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Meesho is a brand that needs no introduction today. It has carved a niche for itself in no time. In this video, Megha Agarwal, CXO-Growth of Meesho, in discussion at the #GROWTH Summit in Bengaluru, talks about Meesho’s winning growth strategies, sustainable growth, and the long-term success of the brand.
Growth is understanding your customer end to end, Megha says. It ensures that all customer problems are solved at the earliest and without any inconveniences. Growth means removing all the friction points. It includes providing your business, product, and the platform is continuously growing sustainably.
In broader terms, it’s a blend of 6 parts of a puzzle.
Awareness – Are consumers aware of the brand? Do they know who you are? If they’re installing your app, using your product, or visiting your website, do you know what they expect from you? The branding proposition must be transparent in their mind and your mind too. That is awareness!
Advertising – What is making them come to your website? Performance marketing, SEO, content, referrals, or whatever you prefer on your website, app, or platform.
Activation – What’s the core action that you want the customer to do? For Meesho, it is getting customers to place the first order. This is a very tricky problem. Because the customer on the app or the website may have ordering anxiety. A lot is going on in their mind. They are rigorously thinking. Is it the right place to shop from? Should I be wasting my time and energy here? So, it’s not just about helping them discover the right product at the right price. It’s about serving their trust. It’s about comprehension and familiarity. It’s more about assisting them in making the right decision.
Habit Formation – Now that they’re done with their first order, what’s next? Can you get them to a point where thinking about the product is like second nature for them? Quantitatively, you can say, ‘Placing x orders in y time.’ Thus, if the customer crosses that journey, their web, product, and app retention is very high. In Meesho’s case, it’s around 70-80%. Qualitatively, we should consider it as the point at which you remove all the questions in their minds.
Customer Engagement – Now that retention is solved, can you deepen the engagement? Engagement is the frequency of depth; retention is well. How to deepen the engagement? How many times does the customer come to the app or the website?
Research – There will be an ‘n’ number of consumers you’ll end up losing. How do you ensure that you’re not letting those consumers churn? And if that churn is happening, how are you bringing them back, which is decent? In-depth research on the churn rate is crucial for sustainable growth.
Megha talks about the six pillars again, saying they are inputs to growth. It’s about transacting customers every month. It’s about how many consumers are doing the core activities that you want them to do. What kind of value does your business generate? Do you keep in check every single cost? It’s about fixed scaling for sustainable growth.
Awareness in the performance stage acts like biometrics. The way you describe or relate to your product. For example – The imagery you tell it to.
Acquisition and activation both put together become an essential blend in performance metrics. How many consumers did the core action that you want them to do? For example, a content company sees this: How many customers watched the video content, commented, etc.?
Habit formation? How many consumers got activated, and how many reached out in the same way?
Engagement is the frequency. It could be time spent on the video. Engagement means different things to different businesses. For Meesho, it’s about identifying how many consumers are churning out.
Retention is concerned with the churn percentage. How can you reduce the churn percentage? Navigate from lower scales to a fixed fit scale.
Growth is built explicitly on these pillars. If those do well, the probability of success is very high.
According to Megha, it’s about being obsessed with your customer. It’s all about the product. Suppose the product is resonating with your consumer. You’re doing it right. You’ve to communicate to make your product understandable.
Megha concludes by saying, ‘Meesho understood what was important for the customers. Then, we did a structured analysis to make it growth-centric for both parties. You talk to them in a manner they understand. The stories they resonate with.’
We use local and regional languages. We use influencer marketing. Anything that makes the customer understand. Brand marketing is an investment. It’s a long-term strategy and moves the market. Performance marketing converts where your market is.
To balance both is crucial. It depends on what stage your product is at. How mature is the category? For example, Meesho aimed to convert those customers and retain them. “Then, we entered into branding. My major aim is to authentically balance brand marketing and performance marketing,” Megha says.
Lastly, Megha shares a beautiful piece of suggestion for all budding entrepreneurs.
‘Be fearless, ambitious, think big, and chase your dreams. Nothing can stop you from reaching where you can be and where you want to be.
