Shreya Report.docx

A REPORT ON

Customer Acquisition and Growth Marketing for Bonusapp subsidiary of MySmartPrice

BY Shreya Govind Dandegaonker 1701174 PGDM-GENERAL

AT

INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISE SHAMIRPET, HYDERABAD

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DECLARATION I Shreya Govind Dandegaonker of PGDM-GENERAL(Roll no. 1701174) , here by declare that the project report entitled “Customer Acquisition and Growth Marketing for Bonusapp a subsidiary of MySmartPrice” carried out at MySmartPrice Web Technology Pvt Ltd is my original work written and submitted by me to INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISE, Hyderabad in partial fulfilment of Degree in Post-Graduation Diploma in Management. I also declare that this project has not been submitted earlier in any other University or Institution.

Shreya Govind Dandegaonker PGDM-GENERAL 1701174

DATE:

SIGNATURE OF THE STUDENT

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere thanks to ‘MySmartPrice’ for permitting me to undertake the project in the esteemed organization. My sincere thanks to Ms. Biswajita Mohanty for valuable guidance. I also owe profound gratitude to Mr. Sitakanta Ray and Mr. Sulakshan Kumar, co-founders of MySmartPrice for supporting me and giving timely support during my project. I would also like the thank Mr. Abhinay K.V,

Head of Business Development, for giving me an opportunity to work in the business development team and guiding me. I convey my heartfelt thanks to the Institute of Public Enterprise, Shamirpet, Dr. R.K.MISHRA, Director and Prof. S.S.MURTHY, Dean for giving me this opportunity to undertake the project work. I am deeply obliged to my internal guide Ms J. KIRANMAI, without whose guidance and encouragement at all levels, the study would not have been completed successfully. I express my deep sense of gratitude to our project coordinators and all the faculty members for their valuable guidance and encouragement during my course of study in the college.

Shreya Govind Dandegaonker PGDM (2017-2019)

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ABSTRACT COMPANY: MySmartPrice Web Technology Pvt. Ltd. DURATION: 2 Months

PLACE: Madhapur

DATE OF JOINING: 01-05-2018

END DATE: 30-06-

2018 TITLE OF THE PROJECT: Customer Acquisition and Growth Marketing for Bonusapp a subsidiary of MySmartPrice ROLL NO: 1701174 NAME: Shreya Govind Dandegaonker COURSE: PGDM-GENERAL NAME OF THE SUPERVISOR: MS. Biswajitha Mohanthy DESIGNATION: Planning and Strategy Manager NAME OF THE MENTOR: Ms. J Kiranmai KEY WORDS: Bonusapp, Promotion, Influencers, Student Entrepreneur of the Month Challenge, E-cell, Social media, Campus Ambassador PROJECT AREA: Customer Acquisition and Growth Marketing for Bonusapp a subsidiary of MySmartPrice . ABSTRACT: This project is about Growth and Customer Acquisition of Bonusapp subsidiary of MySmartPrice.

There are two ways of promoting ‘Bonusapp’ (1) Target Group-College students, (2) Giving awareness to the public using Social Media and their influencers which has created a bigger reach to the people within a short period of time.

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By using these above 3 ways of promotions we could achieve our targets in creating Public Awareness, App Downloads, Signups and in attracting customers by providing good amount of benefits to the people so that they can utilize it while doing their Online Shopping and become Happy Customers for Bonusapp and MySmartPrice which will help in creating customer satisfaction, Generating Revenue and also helping in Expansion of their business in future.

SIGNATURE OF THE STUDENT

SIGNATURE OF THE

MENTOR

DATE:

DATE:

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Contents CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2

Literature Review

 2.1 What is marketing?  2.2 Marketing Plan  2.3 Definition of Customer Acquisition  2.4 Brand awareness  2.5 Growth Marketing  2.6 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING:  2.7 Strategies CHAPTER 3

COMPANY AND INDUSTTRY PROFILE

 3.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW  3.2 ABOUT MYSMARTPRICE  3.3 INTRODUCTION OF ‘BONUSAPP’  3.4 INDUSTRY PPROFILE CHAPTER 4

METHODOLOY USED FOR CUSTOMER

ACQUISITION  4.1 PROCEDURE  4.2 Motivating and Retention of Campus Ambassador  4.3 Student Entrepreneur of the Month Challenge.

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 4.4 Challenges Faced and their solutions

CHAPTER 5

FINDINGS

 CONCLUSION  REFERENCES  BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Executive summary The growth of the e-commerce sector has been tremendous since the last few years, it has become a part and parcel of one’s life. Price comparison sites and apps are extremely helpful for frequent online shoppers to check prices on different online stores at one place. Some of the best price comparison sites give an in-depth database to check competitive costs and provide help to save actual bucks. Price comparison sites are the lifeblood of the online retail industry. A frequent online purchaser spends a ton of time on leading price comparison sites earlier than they make a shopping decision.

The objective of the report is a study on the customer acquisition and growth marketing techniques

of

India’s

leading

price

comparison

and

product

discovery

site

“MYSMARTPRICE”.

This report also contains the findings from the live project which includes the Campus Ambassador Program, Student Entrepreneur Of the Month(SEOM) Challenge, promotional activities and business development activities.

A Systematic plan had been executed for customer acquisition and customer engagement which will be briefly explained in the report.

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

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Introduction Who is a customer? In simple terms customer is a person who receives or consumes a product or a service, he /she needs and which is available with the seller/firm. According to the marketing philosophy firm’s goals can be achieved by Identification and satisfaction of the customer’s needs and wants.

How to get the customers? Customer acquisition is the way of inducing a shopper or customer to buy an organization's merchandise or administrations. The cost related to the client securing process is a vital measure for a business to assess in blend with how much esteem having every client ordinarily conveys to the business. Customer acquisition became a necessity for any kind of company to sell their product or services, is the product or service itself not enough to sell and create the need in the public? The acquisition process is particularly important for start-ups and for firms competing in growth markets. To grow their business, companies acquire customers in various ways, including marketing actions, such as broadcast media, social media, mailing list, telephonic call, promotional messages etc. A customer acquisition orientation refers to a firm’s focus on gaining information about potential customers, measuring their potential value, and allocating resources to acquire those with greater long-term value.

Customer engagement: The means by which a company creates a relationship with its customer base to foster brand loyalty and awareness. It also involves encouraging the customers to share their Experiences and feedback so they can know if they need to improve their service or product.

Apart from getting a customer it is also important to know who are the customers , which takes us to the concept of target marketing. Target marketing can be explained as the breaking down of a market into segments and then concentrating the marketing efforts on few of the key segments consisting customers who are the most probable customers of the product or service. This is the most cost effective way of marketing.

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This report consists of the findings from the live project conducted at MySmartPrice WebTechnology Pvt.Ltd, a systematic procedure was followed in order to get new customers for Bonusapp which is a MySmartPrice venture. The steps involved in this project gave us a good idea about how startups get new customers and how they retain those customers with them. As it is a Price comparison and product discovery site which is majorly used by the youngsters it was decided that a campus ambassador program should be conducted, where students from different colleges in India would be a part of this campus Ambassador program.

As a part of customer engagement, the campus ambassadors will be Promoting and participating in the contest “Student Entrepreneur of the Month Challenge” conducted by Bonusapp. The main aim of this contest is to get huge number of downloads for Bonusapp.

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2. Literature Review: Every business needs to understand the value of marketing. Marketing can help you reach your target audience, boost your customer base, and ultimately increase your bottom line. Marketing is much more than large advertising campaigns and attractive logos. It's a vital part of your business operations and needs be addressed from the beginning of your business journey. Good marketing tells a story about your business and gives your customers a reason to purchase from you instead of the competition. Marketing can help you attract new customers, focus on satisfying their needs and build lasting relationships. Marketing requires research, time and appropriate allocation of budget. Investing time in developing your marketing strategy can help your business grow.

2.1 What is marketing? There are many definitions of marketing, however put broadly, marketing is a strategic mix of business activities that work towards a bigger goal of building your brand and business. Marketing is about identifying and understanding your customers and developing products and services that meet their needs. Marketing is important across many areas of your business, including how your customers are greeted on the phone, your customer service procedures

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The Four P's of Marketing

Product refers to an item or items a business intends to sell. When examining a product, a company should ask questions such as, "what product is being sold?," "what differentiates the product from its competitors?," "can it market the product with a secondary product?" and "are there substitute products in the market?"

