Technology Marketing Specialist

8 cardinal sins of B2B Search Engine Marketing

As a B2B lead generation tool, search engine marketing (SEM) is gaining popularity in the Indian context. We are in the process ourselves to start PPC campaigns for several of our clients.

We recently came across an informative list of mistakes that companies make which result in waste of money, disappointing results and lost opportunities.

Sin #1 - Not establishing a clear and realistic goal

Sin #2 - Viewing Search Engine Marketing as a temporary tactic

Sin #3 - Not having basic fundamental sales and marketing elements in place

Sin #4 - Not performing adequate preliminary research

Sin #5 - Unwillingness to invest some money – and lose it – for your campaign to be successful.

Sin #6 - Not being diligent about testing and refining

Sin #7 - Not putting the experts on it

Sin #8 - Neglecting your PPC landing pages

As Todd Miechiels rightly says:

Don’t let wasted time and money be your penance for committing one – or all - these sins. While it’s tempting to jump into a campaign, especially with all the hype about SEM, you should approach it with as much, if not more, consideration and thoughtfulness as any of your other sales and marketing spends.

[via: Marketing Sherpa]

1 year ago

10 ways to measure social media success

Interesting article on econsultancy about how to successfully measure social media campaigns. Chris Lake who wrote the article takes an interesting approach in that he says:

Rather than focusing on the smaller, campaign-specific metrics, such as traffic from Twitter or the number of fans on Facebook, wouldn’t it be better to look at how it helps to shift the most important business KPIs, such as sales, profits, as well as customer retention and satisfaction rates?

The ten ways to measure the effects of social media campaign that Chris identified are:

1. Traffic
2. Interaction
3. Sales
4. Leads
5. Search marketing
6. Brand metrics
7. PR
8. Customer engagement
9. Retention
10. Profits

For an elaborate post on this go to Chris’ blog here.

1 year ago

Top 5 Lead Generation Practices

Jon Miller in a recent post at Marketo.

Top Five Lead Management Best Practices:

1.Be everywhere. “Cast your marketing net wide so customers will find you no matter where they are searching,” he advises. (as long as they are within your target market profile).

2. Build prospect profiles. Create a lead database to manage and store all your leads, and then make sure you have a strategy in place to keep that database clean (e.g., lead de-duplication).

3.Automate lead handoffs. He offers an example: “Define different lead status values to indicate whether someone is a qualified prospect but still nurturing, or a true sales-ready lead.” Then update their lead status in the CRM system.

4.Provide sales-lead insight. Give the sales rep the prospect’s history, and offer insight about the “interesting moments” that caused that person to become a lead.

5.Recycle leads as necessary. If your sales rep can’t follow up right away, or the prospect isn’t available, don’t let a lead just sit and turn stale. “Have a process in place to reassign the lead or escalate the issue,” Miller advises.

1 year ago

3 Tips for Improving Ecommerce Experiences

Tip #1. Display differentiators and value propositions on the homepage

It’s as easy as constructing a simple statement, or bullet points, or a general voice that relays: Welcome. Here’s who we are. Here’s what we sell. Here’s how we’re different. Here’s why you should care. Here’s what you should do.

Tip #2. Look at the site from end-to-end

Companies should get into the habit of clicking through their site every day. Go to the site, click on the sale or promotion creative. Where does it take you? How can you make that process make more sense for the user? How can you give them exactly what they want?

Tip #3. Customer service is the key

Don’t slack on customer service efficiencies. If a customer says the product doesn’t work, invest in a proactive customer service department that offers to expedite a new product immediately. The positive word-of-mouth garnered from that simple gesture is worth thousands of marketing dollars.

via [Markeitng Sherpa]

1 year ago

Study reveals PR scores more than advertising in building brand value

Clients want to keep track of all their money spent in this economic downturn . They want to know how it helped in building the brand value. Keeping this in mind, recently Text100 Global Public Relations [Press Release] and its research arm, Context Analytics, announced the results of their Media Prominence Study [PDF]. The study establishes that public relations may be more important than advertising to brand value, especially for companies that sell feature-rich or complicated products such as consumer electronics, financial services and automobiles.

Brief findings:

• PR is more powerful than advertising in building brand value and delivering real business value.
• PR is more cost effective than advertising.
• Consumers, especially in high involvement brands, trust more the reports out in publications than a 30-second commercial. The more complex a product is to a buyer, the more likely they are to research the product category and to look for information they can trust – from editorial content rather than advertisements.
• Advertising is more important for low involvement brands

via [Exchange4media]

1 year ago

Brainstorming - An art or a process?

Over years of experience of coming up with ideas and making sure the creative juices flow in the right direction, our team has evolved certain best practices in brain storming. Here is a very brief list of the same.

1) Size matters. Make sure you have a group of not more than six people in your brainstorming session.

2) Prepare the group. Don’t surprise them. Allow your team to prepare by sharing notes, research, and maybe a few ideas here and there to get the ball rolling prior to the session. Let them know what is it you want to brainstorm about.

3) Don’t stretch over time. The mind can only stay stimulated for a certain period of time. Split up teh sessions during different parts of the day or throughout the week. Don’t brainstorm for more than 30 minutes.

4) Don’t be a leader, be a facilitator. Individuals are afraid to present their ideas if there is an authority present in meetings. So dont be one! Productivity increases when individuals are less afraid to perform or say the wrong thing.

