“The only way to be successful is to deliver value to the customer and keep on delivering it”.
By- Mr. Deepinder Goyal, Co-Founder, CEO, Zomato
As everyone knows Zomato is India’s leading food delivery platform. But did you ever think about how zomato became market leader?
Over the years it has become popular online food delivery platform. Zomato has always hit the right note with its target audience. With continuously adapting to market dynamics, leveraging technology, and maintaining strong brand identity Zomato has not just disrupted the food delivery industry but has also set new benchmarks for digital platforms worldwide. Just like new startup Zomato faces many ups and downs but with the use of great digital marketing strategies Zomato reached the pinnacle of success in the food delivery industry.
In this case study we will learn about entire journey of Zomato from startup to become market leader, What marketing strategies they adopt, and more.
In year 2008 the story of Zomato began with two IIT graduates Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddha while working at Bain Company. The idea of delivering food online comes to mind when Deepinder notices their colleagues standing in long queue in cafeteria waiting for lunch. So they thought how much time we can save if we didn’t have to wait and get our favorite meals at our doorstep whenever we required.
Then they started providing online food delivery services named “FoodieBay”. In the early phase of this startup they listed food restaurants in Delhi NCR. After some time they grew their online food delivery business in other metro cities like Banglore, Mumbai, and Kolkata.
In 2010, founder saw growth of FoodieBay then they started to expand this project to audiences outside India too and avoid the confusion of FoodieBay and eBay so they changed name from FoodieBay to Zomato. They started online meal delivery through the Zomato website and app. By 2019 Zomato had expanded globally and operating in 24 countries and over 10,000 cities.
Zomato- Vission and Mission
Zomato owners state that the vision of Zomato is “to be the global platform when someone is looking for food locally.”
Co-founder of Zomato Deepinder Goyal declared the mission of Zomato is “to provide better food with safety for more people.”
Acquisitions and Business Model of Zomato
Acquisitions of Zomato
In the year 2014 in July, Zomato acquired “Menu Mania” which is New Zealand digitizing restaurant menu.
In August 2014 they acquired “Lunchtime” which is restaurant search service in Czech Republic.
In August 2014 they again acquired “ Obedovat” restaurant service in Slovakia.
In September 2014 this company acquired “Gastronauci” which is Poland based Restaurant search service.
In December of 2014 they acquired the “Ciband” search service of the Italian restaurant.
In January 2015 Zomato acquired “UrbanSpoon” which is Seattle based food portal to enter in US market for approximately $52 million.
In April 2015 this company acquired “MapleGraph” cloud based point of sale product for restaurants.
In April 2015 they also acquired “NexTable” which is table reservation platform.
In 2016 this company acquired Gurgaon based technology startup “Sparse Labs” and after they changed its name to “ Zomato Trace”.
In 2017 Zomato acquired “Runnr” for hyper local delivery service for $40 million in September month.
In September 2018 this company acquired “ToungeStun” which is corporate catering service for $18 million.
In January 2020 they acquired “Uber Eats” for $206 million.
In June 2022 they acquired “Blinkit” which is previously known as Groofers for approximately $569 million.
Business Model of Zomato Private Ltd. 2024
Zomato continues to be innovative and provides services to the people. They focus on multiple services and revenue streams to create wide ranging ecosystem in the food industry.
Funding and Investors of Zomato
Zomato raised $2.1 billion funds from notable investors like Info Edge, Ant Financial, and Sequoia Capital.
In year 2021 they raised $1.3 billion funds from IPO.
Zomato hold its solid position in market after investing in strategic technology and acquisitions like Uber Eats.
How Does Zomato Makes Money?
Commissions: By charging commission fees from restaurants for food delivery and table booking they earn revenue.
Advertising: Generates income from restaurant advertising and promotional events.
Event Ticketing: Zomato also generates revenue by selling event tickets from their official website and apps.
B2B supplies: Supplying hyperpure quality food to other restaurants.
Zomato Key Financial Data for 2024
Here are some important market financial data of Zomato.
Market Cap
Rs.244590 (Cr.)
Current price
Rs.277
High/Low
Rs.298/114
Stock P/E
330
Book Value
Rs.24.1
Dividend Yield
0.00%
ROCE
1.14%
ROE
1.12%
Face value
Re.1
As on (29 Nov)
Zomato’s Winning Marketing Strategies: A Blueprint for Success in 2016
The rise of Zomato is paralleled with the rise of digital marketing in India. In 2016 Zomato effectively markets itself in way that attracts people. Here are the marketing strategies that Zomato used to rule the online food industry.
Using Visual Media to Enhance Marketing
Powerful Paid Marketing Tactics
Dynamic SMS and Email Marketing Strategy
Social Media Marketing
SEO Strategy
1. Using Visual Media to Enhance Marketing
As we study Zomato uses both traditional marketing and online digital marketing strategies to spread awareness and target their audience. Using catchy punch lines on visual billboard advertisements attracts customers attention and compels them to order food online from their platform. For example Zomato uses this punch line “ Tu Cheese Bdi Hai Mast Mast. Love things extra cheesy? Get food exactly the way you like it.”
Zomato’s branding strategy fully relies on strong Content. Their visual marketing helps them reach less tech savvy customers and maximize the use of their delivery app.
2. Powerful Paid Marketing Tactics
Using digital marketing strategies to boost the awareness of business and paid marketing is one of the approaches of digital marketing strategies. Zomato took advantage of this marketing strategy very well.
By running Google ads Zomato concentrates on bringing organic traffic to their mobile app and website to drive sales. These ads appear with organic search results, helping the food tech giant identify useful keywords for future use.
Search ads
Zomato’s digital marketing strategy uses search ads to enhance its online presence. Search advertising method that allows online advertisements to be placed on the website
Display ads
Zomato uses online graphic advertising through different formats like audio, video, and images to promote itself.
