GoDaddy eyes the next set of 200 million internet users in India from tier 2-3 markets

In a chat with VARINDIA, Nikhil Arora, Vice President & Managing Director, GoDaddy India shares the USP of the company, state of the company’s India business and its future roadmap

The domain registrar and web hosting company, GoDaddy’s global missionis to empower everyday entrepreneurs by providing all the help and tools to come and succeed online. Having started their global journey about 20 years ago, they now have over 19 million customers and over 78 million domains worldwide.  Nikhil claims that GoDaddy is the leading provider of domains worldwide.

Explaining further, he adds that, “Today, if we think of anybody who wants to start their online journey, the first thing they would do is buy a domain, to create their own, unique identity on the internet. Once they have the domain, they want to bring it to life for  people to be able to find them and know that they exist. That is when website comes into play and this is where GoDaddy excels - enabling people to turn their idea into reality online. One you are online, GoDaddy serves as a true partner along your online journey, helping with expert advice, easy-to-use, affordable tools and solutions.

The key USPs

Having worked with millions of entrepreneurs globally, helping them bring their ideas online, GoDaddy understands what is needed to help eliminate barriers restricting people to create a compelling online identity and grow their ventures globally and locally. Nikhil focuses on the exceptional customer experience as their key USP. In today's world, where there are so many products and services available, GoDaddy provides a 24x7 customer service worldwide.

Nikhil comments, “Whether you are an individual entrepreneur or a 10 team company, you always want to get some advice on what products to select and how to educate your team to use them. We really thrive on delivering a WOW customer experience for our everday entrepreneurs. Most entrepreneurs and many small businesses actually are still trying to understand the difference between having a social media presence and creating their own business website. We constantly educate our customers on the benefits of both because while social media presence is important to help expand customer base, having a website is an equally important part of one’s overall online strategy as it is your own platform and your own content. One’s own website should be seen as their primary brand presence and identity, while social media can be a tool to help promote the brand and get people to know about it. Hence, I believe customer experience as well as driving awareness and education on what getting your brand online means  are the two key differentiators for us.”

Transforming Customers

Setting foot in a dynamic market like India in 2012, GoDaddy has reached over a million customers in the country and is the leader in the domain industry, with over 40% of market share presently. Nikhil explains, “When we think of customer, we actually do not focus on any one vertical in particular. We think about different business journeys of our customers. People who are just starting their online business today share the same needs and decision points like what are the tools they should buy, how do they come online or how do they transact online, etc.Then there are some customers who are in the middle of their business journey, have not come online yet, but are trying to build an online presence, then they need support bridging to what worked for them offline and translate that online. We look at customer lifecycle and the maturity stage of their business, which is why we have customers across industries such as service, retail, among others and across scales, from micro to small to established businesses.

India Business

With a million customers, GoDaddy’s brand awareness in India is currently over 85% in Tier 1 cities. In the last three years, they have profitably doubled the business in India, which is one of the leading international markets for GoDaddy and continues to be one of the biggest focused geographical areas for the company.

GoDaddy’s India strategy is built on three primary pillars.. Nikhil describes, “Firstly, we want to be the trusted, long-term partners for our customers across Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities of the country. For this, we are continuously working on building awareness about online adoption  through our marketing campaigns in over seven Indic languages and customer care in over four local languages, because India is a culturally and linguistically diverse country. By providing hyper local, regional content, we are able to help people understand the benefits of being online and the products and services that we offer to support them in their online journey. Here, we also use our channel of influencers like web developers, designers and local resellers to drive both awareness of the benefits and also usability of our products. . The second pillar of our strategy is flexible products and pricing. We have a product as low as INR54 a month, called the Online Starter Bundle, which allows people to buy a domain, get a one page website and a professional email, all in one go. It is an easy, cheap and quick tool for somebody who’s just starting to get their business. The other range of spectrum includes more advanced products like VPS and dedicated servers for customers who are far advanced in their life cycle. The third pillar of our strategy is delivering exceptional customer experience. Today, we have over 1000 customer care representatives, talking to almost 4000 customers every day on call, providing support in over four different Indian languages through chat, voice, bot and other mediums.”

Future Roadmap

Focusing on the tier 2 and 3 cities, GoDaddy wants to help boost the Digital India journey and continue encouraging more women entrepreneurs, start-ups and small business owners across the country. Nikhil believes that with digital technology making inroads deeper into the country, there has been a rising demand for digital skilling and learning technical know-how to become more digitally savvy. Keeping this mind, we are working on an online training and certification programme for our Indian consumers, to gain knowledge and technical expertise to succeed online.

Nikhil concludes, “While we have done a great job in getting the major cities come online, our focus is now on the tier 2, tier3 parts of the country from where the next set of 200 million internet users are actually going to come - the non-English speaking parts of India. We are looking at getting these businesses to come, thrive and grow online. We are doing this by driving awareness through educational marketing campaigns to help them understand the benefits of coming online and we’ve seen positive results so far.. We also do a lot of on-the-ground events through our web designer/developer channel and resellers, conducting workshops to educate people, who are just coming online, about the kind of products should they buy, how long should they keep them and how should they map out the journey line for their business. Our latest product – The Online Starter Bundle is an ideal solution for our customers in Tier 2, Tier 3 parts of the country, offering all the essential tools that a business needs to present a professional brand to the online world, at an affordable price.”