Like other companies Xiaomi is not investing on advertisement campaigns like media buying, contacting celebrity brand ambassadors, big outdoor hoardings, advertising on newspapers etc. to promote their products but still became the No 1 brand in the country. In marketing, According to Mr. Manu Jain, Xiaomi is focusing on three things: **1. Product**  If your product, its quality, and features are good, then you need not to invest heavily on marketing because its word of mouth is strong automatically. For example, Facebook and WhatsApp do not advertise to use them because their word of mouth is so strong that they do not need advertisements.  If your product is of good quality, then it will sell definitely.  **2. Social Media**  Today, social media is very strong. Our youth is mostly available on the social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. They are Xiaomi’s actual customer base. So, they want to interact with them and make them understand the benefits of their products. Xiaomi encourages its complete team to be on social media and they keep posting content on social media. Other companies asks their employees to not to spend time on social media but Xiaomi ask its employees to spend time on social media and see what people are saying about their company and post comments on it.  For example, Xiaomi is going to launch a new mobile phone, Redmi Note 7. If other mobile companies launch their mobile phone, they take big celebrities and models to advertise their products.  But, Xiaomi has use a photograph in which its leadership team members are holding the new mobile phone in their hands with white background and white clothes. Xiaomi post this photograph on social media and they get millions of views and likes on this photograph. Xiaomi keeps on sharing various unique posts on social media and get thousands likes on it. They use various alternative marketing ideas. Some other examples of marketing ideas are: 1. Few years back, Xiaomi said that consumer can buy their mobile phones for Rs. 1 but they need to go through a registration process. In this registration process, one step is to post on social media.  Around 1 million, i.e. 10 lakh people registered through this process. 100-200 friends of these 10 lakh people have seen these posts on social media. As a result, Xiaomi gets a reach of 10 crores by selling few mobile phones for Rs. 1 only.   It is a more powerful marketing than to run an advertisement on television.  2. Whenever Xiaomi launches a new mobile phone, it ensures that its 20-30 senior team members go individually and does hand deliver of mobile phones to all the customers who buy it on the first day of the launch. They take photos while delivering the mobile phones to the customers and post it on social media. They get thousands of likes on these posts. People like that they are connecting with the customers directly. So, these posts get viral.  3. On Independence Day & Republic Day, Xiaomi does something for the society.  Two years back, Xiaomi launched his mobile phone, Redmi Note 4 of Rs. 13,000. At that time, in India, 4-5 million pieces of the best mobile phones are sold in a year. The price of these mobile phones ranges from Rs. 5000 to Rs. 6000 approximately.  But, Xiaomi sold 5 million, i.e. 50 lakhs, pieces of Redmi Note 4 whose price was Rs. 13,000 within 6 months. It became the best-selling phone of India.  To celebrate this, they decided to do different campaign “No Mi Without You.” In this campaign, Xiaomi made the World’s biggest grain mosaic, i.e. they made a Logo using grain. In this mosaic, there are so many cereals and grains that Xiaomi is able to feed 5 lakh kids. They posted this grain mosaic on social media.  It became super viral on social media and get lakhs of views.  So, instead of doing an advertisement on television to show that 5 lakhs mobile phones of Redmi Note 4 has sold, Xiaomi gave food to 5 lakh kids from the grain mosaic that they built.   4. Last year, in Quarter 2 (April – June), Xiaomi has sold around 10 million mobile phones. This is the first time that a mobile phone company has sold 10 million phones in one quarter.  To celebrate this, instead of doing an advertisement on television, Xiaomi has made a logo with 10,000 bulbs and it becomes the World’s Largest Light Mosiac. It won the Guinness World Record. On social media, they get various comments and likes for this.    5. Recently, Xiaomi has opened 500 retail stores all over India on the same day and same time “[12pm](x-apple-data-detectors://1)”. It became the Guinness World Record to open 500 stores at the same time. It again got viral on social media.   So, Xiaomi always try to do something that is related to real-life and people like it on social media and share it. ### **Flash Sales of Xiaomi** In the initial three years, Xiaomi used to sale all its products on flash sale. You need to register in flash sale. Only the people who have registered will get a chance to buy the mobile phone on the sale day.   