BENGALURU: There is some good news in these pandemic times, with the gender gap in entrepreneurship decreasing in the past two years which highlight the role of social media, influencers and search engine optimisation (SEO) in aiding brand discovery and influencer marketing.
“There was a 13.9 per cent increase in female business owners in 2021, as compared to 2020,” stated a survey conducted by Instamojo, an e-commerce platform for independent business, Direct to Consumer (DTC) brands and Micro, Medium & Small Enterprises (MSMEs) that enables them to start, manage and grow their business online.
The ‘Indian DTC brands eCommerce outlook 2022’ report, launched as part of Instamojo’s study, draws upon the experiences of over 20 lakh small businesses in 2021 with a view on trends to look out for this year. “40 per cent of the total online businesses using Instamojo are women, with increased interest from women aged above 50.
We witnessed over five lakh women visiting the website in 2021,” the study stated. Besides increasing gender parity in entrepreneurship, the report highlighted “heightened attention to data transparency, focus on sustainable packaging and healthy products attention to data transparency, sustainable packaging and healthy products in 2022, rise in social commerce, mobile-first economy with Instamojo witnessing a 23 per cent rise in new users logging in via phones”.
Commenting on the outlook for 2022, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Instamojo, Sampad Swain said as entrepreneurs and small businesses learn the benefits of selling independently online, the DTC model is expected to catalyse business growth significantly in the coming quarters.
“In the post-pandemic world, the DTC model can be an effective solution to accelerate business recovery. As we witness the shift of DTC businesses to the online medium, we aim to support the growth journey of more than 2,50,000 small business owners as they strive towards becoming digitally independent,” said Swain.
The study stated that SEO will “become the biggest free acquisition channel for DTC brands in India in 2022. Along with SEO, social media will play an even larger role in aiding brand discovery and influencer marketing will lead the way for organic growth”.The new wave of DTC brands is aware that selling on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube is a profitable choice.