Marketing in the times of Covid-19: Housejoy

• In our latest interview series, we talk to brands to understand how they are coping with the new normal and their strategies towards navigating these difficult times.
• In today's interview, Arpan Biswas, VP – Marketing, Housejoy tells us how the startup adapted to this new way of functioning and all that it has been doing to keep all its stakeholders safe and connected with the brand.

Since the government decided to impose a lockdown on the country to curb the spread of Covid-19, businesses and organizations across the country, and the world, have been impacted. During this time, its organizations that have managed to stay agile and open to evolving how they function have been the ones that have been less impacted.

Over the past few weeks we have read of a lot of organizations and brands that have diversified their businesses, in an attempt to stay relevant to the dynamic times. Among many other examples, we saw Housejoy, a tech-driven construction, renovation, interiors, and home maintenance company, launching a service for the delivery of essentials.

The startup was able to pull this off right at the start of the lockdown, when people were stuck at home and were struggling to get essentials delivered as supply chain had been impacted too. This was a good example of how the startup (whose core offering in the construction and maintenance space came to a complete halt) innovated quickly to make itself relevant to the consumer’s evolving needs by expanding its offerings.

We caught up with Arpan Biswas, VP – Marketing, Housejoy recently, to understand how challenging diversification under the lockdown was, and what kind of reception they have seen in the past few weeks. We also ask him what his learnings as a marketer from this whole experience has been and how Housejoy, as an organization, is gearing up to function efficiently in the post-Covid world.

Excerpts:

Q) How has the last 2 months been for Housejoy as an organization? Were you prepared as an organization to make the transition to WFH?
Just like most other startups, the pandemic did have an impact on Housejoy and our operations given that our construction and maintenance services came to a complete halt. Now, we are back on track and all our businesses across all cities have resumed, except in containment zones. Our teams are back in office and our construction services have resumed.

Though we were not completely ready for WFH initially, our tech and HR teams facilitated the transition and top management ensured the teams are well engaged with regular virtual catchups.

Q) Your core offering is in the sphere of construction, renovation, interiors, and home maintenance. However, the lockdown has forced most work in the sphere to come to a complete standstill. How do you anticipate the next few months will pan out for you as an organization?
Yes, construction and home maintenance do not fall under essentials. Hence, our businesses came to a standstill. During lockdown, we encouraged our construction and interiors customers to get their house designs finalized. We have also been working on building confidence among our existing customers and keeping them updated about our activities. As WFH will become a norm in the future, we foresee demand for home offices and an overhaul of how new spaces will be constructed. We anticipate a high demand for home maintenance, fumigation, and beauty services post the lockdown.

Post easing of the stringent lockdowns, demand has picked up and our B2C business is getting more orders vis-a-vis pre-Covid period, partially due to the pent-up demand. We are also seeing considerable traction from construction and renovation.

When our core businesses were halted, we took several initiatives like Housejoy mart to ensure customers get super-fast grocery delivery and our idle service providers get a mode to earn. Additionally, we also collaborated with the Karnataka state government in their effort to combat the pandemic by offering free fumigation in public places. We recently joined hands with leading healthcare brands like Portea Medical, SRL Diagnostics, Biognosys and BAF to set up mobile COVID-19 testing camps across Bengaluru to arrest the spread of the virus.

Q) How have you been communicating with your consumers during this time? As a marketer, what has your priority been, in terms of the marketing communications going out?
Our external communication is focused on the essentials and customer’s needs like fumigation, grocery delivery, etc. We have stopped all spends on traditional mediums and primarily focusing on digital as a medium to generate demand and educate customers of our offerings. Within digital, the focus is on intent-based searches and quirky content to engage with our consumers. Additionally, we have reached out to all our existing construction customers on the delays and provided them assurance on their investments. A large chunk of our content is dedicated towards informing our customers about the measures our service providers have taken to keep themselves and our customer’s safe.

Internally, we are trying to keep the team’s morale high by sharing all the media buzz we have received, the deals we have cracked. These are testing times for all employees and it’s important to assure them about the financial health of their organization.

Q) What was your media mix pre-COVID and how did that change during the lockdown? Do you think you will tweak your media mix even after the lockdown is called off? Has digital seen most of your marketing investments?
Prior to the COVID pandemic, it was a mix of traditional and digital. However, during the lockdown, digital marketing and PR have been our go-to medium. We are implementing and leaning toward strengthening our digital marketing strategies. Our strategy has been to engage customers with quirky and interesting themes and messaging, and we will continue to do this going forward.

Q) Did content marketing play a big role for you during the lockdown?
Content marketing is one of our focus areas and our single-minded objective on digital is to improve the shareability of our content. We wish to keep our construction and interiors customers updated with newest technologies, trendy designs, and latest ways to upgrade their lifestyles. For our on-demand customers, the focus is to educate them of the WHO-suggested safety measures we have implemented and keep them aligned to our new offerings like car sanitization and labor on hire.

Q) You recently entered the grocery-delivery space. Was it a natural extension for the brand? What kind of uptake has this service seen during the lockdown? How have you been marketing this offering?
Expansion to grocery-delivery was a natural extension as we have the necessary tech and supply for the same. Our primary focus through this initiative has been to ensure work continuity for our teams and helping our customers in this hour of crisis. We partnered with various Kirana stores and helped them in expanding their business.

This is a very new field for us, and we are evaluating the business model currently. Once that is set, we plan to invest in marketing.

Q) What have your key learnings from the COVID-19 experience been, both as a marketer and as an organization?
As an organization, we have learnt that flexibility is one of the biggest virtues and we have exhibited the same. We entered two new categories – healthcare and delivery services – keeping in mind the growing demand. We have also realized that great companies are built when people stick together in such times of crisis. Our employees have exhibited immense character, took complete ownership and executed some tough projects.

As marketers, we have learnt that marketing is not about big budgets. Focus should be on improving quality of content and adding value to our customer’s lives. The distribution is taken care of by customers.

Q) While the lockdown might be lifted soon, things might still take a few more months to settle down. How are you going to cope with the post-COVID world? How are you preparing as an organization?
Though the lockdown will be lifted, the fear of transmission will still loom large. There will be some permanent changes in customer’s behavior and way of consumption. We are trying to keep our eyes and ears open to understand and validate the changes and work on ways to connect with them better. There is no denying the fact that we must adapt to this new normal and we are doing everything possible to ensure things run smoothly.