In our recently edited article, we learned in detail about the Marketing strategy of an amazing footwear brand, Bata India. In this article, let us discuss the complete marketing strategy of Relaxo Footwear – which is one of the leading footwear brands in India.
The purpose of this blog is to trace the journey of Relaxo Footwear from when it was just one of the players in the footwear market to now when it is one of the leading footwear brands in the country surpassing even many big players like Bata.
Marketing is one such practice in today’s cutthroat competitive age without which no company or brand can even survive, forget reaching its full potential and overtaking its competitors. As the world today has gone digital, businesses’ focus on taking marketing to the digital realm has also increased multifold.
If you are interested in contemporary approaches to digital marketing, then you should check out IIDE’s Free MasterClass on Digital Marketing 101 by our CEO and Founder, Karan Shah.
Before we get into putting out and analyzing the marketing strategy of Relaxo Footwear in detail, let us first understand the story behind the company, its competitors, and then its marketing strategy.
Company Overview
Relaxo was founded in 1984 and today it is the largest footwear manufacturer in India. It is among India’s 500 most valuable companies as part of the Fortune 500 India list. It is its high-quality footwear at affordable prices made in India. It manufactures slippers, sandals and casual & sports shoes.
The most popular brands of the company are Relaxo, Bahamas, Flite, and Sparx which are a leader in their space. They have a well-knit network of 350+ retail outlets across India and also sell through major e-commerce websites.
| Managing Director | Mr Ramesh Kumar Dua |
|---|---|
| Marketing Head | Mr Sunil Kumar |
| Area Served | Across India |
| Industry | Footwear |
| Market Share/ Revenue | 2410.48 Cr Fy22 |
| Vision | Create a culture for quality, environment protection, and safety through effective training. Design & develop innovative products through customer research and analysis. Meet and exceed customer expectations. Meet all compliance obligations. |
| Tagline | Quality par Excellence |
Marketing Strategy of Relaxo Footwear
Relaxo Footwear gets the fundamentals of marketing right like segmentation, targeting, positioning, clear product differentiation, and creating a very strong relationship with its consumers. It also recognizes the need for contemporary approaches such as Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation/Marketing.
Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning
Segmentation is the process of breaking down an entire market into smaller groups for companies or brands to target only the group or groups that may turn out to be their potential customers. The footwear market can be broken down into age, gender, price, lifestyle, and region. Relaxo recognizes this and has customized products to effectively target each segment.
Although Relaxo has its base in the South, the network is not so strong to compete with the likes of VKC and Paragon. It also recognizes the fact that it is not practical to compete with the likes of international brands such as Puma, Nike, Addidas, and so on concerning premium products. Therefore they have consciously decided to stay away from these segments. So let us look at how the company targets various segments through various brands.
As the target segments are many for the company its various brands position themselves differently. But on an overall scheme of things Relaxo positions itself as a company that through its various brands sells good quality, inexpensive footwear. It is trying to rebrand itself with an image wooing to resonate with the youth.
Marketing Campaigns
Sparx, the sports footwear brand from the house of Relaxo has recently rebranded its market positioning from ‘Add Sparx to your life’ to ‘It’s In Me’. The brand has launched a campaign with brand ambassador Akshay Kumar to communicate this repositioning and rebranding to the youth that it is targeting. The campaign has been created and executed by DDB Mudra. This campaign hyped Sparx to touch the next level of sales.
Sar Utha Kadam Badha
On May 27, 2022, the Relaxo footwear youtube channel got updated with a new video, promoting the Flite PUG 111. The video was about flite PUG 111 where Dheeraj Dhoopar was explaining the features of the footwear. The video is going good, for now, there are 381 views for now. The footwear has a smart design with a soft cushioned insole. The tagline for the promotion is Sar Utha Kadam Badha with Flite PUG 111.
Keep chilling keep flipping
This is the advertisement video for the Bahamas slipper. Where the students of the college colour their teacher’s face thinking of him as his friend. But he turns out to be the teacher, they recognise the teacher and try to trick him. The teacher recognised them with their Bahamas slippers. The video touched 1k on their youtube channel with the tagline “keep chilling keep flipping” with the Bahamas.
