All Posts in Marketing

|In: Digital|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

The battle between traditional and digital marketing has been going on for over 20 years. Two decades ago, we didn’t have the technological tools we have today to conduct a productive campaign in the online environment. With the advent of the internet, the marketing industry is changing. People use social media and smart devices to buy things and hire services. Very few still do it with the help of a newspaper. That being said, it’s only natural to believe that traditional marketing is dead. However, the average client can be attracted to a product or service with a conventional method, such as direct mail for example. The best approach is to consider a mix of strategies in an attempt to create a seamless experience.

Traditional marketing is here to stay

Why do people still market their products offline? The answer is quite simple: we still need conventional marketing because prospects need to be convinced with physical samples. Let’s assume that you’ve just a beauty brand. You’ve made the website, linked to social media, and so on. But in order to compel people to buy your latest wrinkle cream, you have to let the people try your product. This is traditional marketing. You set up a campaign and invite prospects to test it.

Then you give them samples in the hopes that they’ll share their opinions with friends and family. Last but not least, they’ll check you out online and probably give you a review. As you see, the model we’ve presented is not merely dependent on traditional marketing. It’s a seamless blend of tactics that combines both online and offline advertising.

Digital marketing – an industry that grows little by little with every year that goes by

Digital marketing is an industry that has taken the internet by storm. Twenty years ago we didn’t have websites to recommend us products or Facebook pages from where you can shop with just a click of a button. In the online environment, the goal of a company is to raise awareness and broaden its audience. Offline, the goal is to compel the people and wait for them to share the amazing experience they had with you with their loved ones.

Sadly, these days if you’re not active online you’re almost invisible offline too. What’s the point of a huge billboard in the heart of a city with hundreds of thousands of people, if nobody can find the product you’re selling anywhere online?

Digital marketing vs. traditional marketing

Today’s savviest marketers know that a complete advertising campaign needs both traditional and digital marketing. Most people use smart devices to buy things they haven’t had the chance to see in real life. However, there are prospects that don’t believe that what they see is what they get. This means you need brick and mortar stores and samples to prove that your product is of the highest quality. Back in the day we used newspapers to look for products. But all ads had physical addresses at the end, as well as an invite to come check out those products. There are online stores that don’t advertise offline. The internet is packed with stores that only sell via a website. Can you afford to take that risk?

A core drawback of traditional marketing is the lack of utensils to balance results. In the online environment we have metrics and analytics programs that we can use to help us measure results and check whether our campaign appeals to the people or not. Thanks to review websites and social media platforms, marketers can interact with their prospects, assess the feedback received, and make modifications in an attempt to correct glitches. Offline, if you made a mistake and the wrong message got out; there was nothing that you could do to fix things.

Why should we choose between digital and traditional marketing when we can use both to compose a brilliant campaign? Blending social media, direct mail London, email marketing, and conventional advertising helps people understand a brand a lot better. Offering prospects is a seamless experience when introducing them to a product is the best way to prove them that what we advertise is exactly what they get when they hit the “Buy” button.

This is a guest article by Denny Averill

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Blogmint, Asia’s leading Influencer Marketing Platform  recently surveyed 500+ influencers on the state of influencer marketing in India. The data brought out interesting insights like Instagram followed by Live Video will be the upcoming channels for effective engagement.

Infographic Credit – BlogMint

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Even as the Indian start-up ecosystem has enjoyed the best period in the last couple of years in terms of fundraising and getting global attention, starting-up is still not a cake-walk for many entrepreneurs. Considering the challenges associated while starting a company, ah! Ventures has created a marketplace that will provide startups with all kind of services right from creating a brand identity to hiring right kind of talent.

The ah! Marketplace, a unique platform, will help connect the start-ups to find relevant service providers at every step of their entrepreneurial journey.  The platform works on a model wherein accredited service providers from various realms like technology, legal advisory, design, content, finance, HR, etc offer their services to the enterprises looking for those.

