How We Increased Our Repeat Users To 40% In A Month

The first problem every startup faces is getting initial traction and once you get it, the second hurdle is solving for repeat usage. Depending on the use case of the business, the repeat usage cycle may vary from a day to every few years. For instance, content websites ideally aim for a repeat of

For instance, content websites ideally aim for a repeat of every day as they have newer content however a product such as an online car servicing portal would have a repeat in months. Depending upon use case, businesses align their models towards repeat usage and track their metrics. For the same reason, we get a reminder call from our service station every 6 months that car service is due as their system indicates that it is time get the customer back. Startups are no different.

The Big Idea

We, at Ketchupp, had a repeat usage of 25%-30% in the months of Nov & Dec 2016 . We believed that for the On the Go consumer of today, food is a reason for celebration and is at least a weekly repeat use case. Though, the number of users for us were increasing(35% MoM), the repeat rate was giving us sleepless nights. We brainstormed various ideas in discussion with our consumers, users and looked up internationally too for inspiration.

After rejectin a dozen ideas, we finally zeroed in on one — National Foodie Calendar 2017. Yeah, a calendar is something that everyone looks up to as we near end of December & we launched a foodie calendar too, but with a gastronomic twist

How Ketchupp Calendar works

Ketchupp Calendar is actually a celebration of life in 2017, through food. The calendar gives a gastronomic twist to all the 365 days of 2017 by making the user look forward to a new day every day. Over & above this, Ketchupp in line with its brand promise recommends the best dishes to order online on all these 365 days of the year. For instance, January 2 is National Red Velvet day, February 9 is National Pizza Day, February 28 is National Paneer Lovers Day & so on: crowning each day of the year with a specific dish/cuisine/theme & recommending the relevant tastiest dishes to order online on these 365 days. Here’s how we zeroed in to the idea & what all went into it.

It’s one thing to build a feature & another to market it to make the user feel the utility of the same. We knew if the user could get glued to it in January, the user will follow it for the entire year. Hence, we went all out with brute force with a single-minded focus — Making the customer talk about Calendar. We zeroed it on “ what day is it today “ as the theme & gave one more reason for a user to look forward to that day.

What We Did

In a year, their birthday is an important day for any user. We built a feature around that to increase buzz around the calendar. The user could come on the website & check on what day he was born. The curiosity of one’s friend being born on “ National Choco Lava Day “ or “ National Cheese Lovers Day” encouraged the user to see the significance of his/her date of birth, through a foodie’s lens. Our Facebook page (with 150K followers) burst with enthusiasm & once foodies started tagging their friends, we knew the calendar fever is catching on.

We also published posts about celebrities birthday giving a new twist on the birthday (Salman Khan was born on National Nuts Day, Alia Bhatt on National Naan Day, Katrina Kaif on National Ice Cream Day ) spiking the user’s interest to check out their own birthday & sharing with friends on social media. We also did a Fb live on How we celebrated National Cheese Lovers Day at Ketchupp HQ, New Delhi by savouring the cheesiest dishes delivered to our doorstep.

The users were elated to find a new gastronomic twist to every day of the year & make them look out for best dishes relevant to the specific days. Users also subscribed to notifications where they could get a reminder about a specific day which they don’t want to forget.

We also partnered with Reprime which ensured that a user could add those days on Google Calendar & get a reminder on that special day. Videos about January 2017 being a special month & How National Foodie Calendar was solving 5 of users problems in one go surged the interest in the calendar & soon foodies from across the nine cities (where Ketchupp is catering to) joined the bandwagon.

What We Achieved

1. The repeat usage increased from 30% to 40% in January 2017.
2. Even the number of new users grew by 43%.
3. Buzz on social media, high brand recall , engagement on Facebook increased.
4. Established food brands have come forward to partner with us through sponsorship of Calendar.
5. 1860 users shared “I WAS BORN ON” on Facebook & WhatsApp.

January being just the first month of the year, we expect that the traction achieved will help us acquire new users & substantially increased our repeat rate too as more & more users subscribe for notifications too.

With National Pizza Day, National Dosa Day, National Arabiatta Pasta Day, National Dal Makhani Day coming in Feb, the enthusiasm of the consumer & our team is expected to go northwards. We expect this feature to keep pushing boundaries & bring new users in connect with Ketchupp. We hope to delight the user every time a user comes to Ketchupp by making sure the user never repents the dish ordered.

[This post by Chirag Taneja first appeared on Medium and has been reproduced with permission.]

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