A dating app wants to enter the Indian Market. What Strategy to adopt for Market entry?

1. A dating app wants to enter the Indian
Market. What Strategy to adopt for Market
entry?
a) Develop a market entry strategy to reach users in the target group (18-35). Focus the
distribution strategy on reaching women.
b) Which of your proposed actions are quick wins (i.e. can be done without much time
and cost effort)?
For a dating app, especially in India, it’s important that there are equal number of men and women on
the app. Considering, there is more men in India then Women, this could be a big break through if
achieved in winning the market share. The idea is if you can have women users, men will follow
(unequal demand and supply principle).
The app should be branded as a network empowering women, meaning in the Indian society the status
of women is already seen as struggling against the men. So, if we can brand the app as a network where
Women has more power than men it will gets a lot of women on-board.
On the feature side, when a Women registers on the app via Facebook, after verification she will directly
have access to the app, but when a men tries to join the app, he would not be activated until this men is
approved or “Liked” by at least 5 Women in his area (location). This will give Women the real power and
create a challenge in men’s mind to cross the hurdle by wooing the ladies with their profiles and win the
access to the elite network. This could be done by creating an entry Challenge for the men.
Keeping this strategy in mind, the app should partner with Women focused businesses. For e.g. ads and
partnership with Women magazines such as Femina etc. Online ads and banners on Women only
platforms such as iDiva.com (the no.1 online destination for Indian women offering style and beauty
tips, relationship advice, entertainment news and celebrity gossip, health tips etc.) and Indusladies.com
(the largest online community for Indian women in the world).
Further distributions and print marketing should be done by partnering with Women Beauty Parlors and
Saloons and Women Apparel Shops. The app can partner with such businesses by offering limited cross-
marketing strategies by showcasing ads to limited users from the local businesses.
The app should do print (posters/Newspaper leaflets) and radio commercials, challenging Men for
winning the challenges thrown by Women on the app platforms. Male (ego) behavioral marketing
strategies are typically a big hit in the Indian Society.
Dating is a big topic in colleges and universities in India. Since, the society is still behind in terms of
dating as compared to the west. Dating is most prevalent after high school. To tap the massive user base

2. in the universities and colleges, the app needs a focus on content marketing and a source of insightful
information on typical dating topics such as- What women want? What men want? How to find true
partner etc. These content can be acquired by engaging university students by themselves, offering
small amount of money (for e.g. INR 50/post) to the student will keep the content supply flowing.
Students love making money like these in India and once you can offer such spicy topics, it becomes all
the more interesting.
The app can further enhance its content strategy and online marketing by offering challenges on
Blogging Networks such as IndiBlogger and BlogAdda. Here the app can invite people to write about
topics such as Women security and women empowerment and relating it with the app. This will help in
spreading the word about the service really fast and with a larger reach.
The content strategy can also be used to win Men users, i.e. by offering direct access to Men on the elite
app network, if their posts are rated as the best content on the web.
Gyms and Fitness studios are another distribution network where both men and women users can be
targeted, by offering cross-marketing techniques.
TV Commercial is also a very popular and important market entry and branding facet, if you are looking
for a fast marketing growth with sufficient budget at hand. Creative ads can quickly get you many users.

3. The app can also tag itself for finding the right partner for the people, and brand itself as disrupting the
way typically Matrimony works in India.
The Quick Wins will be-
 Partnering with Women only businesses should be cost effective as well as fast. ( Feminia
(Women magazine- Print), iDiva/Indusladies (Online))
 Content strategy and online marketing by offering challenges on Blogging Networks such as
IndiBlogger and BlogAdda is easier and cheaper. Blogging networks are still in their infancy in
India and making money from content sourcing is still not the top priority of such networks.
Therefore, these provide a great channel for online marketing and content marketing.

4.  Engaging University students for content and online marketing is very cost effective. (you nearly
pay INR 50/post)
 Gyms, Fitness studios, Beauty Parlors etc. could be easily pulled in on-board without any extra
cost if cross-marketing benefits are offered for e.g. we show their ads to app users and they
place our banners and posters in their shops and businesses.
 Getting regional Radio, Newspapers and bloggers for marketing and branding can be achieved in
a very cost effective manner.
 A lot of word of mouth marketing though small temporary outlets at the malls and various other
public places can be achieved very quickly at low cost.
 Challenging Matrimonial websites could be an easy bet, considering it has been the same format
for many years and people are ready to try new ways of finding life partners.