In India, festive shopping is a big deal. Everyone looks forward to this time of year, whether it’s for buying gifts for loved ones or splurging on something for themselves. People start shopping early and spend time researching the best deals and discounts on products they’ve been eyeing for a while. So festive marketing strategy becomes essential for businesses, enabling them to leverage the festive fervor to drive sales, build brand loyalty, and enhance their market presence.
Quora recently co-hosted a webinar on ‘Transform your Festive Marketing’ with Social Samosa to help brands prepare for their festive campaigns with tips, audience insights, and advice from advertising and marketing industry heads. There was a riveting discussion among industry leaders like Hemal Majithia, Founder and Chief OktoMind at OktoBuzz, Abhishek Upadhya, VP of Digital Strategy & Innovation at HiveMinds, Siddesh Kerkar, Head of Marketing at Aditya Birla Finance Udyog Plus and Shradha Agarwal, Co-Founder & CEO at Grapes, moderated by Hitesh Rajwani, CEO, Social Samosa, about festive marketing and how to leverage Quora to achieve your marketing goals.
Festive Trends on Quora
To set the context for the audience, Viju Nair, Senior Client Partner at Quora APAC, and Priyal Jain, Head of Growth and Partnerships at Quora APAC and Middle East, emphasized how the festive season in India brings unparalleled excitement and anticipation for shoppers across all categories, making it an ideal time for brands to offer discounts, promotions, and exclusive deals. Consumer tech, electronics, automobiles, fashion, and jewelry are among the top verticals that witness significant growth during the festive season.
Research indicates that users start researching products and brands in these categories as early as June, which is evident from the upward trend in content views. But you can really see the purchase intent increasing during the festive season from October to November when engagement on product and purchase questions spike up as people look for reviews and information to help them make decisions. Users actively search for the best products, deals, online stores, and gift ideas during this period, making it an opportune time for brands to connect with holiday shoppers.
Quora experiences a surge in engagement during the festive season. It is a valuable platform for users to conduct thorough research before making purchase decisions. You see, with a community-driven approach, Quora surfaces relevant and credible answers, making it an essential destination for users seeking authentic information and recommendations. While they actively research products, read expert opinions, watch product reviews, and engage in comprehensive research, they create a pool of engaged audiences that presents a prime opportunity for brands to target. By being present on Quora, brands can close the loop and engage with users who are in the consideration phase, provide them with valuable insights, and influence their decisions. Brands can also establish thought leadership by answering relevant questions and participating in popular conversations within their category on Quora.
Webinar Highlights: Insights from Industry Leaders
The experts in the panel outlined the following key digital trends that are shaping festive marketing in 2023.
- Researching Customers and Increased Consumer Effort: Customers are increasingly researching and planning their purchases well in advance of the festive season. Shradha Agarwal gives us an understanding of why consumers are investing more effort in the lower funnel of their purchase journey. They are conducting extensive research, comparing brands, products, prices, and features before making a purchase. Brands need to focus on providing comprehensive information and addressing customer needs to improve conversion rates and capture consumer attention.
Customers wait for the festive season to buy products from certain categories that inherently have a festive-themed purchase. “Quora for us has been great with respect to identifying these researching customers, who are engaged as early as two months before the festive season starts, and hence content for us anyway has been a key part of our strategy and as a result, we’re seeing this great results on festive marketing via Quora,” says Abhishek Upadhya, VP – Digital Strategy and Innovations, HiveMinds - Deferred Purchases: Hemal Majithia believes the deferred purchases that consumers indulge in during the festive season are a form of ‘revenge buying’ making up for the purchases they couldn’t make in the previous years. This trend is driving increased spending and a surge in buying activities during the festive season.
- Data and Tech Innovations: The use of specific data, technological innovations, and personalization are crucial for successful festive marketing campaigns. Brands can leverage customer data to create personalized experiences, offer relevant product recommendations, and tailor messaging to specific cohorts. With Quora’s highly engaged and high-intent audience pool, brands can target specific messages. “It’s like math at Quora – Understand the question asked by the customers, divide that into the consumer journey, and say they are either awareness-led, consideration-led, or preference-led. Marry it with the objective of the brand with the right tool”, says Shradha Agarwal – Co-Founder and CEO at Grapes Digital.
- Moment Marketing: Shraddha suggests brands focus on creating moment-based campaigns that tap into specific occasions and customer preferences. By leveraging data and cohorts, and with the right communication channels, brands can deliver targeted messaging and create personalized experiences that resonate with customers at the right moment. The promoted answers feature on Quora is one of its kind and allows marketers to design campaigns that are personalized and relevant to their audience. Talking about personalization, Hemal Majithia, Founder, OktoBuzz says “When it comes to personalization and specifically I think if I understand Quora well the audience there is a high intent audience.”
- Layering positivity around the festive season with emotional messaging: Festive season is characterized by positive vibes. Siddesh Kerkar, Head of Marketing, Aditya Birla Finance Udyog Plus, points out that brands can leverage this positivity to engage with customers effectively and adds, “ Using technology with Quora as a platform, brands can be aware of the kind of questions consumers have during the festive season or pre-festive season and post-festive season. We can use these insights to customize messaging as per the demand.”
As the experts delve into the topic, Shraddha and Hemal focus on how the customers now want to do their research with the data and tech available at their dispense, Siddesh stresses the need for brands to be prepared and inventories to be filled. He also elaborates on what role reviews play and how influencers can make an impression and lead customers to the right product. Abhishek throws the spotlight on leveraging distinguishing features into a brand’s marketing strategy with unique features on Quora. Hemal Majithia concludes by saying, “Quora has a high-intent audience, and the tools that we have to play are very interesting. The CTRs are pretty interesting when you look at the video ads specifically because there is high intent and again with promoted answers, the contextualization that we can do is super!”
Why Consider Quora for Marketing?
In this insightful discussion, seasoned advertising and marketing professionals share their valuable advice on approaching festive marketing enabling you to incorporate these insights into your brands’ festive marketing strategies and explore solutions at Quora. Our advertising solutions, like Promoted Answers, Video Ads, and a host of Targeting Solutions enable precise targeting to reach an engaged audience, driving traffic and generating leads. The platform’s focus is to encourage authentic interactions, foster connections and brand loyalty.
Explore how you can use Quora in your marketing strategies to showcase brand expertise, conduct research, reach engaged audiences, and build meaningful connections, driving growth in a competitive marketplace and making the most of the festive season rush on the platform.
