Introduction

This company was once an up-n-coming Indian Brand that was registered under Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd but today it has been concretized in the list of India’s top corporate conglomerates. Today the company has come a long way from their beginning and is headquartered at Gurugram, Haryana. This enterprise was established back in 2016, when it was co-founded by the power-couple Varun Alagh and Ghazal Alagh with the sole aim of providing an ever-present Indian alternative to the regional customers who wished to ride the tide of organic products and shop only for non-toxic or chemical-free products.

Varun Alagh has an extensive background of working with FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) industry and has previously held a position at Coca-Cola and Hindustan Lever, while his wife, Ghazal Alagh has been a working as a corporate coach in the IT sector, and now she’s the chief at Mamaearth.Today, this company is known for its mass-production of reliable and safe cosmetics. Mamaearth manufacturers and retails these cosmetics especially in the market of baby care products for little kids.

Recognizing the need of the market – Targeted customer acquisition

In India, ‘cost-friendly’ generally equals to ‘consumer-friendly’. But without compromising on their tagline, i.e. ‘Goodness Inside’, this company has climbed up the profit ladder. How was this possible?

The answer is that there has been a noticeable paradigm shift in the customer attitude and especially in the well-informed millennials. They generally have an inkling of changing their preferences from artificial or chemical to natural commodities, especially ones that come under the ambit of body care ointments, or skincare masks, pastes or creams, like non-chemical moisturizers, face washes, hair care lotions, essential herbal oils, etc. This is why, notwithstanding the aforementioned change in attitude, the consumers cannot get the much-needed guarantee that they are utilizing the best quality products.

Profit in pandemic – A blitzkrieg online sale strategy

Mamaearth has had its own record-breaking sales in the middle of the pandemic where other businesseswere dropping out of the corporate sky like feeble flies. This is mainly because of Mamaearth’s excellent and strategic use of online platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, etc. Generally, these e-commerce moguls design their contracts in such ways that do not let the companies availing their services turn into bigwigs.

There is always some ceiling to your profits and these bigwigs ensure that the embryonic companies remain dependable on their services for delivering their own products. But Mamaearth circumvented this ceiling and surpassed it by developing its own SEO efficiency and customer acquisition techniques. Not only did this bolster their sales, but it also made them independent of these corporate giants.

An established online brand – Branching out from the shadow of the big trees

When one develops such a strong and firm online presence, the customers are bound to feel associated with your products. It is the age-old, ‘use honey if you want to catch more flies’ strategy, but this company has implemented it very efficiently and its results can be seen in Mamaearth’s annual turnover. Starting with an income base of Rs. 17 crore in financial year of 2019, today this company currently boasts an annual yearly revenue which is upwards of Rs. 710 crore ($100 million).

Cultivating and promoting their personal brand has allowed Mamaearth to expand their customer acquisition horizons even beyond Amazon, Flipkart or Snapdeal’s reach. Today their business model has become an hybrid illustration of a standard commodity-selling start-up and now Mamaearth offers their natural products to the online customers either via direct to consumers platforms but it has also branched out to more conventional and disconnected stores.

Due to all these steps, not only has the Mamaearth brand flourished throughout the country, but a copyrighted version of search algorithms and other digital coding programs has opened up a new revenue stream for Mamaearth, since now companies have to line-up for getting their permission to use those programs and algorithms.

Simplicity and range in copyrights – The widespread IP policy of Mamaearth

As mentioned earlier, the algorithms of Mamaearth are copyrighted whereby they receive royalty checks at the end of each fiscal quarter from various users who wish to engage and avail the services of their search algorithms. Mamaearth licenses its SEO targeting algorithms to other wishful entrepreneurs and via legally binding agreements, assigns to them aportion of its own IP rights over its algorithms, which is limited to their use for a certain stipulated period of time. This again is

The brand has also protected its brand name by trademarking it, copyrighting it and it has also received a wordmark and device mark for the same.Moreover, since Mamaearth creates so many varied and unique list of health care or hygiene products, it has patented each of the unique blends of ingredients that are used in such products. The company has also achieved protection for the unique design and packaging of their product. The designscarry a registered copyright and also has a design patent except for when the accessories of their products are involved in their functionality of the product, such as their facewash bottle with an in-built scrubber. 

Such an all-around protection for its brand name has secured the company from any frivolous or malicious litigative attempts of usurping its brand. It also protects the company if any other competitor tries to replicate their one-of-a-kind products.

External funding and influencer-oriented brand endorsement – A marketing masterstroke

The finance reports of Mamaearth are a no less than a fable. Start at the beginning and then go on enjoying, because it’s a really good read. Investors like Rohit Bansal or Kunal Bahl have contributed in giving Mamaearth their capital. Other hedge funds and investment firms like Sequoia India, Fireside Ventures, Sequoia India, etc have also poured in a lot of dough in Mamaearth’s war chest. Rishabh Mariwala and Shilpa Shetty Kundra are some other notable ones amongst so many other investors which have confidently lent their capital to Mamaearth.

As per the reports of Crunchbase, this company has raised total funding of more than $23.3 Million. Back in September, 2017, Mamaearth attained the million-dollar mark, and following which, the company bagged four-million-dollar influx in their Series A funding round in September, 2018. Further in January 2020, Mamaearth raised eighteen million dollars on their next go at the funding series.

Conclusion:

In the trendy world of social media marketing, reels, photos and Instagram live sessions are all the buzz nowadays and the social media influencers have firm grasp on this perfecting this art. So hiring them for endorsing one’s product is again a good strategy.

Shilpa Shetty Kundra is a glaring example of such a celebrity who has invested a substantial capital in direction of company’s growth. Not only social media influencers but Mamaearth works with almost five hundred or more bloggers for spreading its content. Blogs and short-writeups are catchier to a general customer than research papers. This helps the company to maintain and sustain a powerful online presence.

When an influencer endorses some brand like Mamaearth, the content travels throughout the individuals in their local area and it is portrayedin a overhyped tone since the main intention of such influencers is to impact people around them. They explain and educate their followers about thelab-testedproducts and clinically proven results of companies such as that ofMamaearth.

Shilpa Shetty Kundra has become a brand ambassador and investor of the brand and this has accelerated and expedited the growth and progress of this company to an astronomical scale. Shilpa herself has an amazing media outreach and a strong online presence on all social media and she has used, engaged and implemented all the recourses which were at her disposal to promote the brand that she believes in.