Marketing Strategies For Startups In India: A Literature Review

Major Influencers of E-commerce Advertising

Question:

Discuss the impact of advertisements on consumers with respect to E-Commerce industries.
 

In the recent years there has been a boom in the number of startups operating within the country. Thus,  this was a topic that interested all the members in our group. Further, marketing in startups is very  different from marketing for a big firm. For starters one has limited resources. It is a difficult decision as  to where the money should be spent. We have tried to answer some questions based on our survey like

• Should a startup focus on product development or product marketing?
• How effective are the different marketing strategies on consumers?
• Has consumer acquisition increased due to the marketing efforts of the different start-ups?

With the help of this project, three major influencers of e-commerce advertisements have been identified. These three major findings have been:

1. The more attractive the tagline of an e-commerce advertisement is, the more people favour the particular brand
2. Advertisements with more broadcast, ie the number of times it is displayed on television will lead to more brand affinity
3. Also, popularity is dependent on the time of the day that the advertisement is displayed on television

Moreover, negative impact of advertisements on the number of channels that the advertisement is aired on has not been established as the statistical test done for the same has turned insignificant. 

The key parameters we considered for filtering articles for literature review included ‘startups’, ‘marketing’, ‘internet startups’, ‘’, ‘Guerilla’, ‘Branding’ and ‘Strategies’. Since our research revolved around the red ocean marketing strategies for start-ups in India, these search parameters were found to be the most relevant. Further we also considered articles focused on articles giving us information on different types of marketing strategies in different scenarios. This gave us a holistic view of the various researches conducted on children.

Given below is the Literature review summary: 