Price refers to how much the company will sell the product for. When establishing price, companies must give considerations to the unit cost price, marketing costs and distribution expenses.

Place refers to distribution of the product. Key considerations include whether the company will sell the product through a physical storefront, online or through both distribution channels?

Promotion refers to the integrated marketing communications campaign. Promotional activities may include advertising, personal selling, sales promotions, public relations, direct marketing, sponsorship and guerrilla marketing. Promotions are likely to vary depending on what stage of product life cycle the product is in. Marketers must know consumers associate a product’s price and distribution with its quality, and would be prudent to take this into account when devising the overall marketing strategy.

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2.2 Marketing Plan A marketing plan is a comprehensive document or blueprint that outlines a business advertising and marketing efforts for the coming year. It describes business activities involved in accomplishing specific marketing objectives within a set time frame. A marketing plan also includes a description of the current marketing position of a business, a discussion of the target market and a description of the marketing mix that a business will use to achieve their marketing goals. It has a formal structure, but can be used as a formal or informal document which makes it very flexible. It contains some historical data, future predictions, and methods or strategies to achieve the marketing objectives. Marketing plans start with the identification of customer needs through a market research and how the business can satisfy these needs while generating an acceptable return. This includes processes such as market situation analysis, action programs, budgets, sales forecasts, strategies and projected financial statements. A marketing plan can also be described as a technique that helps a business to decide on the best use of its resources to achieve corporate objectives. It can also contain a full analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a company, its organization and its products. The marketing plan shows the step or actions that will be utilized in order to achieve the plan goals. For example, a marketing plan may include a strategy to increase the business's market share by fifteen percent. The marketing plan would then outline the objectives that need to be achieved in order to reach the fifteen percent increase in the business market share. The marketing plan can be used to describe the methods of applying a company's marketing resources to fulfil marketing objectives. Marketing planning segments the markets, identifies the market position, forecast the market size, and plans a viable market share within each market segment. Marketing planning can also be used to prepare a detailed case for introducing a new product, revamping current marketing strategies for an existing product or put together a company marketing plan to be included in the company corporate or business plan. The right marketing plan identifies the following  Who your target customers are?  How you will reach them ?  How you will retain your customers so they repeatedly buy from you?

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Done properly, your marketing plan will be the roadmap you follow to get unlimited customers and dramatically improve the success of your organization. Following are the key sections that must be included in the marketing plan:

Section 1: Executive Summary Complete Executive Summary, as the name implies, this section merely summarizes each of the other sections of your marketing plan. Executive Summary will be helpful in giving yourself and other constituents (e.g., employees, advisors, etc.) an overview of the plan.

Section 2: Target Customers This section describes the customers being targeted at . It defines their demographic profile (e.g., age, gender), psychographic profile (e.g., their interests) and their precise wants and needs as they relate to the products and/or services you offer.

Section 3: Unique Selling Proposition (USP) Having a strong unique selling proposition (USP) is of critical importance as it distinguishes your company from competitors.The hallmark of several great companies is their USP. For example, FedEx’s USP of “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight” is wellknown and resonates strongly with customers who desire reliability and quick delivery.

Section 4: Pricing & Positioning Strategy Your pricing and positioning strategy must be aligned. For example, if you want your company to be known as the premier brand in your industry, having too low a price might dissuade customers from purchasing.In this section of your marketing plan, detail the positioning you desire and how your pricing will support it.

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Section 5: Distribution Plan Your distribution plan details how customers will buy from you. For example, will customers purchase directly from you on your website? Will they buy from distributors or other retailers? And so on.Think through different ways in which you might be able to reach customers and document them in this section of your marketing plan.

Section 6: Offers Offers are special deals you put together to secure more new customers and drive past customers back to you.Offers may include free trials, money-back guarantees, packages (e.g., combining different products and/or services) and discount offers. While the business doesn’t necessarily require offers, using them will generally cause the customer base to grow more rapidly.

Section 7: Marketing Materials Your marketing materials are the collateral you use to promote your business to current and prospective customers. Among others, they include your website, print brochures, business cards, and catalogues.Identify which marketing materials you have completed and which you need created or re-done in this section of your plan.

Section 8: Promotions Strategy The promotions section is one of the most important sections of your marketing plan and details how you will reach new customers.There are numerous promotional tactics, such as television ads, trade show marketing, press releases, online advertising, and event marketing. In this section of your marketing plan, consider each of these alternatives and decide which ones will most effectively allow you to reach your target customers.

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Section 9: Online Marketing Strategy Like it or not, most customers go online these days to find and/or review new products and/or services to purchase. As such, having the right online marketing strategy can help you secure new customers and gain competitive advantage. The four key components to your online marketing strategy are as follows:  Keyword Strategy: identify what keywords you would like to optimize your website for.  Search Engine Optimization Strategy: document updates you will make to your website so it shows up more prominently for your top keywords.  Paid Online Advertising Strategy: write down the online advertising programs will you use to reach target customers.  Social Media Strategy: document how you will use social media websites to attract customers.

Section 10: Conversion Strategy Conversion strategies refer to the techniques you employ to turn prospective customers into paying customers.For example, improving your sales scripts can boost conversions. Likewise increasing your social proof (e.g., showing testimonials of past clients who were satisfied with your company) will nearly always boost conversions and sales.

Section 11: Joint Ventures & Partnerships Joint ventures and partnerships are agreements you forge with other organizations to help reach new customers or better monetize existing customers. For example, if you sold replacement guitar strings, it could be quite lucrative to partner with a guitar manufacturer who had a list of thousands of customers to whom it sold guitars (and who probably need replacement strings in the future).Think about what customers buy before, during and/or after they buy from your company. Many of the companies who sell these products and/or services could be good partners. Document such companies in this section of your marketing plan and then reach out to try to secure them.

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Section 12: Referral Strategy A strong customer referral program could revolutionize your success. For example, if every one of your customers referred one new customer, your customer base would constantly grow. However, rarely will you get such growth unless you have a formalized referral strategy. For example, you need to determine when you will ask customers for referrals, what if anything you will give them as a reward, etc. Think through the best referral strategy for your organization and document it.

Section 13: Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices While your primary goal when conversing with prospective customers is often to secure the sale, it is also important to pay attention to the transaction price. The transaction price, or amount customers pay when they buy from you, can dictate your success. For example, if your average customer transaction is $100 but your competitor’s average customer transaction is $150, they will generate more revenues, and probably profits, per customer. As a result, they will be able to outspend you on advertising, and continue to gain market share at your expense.In this section of your plan, think about ways to increase your transaction prices such as by increasing prices, creating product or service bundles/packages, and so on.

Section 14: Retention Strategy Too many organizations spend too much time and energy trying to secure new customers versus investing in getting existing customers to buy more often.By using retention strategies such as a monthly newsletter or customer loyalty program, you can increase revenues and profits by getting customers to purchase from you more frequently over time.

Section 15: Financial Projections The final part of your marketing plan is to create financial projections. In your projections, include all the information documented in your marketing plan.For example, include the promotional expenses you expect to incur and what your expected results will be in terms of new customers, sales and profits. Likewise include your expected results from your new retention strategy.

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2.3 Definition of Customer Acquisition Customer acquisition refers to gaining new consumers. Acquiring new customers involves persuading consumers to purchase a company’s products and/or services. Companies and organizations consider the cost of customer acquisition as an important measure in evaluating how much value customers bring to their businesses. Customer acquisition management refers to the set of methodologies and systems for managing customer prospects and inquiries that are generated by a variety of marketing techniques. Some successful Customer acquisition strategies include customer referrals, customer loyalty programs, and the like. One way to think about customer acquisition management is to consider it the link between advertising and customer relationship management, as it is the critical connection that facilitates the acquisition of targeted customers in an effective way.

The Customer Acquisition Process Customer acquisition requires forethought and strategies. In fact, there are many different customer acquisition strategies that are used as part of the customer acquisition process. Some customer acquisition methods are more effective with specific types of clients, but there are a few basic steps that are included in any type of customer acquisition plan.

The steps of any basic customer acquisition plan are:  To identify quality potential customers, customer acquisition strategy involves reaching out to potential customers through call centers and mailing lists. These customer acquisition methods allow companies to determine which individuals and businesses express interest in or already use products similar to those of your company.  Companies then qualify the leads a little further using various research methods to determine the viability of the given lead. If the chances seem likely that you will be able to acquire this new customer, his status is upgraded to that of prospect and assigned to a salesperson for further interaction.

