Paytm has been India’s leading service company that offers full-stack payments and financial solutions to customers, banking Investments, online platforms, and offline merchants.

The parent company of Paytm is One97. The company’s founder is Vijay Shekhar Sharma, established in 2010 and headquartered at Noida, Uttar Pradesh.

In this case study, we will go through the Paytm marketing strategy, its marketing mix, marketing campaigns, competitors analysis, digital marketing analysis, and SWOT analysis.

Let’s begin by learning a little more about Paytm.

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About Paytm

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Paytm (short for “pay through mobile”) is an Indian multinational technology business headquartered in Noida that focuses on digital payment systems, e-commerce, and finance. Paytm is currently available in 11 Indian languages and offers online services such as mobile recharges, utility bill payments, travel, movie, and event bookings as well as in-store payments using the Paytm QR code at grocery stores, fruits and vegetable shops, restaurants, parking, tolls, pharmacies, and educational institutions. Paytm was valued at $10 billion in January 2018. More than 20 million retailers across India utilize the company’s QR code payment system to take payments directly into their bank accounts, according to the company. Advertisements and paid promotional content are also used by the company to earn cash.

Now that we know about Paytm. Let us now go through the company in detail by studying its marketing perspective.

 

Marketing Budget of Paytm

Marketing budget primarily means the money allocated to the marketing functions and how it is intended to spend. Paytm cloud revenue went down by 38%. In the covid-19 pandemic, the payments related to entertainment and travelling have been severely impacted. The lockdown hit them hard and the total revenue of the company declined about 10%. They went from Rs.3,540 Cr to 3,186 Cr in 2020-21. The spokesperson of Paytm said, “despite significant disruption in the business of our merchant partners due to the pandemic especially in the first half of the year, we have had minimal impact on revenues, due to the strong recovery in the second half of the year”. However, the company reduces the marketing cost by 62% from Rs 1.397 Cr/year to Rs 533 Cr/year.

 

Marketing Mix of Paytm

A marketing mix can be defined as a model that an organization uses to increase the interest in the products\\services and image of a particular company.

4 P’s play the major components which are product, place, price, and promotion. Let’s go to the marketing mix strategy.

1. Product Mix of Paytm

Paytm is the acronym for pay through mobile. it offers various products and services in its marketing mix for example e-wallets, online shopping, latest news, vaccine slot updates, investment opportunities, and many more. Any customer can access the portal on their computers as well as mobile apps for making a specific payment. For instance payment of mobile recharge, bills, shopping, etc. Instead of using a debit card or credit card Paytm enables a user to make payments feasibly without them. Paytm also offers a facility of Paytm Bank from which a person can transfer money directly from his\her bank account to someone else’s bank account for this he/she must give access to their saving bank account.

 

2. Price Mix of Paytm

Paytm serves as a medium for the customers to make the payments for the other services which they are availing for this Paytm is entirely free to use.

Paytm has received huge Investments like funding of 575 million dollars from China’s leading business group Alibaba, an Indian business tycoon who had invested in Paytm as a personal investment in the brand. These use services enable Paytm to get new customers on a broad basis and give them free services they also simultaneously give discounts and offers to promote their online shopping E-Commerce portal.

 

3. Place and distribute a Mix of Paytm

Paytm is accessible everywhere through a smartphone or on a laptop having a proper internet connection just like any other app or website. Paytm is available throughout the country to provide payments and shopping feasibility. It is widely accepted as a mode of payment across various industries sectors and geographies. Offline merchants and several restaurants, grocery stores, supermarkets hotels, and many more places are accepting Paytm as a part of the payment. It is headquartered in Noida India but the feature of booking rail, plane, buses, has extensively provided reach to a greater market. Also now Paytm has launched services in Canada and Japan.

1. Mobikwik

It was founded in the year 2009 by Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku, they commenced their operations as a mobile wallet to make digital payments convenient to their users.

The platform also enables peer-to-peer payment by unified payment interface, over the years they have served over 101 million registered users and more than 3 million e-commerce, physical retail, and biller partners.

 

2. Phonepe

In 2021, Phonepe achieved the milestone of 250 million registered users.

They have been awarded in the best mobile payment product/service category and the technology category at IAMAI India digital awards.

The Phonepe interface goes live across 10 lakh stores in 300 cities. By this, they became India’s fastest-growing insure-tech distributor.

 

3. FreeCharge

Freecharge was launched in September 2015 they came up with their wallet to pay across all platforms plus offline stores like shoppers Stop, McDonald’s, home stop, crosswords, Hypercity, and even for some e-rickshaws now the list is growing day by day.

The claim is to provide an easy and instant recharging process with a hassle-free online experience.

They also provide a safe and secure payment process with the best discounts available in the market.

 

Marketing Strategy of Paytm

In simple words, a marketing strategy refers to a business’s overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of their products and services.

1. Cashless transactions schemes

In 2016, they came up with an innovative initiative of “each one, teach one”. Paytm announced a scholarship of rupees 2100 for 10,000 users which will help them to increase digital inclusion and the practice of adaptation to Paytm. The scheme, “Scan any QR to pay using Paytm” was launched in 7 languages which were Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.

 

2. Sponsorship of events by Paytm

As we said the earlier company is highly involved in sponsorship they target a variety of events, tournaments, etc. These events give them immense exposure. Paytm is also the official sponsor and supporter of India’s cricket team providing them with worldwide publicity.

 

3. Promotion and advertising strategies of Paytm

The company’s online marketing and traditional marketing approach are centered on bringing visibility anywhere by sharing their advert on Facebook and Twitter or even subsidized posts on Instagram and in some instances even Snapchat.

In an offline communication network, they probably use newspapers, transit media, and television.

 

4. Fast and efficient

Paytm Plays amazingly well with their words, as soon as the news of demonetization was conveyed to the country. They came up with a tweet; Paytm Karo. It was a splendid example of a brand putting up an example of relevant and momentous communication. They gained amazing responses as it was simple and user-friendly.