Licious, India’s largest tech-first, full-stacked direct-to-consumer (D2C) fresh meat and seafood brand based out of Bengaluru, India has always been ahead of the curve in disrupting the animal protein industry in India. When it first appeared on the scene in 2015, its goal was to delight Indians with an unprecedented range of fresh meats and seafood delivered right to their doorsteps. To that end, Licious’s huge range of fresh meats & seafood, delectable ready-to-cook and innovative ready-to-eat range has been responsible for fueling hunger pangs in meat lovers for over half a decade.
Size of Market Opportunity
Way back in 2015, Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura, two successful young professionals, saw this opportunity to disrupt the highly underserved animal protein category that was yet to see any branded or organized players. The market opportunity was estimated to be worth around $65 billion by 2022.
With India’s growing middle class pushing the growth of the premium food and beverage sector, research indicates that there will be 80% growth in meat demand by 2022, driven largely by convenience. This will only increase the adoption of processed meat, poultry and seafood products in an industry that has always been troubled by poor quality and hygiene standards and highly unorganized meat sourcing and distribution.
The Licious Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Licious operates on a farm-to-fork business model. All meat is fresh, never frozen, with a 2-day shelf life. By adhering to the highest food safety standards and introducing globally accepted meat processing techniques, Licious delivers substantial value to its customers. Licious prides itself on conducting over 150+ quality and safety checks before the meat arrives at the customer’s doorstep. Moreover, the Licious tagline #FortheLoveofMeat harks back to delighting its customers by solving the prevailing customer pain points of convenience, hygiene, quality and freshness in a highly sustainable manner – backed by powerful technologies at every stage of the product life cycle.
Licious Funding & Growth
Licious recently closed a Series F funding round for $192 million as it sets its eyes on expanding its footprint far beyond the South Asian market, where it currently operates out of 14 Indian cities including Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Mumbai, to name a few.
With a repeat purchase rate of 90% and having served 2 million+ unique customers to date, it should come as no surprise then that it has won multiple awards from Entrepreneur Magazine’s Food & Beverage Startup of the Year Award in 2020 to INC42’s Most Innovative Startups Award in 2018. Add to that the Economic Times Most Promising Business Leaders of Asia Award in 2019 and you can see why Licious is spoken about fondly amidst all its stakeholders.
If that is not enough, Licious witnessed an astounding 500% growth in the past 12 months alone. It owes this staggering growth to delivering a seamless and formidable user experience every time any customer interacts with the brand – both on web and app.
Licious’s Investment in Cutting-Edge Technologies
Backed by several proprietary algorithms that are working to solve the challenge of stocking fresh, chilled meat around the clock, Licious is in a league of its own. It has even gone to the extent of building technological systems to help predict consumer behavior ahead of time to strike the perfect balance between ensuring availability and managing wastage.
Licious is always differentiating itself with the most cutting-edge technologies. This is what ultimately led it to leverage Branch’s mobile martech solutions to change the game of meat and seafood delivery in India. Let’s take a closer look at how this is possible.
Branch’s Arsenal of Tools
Licious leverages Branch’s core products, such as Deep Linking, Journeys, and Universal Ads to boost its user acquisition & engagement across all channels.
Deep Linking & Attribution Solutions
By using Branch deep links, Licious ensures that the user experience from the trigger point to the conversion is seamless whether or not users have the app installed. By incorporating Branch links into its marketing campaigns, Licious ensures its users are able to effortlessly transition from the content that first triggered their interest to the same in-app content, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
Branch-powered deep links help drive critical cross-platform app growth across social platforms, mobile apps, and web. Licious can measure both the success and the failure of its marketing campaigns using Branch’s built-in attribution solution for both paid and organic channels. By attributing conversion activities to the relevant CTAs on every marketing channel, Branch links help Licious keep track of its most lucrative campaigns and help optimize ad spend.
Universal Ads
Licious uses Universal Ads to correctly attribute its ad conversions across every marketing channel and device to truly understand its campaigns’ return on ad spend (ROAS).
Identifying the right source of every conversion is every mobile marketer’s challenge. So Branch links help Licious attribute the conversion to the right platform, like Facebook, in the above example. By clicking on the deferred deep link on Facebook, users are taken straight to the Google Play Store to download the app, after which they are dropped off on the same page in-app that they were looking to go to prior to the install.
Moreover, Branch’s Universal Ads helps Licious scale its marketing campaigns to accommodate over 50+ partners including Facebook, Apple Search Ads, and the Google Marketing Platform, as well as accurately attribute user behavior and events to each partner individually. Beyond improving user experiences, Universal Ads makes it possible for Licious to identify and measure paid ad install performance with the greatest precision.
Journeys
Licious leverages Journeys banners to drive more installs and purchases without increasing spend on paid advertising, which is especially important in light of recent iOS 14 changes. Journeys turns your mobile web users into app users using the power of personalized web-to-app banners.
In the example above, the personalized Licious Journeys banner entices Licious mobile web visitors to install the app. Deferred deep linking then enables the same user to go to the Play Store, install the app, and then be seamlessly taken to the in-app promotion that converted the user in the first place. Thus, it is easy to see why Licious incorporated Journeys into its mobile marketing efforts – so that it never misses an opportunity to convert cost-effective mobile web traffic into highly engaged app users again.
Deep Linked Emails
Licious leverages deep linking in emails to create a seamless experience from its promotional emails to the right products and in-app content at the right time. This results in increased engagement and greater down-funnel conversions.
For example, when the user opens the Licious email and clicks on the link, they are redirected into the Licious app to take advantage of the promotion they were first tempted by in the email. The entire process is seamless and literally takes one click to get there as the context of the click is preserved the whole time.
Deep Linked WhatsApp Engagement
Licious uses Branch’s unique engagement solution to deep link users from WhatsApp directly to their unfinished purchases inside the Licious app.
Using Branch links, Licious is better able to engage with their customers and get them back into the app to drive more conversions – for free.
Deep Linked SMS Campaigns
Licious leverages Branch’s cross-platform engagement solution to deep link users from SMS directly to specific promos or content inside the Licious app. By using Branch links in SMS campaigns, Licious drives greater levels of engagement and installs without increasing spend on paid advertising.
Deep Linked Referral Programs
Licious uses Branch’s deep linking technology to grow its organic referrals by enabling loyal Licious app users to share a unique Licious referral code with their friends and family via Whatsapp. This not only benefits Licious’s app users, but also drives new app installs and results in unprecedented sales with minimal effort.
To see it in action, watch this brief video:
Licious’s partnership with Branch has helped it further disrupt the Indian meat delivery industry by banking on cutting-edge technology to drive greater user engagement, boost conversions and seal formidable levels of app growth that would otherwise have been unlikely. As the world starts demanding greater transparency and higher quality standards in every aspect of their fresh meat experience from farm to fork – Licious stands at the helm, poised to take charge and deliver an unforgettable experience every time.
“Branch is our trusted partner for app analytics and attribution and has been a major driver of Licious’s impressive business success. Its deep linking solutions provided a better, more relevant user experience and helped ensure these users took the desired conversion actions within the app, while giving the team better insights and measurement across today’s complicated cross-platform customer journey.”
Prathamesh Dembla, Head of Growth at Licious
To get a taste of the fresh and formidable user experience that Licious offers, experience the Licious App for yourself to discover just how it is transforming the user journey one meaty encounter at a time.Fascinated by the martech innovations responsible for such a unique user experience? Learn more about Branch or contact our sales team to get started with a demo today.