6 Marketing Lessons From Google Pay Holiday Campaign
You are sitting in your chair, crunching every minute in your mind with “Black Friday, Christmas, New Year. How do I make use of this opportunity?
What campaign should I run? How to make it a viral success? Are B2B users enjoying these holiday campaigns?”
You were all too loud and it triggered me to do something about very interesting — understand the Google Pay Holiday Campaign.
So I went ahead, read, explored and thought you should also get a peek of marketing insights from what I learnt and found.
Google Pay ran a Holiday campaign in India for the festival Diwali. Google
Pay is not new for many of us, but yet for the new ones out there, it is an online money transaction mobile application. (And as for Diwali, you can think of it as a Christmas that doesn’t have snow but fireworks).
It is an online payment app, but yet they had a well-planned, fun implanted holiday campaign that drove the users to do mad things. (Yeah, you will read about them in this article).
I will try decode and discuss it, but if you have no time, download this quickie that will give you a featured snippet of this case study.
Holiday Campaigns are Q4’s magic kids
A holiday campaign is a must for any business. Running a brick and mortar store or having a large enterprise, undoubtedly must have a holiday campaign. But not everybody pulls it off with success. (some go via backdoor without a trail). Holiday campaigns gives a lot of opportunity window to close all of your previous underachieved targets.
Just like the title of this paragraph, “Holidays are the Q4’s magic kids” who can bring in those pending numbers to your company in the last quarter.
Your holiday campaign needs to be strategized, splurged with creativity, entertain your audience, align with the mood of the holiday and benefit in terms of ROI. A well defined—clean-structured—campaign with robust strategy could never go wrong.
Google Pay’s Diwali campaign is the playbook everybody should read before planning their Holiday campaign.
What is Google Pay ?
A fun loaded online payment app.
Google Pay is an online money transfer and payment method, originally launched in the name of Google Tez. Every time you make a transaction through Google Pay, you get a scratch card that gives you a monetary reward which is later credited into your bank account as real currency. The app rewards its users regularly even on casual days. So they have made sure not to disappoint their user’s expectations on a huge celebration day Diwali—India’s Christmas
Google Pay Holiday Campaign — #Stampwali Diwali
Google Pay Diwali campaign, fondly called as StampwaliDiwali is a viral success in India. If you dig deep down their strategy sheet, you will be left with an “Awe”. You will notice a holistic approach in everything from head to toe of the marketing game-plan.
The campaign “Stampwali Diwali” is a chase to get 5 stamps—Jhumka, Diya, Lantern, Flower and Rangoli. Every time you make a transaction via Google Pay you will get a stamp in your app home screen. When you have collected all the 5 stamps, you get a reward of Rs 251 and also stand a chance to win Rs 1 lakh.
Sounds so simple?
Here comes the tricky part, the Rangoli Stamp is in demand and you cannot (almost never will)get it easily.
When will the user get a stamp?
1. When the user makes an online transaction through google pay app
2. When the user makes an online payment via google pay app
3. When the user adds money to any of his/her e-wallet via google pay.
And the minimum amount of transaction is Rs 50. So, the user doesn’t have to spend a huge amount but yet stands a chance to win Rs 1 lakh and confirmed prize money of Rs 251.
Here is what you should learn or take home from Google Pay for your Holiday Campaign
Clear Goal elevates the game
Goal of the campaign needs to be clear - not every time the campaign needs to generate revenue or purchase, it can be brand awareness, user acquisition, user affinity and user engagement too.
For Google Pay, their goal is user affinity and engagement. I can hear you, asking me “How does that will make money?”. A tip from Google Marketing House, if you are looking for short-term revenues on everything you do, then be prepared to fail big.
“Google’s motto - dominate and monetize”
Google Pay’s idea in this campaign is to dominate the market segment by gaining more users, engaging the users to make every online transaction through Google Pay. This way they will dominate the market segment with a large user base and that will help them establish B2B partnerships with online payment companies, banks and any other financial based institutions.
Their short-term goal is to acquire and engage users that will speed up their long-term success. When you have the goal set up, your execution gets a clear picture. It comes down to a simple question, “What do you want your users to do?”
If your goal is revenue per sale, then you should drive your users to do successful purchases. So your brain would work on the discounts you could come up with, offers you can plan for and curating the pricing structure of the products.
Meanwhile brand awareness goal is all about going viral and you would persuade your audience to mention about you in social media via social shares and trending hashtags.
Timing matters
Holiday campaigns or the festive campaigns plan should have the magical pixie dust—the timing. Well, you might think you have got plenty of time ahead to do your Black Friday planning, but don’t forget that your competitor also has that same head start.
Google Pay launched their Diwali campaign on October 21, a week before Diwali. They planned to have the campaign till the day of Diwali, which is October 27, but the users interest made them to extend till November 11. Launching the campaign before a week of Diwali is an easy decision. But the lesson here is Google did not forget the basics and identified that, a week ahead of time is where Diwali shopping starts and people will browse around the e-commerce apps.
So Google doesn’t have to persuade people to go online to do shopping. Instead, they have to figure out a way for their customers to do all the online payments through google pay.
Example: If google pay is running a campaign in March or May, there is no potential need for the users to do that mad shopping, so the persuasion of the Google has to be loud, which doesn’t align with their brand tone.