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 Establishing a relationship with prospects to identify their needs and determine how the products offered relate to those needs. Salespeople also attempt to identify unstated needs; these are based on data provided by ongoing conversations and interactions with the prospects. Salespeople also can identify additional needs of prospects and offer additional products so the prospects see a greater value from purchasing the products they already are considering.

Customer Acquisition Cost The cost of customer acquisition (CAC) is the price paid by the company to acquire new customers. Simplest form of determining CAC is by dividing the total costs associated with acquisition by total new customers, within a specific time period.

CAC = MCC TCA Where: CAC = Cost of customer acquisition MCC = Total marketing campaign costs related to acquisition (Not Retention) TCA = Total customers acquired

The cost of customer acquisition is an essential metric for companies to consider, along with the lifetime value of a customer. Companies and organizations need to get a return on investment (ROI) from marketing and sales campaigns conducted for customer acquisition. The goal is to achieve a high lifetime value (LTV) to CAC ratio. A 3:1 ratio of LTV:CAC is considered to be a perfect level.

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Benefits of Customer Acquisition Using appropriate customer acquisition strategies helps companies to grow, and targeted customer acquisition programs help companies acquire the right customers in a cost effective way. New companies or those with less established products especially need to place a greater focus on customer acquisition. As companies mature, they can shift their focus to customer retention. It’s important to keep in mind that customer acquisition costs often are higher than customer retention costs and therefore require a thorough analysis of the associated benefits. The acquisition benefits also need to be fully quantified in order for companies to accurately gauge the relative value of their customer acquisition process. For established companies to grow most effectively, they should find ways to attract, satisfy, and retain customers.

Customer Acquisition Strategies: Acquisition targets fall into three buckets. They are as follows:  Anonymous  Identified  Existing customers This is critical because companies must first understand who they’re targeting, when, and how.

Anonymous Visitors Compare current customer behaviour to online traffic information you were already collecting, and you can turn anonymous website visitors into valuable leads. Behavioural information can help focus your marketing efforts and more accurately evaluate the potential acquisition likeliness of prospects. Building and targeting these individual profiles and providing the right messages and incentives for further engagement, it is possible to personalize the on-boarding experience and thus increase acquisition campaign performance.

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Identified Prospects For recently identified prospects, it is possible to use previously collected data to immediately identify the top potential converters and/or highest value prospects and provide them with a personalized web experience based on behavioural data, using appropriate data at the right time. This will allow you to anticipate prospects needs throughout the process and deliver to them incentives on which they’re likely to take advantage.

Existing Customers Customer Interests , which is a collection of thousands of predefined metrics, calculated in realtime and organized for each customer. Now, using this Customer Interests to improve service immediately after acquisition to increase cross- and up-sell opportunities. This can significantly help to maximize the ROI within the first few months of acquisition and increase customer lifetime value. Regardless of your company’s customer acquisition strategy, it’s important to provide relevant personalized messaging and offers through the right channels. This will increase acquisition efforts and help you gain high value customers.

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2.4 Brand awareness Brand awareness is the likelihood that shoppers are well-known about the life and accessibility of the item. It is how much customers decisively connect the brand with the particular item. It is estimated as a proportion of specialty showcase that has previous information of brand. Brand mindfulness incorporates both brand acknowledgment and in addition mark review. Brand acknowledgment is the capacity of the buyer to perceive earlier information of brand when they have posted inquiries concerning that brand or when they are demonstrated that particular brand, i.e., the buyers can unmistakably separate the brand as having been prior seen or heard. While mark review is the capability of the client to recuperate a brand from his memory when given the item class/classification, needs to be fulfilled by that classification or purchasing situation as a flag. As it were, it alludes that purchasers ought to effectively recoup mark from the memory when provided some insight or he can review the particular brand when the item class is said. It is for the most part less demanding to perceive a brand instead of review it from the memory.

Brand mindfulness is enhanced to the degree to which mark names are chosen that is straightforward and simple to articulate or spell; known and expressive; and special and also unmistakable. For example - Coca Cola has come to be known as Coke.

There are two kinds of brand awareness. They are as follows:  Aided Awareness  Top of mind awareness

Aided awareness-This implies on specifying the item class, the clients perceive your image from the arrangements of brands appeared.

Top of mind awareness (Immediate brand recall)- This implies on specifying the item classification, the principal mark that client reviews from his brain is your image. The relative significance of brand review and acknowledgment will depend on how much customers settle on item related choices with the brand show or not. For example - In a store,

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mark acknowledgment is more pivotal as the brand will be physically present. In a situation where brands are not physically present, mark review is more huge (as in the event of administrations and online brands).

Building brand mindfulness is basic for building brand value. It incorporates the utilization of different eminent channels of advancement, for example, publicizing, verbal exposure, internet-based lifelike online journals, sponsorships, propelling occasions, and so on. To make mark mindfulness, it is imperative to make a solid brand picture, mottos, and slogans. The brand message to be conveyed ought to likewise be reliable. Solid brand mindfulness prompts high deals and high piece of the pie. Brand mindfulness can be viewed as a method through which shoppers end up familiar and acquainted with a brand and perceive that brand.

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2.5 Growth Marketing Growth marketing is all about one thing: attracting more engaged customers. And while traditional marketing focuses on the top of the funnel, and account based marketing focuses on key accounts, the growth marketing job description requires focus on the entire funnel.

Growth hacking is a process of rapid experimentation across marketing funnel, product development, sales segments, and other areas of the business to identify the most efficient ways to grow a business. A growth hacking team is made up of marketers, developers, engineers and product managers that specifically focus on building and engaging the user base of a business. ` Growth hackers often focus on low-cost alternatives to traditional marketing, e.g. using social media, viral marketing or targeted advertising instead of buying advertising through more traditional media such as radio, newspaper, and television. Growth hacking is particularly common with startups, when the goal is to attain rapid growth in the early-stages of launching a new product or service to market. Growth hacking may focus on lowering cost per customer acquisition, or it may focus on long-term sustainability as Mason Pelt points out in a 2015 article on SiliconANGLE.com "The goal of any marketing should be long-term sustainable growth, not just a short-term gain. Growth hacking is about optimization as well as lead generation. Imagine your business is a bucket and your leads are water. You don't want to pour water into a leaky bucket; it's a waste of money. That's why a true growth hacker would care about customer retention."

Those who specialize in growth hacking use various types of marketing and product iterations to rapidly test persuasive copy, email marketing, SEO and viral strategies, among other tools and techniques, with a goal of increasing conversion rates and achieving rapid growth of the user base. It can also involve online community management and social media outreach or highly personalized outreach to news outlets to improve performance metric such as driving customer acquisition and selling products. Some consider growth hacking a part of the online marketing ecosystem, as in many cases growth hackers are using techniques such as Search Engine Optimisation, website analytics, content marketing, A/B testing. 25

Product development is also heavily influenced by the growth hacker mind set. Instead of long development cycles followed by user testing. Growth hackers start user testing with wireframes and sketches; validating ideas at every stage. A growth hacker in a product development role would start user testing in a coffee shop instead of a corporate usability lab.

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2.6 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers. Most social media platforms have built-in data analytics tools, which enable companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. On a strategic level, social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope (e.g. more active or passive use) and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone." When using social media marketing, firms can allow customers and Internet users to post usergenerated content (e.g., online comments, product reviews, etc.), also known as "earned media," rather than use marketer-prepared advertising copy. There are some of the famous social media platforms available which are as follows:

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

LIKEDIN

YOUTUBE

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PINTEREST

INSTAGRAM

ADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: There are 10 great advantages of Social Media Marketing which are as follows:

1. INCERASED BRAND AWARENESS: Social media is one of the most cost-efficient digital marketing methods used to syndicate content and increase your business’ visibility. Implementing a social media strategy will greatly increase your brand recognition since you will be engaging with a broad audience of consumers.

To get started, create social media profiles for your business and begin interacting with others. Get employees, business partners, and sponsors to "like" and "share" your page. Simply having people interact with your content will increase brand awareness and begin building your reputation as a business. Each post that is shared will be introduced to a new network of individuals, which can lead them to becoming potential customers, and the more people who know about your business, the better.

2. MORE INBOUND TRAFFIC: Without marketing your business on social media, your inbound traffic is limited to your usual customers. The people familiar with your brand are likely searching for the same keywords you already rank for. Without utilizing social media as part of your marketing strategy, you’ll have much more difficulty reaching anyone outside of your loyal customer circle.