The core proposition of this platform is not just to be a marketplace but to be a platform wherein every transaction is monitored and regulated. Every transaction between the parties is based upon a pre-decided package and the payments involved are thoroughly regulated by ah! Ventures. It is only after the successful delivery of the services that the payment processed. This feature is a game changer in a world where the start-ups interact with service providers unknown to them. It assures the entrepreneurs a fair deal with guaranteed services at customized one-time, annual or life-time packages.

Commenting on the need for a product like this, Harshad Lahoti, Founder and CEO of ah! Ventures, opined

Given the experience of being an active investing entity in the entrepreneurial eco-system of India, I believe that one of the key factors behind an idea becoming a successful enterprise is taking the right business decisions at the right time. Be it a branding overhaul or a technological innovation, it is these offerings that make the customer experience unique. With the launch of this marketplace, ah! Ventures aims to cut down on the time enterprises waste in finding the right partners and focus on bettering their core service offering.

Currently the platform is live with some of the niche service providers like PitchWorx, a creative design company offering Design, Presentation and Video Packages; Pronto Infotech offering Technology Resource Packages;ah! Ventures itself with its Investor Network offerings among others. There are a number of other service providers lined up to go live in a short while.

Commenting on offering viable solutions to startups, Abhijeet Kumar, Co-founder of ah! Ventures & Pronto Infotech said

In the nascent stages, start-ups have to be cost effective and yet they have to simultaneously focus on being technologically innovative. We truly understand the conundrum of such start-ups and hence Pronto Infotech is collaborating with ah! Ventures to offer holistic technological solutions to such deserving enterprises. These bundled monthly packages help the entrepreneurs follow a monetarily lean model. With such packages, we intend to extend high quality yet feasible options to entrepreneurs who wish to make it big in this startup world.

Dharmendra Ahuja, the Founder & CEO of PitchWorx-a creative design studio, understands the importance of getting access to the right pitching tools at the right time.

Commenting on offering PitchWorx services to the evolving entrepreneurs, Dharmendra Ahuja opined

Being an entrepreneur is every individual’s dream. Be it an investor presentation, an animated explainer video or even your website-we believe everything is a pitch! Having worked with more than 100 start ups and a number of global corporations we understand how important it is to pitch a business perfectly. Thanks to today’s booming visual content trends, we have been successful in helping startups captivate their audiences with a visually compelling story – every time! We are excited to be part of the ah! Ventures marketplace as a startup service provider in the creative design space.

Since its inception in 2012, ah! Ventures, spearheaded by Founder and CEO Harshad Lahoti and Co-Founder Abhijeet Kumar, has crossed numerous milestones. With an extensive network of 850+ investors, 17000 entrepreneurs and a over 100 crores of investment raised till date, ah! Ventures has strived to be the best guiding hand for the all the players in this ecosystem. With the launch of this unique marketplace, ah! Ventures is creating a positive disruption in a startup ecosystem which is in dire need of a service like this.

Startups looking for quality accredited Service Providers log on to ah! Marketplace. Service Providers looking to empanel, drop us a mail at marketplace@ahventures.in

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

In case you didn’t know, social media is still the primary method used by marketers to boost sales and keep people engaged. Marketing has relocated to the online environment completely, and if you haven’t started using the web to promote your brand and product, you should start right away. The competition is fierce, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to stand above the crowd. Yet, it’s not impossible to make yourself noticed, if you know how to do it. According to a report issued by Fast Company, nearly 93% of marketers today use social media channels to promote their startups.

Social media-a powerful marketing tool

It’s no longer a secret that the key to success in business is guaranteed if you know how to use social media. For the average marketer, social media is a channel that opens a lot of possibilities. Platforms like Google+, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest have millions of users. More than a half use the online environment to get information and buy things. We want to stay connected, and we use advanced technology every day. This means that the best way to increase brand awareness is to go online.

Craft a marketing plan

The best way to settle on a marketing strategy is to set up a plan first. Make a website, connect it to social media platforms, and start promoting your business. But don’t focus on selling too much. In the beginning, it is smarter to center your attention on building a target audience. Write quality content people can relate to, and stick to organic likes and shares. Don’t opt for paid ads just yet. You need time for your content to be indexed in Google, and the more patient you are the better chances you have to boost engagement.

