Paytm is Now Paying People To Teach Others How To Use It

OfficeChai Team

If newspaper ads, radio jingles, and numerous TV appearances by CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma weren’t enough, Paytm now has another card up its sleeve to recruit even more users. It’s you.

Paytm is running a campaign through which it pays common people to evangelize for its product. In a campaign that’s reminiscent of the Indian government’s Each one, teach one literacy campaign, Paytm has carried out ads in Hindi dailies that proclaim “Har ek, sikhayen anek (Each one, teach many). And people aren’t just expected to teach others how to use Paytm from the goodness of their hearts – there’s solid financial rewards at the end of it.

Paytm has said it’ll pay 10,000 users Rs. 2100 each for helping others get on its platform and start transacting on their wallet. It says it will further issue certificates of appreciation to 1 lakh people for helping spread word about its product. While the details on its page are sparse (there’s no details on how these 2,100 people will be selected), it does seem like a clever way to boost growth.

The move could help Paytm reach the last mile, as it were, of digital literacy. Thanks to its ad burst, most Indians have at least heard of Paytm and its wallet. Some, likely among the older generations, are perhaps hesitant to actually use it.  A prod from someone close to them could help finally get them on the platform much more effectively than any ad campaign.

This isn’t the only growth hack that Paytm has used since the government announced its demonetization scheme. Earlier, it had carried out newspaper ads that could be cut out and stuck on shops to let merchants immediately start accepting Paytm payments.  And with its new evangelizing army that’ll be looking to convert non-users, it can expect to grow even faster. Paytm was already the largest mobile wallet before the demonetization move was announced, and it’s absolutely crushing its competition in the creativity of its marketing campaigns since.