Every social media profile you add to your marketing mix is a gateway to your website, and every piece of content you post is another opportunity to acquire a new customer. Social media is a melting pot of different types of people with varying backgrounds and behaviors. With different people come different needs and different ways of thinking.

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3. IMPROVED SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS: Although posting on social media might get your business some site traffic, more effort than that is required to see significant success. Search engine optimization is very important for achieving higher page rankings and obtaining traffic to your business website. While social media doesn’t directly increase search engine rankings, Social Media Examiner states that more than 58% of marketers who have been using social media for one year or longer still see improved search engine rankings. Being able to rank in the top positions for your keywords will revolutionize your traffic and continue to generate positive results for your business.

4. HIGER CONVERSION RATES: With increased visibility, your business gains more opportunities for conversion. Every blog post, image, video, or comment may lead viewers to your company’s website and increase traffic. Social media marketing allows your business to give a positive impression through a humanization factor. When brands are interactive by sharing content, commenting, and posting statuses on social media, it personifies a brand. People prefer to do business with other people, rather than companies.

Over 51% of marketers claimed that taking the time to develop relationships with consumers showed positive results in sales. The better impression you make on a visitor, the more likely they are to think of your business when the need for your product or services arises.

5. BETTER CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: Social media is a networking and communication platform. Creating a voice for your company through these platforms is important in humanizing your company. Customers appreciate knowing that when they post comments on your pages, they will receive a personalized response rather than an automated message. Being able to acknowledge each comment shows that you are attentive of your visitors’ needs and aim to provide the best experience. Every customer interaction on your business’s social media accounts is an opportunity to publicly demonstrate your compassion for your customers. Whether an individual

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has a question or a complaint, social media allows you to address the matter using interpersonal dialogue. A brand devoted to customer satisfaction that takes the time to compose personal messages will inherently be viewed in a positive light, even if responding to a customer complaint.

6. IMPROVED BRAND LOYALTY: One of the main goals of almost all businesses is developing a loyal customer base. Considering that customer satisfaction and brand loyalty typically go hand in hand, it is important to regularly engage with consumers and begin developing a bond with them. Social media is not just limited to introducing your brand’s products and promotional campaigns. Customers see these platforms as a service channel where they can communicate directly with the business.

7. MORE BRAND AUTHORITY: Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty both play a part in making your business more authoritative, but it all comes down to communication. When consumers see your company posting on social media, especially replying to customers and posting original content, it makes you appear more credible. Regularly interacting with customers demonstrates that your business cares about customer satisfaction, and is available to answer any questions that they might have. Satisfied customers are eager to spread the word about a great product or service and they usually turn to social media to express their opinion. Having customers mention your business on social media will advertise your business, and show new visitors your value and brand authority. Once you obtain a few satisfied customers who are vocal about their positive purchase experience, you can let the advertising be done for you by actual customers who enjoyed your product or service.

8. COST- EFFECTIVE: Social media marketing is possibly the most cost-efficient part of an advertising strategy. Signing up and creating a profile is free for almost all social networking platforms, and any paid promotions you decide to invest in are a relatively low cost compared to other marketing tactics. Being cost-effective is such an advantage because

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you can see a greater return on investment and retain a bigger budget for other marketing and business expenses.

If you decide to use paid advertising on social media, always start small to see what you should expect. As you become more comfortable, fine tune your strategy and try increasing your budget. Just by spending a small amount of time and money you can significantly increase your conversion rates and eventually get return on investment on the money you initially invested.

9. GAIN MARKETPLACE INSIGHTS: One of the most valuable advantages of social media is marketplace insight. What better way to know the thoughts and needs of your consumers than by directly talking to them? By monitoring the activity on your profiles, you can see customer’ interests and opinions that you might not otherwise be aware of if your business didn’t have a social media presence.Using social media as a complementary research tool can help gain information that will aid you in understanding your industry. Once you gain a large following, you can use additional tools to analyze the demographics of your consumers. Another insightful aspect of social media marketing is the ability to segment your content syndication lists based on topic, and identify which types of content generate the most impressions. These tools give you the ability to measure conversions based on posts on various social media platforms to find the perfect combination for generating revenue.

10.THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Posting insightful and well-written content on your social media is a great way to become an expert and leader in your field. There is no one way to become a thought leader – it requires work that can be supported by online networking tools. To establish yourself as an expert, be sure to utilize social media platforms and build your presence. Be communicative, connect with your audience, share content, and promote your authority. When your social media campaign is aligned with other marketing efforts, your skills will be highlighted and followers will look up to you. Being able to directly connect with your customers creates a relationship that they will value, allowing you to become a notable influencer in your field.

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ABOUT THE PROJECT: We all know that now a days Social Media is becoming the best source of promoting any kind of activity with low cost and giving good results in return. We have decided to promote SEOM Challenge using social media is because now days everyone is into social media as its creating a great influence on people. The following diagram clearly shows the percentage of people using social media.

There are many social media apps available for the public in usage to make them updated with all types of information like news, media, entertainment etc. and making the public to be in touch with higher officials like actors, politicians, CEO’s and many others. The influence of social media on public is increasing day by day. Among all the available social media sites, INSTAGRAM is one of the most popular sites available to the public. Hence, we decided to work on INSTAGRAM for promoting Bonusapp application, creating a page and also reach the public in all the possible ways available. According to our observation and study INSTAGRAM is good source of promoting because, it is a place for all the businesses, bloggers, actors and many more. And it’s open for two-way communication for both the business and customers. Hence, we decided to promote it using INSTAGRAM.

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INSTAGRAM Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social networking service owned by Facebook, Inc. It was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010 exclusively on iOS. A version for Android devices was released two years later, in April 2012, followed by a feature-limited website interface in November 2012, and apps for Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 in April 2016 and October 2016 respectively.

The app allows users to upload photos and videos to the service, which can be edited with various filters, and organized with tags and location information. An account's posts can be shared publicly or with pre-approved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, and view trending content. Users can "like" photos, and follow other users to add their content to a feed.

The service was originally distinguished by only allowing content to be framed in a square (1:1) aspect ratio, but these restrictions were eased in 2015. The service also added messaging features, the ability to include multiple images or videos in a single post, as well as "Stories"—similar to its main competitor Snapchat—which allows users to post photos and videos to a sequential feed, with each post accessible by others for 24 hours each. After its launch in 2010, Instagram rapidly gained popularity, with one million registered users in two months, 10 million in a year, and ultimately 800 million as of September 2017. In April 2012, Facebook acquired the service for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. As of October 2015, over 40 billion photos have been uploaded to the service. Although praised for its influence, Instagram has been the subject of criticism, most notably for policy and interface changes, allegations of censorship, and illegal or improper content uploaded by users.

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The following image shows the login page / signing up page.

FEATURES & TOOLS:  EXPLORE: In June 2012, Instagram introduced "Explore", a tab inside the app that displays popular photos, photos taken at nearby locations, and search. The tab was updated in June 2015 to feature trending tags and places, curated content, and the ability to search for locations. In April 2016, Instagram added a "Videos You Might Like" channel to the tab, followed by an "Events" channel in August, featuring videos from concerts, sports games, and other live events, followed by the addition of Instagram Stories in October. The tab was later expanded again in November 2016 after Instagram Live launched to display an algorithmically-curated page of the "best" Instagram Live videos currently airing. In May 2017, Instagram once again updated the Explore tab to promote public Stories content from nearby places.

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 PHOTOGRAPHIC FILTERS: Instagram offers a number of photographic filters that users can apply to their images: Normal, 1977, Amaro, Brannan, Earlybird, Hefe, Hudson, Inkwell, Kelvin, Lo-fi, Mayfair, Nashville, Rise, Sierra, Sutro, Toaster, Valencia, Walden, Willow, X-Pro II, Slumber, Cream, Ludwig, Aden, Perpetua, Clarendon, Gingham, Moon, Stinson, Crema, Lark, Reyes, Juno.In February 2012, Instagram added a "Lux" filter and in December 2014, Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Aden, and Perpetua were five new filters to be added to the Instagram filter family.

 VIDEO: Initially a purely photo-sharing service, Instagram incorporated 15-second video sharing in June 2013. The addition was seen by some in the technology media as Facebook's attempt at competing with then-popular video-sharing application Vine. In August 2015, Instagram added support for widescreen videos. In March 2016, Instagram increased the 15-second video limit to 60 seconds. Albums were introduced in February 2017, which allow up to 10 minutes of video to be shared in one post.