Social Media Marketing
Relaxo footwear has realized the power of social media and the influence that it can have on the minds of people, especially the youth. Hence you can notice the shift in the recent ad campaign for Sparx. Now let us have a look at the social media following of Relaxo footwear on its various social media accounts and analyze them.
Facebook: 160,658 followers
Instagram: Absent
LinkedIn: 35,506 followers
Twitter: 1,964 followers
Relaxo footwear looks highly disorganized, inconsistent, and ineffective on social media. They must immediately employ a social media marketing team who must with immediate effect deploy an effective social media marketing plan and get their social media pages up and running. This is because celebrity endorsements on social media can raise brand awareness but it is consistent engagement on social media that will help penetrate the customers’ minds and drive sales.
This said they haven’t completely misread the influence of social media. They regularly collaborate with celebrity influencers and run campaigns via influencer marketing. Relaxo subsidiary brand Sparx has a social media page with more than 70K+ followers and for the first time ever, Sparx launched its campaign on digital media (Instagram) before television.
SEO Strategies
In the current times, buying and selling of goods primarily happen in 2 ways – Social Media and Search engines. Therefore it becomes very important for any website to rank higher up on a search engine for higher visibility converting it into higher awareness and sales. Let us first understand the metrics with which we measure the success or failure of the SEO strategy of a firm. The number of organic keywords – below 500 is bad, above 1000 is good, 10,000+ is amazing. The number of organic keywords here is 18,100 therefore we can say that the SEO strategy is good and nearly amazing.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer Marketing is a type of social media marketing where an influential person collaborates with a brand to promote something. Influencer marketing is one of the core pillars in the marketing strategy of Relaxo Footwear. Relaxo’s subsidiary brands like Sparx and Bahamas use influencers and Bollywood celebrities like Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar, to increase its reach, for positioning and repositioning, to build trust and a more personal connection with its consumers, and to increase its brand value.
It uses influencer marketing both online and offline. They have collaborated with stars like and so on who are not only very famous but also very loved and celebrated in the country. The art of using influencers for marketing is nearly perfected by Relaxo. Probably they should work on collaborations with people who are not just stars but people whom the youth resonate with such as comedians, musicians, and so on.
E-Commerce Strategy
Relaxo Footwear has a website where it sells its products from various brands such as Relaxo, Bahamas, Sparx, Flite, Boston, Mary Jane, and Kids Fun. It delivers products across the country and the products take approximately 3-7 days to days to reach the consumer based on their location. The customer interface is simple and user-friendly where customers can order their desired footwear, track order, place exchange requests, and so on. They also sell their goods through various E-commerce giants like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and so on.
Mobile Application
Relaxo Footwear does not have a mobile application of its own. Most likely they do not need to have a mobile application of their own since they already have a website and also their products are available on all the major E-commerce websites. Therefore based on a cost-benefit point of view they are right in not having their mobile application and also it shows a good understanding of consumer behaviour wherein they have understood that consumers don’t prefer keeping a mobile application just for footwear.
Content Marketing
Relaxo footwear primarily focuses on video advertisements on television and social media. They use influencers who are celebrated to convey their message. They make content that revolves around the branding and rebranding of their image to develop a psychological connection with their consumers. Their strategy is to draw consumers towards them by making content that makes consumers resonate with their image and their unique selling features such as low cost and great quality.
This ends our elaborative marketing strategy of Relaxo Footwear. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Relaxo Footwear.
What’s Unique in Relaxo Footwears’ Marketing?
The marketing strategy of Relaxo can be summarised as follows: great understanding of the markets and their consumers, cliche but effective celebrity collaborations, and excellent SEO strategies. Their overall strategy is common yet effective in reaching their specific goals and objectives. The one criticism we can offer is that their digital marketing strategy seems a bit lacklustre and outdated, it can be better structured, managed, and consistent.
Speaking about digital marketing, we cannot stress enough the relevance and importance of digital marketing because most of the trade happens online and it helps firms target specific audiences better and gives them a global reach.
With the increasing importance of digital marketing, learning about the growing field is an important step. If you would like to learn more and develop skills, check out IIDE’s 4 Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.
We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of Relaxo Footwear has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.
If you like such in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of Relaxo Footwear, check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.
Thank you for taking the time to read the marketing strategy of Relaxo Footwear, and do share your thoughts on this case study of the marketing strategy of Relaxo Footwear in the comments section below.
0 Comments