How are Indian online shopping websites celebrating Holi with you?

Indian festivals have always been a great opportunity for brands to promote their products and services and milk the happy, guilt free splurging phase of Indian consumers. We have always seen big retailers like Shopper’s Stop, Lifestyle, Big Bazaar coming up with flash sale and rock bottom prices and it was only about time that even online shopping websites start marketing the same way. Nothing appeals to the price sensitive Indian consumers more than a sale, discount, free coupon or an attractive deal on their favorite brands. So be it Holi, Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Good Friday, Dusshera, you will always see the usual subject lines and display banner messages which go like

“This <insert festival name> get flat XX% discount on your favorite brands. Shop now at <insert shopping website name>”

or

“Celebrate <insert festival name> with <insert shopping website name>. Flat XX% + XX% discount on your favorite brands” Shop Now Using code HOLI2014, EIDSALE, DIWALIPATAKHA

The problem here is, the campaigns, apart from including the festival name speak nothing else in their communication. It is impossible to differentiate one campaign from another as there is absolutely no exclusivity, uniqueness, conversation or connect whatsoever.

Here are some of the brands who want to play Holi with me this season, the promotions look extremely bland and impersonal.

Flipkart

Flipkart sends me an e-mail with the below subject line.

Why cant you be simple and clear?

The email inside, apart from having little splash of colors at the bottom, didn’t talk anything about Holi, or why the sale, or is it exclusive on Flipkart. It was a standard sales mailer with no celebratory communication to it, either in the creative or in the copy.

I’ll buy, but first tell me why? Because it’s holi.

However, they did a smart thing by making the entire Splash Sale an event. Adding the urgency bit to it. This at least would give the user a feel that these offers will last only for a specific time period and will not be there after Holi is over.

Smart addition.

Snapdeal

Snapdeal, a very close competitor of Flipkart was also trying to tap the Holi festival with it’s own email marketing efforts. It scores a little better than Flipkart in terms of communication and creative, however, its nothing different, other than a few colors added to the subject line and to the usual “discount” mailers that they send regularly. Nothing unique to the festival of holi and those colors plus this email can easily be used again for a Rangoli Diwali Discount mailer later in the year.

The subject line is a little better than Flipkart’s email and would have definitely resulted in better open rates because they kept it simple. Instead of “colorful festivities” it was “Big Saving Offers” which will any day click more.

How do you go colorful by spending online?

The email creative started off well by wishing the consumers “Holi Hai” and then start selling whatever they have to. The copy however didn’t make sense at all “Holi Offers For Colorful You”. The Indian consumers, specially the internet audience is damn smart and wont fall for in your face marketing during festivals and hence it becomes important for brands to talk to them. On a personal note, a simple human holi wishes with a discount code would have worked a lot better for me than these.

Yay. Colors. Let me buy.

YeBhi

YeBhi.com comes first in sending the most generalized, forced fitted email communication in this Holi Promotion bandwagon. The subject line format was interesting. Having said that, the email experts would be in a better position to tell us about the spam score of subject lines with special characters in them.

Subject line yebhi hoti hai?

The very first line says “All products at great discounts!! Shop for HOLI now”. I dont know since when did we start shopping FOR Holi. An OLX campaign here, something like “This Holi Season, wear something old and sell something old” would have made more sense than “shop for holi now”.

The mailer would have been a little close to being okay had it stopped after giving out the 3 colorful circles with promo code and changed the headline from “Splash colours to your dressing” to something that makes more sense.

Yatra

Talking about simple, clear conversation is where Yatra aces the Holi Promotion.

Salman Khan’s face. Long Weekend Sale. Holi Wishes. Boom. Sold.

The above display banner gets almost everything correct.

• Clear and simple copy – Grab Attractive travel deals
• Context Setting – Looking to travel this Holi Weekend? (Will you not nod after reading this line? If yes, There is your conversation, you are now talking)
• What’s the offer? – Discounts, Promo Code, YHOLI.
• Call to Action – Placed strategically on Salman Khan, because who wouldnt notice that, although the entire banner is clickable.

What do we know? What have we learnt?

1. It is very important to have conversations in online promotion. Every piece of your marketing effort should talk to the consumers for it to not sound like you are desperate to sell.
2. Don’t try to be a part of the herd and follow the trade. If you are going to do that at least do it like no one else is already doing it.
3. Holi is not a reason for any indian consumer to shop and splurge anyway. So chill and dont make a big deal out of it.