 IGTV: IGTV is a vertical video application launched by Instagram in June 2018. Basic functionality is also available within the Instagram app and website. IGTV allows uploads of up to 10 minutes in length with a file size of up to 650 MB, with verified and popular users allowed to upload videos of up to 60 minutes in length with a file size of up to 5.4 GB. The app automatically begins playing videos as soon as it is launched, which CEO Kevin Systrom contrasted to video hosts where one must first locate a video.

 INSTAGRAM DIRECT: In December 2013, Instagram announced Instagram Direct, a feature that lets users interact through private messaging. Users who follow each other can send private messages with photos and videos, in contrast to the public-only requirement that was previously in place. When users receive a private message from someone they don't follow, the message is marked as pending and the user must accept to see it. Users can send a photo to a maximum of 15 people. In April 2017, Instagram redesigned Direct to combine all private messages, both permanent and ephemeral, into the same message threads. In May, Instagram made it possible to send website links in messages, and also added support for sending photos in their original portrait or landscape orientation without cropping. 35

 INSTAGRAM STORIES: In December 2016, Instagram launched Instagram Stories, a feature that allows users to take photos, add effects and layers, and add them to their Instagram story. Images uploaded to a user's story expire after 24 hours. The media noted the feature's similarities to Snapchat. In November, Instagram added live video functionality to Instagram Stories, allowing users to broadcast themselves live, with the video disappearing immediately after ending. In January 2017, Instagram launched skippable ads, where five-second photo and 15-second video ads appear in-between different stories. In June 2017, Instagram revised its live-video functionality to allow users to add their live broadcast to their story for availability in the next 24 hours, or discard the broadcast immediately. In July, Instagram started allowing users to respond to Stories content by sending photos and videos, complete with Instagram effects such as filters, stickers, and hashtags. Stories were made available for viewing on Instagram's mobile and desktop websites in late August 2017.

 STAND-ALONE APPS: Instagram has developed and released three stand-alone apps with specialized functionality. In July 2014, it released Bolt, a messaging app where users click on a friend's profile photo to quickly send an image, with the content disappearing after being seen. It was followed by the release of Hyperlapse in August, a then-iOS-exclusive app that uses "clever algorithm processing" to create tracking shots and fast time-lapse videos. Hyperlapse launched on Android and Windows in May 2015.[192] In October 2015, it released Boomerang, a video app that combines photos into short, one-second videos that play back-and-forth in a loop.

USER CHARASTERISTICS AND BEHAVIOR:  DEMOGRAPHICS: Instagram's users are divided equally with 50% iPhone owners and 50% Android owners. While Instagram has a neutral gender-bias format, 68% of Instagram users are female while 32% are male. Instagram's geographical use is shown to favor urban areas as 17% of US adults who live in urban areas use Instagram while only 11% of adults in suburban and rural areas do so. While Instagram may appear to be one of the most widely used sites for photo sharing, only 7% of daily photo uploads, among the top four photo-sharing platforms, come from Instagram. Instagram has been proven to attract the younger generation with 90% of the 150 million users under the age of 35. From June 2012

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to June 2013, Instagram approximately doubled their number of users. As regards income, 15% of US Internet users who make less than $30,000 per year use Instagram, while 14% of those making $30,000 to $50,000, and 12% of users who make more than $50,000 per year do so. With respect to the education demographic, respondents with some college education proved to be the most active on Instagram with 23%. Following behind, college graduates consist of 18% and users with a high school diploma or less make up 15%. Among these Instagram users, 24% say they use the app several times a day.  USER ENGAGEMENT: Ongoing research continues to explore how media content on the platform affects user engagement. Past research has found that media which show peoples’ faces receive more ‘likes’ and comments and that using filters that increase warmth, exposure, and contrast also boosts engagement. Users are more likely to engage with images that depict fewer individuals compared to groups and also are more likely to engage with content that has not been watermarked, as they view this content as less original and reliable compared to user-generated content.  TRENDS: Users on Instagram have created "trends" through hashtags, which are specific keywords combined with a hash symbol that lets them share content with other Instagram users. The trends deemed the most popular on the platform often highlight a specific day of the week to post the material on. Examples of popular trends include #SelfieSunday, in which users post a photo of their faces on Sundays; #MotivationMonday, in which users post motivational photos on Mondays; #TransformationTuesday, in which users post photos highlighting differences from the past to the present; #WomanCrushWednesday, in which users post photos of women they have a romantic interest in or view favorably, as well as its #ManCrushMonday counterpart centered on men; and #ThrowbackThursday, in which users post a photo from their past, highlighting a particular moment. In December 2017, The Verge reported that Instagram would let users press "Follow" on a hashtag, thereby seeing relevant highlights of the topic in their feeds.

IDEA GENERATION: (1)

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According to this social media site (INSTAGRAM), I have got an idea of promoting SEOM CHALLENGE powered by Bonusapp on Instagram by INSTAGRAM TOP FOLLOWERS/ INSTAGRAM CELEBRITIES and by CREATING PAGE OF BONUSAPP in Instagram. Collecting the data of ‘top instagram influencers’ who are having huge number of followers and contacting them to promote about the student entrepreneur of the month challenge, so that we could reach public in very short time. Regarding this idea I spoke to my Managers and CEO about as I was having a family friend who is one of the top insta celebrity. They felt very happy about my idea and gave me a support to go ahead. Hence, I started working on this project in contacting with insta celebrity about the promotional deal and her acceptance towards promoting. Here is the list of some Instagram Top Celebrities and their number of Followers: 1. ‘Deepthi Sunaina’ with 751k Followers.

2. ‘Nayani Pavani’ with 289k Followers.

3. ‘Nandu Ramisetty’ with 156k Followers.

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4. ‘Meenakshi Pamnani’ with 121k followers.

5. ‘Ramyaa Pasupuleti’ with 116k Followers.

As per the above list ‘the.m.dose’ who is one of the top celebrities in Instagram, is my family friend where we asked her to promote our SEOM Challenge powered by Bonusapp.

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Strategies Passive approach Social media can be a useful source of market information and a way to hear customer perspectives. Blogs, content communities, and forums are platforms where individuals share their reviews and recommendations of brands, products, and services. Businesses are able to tap and analyse the customer voices and feedback generated in social media for marketing purposes; in this sense the social media is a relatively inexpensive source of market intelligence which can be used by marketers and managers to track and respond to consumeridentified problems and detect market opportunities. For example, the Internet erupted with videos and pictures of iPhone 6 "bend test" which showed that the coveted phone could be bent by hand pressure. The so-called "bend gate" controversy created confusion amongst customers who had waited months for the launch of the latest rendition of the iPhone. However, Apple promptly issued a statement saying that the problem was extremely rare and that the company had taken several steps to make the mobile device's case stronger and robust. Unlike traditional market research methods such as surveys, focus groups, and data mining which are timeconsuming and costly, and which take weeks or even months to analyse, marketers can use social media to obtain 'live' or "real time " information about consumer behaviour and viewpoints on a company's brand or products. This can be useful in the highly dynamic, competitive, fast-paced and global marketplace of the 2010s.

Active approach Social media can be used not only as public relations and direct marketing tools but also as communication channels targeting very specific audiences with social media influencers and social media personalities and as effective customer engagement tools. Technologies predating social media, such as broadcast TV and newspapers can also provide advertisers with a fairly targeted audience, given that an ad placed during a sports game broadcast or in the sports section of a newspaper is likely to be read by sports fans. However, social media websites can target niche markets even more precisely. Using digital tools such as Google AdSense, advertisers can target their ads to very specific demographics, such as people who are interested in social entrepreneurship, political activism associated with a particular political party, 40

or video gaming. Google AdSense does this by looking for keywords in social media user's online posts and comments. It would be hard for a TV station or paper-based newspaper to provide ads that are this targeted (though not impossible, as can be seen with "special issue" sections on niche issues, which newspapers can use to sell targeted ads). Social networks are, in many cases, viewed as a great tool for avoiding costly market research. They are known for providing a short, fast, and direct way to reach an audience through a person who is widely known. For example, an athlete who gets endorsed by a sporting goods company also brings their support base of millions of people who are interested in what they do or how they play and now they want to be a part of this athlete through their endorsements with that particular company. At one point consumers would visit stores to view their products with famous athletes, but now you can view a famous athlete's, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, latest apparel online with the click of a button. He advertises them to you directly through his Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts. Facebook and LinkedIn are leading social media platforms where users can hyper-target their ads. Hyper targeting not only uses public profile information but also information users submit but hide from others. There are several examples of firms initiating some form of online dialog with the public to foster relations with customers. According to Constantinides, Lorenzo and Gomez Borja (2008) "Business executives like Jonathan Swartz, President and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Steve Jobs CEO of Apple Computers, and McDonalds Vice President Bob Langert post regularly in their CEO blogs, encouraging customers to interact and freely express their feelings, ideas, suggestions, or remarks about their postings, the company or its products". Using customer influencers (for example popular bloggers) can be a very efficient and cost-effective method to launch new products or services Among the political leaders in office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the highest number of followers at 40 million, and President Donald Trump ranks second with 25 million followers. Modi employed social media platforms to circumvent traditional media channels to reach out to the young and urban population of India which is estimated to be 200 million.