Execution Methods
Goal is set, what next?
A well-planned campaign idea with poor execution methods is equal to a pretty picture hanging on the wall. You can admire all you want but no way it will become real.
Let us look how crystal clear, simple and clean Google’s execution method is. The goal is to engage users and increase the user affinity, so a channel that talks to your users and only to your users is the ideal choice. And that is why Google found their Mobile app is a befitting channel.
Whattttt?
No paid ads?
No email funnels?
No landing pages?
Google said a BIG NO to all of them.
Clean execution without additional back-end integration to any of the funnel pages. (First of all, no funnel pages itself)The whole execution is inside their mobile app and thanks to the push notifications which saves the re-marketing/re-targeting costs.
Funny thing is more than the push notifications from Google, I was nagged continuously by my friends asking for stamps. The whole app screen was designed to Diwali theme and the colorful stamps were highlighting the mood of Diwali everywhere throughout the app.
Okay, I know you are now wondering “If everything is happening inside the mobile app then how did the campaign became viral?”. So here is where we all need a “Food for thought” moment. (I have one for you in the below paragraph)
How to make it go viral?
A marketing campaign comprises a team of developers to do the tech savvy things, creative hubs to do the artistic works, shrewd strategists to solve the complicates.
And the important team player, “Your Users” to act as the brand advocacy.
In the cluttered noise, only the voice of your customer or the user is the loudest. Your customers are also part of your marketing team and include them in your campaign efforts.
Google Pay allowed the users to trade the stamps. If I have 2 stamps of Lantern and no Rangoli, and you have 2 Rangoli, I can trade my Lantern and with you for the Rangoli. This clever move by Google Pay made the users to take it to social media requesting for the stamps. It boosted the social shares across the twitter.
When the users started posting it on social media requesting for the stamps, Google did not have to worry about creating the hashtags or make it to be the top trending one. Their users took care of it. Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp was overflowing with screenshots of stamps, especially the Rangoli stamp.
When the users started posting it on social media requesting for the stamps, Google did not have to worry about creating the hashtags or make it to be the top trending one. Their users took care of it. Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp was overflowing with screenshots of stamps, especially the Rangoli stamp.
Gamification — A little fun would hurt no one
The term gamification is taken lightly by everybody. Other day while talking to a fellow marketer, we both agreed that major of us think running a small quiz on Instagram is a gamification. I feel abused by comparing these ideas to gamification.
Gamification is the opposite of the marketing mantra, “Don’t make your customer to pull the extra effort”. While incorporating the gamification part, you are making your user or customer to stretch that extra mile without them realizing.
I personally felt the stamp collection as a treasure hunt game; chasing down the stamps, especially the Rangoli stamp(I know, I keep pressing the Rangoli Stamp, because it was really damn hard to get it), gave me the feel of Indiana Jones from the 2K century.
The crucial gamification elements — FOMO, climax and social celebrity status were covered with all corners pointing their marketing goal. Thus their campaign went viral, also led to the app installations. The one who collected all the 5 stamps couldn’t stop bragging, and it created a strong FOMO for the rest of the users. The 5 stamp collectors became social celebrities overnight.
But the climax element only made the campaign sensational. One who had 4 stamps, couldn’t stop the hunt to get that 5th stamp.(Yes, it is that Rangoli Stamp, damn it, that was really really hard to get). I even had a cold war with my friend for not giving me his extra Rangoli stamp.
Any other campaign can be less fun and less engaging but holiday campaign needs to be full of entertainment and there is no chance for a message that tells direct sales call without an intended pun or fun.
The KPI is going to keep bugging you and triggering you all the time from the back of your mind. Keep aside the numbers for a while when you are planning the gamification part.
Come on, it is a holiday campaign and you have to be a fun person first, so that your campaign also gets affected with the entertaining elements.
Rewards drive trust and accelerates the campaigns
Google is a huge brand and has a large customer base, so establishing trust is easy for them. No, it is not. If you think giant brands have everything they want, then you are on the wrong page mate.
When Google Pay was launched, PAYTM was a huge dominator in Indian Market. Now, Google Pay stands par with them and this Diwali campaign has made them to take a giant leap.
It is the basics you miss when you plan your rewards. A confirmed reward will establish trust for your users with you. Your customer is thinking, “Why take the extra effort? What am I getting in taking this extra effort?”
Be clear in rewarding a confirmed prize to your users when establishing the reward system.
Rs 251 is a confirmed prize money if you collect all the 5 stamps. So, no matter what, I am getting Rs 251, even if I don’t win that Rs 1 Lakh. (I got nothing to lose and I am getting Rs 251 for doing nothing) So, make sure that your user also gets the same feel.
Conclusion
So, all set for your Christmas and New Year campaign? I hope this would have helped you with tweaking a little bit of your campaign ideas.
If you are looking on what tools to use and how to integrate them into your marketing plan, please drop in the comment. (happy to curate few of them for you)
Personal Request:
(I am still searching for a Rangoli Stamp, if you find or have a friend in India who is kind enough to send one for me, I will somehow convince Charlie to announce a killer Black Friday deal exclusive for you or launch a Giveaway)
