Introduction
Dabur is one of the oldest Indian suppliers of Ayurvedic products, occupying a leading position in the national and global market. It offers customers a wide range of products, from medicinal ointments to skin and hair care cosmetic products. The company’s production combines ancient Indian Ayurvedic traditions with modern technologies (Ray, 2019). The ingredients of branded products are plants grown on their own environmentally friendly plantations (Ray, 2019). This case focuses on analyzing the leading marketing solutions and advertising companies. Particular attention is paid to the use of various ways of selling products. Dabur actively uses modern channels for its marketing activities. The company’s main advantage is a wide range of products of various price categories. Consequently, Dabur has many opportunities to develop and improve its trading. However, the company’s main advantage is using social networks as an authoritative source of image creation and product promotion.
Therefore, the primary purpose of this case study is the analysis and evaluation of the strategies used by the company. It should be noted that the company uses various approaches to creating videos and interacting with blogs to implement an effective promotion strategy. Social networks are used in marketing as targeted channels that allow marketers to conduct a constant two-way personalized dialogue with each consumer to increase awareness, knowledge, commitment, and interest (Deepa, 2021). Marketing communications in social networks have several undeniable prospects: social networks are becoming popular among all age groups. Reaching the youth audience as much as possible, there are opportunities for detailed segmentation of the target audience and customization of the communications complex for it.
Marketing Mix Strategies Used by Dabur
The principle of the company’s formation is based on the concept of combining the colossal experience of Ayurvedic medicine with advanced technologies of modern production. Its wide range includes body and hair care products, traditional medicinal powders based on plants, multicomponent formulations, and oils, as well as biologically active additives in the form of tablet form familiar to modern Western consumers, various medicinal ointments, and cosmetic care products (Ray, 2019). About 80% of the company’s total revenue comprises Ayurvedic products (Ray, 2019). When creating new drugs and dosage forms, special attention is paid to improving their bioavailability, efficiency, and safety. Therefore, the company’s primary approach is to distribute different types of products that will be available to different customers (Ray, 2019). This allows Dabur to control pricing and offer various solutions for customers of different categories. Thus, due to this approach, the company’s recognition increases since its products are accessible to all categories of the population (Kotler & Armstrong, 2022). In addition, when entering a new market, the company can counter its assortment by expanding or narrowing it based on the needs of consumers in specific countries.
Price
Every class of consumers may afford the prices of Dabur’s diverse range of goods. All Dabur products are manufactured with natural components since returning to nature is one of the company’s main aspirations. According to the company’s devoted customer base, all of Dabur’s products are essentially organic (Ray, 2019). Prices are maintained low for its affordable items, and a competitive pricing approach is used. To expand the client base, more focus is placed on product quality, and prices are kept low (Ray, 2019). Its primary goal is to sell more units but at a lower profit. Dabur must adhere to a competitive price policy for its non-premium items in order to maintain itself over the long term in a competitive market with big rivals.
Promotion
One of the advantages of the company is the active use of social networks as a source of traffic. This approach allows Dabur to increase its reach and brand awareness significantly. Dabur applies a strategy aimed at demonstrating various social problems in its advertising campaigns (Ray, 2019). This allows the organization to establish a closer relationship with consumers. Consequently, such solutions create in people a particular image of a company that seeks to take care of various social factors and maintain the naturalness of its products. Another aspect of the promotion is active interaction with bloggers.
Dabur uses Twitter as one of the leading social networks where they can promote their products through hashtags. The company’s approach to holding such events is particularly unique, as they strive to provide viewers with high-quality entertainment content in which everyone can participate (Ray, 2019). The company often conducts advertising campaigns under various hashtags that are associated with certain products that can solve a specific problem. The advantage of such a strategy is that Dabur does not seek to aggressively promote its products. Their task is to demonstrate the value of what they produce and how the consumer can use it.
Place
Dabur strives to give its customers the most pleasing experience possible. In an effort to enhance user experience, they have started to concentrate more on website improvement. From the home page of their website, customers may place an order and browse the complete product selection (Ray, 2019). The website includes information on the company’s varied line of ayurvedic and herbal products, as well as on the social activities in which it participates and the different ways in which members of the public or consumers may work with the business. Dabur underlined its presence across online grocery stores to broaden its consumer base and reach. In fact, Amazon maintains a specific page only for displaying Dabur’s product line (Ray, 2019). Dabur has been putting much effort into market research since it wants to expand its reach greatly. When a customer accesses the Dabur website, the website sends them to the different available shops and markets. The more choices people have, the more sales the business generates.
Dabur’s Digital Media Campaigns
Social networks are gaining popularity across all age groups, making it possible to contact as many young people as possible with marketing messaging. The target audience can be carefully segmented, and the communications complex can be tailored to suit its needs. Because there is no direct advertising effect, the audience tends to favor the messages of firms. This approach allows Dabur to expand its audience by promoting socially significant videos (Ray, 2019). For a company producing products, the main category of which is cosmetics and body care, it is necessary to create interest in the potential audience. In this case, the company actively focuses on the female audience by promoting such advertising companies as #ILiveNaturally, #The Red Dare, #AmPrettyTough and others (Ray, 2019). Through the use of social advertising and interaction with bloggers, the company can present its vision in the most effective way.