Citation/title	Sample	Environment	Method	Findings/conclusion	Gaps/limitations
Haereid, Mari and Indregard, Solveig (2015). Guerrilla Marketing: A low-cost strategy for startups	12 in-depth interviews of marketing agency employees on 6 case studies.	Interviewee’s Offices	I1.nductive, Deductive Analysis. 2.Six cases are explored in order to properly understand the phenomenon and to analyse whether findings are applicable across cases( holistic case approach), 3.Cross-sectional study 4. In order to explore the phenomenon of guerrilla marketing in depth, a qualitative study has been	1. The phenomenon of guerrilla marketing and how start-ups can use the strategy in the promotion of their products have been explored 2. A framework for launching a guerrilla marketing strategy was developed 3. Through analysis of theoretical articles, additional literature, company interviews, documents and videos, both a detailed and holistic view of guerrilla marketing have been presented 4. Theoritical and practical implications of the study were presented 5. It would be interesting to study what factors, in addition to the elements explored in this study, that make campaigns unconventional. This may provide additional inspiration for startups creating an unconventional campaign 6. Besides the fact that startups tend to have limited financial resources, there may be other aspects of guerrilla marketing that make the strategy suitable for entrepreneur	1. Interesting findings from the empirical cases could have been exploited to a greater extent if the research field was narrowed down 2. The cases studied were chosen based on certain characteristics that complied with fundamental elements of guerrilla marketing. Additional elements of the campaigns that were not emphasized in theory were also evaluated, which may have colored the researchers’ perception of the phenomenon
Citation/title	Sample	Environment	Method	Findings/conclusion	Gaps/limitations
Managing complexity and unforeseeable uncertainty in start-up companies: An empirical study	58 start-ups in Shanghai	Online Survey	1)       Cross industry study 2)       140 start-ups were approached with a questionnaire of which 63 responded and 58 responses were usable 3)       Dependent variables: quantitative variables included liquidity ,profitability, and ROI. Qualitative measures tried to capture the ventures perception 4)       Independent variables: Used to measure the choice of strategy. Were not 0-1 variables	Novel startup endeavors are regularly unsafe as well as face unforeseeable instability (occasions that can’t in any way, shape or form be anticipated at the beginning) consolidated with multifaceted nature (various distinctive, perhaps collaborating, impacts). In this paper, we give prove that, under these circumstances, exemplary arranging and hazard administration strategies are not adequate. The administration group must broaden its scope of administration techniques and consider two extra methodologies for the parts of the activity that are helpless against unforeseeable instability: (1) selectionist trials, running a few parallel arrangement endeavors, of which stand out will be picked toward the end, and (2) experimentation realizing, where the first arrangement is perhaps totally relinquished and another arrangement created midcourse, as new data rises.	1)             Small example size 2)     Survivor inclination: The endeavors that were willing to take an interest were all still alive 3)             Questions like, what are the relative expenses of selectionism and realizing (which are not followed by the organizations) and advantages crosswise over various parts of the endeavor?, can be replied in future studies
Citation/title	Sample	Environment	Method	Findings/conclusion	Gaps/limitations
(2010) Brand new ventures? Insights on start-ups’ branding practices	CEOs and communication Managers of 15 companies	Interviewee’s Offices	Interviews with CEOs and communication Managers of 15 successful start-up companies	•       The paper sets up a diagram on the present practices and balanced of the brand building exercises decisions, and on the symbolic pitfalls in regards to marking of new pursuits. •      It recommends that youthful organizations ought not be compelled to contrast their marking methodologies with multinational firms and proposes a structure and key rules for start-up marking.	•       •                Given that this study concentrates particularly on Switzerland, the discoveries won’t not be completely relevant to various financial circumstances. All things considered breaking down the greatest new businesses of a solitary nation permits notable correlations of the methodologies towards marking inside the same environment. •         •       •            Another impediment is identified with the subjective technique utilized, which does not permit the speculation of the discoveries
Citation/title	Sample	Environment	Method	Findings/conclusion	Gaps/limitations
Survival strategies and characteristics of start-ups: an empirical study from the New Zealand IT industry	Nine entrepreneurs of start-up IT firms in New Zealand	Interviewee’s office	1)       Cross industry study 2)       Interview with nine entrepreneurs of start-up IT firms	The discoveries of this study demonstrate the significance of adjusting vital capacities with the acknowledged authoritative methodology (vital extension and movement design). All organizations took after the rule “spend just what you gain” and “occupied with exercises and a key extension that is inside its expertise and asset capacity levels”. Be that as it may, all organizations assembled their asset ability and aptitude levels, and thusly extended their 19 vital degree and action levels to make developing levels of all encompassing parity that showed steady, self-maintaining authoritative development levels.	1)             Any ramifications drawn from this examination ought to be went with alert. Making determinations about the qualities of IT start-up firms construct just in light of nine New Zealand start up IT firms is a procedure loaded with potential perils. 2)             The present study was based from a pioneers’ point of view. There is a requirement for a comparable study on a bigger example of business pioneers from start up IT organizations
Citation/title	Sample	Environment	Method	Findings/conclusion	Gaps/limitations
Marketing Internet Startups	Niche engineering startups out of 600000 startups in USA in 2011	Surveying	1)       Cross industry study 2)       Implementing and experimenting this project live on startup named EMS	•       The paper analyzes how tech start-ups are marketing themselves in present scenario. It analyzes EMS as a specific case and suggests measures to improve its reach. •       It suggests that to improve the website  marketing, the website should employ tools like search engine optimization and search engine marketing.	•       This study identifies gaps in tools to promote the websites on internet and proportion of role played by content and the technical promotion tools like SEO and SEM is still understudy •       Also as it look into issue of marketing small and highly specialized engineering start-ups , the research done on this domain is not very exhaustive and much research needs to be done

The following research objectives were kept in mind for our project.

• Do advertisements have an impact on choice of E-Commerce websites that people shop on?
• Does the increase in number of advertisements, ie the number of times it is displayed on television have an effect on the choice of e-commerce websites that people shop on?
• Does the increase in number of channels an advertisement is aired increase the likelihood that a person will choose a particular e-commerce website?
• Does the timing of advertisements affect choice of e-commerce websites?
• Does an attractive and catchy tagline affect the mindset of an average consumer to decide where he shops online?

Through our research, we seek to find quantitative data that answers the above questions 

H1: Classified Advertisement has positive relationship with the E-commerce sales in India.

H2: Display Advertisement has positive relationship with the E-commerce Sales in India.

H3: Search Advertisement has positive relationship with the E-commerce Sales in India. 