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CHAPTER 3 COMPANY AND INDUSTTRY PROFILE

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3. COMPANY AND INDUSTRYPROFILE 3.1 COMPANY OVERVIEW MySmartPrice was founded by Mr.Sitakanta Ray and Mr.Sulakshan Kumar.

Mr. Sitakanta Ray

Mr. Sulakshan Kumar

Co-founder of MySmartPrice

Co-Founder of MySmartPrice

Sitakanta Ray: Sitakanta is an alumnus of IIM Bangalore, with seven years of work experience with Oracle and ICICI Bank.

Sulakshan Kumar: Sulakshan is an alumnus of NIT, Rourkela, who had worked with Sitakanta at Oracle. He had earlier worked at Infosys.

MySmartPrice is inspired from Shopping.com. The US-based company, now part of the eBay e-Commerce Network, pioneered online comparison shopping over a decade ago.

No. of Employees of the Company: 100

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Departments in the Company:-

User Interface Team and Graphics Designing Team:User interface design (UI) or user interface team is the design of user interfaces for machines and software, such as computers, home appliances, mobile devices, and other electronic devices, with the focus on maximizing usability and the user experience. The goal of user interface team is to make the user's interaction as simple and efficient as possible, in terms of accomplishing user goals (user-centered design).

Good user interface design facilitates finishing the task at hand without drawing unnecessary attention to itself. Graphic design and typography are utilized to support its usability, influencing how the user performs certain interactions and improving the aesthetic appeal of the design; design aesthetics may enhance or detract from the ability of users to use the functions of the interface. The design process must balance technical functionality and visual elements (e.g., mental model) to create a system that is not only operational but also usable and adaptable to changing user needs.

Interface design is involved in a wide range of projects from computer systems, to cars, to commercial planes; all of these projects involve much of the same basic human interactions yet also require some unique skills and knowledge. As a result, designers tend to specialize in certain types of projects and have skills centered on their expertise, whether that be software design, user research, web design, or industrial design.

The user interface team of MSP also does the backend coding of the website and the Graphics Designing Team is responsible for all the designing and interfacing the Website.

Product Development Team:This team is responsible for implementing strategy, roadmap, and feature definition for that product or product line. Product teams may also be tasked with marketing, forecasting, and profit and loss (P&L) responsibilities. The role of product teams spans many activities, from strategic to tactical.

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Marketing Team :The Marketing Team plays a vital role in promoting the business and mission of an organization. It is the Marketing Team’s job to reach out to prospects, customers, investors and/or the community, and create an overarching image that represents the company in a positive light—that is, MYSMARTPRICE.

Content Writing Team :The content writing team is responsible for all the product reviews, news, product description and all features displayed of a product on the website of the company.

Finance Team :This part of an organization manages its money. The business functions of finance team typically include planning, organizing, auditing, accounting for and controlling its company's finances. The finance team also usually produces the company's financial statements.

SEO Team :Search engine optimization (SEO) team processes the affecting online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results—often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results.

Operations Team :Operations Team is the business function responsible for managing the process of creation of goods and services. It involves planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling all the resources needed to produce a company's goods and services. Sales & Strategy Team :- This team functions on the sales and making purposeful strategies for the Company. 45

3.2 ABOUT MYSMARTPRICE MySmartPrice is a high-growth venture-backed start-up with a team of 100 that runs the largest comparison shopping site in India with over 20 Million user visits per month. It helps people easily find ‘what to buy’ and ‘where to buy from’ and help them make better and wiser purchases by comparing the prices and offers on various e-commerce sites and giving the best available price to the customers. MySmartPrice is a platform which lets you discover the best products across a wide array of categories that include Mobiles, Electronics, Computers, Fashion and Lifestyle, Cameras, Books, Appliances and Personal Care. MySmartPrice was founded in 2010 by Sitakanta Ray and Sulakshan Kumar with the goal of creating the best online shopping research and discovery destination.

The price comparison engine enables you in finding the best price, as well as deals and offers from all major e-commerce stores in India. The latest offering, MSP Fashion, assists you in finding the ideal look for any season, and features brands from all over the globe. Their aim is to create a unique destination for users looking to buy online, which drives them to focus on one thing above all else: Making it easier for you, the user, to make an informed decision when buying products online

MySmartPrice is present across multiple categories including Mobiles, Electronics, Computers, Books, Apparel and Shoes, Fashion accessories, Home decor etc. They aim to provide users with the best price of products both among online stores as well as the local retailers near them. MySmartPrice today provides over 100 online commerce sites and 5000 offline retailers from Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai access to online consumers and delivered sales worth over USD 100Mn in 2015 to our online and offline stores.Today, more than four million users across India make use of the service on a monthly basis to make their shopping decisions easier. They get paid for every successful transaction done on e-commerce / offline stores through us. MySmartPrice is funded by top 2 venture funds in India–Accel Partners and Helion Ventures. We aspire to build a world-class product which will make us one of the top 5 e-retail destinations in India in the next 2 years.

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3.3 INTRODUCTION OF ‘BONUSAPP’ -By MySmartPrice

‘Bonusapp’ is a sister application of MySmartPrice which is newly launched in the year 2018 by the company. ‘Bonusapp’ is available as a website and also available as an Application for Android mobile users. This application mainly deals with Cashback benefits provided on every purchase they make through the site. Cashbacks is one of the category which is available on MySmartPrice website which redirects to the page of ‘Bonusapp’ as soon as we click on it. ‘Bonusapp’ is tied up with 150+ online stores belonging to different categorical sites which are as follows:  Food & Grocery: Swiggy, Zomato, Foodpanda, Dominos, McDonalds, KFC, Dunkin Donuts, Bigbasket, Amazon.in, Naturesbasket, Starquik, etc.  Travel & Cabs: MakeMyTrip, FabHotels, Goomo, Yatra, Cleartrip, OyoRooms, ZoomCar, etc.  Recharge & Bill: Mobikwik, Freecharge, Airtel, Paytm, etc.  Electronics: Aamzon.in, ShopClues.com, TataCliq, Cashify, Flipkart, Ebay, GadgetsNow, Moglix, AliExpress, etc.  Men & Women Fashion: Amazon, Myntra, Ajio, Nykaa, Max, ShopClues.com, TataCliq, Jabong, Adidas, Limeroad, Voonik, etc.  Health: MedLife, Netmeds.com, HealthKart, 1Mg, etc.  Others: Ferns N Petals, Pepperfry, Rentomojo, BlueStone, Housejoy, Jockey, etc.

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HOW DOES IT WORKS: The Application of ‘Bonusapp’ works in the following ways:  The user has to first install the ‘Bonusapp’ application which is available for Android users in their Play Store or can also do Signup in ‘Bonusapp’ website for using it.  User can choose His/ Her mode of online store as per the deals or offers displayed below where they wanted to shop. As soon as the user clicks on the selected online store this ‘Bonusapp’ will redirect to the page of that store.  Once the user is decided with the products to be purchased, he/ she has to click on ACTIVATE CASHBACK option for the benefit of earning the cashbacks on the transaction they make.  Once the transaction is completed, he/ she will receive the cashback amount depending upon their purchase to their ‘Bonusapp’ Account within 3-4 days.  The cashback amount which is earned by the user will be first transferred to ‘Pending Cashback’ of his/ her ‘Bonusapp’ account. As soon as the order is confirmed from the respective online store the Cashback will immediately be transferred to ‘Confirmed Cashback’ then the user can use that amount for their redemption purpose.

