FAASOS’s Co-Founders, Jaydeep Burman, and Kallol Banerjee strategized their marketing strategy and initiated their own word-of-mouth marketing. They are the pioneers when it comes to mouth publicity.
FAASOS, now under the brand Eatsure, is a cloud kitchen that built 1000 restaurants in just 24 months, increased its revenue by 5x, and raised itself to serve more than 300 meals a day. The parent company generated a revenue of Rs 900 Crore in FY22.
Jaydeep Burman and Kallol Banerjee were the students of IIM. While they had no knowledge of how a food business works, they were proficient with technology.
Both of them were away from home and lived out of India. Their routine outside was exhausting in nature. They were tired of all the traveling and working. Eating burgers and hotdogs bored them. They felt the need for better meals. They were craving homemade food.
Hence, they began FAASOS which stands for Fanatic Activism Against Substandard Occidental Shit. They knew the power of technology and the power of word of mouth. Based on that, they created the best marketing strategy.
In 2003, they began a Tweet to Order Campaign. They offered Buy 1 Get 1 Free for their customers who would place an order by Twitter. They asked the users to tweet their orders. They were asked to mention them @faasos and use the hashtag #FaasosNow.
While they only received 15 orders through it, they reached over 1500 people considering the followers those 15 people had.
The word-of-mouth marketing through Twitter created a tremendous buzz and FAASOS started receiving 50-60 orders daily. The brand awareness and reach became magnificent solely through the power of word of mouth.
Once they had established themselves successfully in a city, they started asking the person to tag their friend in another city to whom they’d like to send a free wrap as a gift. The two such campaigns are called #60for free and #giftaWrap. People started mentioning their friends since everyone appreciates a gift and FAASOS lived up to their words.
Other than that, they personalised the orders of their customer through different means. On Twitter, they responded to orders by collecting data about their customer through their profile and personalising their tweet. When delivering the orders, they delivered them with cute little sticky notes. Whenever someone placed an order, they made sure that they responded to them instantly. People loved how special FAASOS made them feel.
Placing an order through Twitter might have sounded like a crazy and dumb idea but the founders of FAASOS could see how brilliant the idea was. They realised the number of people they could reach through social networks and leveraged that.
The Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy of FAASOS
1. The gap in the market:
Their experience made them realize how much people crave and miss a home-cooked meal. Homemade food is not just about taste, but also emotions. It’s also an escape for those who haven’t had their favorite meal prepared by their loved ones at home. It’s also about nostalgia and habits. They were quick to notice that even in India, there are people who live away from home. Students move to some other city or state for a better education and adults move away for better opportunities for their career. To satiate the taste buds of youngsters in India and bridge the gap, they began the journey of FAASOS.
2. Identification of target audience:
They knew it was youngsters who majorly moved across towns. They have been through that and experienced that firsthand. They knew how they think, feel, and believe. They cared to acknowledge their wants and desires. They knew how they spoke, and their slang, and used the same language to connect and relate to them.
3. Word of Mouth Marketing:
They were open and quick to adapt to technology. They understood how technology and the advances made in the field of technology are the next big thing. They knew their target audience was hooked to their smartphones. They were not hesitant to try it out. With little investment, they reached out to people on Twitter and asked them to place an order through their tweets in exchange for an offer. The tweets acted as a word of encouragement. They let their customers do the marketing for them. Mouth publicity benefited them in the following ways:
- Increased their Reach
- Generated Brand Awareness
- Generated Sales
- Generated Leads
- Improved Brand Reputation
- Stood Out from the Crowd
- Lowered the Customer Acquisition Costs
- Built a Positive Relationship with Their Customers
- High Customer Retention
- Built Brand Loyalty
- Received High ROI
4. Personalised and Quick Response:
Customers can make or break your business. They ensured to take into account how the customers felt. They went out of their way to make them feel special. They curated personalized responses for every customer they had. They sent them cute little notes to make their day. And whenever a customer placed an order through a tweet, they reply to them immediately. This response was highly appreciated by FAASOS’s customers and resulted in their success.
Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool. If used in the right way, it can upscale your business in ways you cannot imagine. However, there has never been a tool to control, initiate, and track word of mouth until now. MouthPublicity.io is the first word-of-mouth management tool. It helps you convert your customers into your free marketing team.
FAASOS used the strategy and won. They were not scared or hesitant to try something new that has the potential to bring in the result. They took the leap of faith. Their ability to adapt to new ways to leverage technology and unconventional marketing techniques made them who they are today.