It exhibits the exchange on every theory which we propose on the premise of substantive writing. Exact reflection on every speculation will be dissected to choose whether theory anticipated have a huge or irrelevant relationship. As the aftereffects of T-details and P-estimation of ordered Advertisement is great and shows critical association with the E-business deals so on the premise of that we acknowledge the H1. When we discuss H2, the P-worth and T-insights is not considerable and not demonstrating noteworthy association with the needy variable which is E-business deals yet in principle it has positive critical association with the E-trade deals. Discoveries of a study says “The aftereffects of an experiment demonstrate that if a showcase promotion is set on a site then the promotion ought to be exceedingly consistent with the site than it will bring viable results for the publicist”

In addition another finding which is especially about impact of pennant promotion on the buyer buy intension, they additionally demonstrated that show or image notice has solid positive effect on consumer purchasing or buys on Internet. Buys ultimately mean the deals on Internet. So in the light of these outcomes in writing we may accept the H2 and acknowledge the announcement that Display Ads has solid huge positive association with the aggregate E-business deals. Notwithstanding H1 results, when we see the t-details and p-estimation of H3 it likewise demonstrates positive critical association with the E-business deals by these qualities we acknowledge the H3.  

Parameters for Filtering Articles for Literature Review

The approach adopted was deductive approach, as the research is based on a hypothesis and we worked to check it. As this is a study of consumer behavior among children, descriptive process was chosen. Survey method was chosen for the study and MS Excel was used to prepare the questionnaire. The survey was conducted by personally asking the respondents. Since the survey involved children, due care was taken to ensure that they understood the purpose of the research, to preserve the identity of the respondents and to prevent misrepresentation of their responses. The complete analysis is based on quantitative data and IBM SPSS and Microsoft Excel are used for the study. 

We followed a quantitative research methodology for this project by using questionnaires. Since our study focused on marketing strategies for startups we prepared a questionnaire that would focus on how marketing strategies affect the behavior of consumers of these startups. We mainly focused on the age group of 20-30 as these are the major customers of internet based startups. We tried to analyze whether their buying behavior was affected by the marketing strategies used by these startups.

Also since the age group of our questionnaire was 20-30 we tried to keep the questionnaire as short and direct as possible. We kept the language unambiguous. We floated the survey online as this was the easiest way to get in touch with maximum people in this age group. 

The questionnaire focused on the following: 

• Age
• Gender
• Interest in ecommerce based start-ups
• Usage of Internet based start-ups
• Viewership of advertisements by these start-ups
• Effect of the advertisements on these consumers
• Whether the advertisements urged them to revisit these websites
• Effect of time of advert
• Effect of good tagline
• Effect of number of times the advertisement is viewed
• Effect of number of channels the advertisement is aired on 

The responses were obtained through a survey obtained online. Once the responses were collected simple statistical analysis were conducted, i.e. chi-squared test for variables identified as categorical variables and pair-wise t test for scale variables. The significant variables were identified from this set of tests. Additionally, a binary logit regression model was also built to understand the magnitude and direction of the influence of these significant variables on a probability that a brand becomes a children’s favorite brand. 

Profile of the Respondents

In terms of profile of the respondents, all the respondents were between 21- 32 years of age.

GENDER OF RESPONDENTS 

1. Do you like seeing ads of ecommerce websites on television?
2. On a scale of 1 to 5, whether you open/buy from ecommerce websites?
3. On a scale of 1 to 5, if you would buy again from the website after viewing their advertisement?

In terms of statistical analysis, a set of simple statistical tests like chi square test and pair-wise t test were conducted. Additionally, a binary logit regression model was also built to understand the magnitude and direction of influence of the significant variables identified from the first step on the dependent variable, i.e. probability of a brand being the child’s favorite brand. Following sections will illustrate these tests in detail.

1. Does the advertisement being comical influence the children’s favouritism towards a particular brand?

The Chi-square test proved that this particular variable is significant and having a comical angle in an advertisement definitely helps in making your brand more favourite.

Count
	Q_4_7	Total
0	1
Outcome	0	10	20	30
1	18	12	30
Total	28	32	60
Chi-Square Tests
	Value	df	Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)	Exact Sig. (2-sided)	Exact Sig. (1-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square	4.286	1	.038
Continuity Correctionb	3.281	1	.070
Likelihood Ratio	4.339	1	.037
Fisher’s Exact Test				.069	.035
Linear-by-Linear Association	4.214	1	.040
N of Valid Cases	60

Does the advertisement containing a good jingle have an influence on the children’s favouritism towards a particular brand?

The Chi-square test proved that this particular variable is significant and having a good jingle in an advertisement definitely helps in making your brand more favourite.