The cashback earned by the user can redeem the amount in 3 ways: 1) Bank Account: User can redeem their earned cashback to his/ her bank account. 2) Paytm: User can transfer his/ her earned cashback amount to their Paytm wallet. 3) Amazon/ Flipkart Gift Cards: user can also redeem their cashback amount to Amazon/ Flipkart gift cards/ vouchers.

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 User is applicable for this Cashback benefit for every purchase they make through this ‘Bonusapp’  Minimum redemption amount to redeem should be more than Rs. 20/-.  Users can clearly see their cashback details by clicking on CASHBACK PASSBOOK option which is available in their bonusapp account.  Users can click on PURCHASE TRACKING option which clearly shows his/ her purchase tracking details made and also their click history to make it clear for the customers.  Users can click on CLAIMS & ISSUES option if there are any issues related to their purchase made and by clicking on FAQ’S user can also clarify their doubts related to cashbacks, purchase and working of app etc.  Users will receive mails to their respective mail-id provided and also receive SMS to their mobile phones of their purchase made and also their cashback amount details.  Users using this ‘Bonusapp’ application are able to save Rs.15000/- to Rs.20000/- per year while doing online shopping.

USER BENEFITS:

The following are the benefits which customer can gain by using this ‘Bonusapp’  ‘Bonusapp’ is a ONE STOP FOR ALL ONLINE STORES.  User can receive the cashback benefit on every purchase they make.  User is also eligible for receiving ‘extra cashback’ benefit by getting upto 20% cashback for normal customers and 25% cashback for the corporate employees apart from the offers which the online e- commerce sites are providing.  Users have no restrictions in making daily transactions. Customers have the freedom to receive cashback amount on every no. of transactions they make through the site per day.  Users can redeem their earned cashback to their Bank Account, Paytm wallet and Amazon/ Flipkart Gift cards.

COMPANY BENEFITS:

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As the Bonusapp is tied up with 150+ online stores like Amazon, Flipkart, Jabong, Myntra, Swiggy, Zomato and many more, the respective online stores will provide commission to the company as we are giving customers to them. As per the cashback benefits offered by the company, users start using it for gaining this benefit which will generate revenue to the company.

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3.4 INDUSTRY PPROFILE

Comparison shopping website, sometimes called a price comparison website, Price Analysis tool, comparison shopping agent, shopbot or comparison shopping engine, is a vertical search engine that shoppers use to filter and compare product based on price, features, reviews and other criteria. Most comparison shopping sites aggregate product listings from many different retailers but do not directly sell products themselves, instead earning money from affiliate marketing agreements. There is a huge contribution of comparison shopping websites in the expansion of current E-commerce industry.

Technology Price comparison sites can collect data directly from merchants. Retailers who want to list their products on the website then supply their own lists of products and prices, and these are matched against the original database. This is done by a mixture of Information extraction, fuzzy logic and human labour.

Comparison sites can also collect data through a data feed file. Merchants provide information electronically in a set format. This data is then imported by the comparison website. Some third party businesses are providing consolidation of data feeds so that comparison sites do not have to import from many different merchants. Affiliate networks aggregate data feeds from many merchants and provide them to the price comparison sites. Many of the popular shopping websites provide direct affiliation to the customer who wants to become affiliate partner. They provide their own API to the affiliate partner to show their products with specifications to the affiliate partner's website. This enables price comparison sites to monetize the products contained in the feeds by earning commissions on click through traffic.Other price comparison sites have deals with merchants and aggregate feeds using their own technology.

In recent years, many off the shelf software solutions have been developed that allow website owners to take price comparison websites' inventory data to place retailer prices (context adverts) on their blog or content the only website. In return, the content website owners receive a small share of the revenue earned by the price comparison website. This is often referred to as the revenue share business model. 51

Another approach is to crawl the web for prices. This means the comparison service scans retail web pages to retrieve the prices, instead of relying on the retailers to supply them. This method is also sometimes called 'scraping' information. Some, mostly smaller, independent sites solely use this method, to get prices directly from the websites that it is using for the comparison. Yet another approach is to collect data is through Crowdsourcing. This lets the price comparison engine collect data from almost any source without the complexities of building a crawler or the logistics of setting up data feeds at the expense of lower coverage comprehensiveness. Sites that use this method rely on visitors contributing pricing data. Unlike discussion forums, which also collect visitor input, price comparison sites that use this method combine data with related inputs and add it to the main database though collaborative filtering, artificial intelligence, or human labor. Data contributors may be rewarded for the effort through prizes, cash, or other social incentives.

Business models Price comparison sites typically do not charge users anything to use the site. Instead, they are monetized through payments from retailers who are listed on the site. Depending on the particular business model of the comparison shopping site, retailers either pay a flat fee to be included on the site, pay a fee each time a user clicks through to the retailer web site, or pay every time a user completes a specified action—for example, when they buy something or register with their e-mail address. Comparison shopping sites obtain large product data feeds covering many different retailers from affiliate networks such as LinkShare and Commission Junction. There are also companies that specialize in data feed consolidation for the purpose of price comparison and that charge users for accessing this data. When products from these feeds are displayed on their sites they earn money each time a visitor clicks through to the merchant's site and buys something. Search results may be sorted by the amount of payment received from the merchants listed on the website. large price comparison sites. In addition to comparing tangible goods, some sites compare prices of services, such as insurance, credit cards, phone bills, and money transfer.

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Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization (SEO), paid search engine marketing (PPC – Pay Per Click), e-mail marketing, content marketing, and (in some sense) display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing is commonly confused with referral marketing, as both forms of marketing use third parties to drive sales to the retailer. The two forms of marketing are differentiated, however, in how they drive sales, where affiliate marketing relies purely on financial motivations, while referral marketing relies more on trust and personal relationships. Ad – Sales :- advertising sales agent, sometimes referred to as an advertising executive, sells advertising space to businesses and individuals , They will contact potential clients, make sales presentations, maintain client accounts and often work under pressure to meet sales quotas.

Comparison Sites: SMARTPRIX, PRICEJUGAAD, PRICE RAJA , JUNGLEE.

However, some combination of these two approaches is most frequently used. Some search engines are starting to blend information from standard feeds with information from sites where product stock keeping units (SKU) are unavailable. Empirical projects that assessed the functionality and performance of page-wise SSC engines (AKA bots) exist. These studies demonstrate that no best or parsimonious shopping bot exists with respect to price advantage.

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Top ten price comparison websites in India are :

1) Compare.buyhatke .

2) Trivago 3) MySmartPrice 4) 91mobiles 5) Smartprix 6) Compareindia.news18 7) PriceDekho 8) Compareraja 9) FindYogi 10) Scandid

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CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOY USED FOR CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

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4. Methodology for customer acquisition for Bonusapp 4.1 PROCEDURE A proper step by step procedure was followed in order to conduct the campus ambassador program for MySmartPrice which has been briefly explained in the steps below

1.Data Collection : The first step involved is collection of keywords which are synonym of campus ambassador .So we have collected key words like Brand Ambassador , Campus Cadet, Campus influencer etc. These keywords were helpful to reach more number of students all over India.

2. Recruiting Campus Ambassadors : After Collection of the keywords we have chosen Linkedin as the platform. Using these keywords we used to search for the students who have already been a Campus Ambassador for different Top Companies and Brands . The Strategy used by us here is that we used to make the connections with students from the CEO’s Linkedin Account and convey the students about the Student OutReach program so that it would be more effective for the students who get recruited as Campus Ambassadors would be having an idea about what their work would be. Daily we used to connect hundreds of students and we have Connected with 7000 Students across India through Linkedin.

The next step involved is we used to send the students message that:

“Hi <Student Name>, I am the founder of MySmartPrice which is a leading startup with $11M funding. I wanted to connect with you regarding our new student outreach program we are going to launch. Can you please share your mobile number to discuss this in detail or call 7995229059. Regards, Sitakanta

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After Collection of the phone numbers of the students we used to call them and explain briefly about their Role, Responsibilities, and the perks they would be availing . We used to select them on the basis their communication skills, Past experience as Campus Ambassadors and their Interest towards work as a Campus Ambassador. Once selected as a Campus Ambassador they would be receiving an offer letter.

