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“The financial turmoil may have impacted the budget of middle class weddings, in India but the search for a good groom or bride continues. So our online matrimonial search per se is not affected. These are the times when people actually sit back and think of getting married,” says Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO, BharatMatrimony Group, the market leader among Indian marriage portals.

So does that mean the company did not adopt any strategy to deal with the changing economic environment? No way! Janakiraman not only depended heavily on his shrewd strategies to reap profits, but also went the R&D way to ensure ample service innovations for his portal. He adds, “We even spent 40% of our overall revenues on marketing last year. After all, we are in a business where we lose customers once in every three months.” The matrimony portal has also increased it’s online advertising spending by as much as 10% in the last year.

But that would perhaps be a strategy adopted by every intelligent fish in the market. What extra did Jankiraman do? Well, it’s customisation! The company has rolled out a host of services catering to the needs of individual target segment of consumers, including divorcees, widows and widowers. They not only popped up a sub-arm named Elite Matrimony (with fees as high as Rs.100,000 and catering specifically to celebrities and HNIs), but also ushered in the new concept of ‘Facial Search’, wherein the company uses face recognition technology to assist customers in hunting for spouses that resemble their favourite celebrities.

Says Jankiraman, “This value add helps us go beyond the normal search of caste, age and religion for our customers.” Oh and by the way, Aishwarya Rai look-alikes top the searches in their facial recognition service!