Targeted customers

Before doing anything else, you need to have a target audience for your business. What’s the purpose of your brand? To whom you’re addressing your products? It is fundamental to be disciplined and craft a plan first. For example, if your business sells anti-wrinkle beauty products, then you need to target your audience at mature women with ages between 25 and 40. Teens won’t have an interest to buy, and to men, your products are useless. Plan very carefully, and stay focused on your brand’s mission and end goals.

If you focus on spending money and time on marketing, but your attempts are not driving sales, then you’ve probably targeted the wrong audience. Narrow down your search and focus on your niche. Write content that directly links to your products and mission, and learn to say NO. Your brand will eventually become popular on the web, and companies will want to pay you to place ads on your site. But if your brand targets anti-wrinkle products for women, ads on men’s products won’t bring any value to your brand. Learn to prioritize!

Assess the competition

Assessing the competition is yet another efficient way you can use to boost sales and increase brand awareness. Sadly, many marketers today don’t even bother looking at the competition, and they wrongfully assume that their strategy is the best. How do you know that? It is frustrating and infuriating to see that people would rather buy from others than you. But why? There must be a reason. Perform a thorough analysis on your main competitor, and check to see what they can offer that you can’t. For example, they might have better prices and package deals. Maybe they offer better discounts, or maybe their products are more visually appealing than yours. Have a look on their website, and find a way to stand out. Offer incentives that they haven’t thought of yet.

The world of marketing has changed a lot in the past 10 years. With the advent of technology and social media, exposure is no longer achieved offline. The online world is the future of marketing. You might be tempted to believe that conventional ads, banners, and even a membership card print are powerful marketing methods. You’re right, they are. But for a seamless experience, you need to blend offline marketing tactics with online approaches to appeal to a wider, more focused target audience.

This is a guest article by Denny Averill

|In: Food-Commerce|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

After a successful relaunch of Burrp in October 2015, Burrp is now back with the iconic Burrp! Certificates. Spread across 55 categories and 7 cities, Burrp aims to felicitate the top 300 deserving restaurants in every city through an online voting platform. This comeback will celebrate innovation and creativity in the hospitality sector across Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad & Chennai

Pradeep Prabhu, Co-Business Head, Burrp! said

Burrp! introduced the concept of recognizing praiseworthy restaurants in this space through Burrp! Certificates in 2009. As we celebrate a decade in the industry this year, we wanted to share our happiness with our users & restaurant partners.

The food scene has been evolving incredibly over the last few years and our users have so much more choices to look forward today. With the reintroduction of the coveted Burrp Certificates, we intend to make it easy for our users to discover great places and mouthwatering food. Burrp certificates are quintessentially for the foodie as we emphasize more on delectable food over other criteria’s

The user voting platform for Burrp! Certificates includes the following categories which are then divided into sub-categories:

Best Restaurant in the particular city-The category comprises of different types of restaurants in the specific city
Best Cuisine-The category includes different cuisines served in the restaurants and recognizing the best of them
Best Dish-Every restaurant has their unique way of preparing the dish and Burrp! would like to recognize the best

Burrp has constituted a jury that comprises of renowned bloggers and influencers in every city who will bring their expertise to the team in identifying the best amongst the best. Users can begin voting on Burrp website and mobile app from 28th November 2016. The voting options is open until 31st December 2016. Final winners will be decided by Users & Jury. For the users who are voting, there will be 3 daily lucky winners.

About Burrp!

Burrp! is the pioneer in the Indian food and restaurant discovery space and quite literally introduced consumer technology in the food and beverage industry. Burrp! is India’s first food and restaurant recommendation engine and has been making eating out more convenient since 2006. With the new look and app, the new team hopes to answer one single question that keeps cropping up in users’ heads all the timeWhat should I eat and where? Burrp! has listed over 65,000+ partners and since the launch of the new look in October, Burrp! has garnered over 5,50,000 mobile app downloads. For more information, please visit Burrp!