ABOUT CAMPUS AMBASSADOR PROGRAM:

TASK GIVEN TO THE CAMPUS AMBASSADORS 1. Refer students from other colleges than theirs. 2. Post the contest poster and its details on various social media Platform platforms each day. 3. Campus Ambassadors can also participate as an Entrepreneur & create their team. 4. Participants task is to get the download for Bonusapp with their referral code. 5. Certificate, letter of recommendation & cash prizes to be won by ambassadors. 6. Rs. 3,50,000 Cash prizes to be won in total.

First Task: The first task given to the Campus Ambassadors was to refer other students for Mysmartprice campus ambassador program, where they must refer the students studying in different colleges and not the same bunch of students studying in the same college. This way we used to get many referrals from the campus ambassadors. From those referrals we used to connect with them through phone and explain them regarding the campus ambassador program and the perks that they would get being a campus ambassador.

Type of response Accepted CA Not Interested

No. of response 352 336

Not Picking

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Table no. 4.1: Responses from Referrals

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Responses from referrals

8% accepted CA

47%

not intrested

45%

not picking

Image 4.1: Responses from Referrals

After completion of first task by the end of the month of May we appointed more than 1000 Campus Ambassadors from different colleges all over India. After completion of the appointment of campus ambassadors .We started sending the contest related information to the campus ambassadors and introducing them to Bonusapp which is a subsidiary of MySmartPrice and that they are coming up with the contest called "STUDENT ENTREPRENEUR OF THE MONTH CHALLENGE" powered by Bonusapp, which is designed to help young minds to demonstrate leadership on campus, also aims to reward students with passion for entrepreneurship and who have demonstrated a drive and determination to succeed. The purpose of "STUDENT ENTREPRENEUR OF THE MONTH CHALLENGE" is to assist a motivated, driven student and future business leader. We believe in the generation of today's students who are the employers of tomorrow. The future of our country will be forged by the entrepreneurial spirit of today’s generation.

This is the Pan India contest open for students of all batches & Streams and has prize money of rupees 2.5 lakhs, which includes a mega prize of rupees 1 lakh.

The Entire information about the contest has been mailed to campus ambassadors .For further queries we also gave them the helpline number. We thought conversation with them would be more effective we started calling them and explaining them about the contest details and what are their roles and responsibilities as campus ambassador.

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Second Task: The Second step for the campus ambassadors is to promote the contest through social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Whatsapp, instagram where the campus ambassadors had to post about the contest in these platforms using particular hashtags, this was done in order to create a buzz or virality, so that we can reach large number of people through the social media.

4.2 Motivating and Retention of Campus Ambassadors Motivation and retention of interest of the campus Ambassadors was one of the most important requirement in order to make this project a success. On the basis of our conversations with the campus Ambassadors we would judge the interest and capability of the campus ambassadors to perform in the tasks and encourage them to perform more. Here the idea was to make sure that all the campus ambassadors feel privileged about being a campus ambassador, and excited to move out of their comfort zone and build themselves. Being a campus ambassador would help them build their communication skills, leadership skills and other competencies which would be useful in their careers.

As mentioned previously these campus ambassadors where given the task of referring students from colleges other than theirs, we received a tremendous response from many campus ambassadors. Looking at that response the whole team working for this challenge got motivated and we doubled the efforts from our side as well. A total of around 1200 students were referred by the existing campus ambassadors, as we aimed towards quality than quantity all the students referred were called and the details about the contest, perks of being a campus ambassador and their roles and responsibilities a were explained to them in detail . Each call took around 8 to 10 minutes which included doubts clarification also. Few of the campus ambassadors had recommended more than 50 students from different colleges, these campus ambassadors were one of the top performers and were also awarded incentives which motivated them to perform better in the upcoming tasks.

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Benefits given to campus ambassadors to motivate and retain their interest: 1. Incentives given to the top performing campus ambassadors. 2. Letter of recommendation from the Co-founder Mr. Sitakanta Ray. 3. Paid Internship opportunity at Mysmartprice to the top 15 Campus ambassadors. 4. If any of their friends or family shop from Mysmartprice through referral link, the campus ambassadors will receive a portion of it as monetary benefits. 5. Personal attention given to all the queries. 6. Conducted campus ambassador meet-up at Mysmartprice office, where the CEO interacted, motivated and clarified doubts regarding the contest.

7. Rs.1 lakh cash Prize for the best performing campus ambassador in Student Entrepreneur of the Month challenge.

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4.3 Student Entrepreneur of the Month Challenge. Student Entrepreneur of the Month challenge is a Digital pan India contest conducted by Bonusapp a subsidiary of MySmartPrice, where students from all across India will be participating. The Prize amount for the Contest is Rs. One lakh for the winner, there are other exciting prizes as well such as Mile stone Prize which is a team prize, prize for maximum no. of registrations or downloads and a lucky winner. All of these prize make a grand total of Rs.3.5 Lakhs.

This amount of Rs. 3.5 Lakhs is a part of CAC i.e. Customer Acquisition Cost.

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4.4 Challenges Faced and their solutions

1. Limited contact search on Linkedin. Solution:  Advanced search using various key words and different qualifications.  Upgrading the Linkedin account to premium  Area wise search.

2. Loss of time because explaining the details on a phone call took a lot of time and sometimes people disagreed to participate. Solution : As soon as we had the details of the candidate a google form consisting the details of the campus ambassador program and the perks that they would get , if interested further they were requested to fill and submit the google form ,this was sent to a few candidates as a trial procedure and It was found that it reduced the call time and increased the success rate. 3. Few candidates could not be connected due to signal problems or unavailability. Solution: A simple SMS was sent to the candidates who could not be connected via phone. The SMS was as follows:

It was found that few people contacted again and were excited about the campus ambassador program.

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FINDINGS :  Customer orientation is the most important element in this project because it is only element of communicating with the candidates about the product/ service and the tasks of a campus ambassadors.  Communicating with the candidates in a polite manner no matter what mood they are in or what type of doubts they may ask.  Concentrating on the content which has to be delivered to the candidates about the company, the newly launched application and their task as a campus ambassador.  Modifying the content by focusing on best points by which candidates get attracted and also changing of deliverability to one individual candidate to another by their reactions.  Making a follow up call to the candidates who were busy or did not give their final confirmation during the first call.  Focusing on the quality of campus ambassadors being selected and not just the number is important because just taking candidates as campus ambassadors who would end up not performing well would be a loss to company .  Maintaining a positive attitude towards the project at times of low productivity.  The above points are the most important key learnings which are derived out of this project of ‘Customer Acquisition’.

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CONCLUSION MySmartPrice is a platform which lets you discover the best products across a wide array of categories that include Mobiles, Electronics, Computers, Fashion and Lifestyle, Cameras, Books, Appliances and Personal Care. It was established with the goal of creating the best online shopping research and discovery destination. MySmartPrice price comparison engine enables you in finding the best price, as well as deals and offers from all major e-commerce stores in India. Our latest offering, MSP Fashion, assists you in finding the ideal look for any season, and features brands from all over the globe. Bonusapp is a subsidiary of MySmartPrice which was launched in 2018 to provide cashbacks and coupons on every purchase and this project was majorly based on customer acquisition and growth marketing for Bonusapp. Customer acquisition is one of the most important tasks carried out by any company to get customers for their products or services. Customer acquisition has to be carried out in a very systematic and planned way in order to attain maximum results. The most important things to keep in mind before going for customer acquisition is KYC 1,KYC2, KYC3 and KYP i.e know your company, know your customer, know your competitor and know your product , with this knowledge it gets easier for us to know how to enter the market and create a position in the market. Customer interaction also creates a huge difference in their way of perceiving the product or service. In this case where the primary target market was students a proper explanation of the campus ambassador process was important which would in turn decide the success of the project. It was found that most of the campus ambassadors were able to correctly receive the information given to them, and they could succeed in their task of creating a brand awareness and getting new customers for Bonusapp. The above project of MysmartPrice helped me to engage in social media activities to promote bonus app through social media platforms It helped me to understand how corporates run their projects, Project management, Team management, Team work, Meeting dead-lines, Creativity skills.

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REFERENCES

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https://www.business.gov.au/info/plan-and-start/develop-your-business-plans/marketing

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_plan

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/davelavinsky/2013/09/30/marketing-plan-template-exactlywhat-to-include/#7bc329a23503

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https://www.ngdata.com/

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

https://www.mysmartprice.com/

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https://www.bonusapp.in/

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https://www.google.co.in/

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https://www.google.co.in/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi&authuser=0

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_marketing

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram

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