseas and the order would take a long time to get delivered. They thought if they are facing this problem then but there will be many more people who would be facing same problem as theirs, especially the parents who don’t want to use toxin products for their children.
They begin their research and the idea of starting their own product line struck into their minds. That’s when the Mamaearth invented and today it has more that 5 million customers, they deliver in more than 30,000 pincodes.
Mamaearth’s Business techniques
Let’s understand their 5 essential business techniques which helped them to grow and made a unique brand image amongst people.
1.Try to solve a problem– Here the problem was, Ghazal and Varun wanted to use chemical-free products for their child and when the products weren’t available for them, they had to import the products and this created hindrance. They would have continued importing but they observed this problem and used this problem to convert it into an opportunity. You shouldn’t only focus on ideas but also on problem-solving ideas, instead of just observing the problem, try to brainstorm ideas to grab the opportunity. Who knows later on it can turn into a successful startup.
2.Create your USP– When we see brands like Nike or Apple, it creates certain identity into our minds because they do have unique identities which separate them from the crowd, similarly, Mamaearth has their USP of producing toxin-free products and they promote themselves as ethical personal brands, this makes them stand out from its competitors. Mamaearth is the only brand in Asia that got Made Safe certificate, it is a non-profit organization that measures product safety.
3. Choosethe right marketing technique– Giant companies like HUL, Dabur, Johnson&Johnson use 10% of their revenue in marketing, HUL used 4,552 crores on advertisement in 2019 because they knew making the product right along with the right marketing can prove a goldmine for their business. Initially, Mamaearth had a limited budget but they decided to use the right marketing technique, which resulted in being beneficial for them. They correctly studied about their target audience which is millennials(18-35 years age group)and used Digital marketing, blogs, Influencer marketing to spread awareness about the products and educate their customers. Mamaearth invested almost 40-50% of revenue in advertising (FY19-FY20). Someone rightly said that “Marketing is Good but Educating your customers is even better.” Shilpa Shetty is the brand ambassador for Mamaearth, she invested $250k.
4. Expand into new categories– In 2007, Steve Jobs removed the term computer from Apple Inc. because he wanted to explore in different categories, like iPhone, iPad, and many more. That time he expanded his business, after that Apple got 61%of revenue from iPhone itself and only 11% from computers, adding to that today Apple’s success is known by everybody. When Mamaearth was launched, they specialized in Baby care products but they gradually came in different categories like personal care products for adults, and today they produce 200+ products. Talking about the revenue, so it generates only 20% of the revenue in baby care products and rest 80% is generated from personal care products. They are also thinking to expand their business globally.
5. Increase availability– Mamaearth is a premium personal care brand, its profit margin is 60-65% and they use this for marketing and advertising. Good marketing involves 4ps in Marketing- Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. People are now already aware of their products, second comes Place, so it is a crucial part of a business that from where people will be buying your products, there are already so many products in the market that if your product is not available at the right time then people might switch to other product. A few years back, Mamaearth was only available on online stores and the founder knew very well that making the products available only on online stores isn’t enough. Eventually, they decided to open an offline store, they availed their products in 3000+ stores and they have partnered with big stores like Shoppers Stop. Presently, they earn 20% of the revenue from offline stores and they are planning to make their products available in 10,000 offline stores.
Conclusion
Currently, Mamaearth is not the only brand which with toxin free products, but many more brands are coming into the same concept like The mom co., Lotus Herbals, firstcry.com which also got huge funding from investors. This is creating a barrier for Mamaearth. In coming years, we will see how Mamaearth will make themselves stand apart from their competitor and what all strategies it will adopt to survive in the hussle.
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