At the time, headphones in India were either boring designs or imported brands that were heavy on the pocket. Then, in 2016, a brand came saying not to hear it but to feel it. And this brand became India’s number one earwear brand. We are talking about boAt. This brand has created not just earphones but also an entire youth culture in India. So today, in this article, we will dive deep into the digital marketing strategies of boAt Lifestyle and how a small startup became a 1000-crore lifestyle brand in such a short time.
How boAt Started
boAt Lifestyle company was founded in 2016 by two co-founders, Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta, and you would be shocked to know that their first product was not earphones or headphones but a tough charging cable. However, this company’s co-founders’ mission and vision were much more than this. They wanted to make affordable, stylish, rough, and tough gadgets according to the Indian environment. When boAt was started, it was an Amazon-only product. So, their marketing was limited to Amazon. Amazon SEO, promotions on Amazon. But gradually, through the years, boAt promoted itself as an online and physical retailer. They also partnered with popular distribution companies like Croma and started selling on their e-commerce website.
boAt Marketing Strategy
So, let us now talk about the marketing strategy behind this, which has become the number one brand in India in headphones, earphones, and earwear.
1. Youth Oriented
First of all, they clearly understood after doing market research that this particular brand would be made a youth-oriented brand. So, their target was the youth, and they kept their marketing campaign, brand identity, and overall theme in and around that. So, if you look at the names of their products, you will see that they are youth-oriented, like rockers, bass heads, airdrops, stone, or something like that. That is why people started seeing this product more as a fashion accessory than an electronic one. You must have noticed such earphones in gyms, schools, and colleges because their design is so interesting. That is why people keep earphones or air pads hanging on their necks so they can be used as fashion accessories.
2. Influencer & Celebrity Marketing
If I talk about marketing, the first marketing strategies are influencer marketing and celebrity marketing. boAt-made youth icons such as celebrities like Hardik Pandya, Kiara Advani, Kartik Aryan, Neha Kakkar, and AP Dhillo were trending at that time. They were quite an inspiration for the youth. They were made brand ambassadors and asked to promote their products stylishly.
Additionally, all the famous influencers of today on social media, like Bhuvan Bam, Ashish Chanchlani and Many micro Instagram influencers, were asked to influence boAt’s products. And again, whatever campaigns they had, whether it was a celebrity promotion or an influencer promotion, they were in and around how to attract the youth, including music festivals; cricket-related things were also done. Okay? Overall, all those elements were added to their campaign to attract youth
3. Social Media Marketing
Along with that, boAt also made social media marketing a potent weapon and promoted Instagram marketing, which includes human marketing, meme culture and all these things. Even now, if we see boAt’s Instagram page, we will find a lot of relatable memes, relatable videos, stylish videos, and fashion-related videos. Rather than just electronics-related videos.
4. Moment Marketing
Along with that, like Zomato and Swiggy, boAt also did moment marketing. Moment marketing is when a game is going on; sports is going on, an event is going on, some news is trending, make some post related to it or tweet something related to it like IPL is going on. The vote about it is being posted on social media, or any tweet is being made so that people can connect with it even more. Along with that, they are also creating videos like unboxing videos and product reviews on YouTube. As well as they are getting these made by their influencers.
5. Gaming Collaboration
Here, a lot of focus has been placed on gaming collaboration. Now, boAt sponsors all the gaming channels and promotes itself there because they know that its target audience is somewhere in and around this game, which is the audience’s central part. So they got a lot of benefits from this as well. Whatever live streaming was happening, whatever famous gamers were live streamers, right? So they promoted them there, sponsored them, and then promoted boAt’s cool products, which became very famous among the youth.
6. SEO
And not just this, boAt also focused equally on SEO. Whether I talk about Amazon SEO or D2C, their website boAt lifestyle, SEO was done very well on it, so that whatever related keywords are there, like earphones, earphones in India online, earphones in India or headphones in India under 2000, under 1500, whatever their categories are, boAt started ranking in them.
So even now, if I enter a keyword from, let’s, like earphones under 2000, then here Amazon. in is ranking, but in that also boAt Rockers 255 Pro, which is a boAt product, is ranking. Apart from that, if you look at the second number, the boAt Lifestyle website ranks. And here in the popular products, you can see mostly boAt products.
So, whether I talk about an economical or slightly premium range product, Boat’s SEO is excellent, and its products rank well in both.
7. Event Marketing
Along with that, event marketing is becoming very popular these days, and if you use it correctly, you can reach your product to a mass audience with a single campaign. So, boAt started promoting itself in significant music events or gaming events. For example, boAt sponsors Sunburn, an event held in Goa. They are giving flash sales to people there. They organize games, etc., andrgiveducts. So, by doing all these things, they have improved their brand recognition even more.
8. Product Innovation
And not only this, along with marketing, they have not left their product innovation behind. With time, as per the requirement of the customers, they have been designing new products as well as special collaboration products like limited edition products like Marvel, DC, and IPL team-related products; they have also created them which benefited them more and along with this, their primary audience is Indian. They have designed products according to the requirements of Indian audiences. Like, our biggest problem is the battery. Right? So, for an extended battery, it’s sweatproof. Right? Along with that, they have designed products using extra bass and noise cancelling, and when they promoted those products and marketed them, they emphasized them a lot.
Why boAt’s Strategy Worked
So if we were to say in one sentence what was the reason due to which boAt’s marketing strategy worked and became so successful and due to this a small startup became a 1000 crore startup in a short span of time i.e. in less than 10 years, then it would be Desi relatability and international inspiration and we Indians want the same thing that we want such products which first of all are within our budget.
The second is according to our requirements. Right? Along with that, we want international-level styling and look. And keeping both these things in mind, boAt worked and kept its marketing in and around the same thing. Due to this, boAt became the favourite brand of the youth when it comes to airwear.
Conclusion
So this was the breakdown of boAt’s digital marketing strategy. If you want a breakdown or case study of the digital marketing strategy of any other company, any other startup or any other brand, then tell us in the comment section. Just name the companies name and we will bring you detailed article related to it. And I hope this article was useful for you.