But, now, the supply of Xiaomi mobile phones has increased. They have 6 factories in India. So, now their supply becomes 10 million mobile phones every quarter.  So, now, they do not need to do flash sale.  Today, anyone can buy Xiaomi phones at any time either online or offline.  When a new mobile phone is launched, then there might be some shortage of mobile phone otherwise the supply is good enough to meet the customer demand. **3. Community Development**   Xiaomi has come up with its own online and offline community, which are called “Mi Fan Club”. Mi Community is a website of Xiaomi wherein people can visit and discuss about technology. This community has 15 million, i.e. 1.5 crores, active users every month. 1.5 crores people means 1% of India’s population. This shows that 1% people of India visits this web/app every month.  Xiaomi also conducts Mi Fan meet in which they meet their Mi Fans to discuss and take ideas from them.  In all the big 20-25 cities of India, Xiaomi has its official Mi Fan Club.  Community is a platform where customers get connected with Xiaomi.  In 90s, brands used to communicate with its customer through television and radio. It was a one-way communication in which brands use to advertise on television or radio and if customers like the products, they will buy it.  But, now, it is a two-way communication between customers and brands through social media. Now, brands can tell their customers about features and benefits of their products and customers can provide feedback or reviews like whether they like the product or communication, how brand can improve its product or communication, etc.  Whenever Xiaomi visits a new city, they conduct Mi Fan Meet and meet 30-40 core Mi fans and take feedback from them.  For online feedback, customers can visit their Mi Community App, participate in their different forums, and give suggestions and comments.     For offline feedback, 1-2 hours discussion takes place between Xiaomi & Mi Fans in Mi Fan Meet and the customer feedback is documented.  In the improvement cycle meetings, these feedback are included for discussion with the leadership team for improving the products and services further.  ### **Leadership Team of Xiaomi** As per Mr. Manu Jain, only few people in the leadership team has relevant experience of mobile. Others are from different industries like e-commerce, technology, retail, banking, consulting, investment banking, etc. All of these people have no idea about mobile industry.  So, while hiring people in the leadership team, instead of checking the relevant experience Xiaomi hires people who are: - Young - Smart - Ready to do different things It proves to be beneficial for the company because whenever Xiaomi tries to hire people from mobile industry, then they say that it is the industry practice and Xiaomi should also do this.  If Xiaomi starts doing what other industry experts are doing, then they might not be at the place they are today.  Difference between other brands and Xiaomi: | | | | |---|---|---| |**Points of Difference**|**Other Brands**|**Xiaomi**| |Mobile phone launches per year|50|10| |Medium used for launching mobile phones|Offline|Online| |Marketing expenditure|High|Low or negligible| |Working capital|High|Low or negligible| |Selling Mobiles through Retail Shops|1000 shops|90 shops<br><br>300 shops in Delhi| Other brands sell mobiles through 6000 shops in Delhi while Xiaomi sells only through 300 shops in Delhi. Despite of this, Xiaomi has the largest market share in Delhi and Bangalore.   ### **Organizational structure at Xiaomi** Mr. Manu Jain has worked with Jabong and has experienced that the changes in organizational structure leads to unhappy and dissatisfied employees. For example, in Jabong, first they hire someone at a post of Director but after sometime they found that in a company of 400 employees, there are 40 directors and thus, the value of the director position has reduced. After that, they come up with new titles like GM and VP but same thing happens again.  So, they have tried not to repeat the same thing in Xiaomi.  In Xiaomi, they have pre-planned all the designations and who will be reporting to whom. This keeps the employees happy.  If your company is growing but your team is not stable, i.e. people are leaving you and they are not happy, this may affect the stability of the company and company cannot sustain in the long term, i.e. 10-50 years.   ### Key Learnings - Make a high quality product - Use social media to promote your products and services - Identify alternative methods to advertise your products and services - Try to build community for your brand - Hire people who understand your viewpoints and ready to implement them - Hire people who are ready to challenge status quo and ready to do new things as you need to challenge the traditional and big brands - Hire young and smart people below the age of 30-35 years instead of hiring experienced people.