Unusual Masters of Conversion optimization.

Marketing has always been about driving quality traffic to your business front. Be it online or offline.

We have been doing it offline for ages and now we do the same online as well.

We see that shops open up close to each other, even if that means existing in the presence of competitors because aggregation leads to quality traffic/footfall. On the other hand, a standalone shop will have lesser competition but will also attract lesser traffic.

It could be better to have a small piece of a big pie than a larger piece of a very small pie.

Here is what we can learn from unusual experts of the craft, offline:

Highway-side dhabas are the experts of the game of driving and converting quality traffic.

They tie up with travel operators to stop their buses for breaks at their dhabas and make sure the stay is long enough for most people to deboard and convert.

The timing is late enough for people to get a bit hungry but not so late so that the passengers fall deep asleep.

They offer washroom facilities and good ones even charge for them.

This way, whatever you do, you are paying them.

All of their items have high markups, as high as even 25% over MRP but since that’s the only dhaba in the vicinity, they have NO competition. At the same time, owing to the timing, a good percentage of passengers become customers (low bounce rate).

If shopkeepers in cities are websites, these dhabas are landing pages! The traffic they get has intent, 0 exits and high markups.

Their traffic is predictable, scalable and has a very low acquisition cost!

What did you learn from them? :)