5) Environment matters. Make the environment as comfortable as possible, it can greatly help increase employee efficiency and well worth the dollars spent for the million dollar ideas coming out of them.

6) Relax & have fun. Learn to relax and let ideas flow, and to listen to others. It can help stimulate your own thoughts and place things in perspective. Consider the session as your chance to think wild and be imaginative, regardless of the problem.

7) Don’t criticise. People need nurturing and assurance, regardless of the person. Therefore work as a team and help one another out. Negative criticism can ruin your brainstorming session so avoid it while the ideas are flowing!

In case you find it difficult to understand what we are talking about, mail us at info@edgepartners.biz

1 year ago

Low Cost Advtg. Campaign For a Low Cost Product

After spending just Rs 2.4 million, Tata Motors has been deluged by enquiries by the thousands from far and wide for their Rs 100,000 (2,500 USD approx.) car - Tata Nano says this news article from Mint.

The social networking era has become a great aid for the Tata Motors’ Nano sale buzz to flourish in the online world. The Nano campaign, prior to its release, has been intensified through its extension to networking sites like Facebook and Orkut making the ‘world’s cheapest car’ known to a larger mass.

Here are some social media details about Tata Nano from Watblog:

• Official Orkut Community Members - 6,906 & growing
• Official Facebook Group Fans - 4,210 & growing
• Highest View Count on YouTube - 303,006 & growing
• No. of Blog Posts - 61,664 & growing
  

At the Nano page on Facebook, the response is gushy, almost. And so you have Darlene who says: “Please bring this car to Toronto, Canada!!!”

This is not the first time that an Indian firm has used online techniques to market wares and ideas. Indeed, the likes of Microsoft India, organizers of the Indian Premier League cricket tourney and, even, political parties such as the Congress and BJP have done so, some beginning as early as 2006. Even auto makers such as General Motors India (GM) or Yamaha Motors, took social networking as their marketing overdrive.

We think it is only smart to spend proportionately to a product’s buzz already in the market and the Rs. 2.4 million seems a good number to start with. These kind of strategies are also replicated in the past by other buzzing companies in the west like Google, Apple (prior to their iPhone launch) and have worked well.

1 year ago

Mediums, and the message

Political parties are using a mix of mediums to communicate with different voter segments…

While door-to-door campaigning and political rallies continue to be the mainstay of election campaigns, political parties in India are looking at advertising campaigns across media platforms to reach the elusive voter, especially in urban areas.Political parties are now more focused in their marketing strategies, and communication campaigns are going beyond reinforcing the party symbol.

Effectiveness of using various mediums for the political parties in India:

Television

Although India’s 115 million television households (75 million of them cable and satellite homes) make TV an ideal platform for any advertiser who wants to reach a mass audience, the medium has failed to click for political advertising campaigns.

The combined spending of the two major political parties—Congress and BJP—on TV is Rs60 crore, or 15% of the Rs400 crore advertising budget (for all political parties in the fray), for the ongoing assembly elections in six states.
Advertising experts believe it is because TV does not give political parties enough bang for the buck. A 10-second spot can sell for anywhere between Rs5,000 on a regional language channel to at least Rs1.5 lakh on a popular channel during prime time, say media buyers, while other platforms such as radio and outdoor are as effective and cheaper.
With 400-plus TV channels, 60-70% of which are regional language channels, TV does hold potential—if used intelligently.
Radio
Radio is a localized medium that reaches out to 19 crore listeners (above the age of 12) and unlike print and TV, where there are time and space restrictions, radio allows parties to actually communicate to listeners in their language.
Radio accounted for Rs20 crore of the Rs400 crore political advertising budget. The Congress took six radio spots, the BJP took three.
Reaching out to 23% of the population, radio may be a more effective and cheaper medium.
Digital
The digital media makes up at least 10% of the advertising budget of political parties.
With 40 million Internet users and Internet penetration in urban India at around 9%, the importance of digital media in political campaigns cannot be ignored. Add to that the fact that 100 million youngsters, half of whom live in urban India, are expected to cast their votes for the first time in the Lok Sabha polls next year, and the Internet emerges as a very useful tool to engage with young people.
On Facebook, for instance, a BJP group has 275 members who engage in discussions and post information on important dates and events related to the elections, while Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have their own communities built on the site, with 358 and 1,310 supporters respectively.
In addition, the two parties have engaged voters through video-sharing sites such as YouTube and video ads on popular websites such as MSN and Rediffmail.
The approximate cost for an extensive online campaign can be Rs1 crore over a month.
Print
Print accounts for 40-50% of the Rs400 crore budget in the latest assembly elections.
India had 64,998 registered newspapers as of March 2007, with a total circulation of 190 million.
Experts believe the entire effort may be a waste. The quality of print advertisements is still very tacky. All it does is familiarize voters to their faces, so when someone does go to the poll booth, they might just recall the face and make a connection.
Outdoor
Hoardings, bus stands, mobile vans and floats have proved to be the most effective forms of communication and are used extensively by political parties. In fact, the outdoor medium gets a higher budget than television.
20% of the Rs400 crore advertising budget was spent on outdoor, while 15% was spent on television.
This platform connects with the rural population the best because it talks to them in the language they understand and is effective in delivering results.
Apart from effectiveness and recall, outdoor media is more cost-effective than advertising in the mainstream media.
For reading the full story on this, read the descriptive article by Priyanka Mehra in Mint here.
1 year ago