Nearby: digital marketing in Kurla, digital marketing in Dadar and digital marketing in Bandra.

Part of our guide to digital marketing in Mumbai.

Dharavi runs one of the densest small-manufacturing economies in India. Leather goods, garments, pottery, food production, recycling and export units operate from workshops that have supplied national and international buyers for decades. The businesses here are established and productive; what most of them lack is visibility to buyers who search rather than walk in.

The gap between the work and the online presence

A leather workshop in Dharavi may supply exporters and retail brands while having no website, no Google listing, and no way for a new buyer to verify it exists. Orders arrive through networks built over years. That works until the network stops growing, or until a buyer who found a competitor online places the order there instead.

This matters more each year, because buyers who once visited in person now shortlist online first and visit second.

What actually helps a Dharavi business

• A Google Business Profile with real photographs of the workshop and the work. For a manufacturer this is proof of capacity, and it costs nothing.
• A simple site that states what you make, in what volumes, and how to reach you. Three pages is enough. A buyer checking whether you are real needs very little.
• WhatsApp as the contact route rather than a form. It is how business is already done here, and forcing buyers into a web form loses them.
• Photographs of finished goods, not stock images. Buyers are assessing quality and they can tell the difference immediately.

Export and wholesale buyers search differently

A retail customer searches for a shop. A wholesale or export buyer searches for a capability — a material, a process, a minimum order quantity. Pages that name those specifics get found by the buyers worth having; pages that describe the business in general terms do not.

If you supply a particular material or run a particular process, say so plainly and repeatedly. That is the language your buyers are typing.

Keeping it proportionate

Most businesses here do not need a large marketing budget, and would be poorly served by one. A listing, a small site and clear photographs cover the majority of what a new buyer needs to make contact.

We would rather set that up properly once than sell ongoing work that a workshop with a full order book does not need. Our Google Business Profile and website development services cover most of it.