This is achieved due to the fact that the value of the products promoted in this way comes to the fore. Consequently, a clear brand image is created for the buyer since the company touches on essential topics such as the fight against cancer or the destruction of stereotypes. The marketing communications goals in the commercial sphere include: achieving recognition, winning the sympathy of consumers in relation to the brand, and informing the target audience about products and services (Kotler & Armstrong, 2022). Social networks are of particular value to Dabur, as they allow them to track the entire chain of customer loyalty formation and the effectiveness of marketing communications in almost real-time (Deepa, 2021). It should be particularly noted that marketing communications in social networks cannot be considered the primary means of sales. It is a tool for increasing loyalty, which works well in combination with other marketing tools.
The advantages of the company’s strategy are manifested in maintaining a balance in the preparation of entertainment and informational content. The absence of a direct advertising effect in social networks allows the audience to perceive communication from the company more favorably. In the end, online communities form an opinion about the brand and products and spread this opinion throughout the network (Deepa, 2021). It is possible to influence this opinion for commercial purposes with the help of marketing communications in social networks, which also allows the company to manage its reputation, and promptly eliminate the negative in its address (Kotler & Armstrong, 2022). Thus, Dabur uses the right communication strategy in social networks, significantly affecting recognition and success.
Brand Image
The image is dynamic and unstable, differs from different people, and does not always give the brand an objective characteristic of the company’s activities. Reputation is a more rational assessment, which is created in accordance with objective knowledge about the brand. It is formed by the target audience, which is already well acquainted with the organization and has bought its products more than once, so it can assess the quality and service. Image and reputation management solves two main business tasks. The image attracts new customers and motivates them to get to know the brand better, while the reputation keeps them for many years and protects them from competitors (Deepa, 2021). Dabur actively uses social media promotion and does it quite effectively. This is evidenced by data that shows that various advertising companies have gained more reposts and videos on Twitter (Ray, 2019). In addition, Dabur strives to build its activities in social networks by creating various challenges or videos.
Their peculiarity is the appeal to highly social topics, which correlates quite well with what the company produces. Thus, they direct users’ interest toward their products since there is a connection between the social issue and the product. In particular, they focus on a female audience, trying to demonstrate situations that are familiar to many users from different countries (Ray, 2019). Thus, the company achieves omnichannel of its advertising. The company produces image marketing campaigns in order to gather maximum coverage and provoke the audience to a particular behavior.
The task of such promotion is to be remembered and fall into the buyer’s consciousness. The distance between the user and the company is narrowing, and social networks contribute to this rapprochement. The right image builds trust due to the valuable information offered. Since social networks perform one of the essential functions for society – communication and the desire to perform this function focuses a broad audience on a particular resource. This environment can be considered a powerful tool for pursuing interests and controlling consciousness (Kotler & Armstrong, 2022). Through their profiles on the Internet, Dabur can build people’s trust by taking into account their opinions about the product and how to make it better, thereby allowing consumers to participate in promoting the product and expanding their awareness.
Conclusion
Summing up, it should be noted that Dabur company uses modern technologies of marketing companies quite effectively. The organization has a wide range of products that provide customers with the opportunity to choose. In addition, various sources of sales of products are used. Dabur uses many different e-commerce sites and platforms. Consequently, it is possible to reach a broad enough audience to attract and interest them; Dabur uses social networks. The company’s advantage is bloggers’ involvement in creating their own image. In addition, a social advertising strategy is used, allowing them to present the value of the products sold and increase awareness. This approach significantly improves the loyalty of potential customers, which is why Dabur successfully implements such communication strategies with the audience.
All types of marketing communications can be used in social networks: advertising, personal sales, sales promotion, and public relations. Integration of marketing communications in social networks with other marketing tools is also widely practiced. Marketing communications in social networks allow the company to achieve various marketing goals: launching a new product (brand promotion), increasing awareness, increasing loyalty, and improving its image through monitoring, research, and customer information support. Social networks can disseminate information as widely and quickly as possible thanks to reposts and messages, as users are ready to share interesting and valuable information with their friends and subscribers. In this aspect, viral marketing is considered the most effective. Furthermore, the content in social networks remains for a long time so that the company can turn to it even years later. This is an undeniable advantage over traditional media.
Reference
Deepa, E. (2021). Digital marketing a catalyst in creating brand image through customer. Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education (TURCOMAT), 12(4), 1308–1315. Web.
Kotler, P.T., & Armstrong, G. (2022). Principles of Marketing Global Edition. Pearson.
Ray, S. (2019). Dabur’s digital marketing initiatives. IBS Center for Management Research, 1–11.