3. Dynamic SMS and Email Marketing Strategy
There is no doubt that Zomato knows very well how to nail the email marketing strategy. It has one of the best and most compelling email marketing strategies.
Use of catchy subject line with the crisp call to action strategy compels audience to order food online from their platform. For example Zomato sent an email that showed what a biryani’s CV would look like.
With email marketing, Zomato performs unbeatable marketing in SMS marketing by sending messages to their target audience according to their mood and habits.
4. Social Media Marketing
Zomato targets the audience who fall under age of 18-35 years old. That’s why the food technology titan needs to keep its social media marketing campaigns up to the standards. Zomato stamped its presence on everywhere like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube with millions of followers and subscribers. Zomato uses different types of social media marketing strategies to keep their audience engaged with their unique content marketing like
Meme Marketing
Influencer Marketing Strategy
Emotion Marketing
Youtube Marketing
According to our sources zomato’s followers on different platforms:
Youtube: 569K subscribers
Twitter: 1.5M followers
Instagram: 1M followers
Facebook: 1.9M followers
Meme Marketing
Memes are going trend on social media platforms and Zomato uses this trend as a golden opportunity to do marketing. Here are some examples of meme marketing that they used as marketing strategy.
Influence Marketing Strategies Used by Zomato in 2016
In 2016 Zomato collaborated with macro and micro influencers to enhance the brand’s popularity among people.
By providing relatable content to the audience influencer marketing helps Zomato to build trust and credibility among their target audience.
Social media influencers, food bloggers, and vloggers create relatable content to relate with the target audience.
Feel Good Marketing by Zomato
Humans are emotional and Zomato directly hits on the emotion of their target audience.
Zomato takes its marketing strategies to the next level by connecting with its audiences emotionally.
Using local language to target audiences is very good move by Zomato to connect their potential audiences emotionally.
How YouTube Marketing Boosts Zomato’s Success?
Zomato uses YouTube ads to target specific demographics audiences to ensure that their YouTube marketing strategies reach the right audience.
By giving paid promotions to Youtube vloggers creating engaging and entertaining content to resonate with the audience.
Zomato got 63.6% engagement rate on YouTube by creating unique entertaining content.
How Zomato’s SEO Strategies Secured Market Dominance?
Zomato drives 98.44% of organic traffic from SEO competent strategies and remaining traffic comes from paid advertisements. Here is the full proof of how Zomato became marketing king by using SEO strategies.
Zomato targets over 348K extensive keywords like “food near me”, “online food”, “ online delivery” and “restaurants near me” to rank high on search engines.
By creating informative content on website blogs, customer reviews, and restaurant ratings they drive 197.3K monthly organic traffic on Zomato website and app.
Zomato increased its domain authority by internal linking and has over 5.2M backlinks domains.
Over 54 million pages on website help in achieving high ranking on search engines.
SWOT Analysis of Zomato
S= STRENGTHS
W= WEAKNESS
O= OPPORTUNITIES
T= THREATS
STRENGTHS
Globally Accessible: Zomato expanded its services worldwide and encouraged its reach internationally to create global footprint.
Innovative Technology: Zomato uses innovative technology which enhances the overall user experience.
Strong Brand Recognition: Zomato has built high trust and strong brand identity among its customers.
Diverse Offerings: Zomato offers multiple services to their customers like food delivery, grocery delivery, table reservations, and event ticket booking.
WEAKNESS
High Competition: Online food delivery market is very high competitive with strong competitors like Swiggy, Uber Eats, and more.
Operational Challenges: Delivering food across multiple cities is quite complex to manage logistics.
Heavy Discount Offers: Using heavy discount offers for promotional purposes affects profit margins.
OPPORTUNITIES
Market Expansion: Expanding business globally is significant opportunity to enter into new regions.
Advancement in Technology: Using the latest technology improved customer services and operational efficiency.
THREATS
Economic Affetcs: Fluctuations in economy affect consumer spending on dining food.
Cybersecurity Risk: Zomato is digital platform that has risk of cyber security and data breaches.
What Makes Zomato Digital Marketing Strategy Unique?
Here is the reason that makes zomato marketing strategy unique:
Launch of Zomato Gold
In 2017 Zomato launch “Zomato Gold” premium service with additional offers to Zomato gold members. The launch of Zomato Gold is masterstroke by zomato to increase app monetization.
In August 2018 they started hyper pure which ensures that food is delivered to restaurants with full hygiene and safety.
On Time or Free Campaign
Zomato following Domino’s on time or free food strategy in December 2019. Zomato apply this offer on all food items not only pizza just like Domino’s.
Customers avail this offer by just confirming order from application if delivery agent doesn’t reach to you on time then your money will be back in your digital wallet.
Zomato Premiere League
Zomato starts “Zomato Premiere League” in cricket IPL session to attract customers. The brand shared great deals and discounts from participating restaurants. Customers could also win more discounts by guessing the match winner.
Zomato Cloud Kitchen
Zomato started its cloud kitchen operations in 2018. This move allowed them to expand their food delivery services by partnering with restaurants that operate delivery only kitchens.
Introducing Blinkit by Zomato
In June 2022 Zomato acquired Blinkit for approximately $568 million. Blinkit’s integration with Zomato’s core food delivery business provides a synergistic advantage, helping Zomato maintain a competitive edge in the quick commerce market.
Final Words
Zomato’s remarkable journey showcases the power of innovation, digital marketing, and customer centric strategies. Zomato’s success comes from turning challenges into opportunities, focusing on technology, and understanding what customers need. As it grows and innovates Zomato is great example of entrepreneurship, digital change, and smart marketing.
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