Thursday, July 24, 2008

Marketing Strategies in Online Bus Reservation Sites

The online bus reservation sites are using a combination of traditional and innovative market strategies to expand its business. Some of the interesting marketing strategies are captured here:

1. Growth using m-Commerce: Some of the sites have tied up with mobile commerce service providers like ngpay. This allows the company to increase its market reach with the exponentially growing Indian mobile subscriber base. Further, this helps the companies to leverage the customer base of m-commerce companies like ngpay thereby reducing the cost of customer acquisition.

2. Multiple customer interaction points: The leading market service providers have gone ahead and provided multiple customer interaction points like phone, web, retail outlets, SMS and m-commerce to expand its customer base.

3. Franchisee based market growth strategy: Many sites have adopted the franchisee model to scale up its businesses.

4. Market Promotion through alliances like Visa, auction and gaming sites: Many sites are offering promotional schemes by rewarding the partner's existing customer base with discounts and promotional offers. For example redbus.in is offering 10% discount to all the visa card holders who book ticket through their visa card.

5. Promotion through special travel packages: Some of the sites also offer special travel packages on behalf of its registered travel partners like devotional tour, winter package etc.

6. Discounted prices on week days: Some players offer discounted prices on various routes in alliance with registered travel agent on week days to drive the traffic.

No comments:

Post a Comment