 

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

In India, startups have common challenges of addressing the non-tech skills such as branding, marketing, go-to-market, public relations, etc. Thus many startups end up being just a good idea or a concept or a product and they are not able to do a commercial launch or they are certainly not able to scale up. While Pune is replete with the Spirit of Entrepreneurship that have young minds-as young as 20 year olds-who are aspiring to become Unicorns, they still don’t know where to look when it comes to hand-holding, branding and its execution.

Individual constituents of a typical startup eco-system have tried dealing with the above challenge in silos. For instance, the investor community comprising Angels, Venture Capitalists and Private Equity players have been doing their bit to hand hold startups and help them succeed. Likewise, there are advisers and mentors who provide hand-holding to startups. And then there are advertising agencies that make creatives and advertisements on case-to-case basis. But there is no one in India who is willing to take ownership of creation of the eco-system under one roof.

Brand Launch Center (BLC) under the aegis of Seagull Advertising have announced the launch of first-of-its-kind Startup Launch Accelerator to help consumer focused startups to go-to-market like any MNC, through a well-structured process called Wings for Profit. BLC’s expertise is designed to mitigate the risks that are commonly faced by Startups at the launch stage. The launch Accelerator offers a high intensity, hands-on, six months program to reduce product risk, technology risk, market risk and financial risk.

Sameer Desai launching Brand Launch Centre
Sameer Desai launching Brand Launch Centre

Speaking about the need to brand-building for start-ups, Sameer Desai, Marketing veteran and Chief Strategy Officer of Brand Launch Centre, said

While working extensively with early-stage companies in the past few years, we have realized that most start-ups fail despite innovative ideas and products. They fail not because of the product/service, but because of their inability to create a strong brand image among target consumers and the absence of go-to-market strategy and execution. Brand-building and go-to-market is a major challenge for the bootstrapped Startups, whose marketing budgets and knowledge of execution are often constrained. BLC provides a 360-degree strategy to start-ups to overcome their brand-building challenges, that too in 180 days.

BLC’s Launch Accelerator program is broadly classified into 3 key segments, namely-Brand Challenge, Brand Wings and Brand Flight Map.

The Startup Accelerator program that will provide solutions ranging from mentoring, branding, working capital, advertising, digital marketing, on-ground-activations, public relations and funding, sales, marketing automation, HR, corporate finance, legal and co-working. The Startup Acceleration program is aimed at consumer-focused Startups that believe in going for a commercial launch of their product or service and achieving greater sales and marketing muscle power in a specific time frame of 180 days.

Recently launched Tork, India’s first Electric Motorbike, has been one of the early Startups that came on board BLC.

Premanand Risbud, CFO, Tork Motorcycles says

BLC has well understood our requirements and has delivered us a fantastic brand positioning. Tork is high on technology and sports a TFT screen-a first for any Indian bike. It offers a number of innovative benefits such as low noise, zero pollution, exceptional acceleration and remote trouble shooting facility through a cloud based solution.

Green Salute is another Startup that leveraged BLC’s offerings. The idea of branding waterless car wash services as Green Salute and taking it to the customer was undertaken by BLC. Ninad Dhok & Akshay Dhok, CoFounders-Green Salute said

It’s absolutely fantastic the way that our brand has been presented. It cannot get better, and the market has received this extremely well.

Neeraj Kansal, Founder-Tokri said

BLC had a very clear vision for executing the branding plan. Their idea of sabse bada rupaiya was a great success. Today, even after a year people still talk about this great idea. Tokri.com is an e-commerce business in the hyper local grocery segment. The portal offers doorstep delivery of a wide variety of food items including the freshest flowers, fruits and vegetables.