Crosstab
Count
	Q_4_6	Total
0	1
Outcome	0	20	10	30
1	7	23	30
Total	27	33	60
Chi-Square Tests
	Value	df	Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)	Exact Sig. (2-sided)	Exact Sig. (1-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square	11.380	1	.001
Continuity Correctionb	9.697	1	.002
Likelihood Ratio	11.789	1	.001
Fisher’s Exact Test				.002	.001
Linear-by-Linear Association	11.191	1	.001
N of Valid Cases	60

Does the time of the advertisement when children watch them have an influence on the children’s favouritism towards a particular brand?

Here the time of day was bucketed into three categories; morning, afternoon and evening as there were no responses for night i.e. beyond 10 in the night.

The Chi-square test proved that this particular variable is insignificant and time of the day of an advertisement does not help in making your brand more favourite.

Crosstab
Count
	Q_4_2	Total
1	2	3	4
Outcome	0	0	9	20	1	30
1	1	9	20	0	30
Total	1	18	40	1	60
Chi-Square Tests
	Value	df	Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square	2.000	3	.572
Likelihood Ratio	2.773	3	.428
Linear-by-Linear Association	.521	1	.470
N of Valid Cases	60

Similar to the third test shown above all other variables turned insignificant. These variables included whether an advertisement contains a movie star and whether an advertisement contains a cartoon character.

Apart from this test were also conducted to gauge the negative influence of advertisements on children, whether their urge to test a new product increases on influence of the advertisements. With the sample conducted this proved to be insignificant. This could be mainly because of the bias present in the children to look good in front of the interviewer, especially in our case since the interviewer being mostly their relative or family friend. The question here asked was whether they fought with their parents and secondly they were asked if they fought with their parents for a new product that has been recently been launched. The figure below illustrates the results and it has been shown no particular negative effect has been created on account of the advertisements.

Q_6 * Q_6b Crosstabulation
Count
	Q_6b	Total
0	1
Q_6	0	1	3	4
1	10	3	13
2	6	7	13
Total	17	13	30
Chi-Square Tests
	Value	df	Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square	4.391	2	.111
Likelihood Ratio	4.565	2	.102
Linear-by-Linear Association	.003	1	.958
N of Valid Cases	30

Does the number of times an advertisement is viewed have an impact on children’s favourite brand preference?

This test proved that the variable is significant and the children’s favourite brand decision is influenced by this variable

Paired Samples Statistics
	Mean	N	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean
Pair 1	Q4_F_1	3.63	30	1.732	.316
Q4_U_1	2.47	30	1.502	.274
Paired Samples Correlations
	N	Correlation	Sig.
Pair 1	Q4_F_1 & Q4_U_1	30	.161	.396
Paired Samples Test
	Paired Differences	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)
Mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower	Upper
Pair 1	Q4_F_1 – Q4_U_1	1.167	2.102	.384	.382	1.952	3.040	29	.005

Does the number of channels on which an advertisement is viewed have an impact on children’s favourite brand preference?

This test proved that the variable is insignificant and the children’s favourite brand decision is not influenced by this variable

Paired Samples Statistics
	Mean	N	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean
Pair 1	Q4_F_3	2.43	30	1.382	.252
Q4_U_3	2.47	30	1.756	.321
Paired Samples Correlations
	N	Correlation	Sig.
Pair 1	Q4_F_3 & Q4_U_3	30	.496	.005
Paired Samples Test
	Paired Differences	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)
Mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower	Upper
Pair 1	Q4_F_3 – Q4_U_3	-.033	1.608	.294	-.634	.567	-.114	29	.910

We had the below limitations while conducting the survey.

• Limited number of responses (30)
• A gender ratio of 80:20 among respondents
• A certain bias could have been generated in the results as responses were filled by directly asking the respondents, in our case children who might not particularly understood the question  

Conclusions & Recommendations

It can be concluded from the test obtained that number of times an advertisement is seen and the whether the advertisement is comical and having a good jingle influence the children’s decision of selecting the favorite brand.

It can be recommended that:

1. Brands should spend on getting more number of advertisements, as the more the children see the advertisements, more the chance of the brand becoming a favorite
2. Brands should create advertisements with good jingle, as advertisement with a good jingle will lead to more brand affinity

Though it can also be concluded that comical advertisements hurt the chances of a brand being the most preferred brand, this result is a counter intuitive finding. As a result, it is recommended that this more research should be done before verifying this result as the current data contains too few data points to confirm this result. 

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