Mandar Jayawant, Founder, Mongol Fund and Global Equity Veteran, said

In an extremely competitive market, it is not easy to survive for all Startups. While a few succeed, a number of young individuals fail to convert their great ideas into viable and sustainable businesses due to lack of one or several components of the Startup ecosystem. While identifying promising Startups for funding, among other things, we put a significant weight-age on their go-to-market strategy – whether it is realistic and achievable. We are happy that BLC’s services will be available to the entrepreneurs in the city of Pune and we are looking forward to the next Unicorn from Pune.

About Brand Launch Centre

Brand Launch Centre (BLC) is a start-up launch accelerator to help consumer focused start-ups to go-to-market like an MNC, through a well-structured process called Wings for Profit. Founded by Sameer Desai, BLC’s expertise is designed to mitigate the risks, commonly faced by start-ups at the launch stage. It offers a high intensity, hands-on, six month program, to reduce product risk, technology risk, market risk and financial risk. For more information, please visit Branch Launch Centre

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

There are many pieces that go into the puzzle that is a lead generation website. Those pieces need to fit perfectly together for visitors who arrive to your site. If one of them is missing, you’ve just handed over what could have been a great sales lead to your competition. Based on data from over 300,000 validated online sales leads, we discovered that 84 percent of visitors convert during their first visit.

Back to those puzzle pieces: there are several things you can implement to score a conversion during the first visit. We’ve created a guide to 10 of the most important for you to implement as soon as possible.

Top three points are below:

Content – This shouldn’t be much of a shocker, but creating content that stimulates action will make the benefits you offer jump off the screen.

Intuitive Navigation – With the short attention span of most buyers, you don’t want to frustrate them with bad navigation.

Relevant, Custom Imagery – Poor imagery will have visitors second-guessing your expertise. Images should captivate and distinguish you from the competition.

For the whole story on building a website that converts, take a look at the following presentation

About the author

Brad Shorr is Director of Content Strategy at Straight North, a B2B Internet marketing company that offers services for SEO, PPC and web design. Shorr has written for leading online publications including Forbes, Entrepreneur and Moz. You can find more about him here

|In: Marketing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

The main difference between social media and digital marketing is that social media is included in digital marketing. A lot of people today wrongfully believe that if they engage on main social media platforms they perform digital marketing, which is not necessarily true. Contrary to popular belief, a successful digital marketing campaign is made up of several other components, social media included.

The links between digital marketing and social media

In layman’s terms, digital marketing is all about building awareness and advertising a product or band by making use of numerous digital channels, not just social media. Main components include:

  • Internet marketing – Search engine marketing (SEM), web, mobile markets (Apple Store and Google Play), email marketing, smartphones, online banner marketing and social media.
  • Offline digital channels – Digital billboards, TV, SMS, radio, and word-of-mouth

 

As far as social media is concerned, we must mention that it is a fundamental branch of internet marketing. The rise of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook has completely revolutionised the way people interact, shop, advertise their business and of course, socialize. Social media is a broad term we mostly use to describe online platforms that connect people in exchange of information. Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube and Pinterest have become just as important as Facebook. In fact, if you own a website the best way to make yourself known in the online environment is to connect to all.

Main differences between social media and digital marketing

Digital marketing can survive without social media, however social media can’t thrive without digital marketing. That’s because marketing in the online environment includes social media. A multi-channel approach online renders better results, and companies can choose to work with channels that best complements their business mantra. Mobile ads, SEM, SEO and banner ads are all digital. They’re not included in social media. This means that digital alone – from a conventional perspective – is a sole one-way marketing approach.

On the other hand, we have Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter just to name a few, which are social media platforms. However, without engagement and interaction using digital marketing, these platforms would be useless when attempting to market a business. Sharing and commenting equals social media. The approach can only work when combined with additional media channels, meaning digital marketing in order to create a bigger impact and grab more attention.

The power of digital marketing over social media

Since social media depends on digital marketing, it’s safe to say that social media can’t live on its own in the online environment. Digital marketing alone, is all about online promoting. Many powerful and top-tier technologies are included in digital marketing, including email, websites, apps, messages, and sharing information. The latter approach is directly linked to social media websites.

Nowadays, most businesses operate online. Even though they have a physical office and still conduct offline marketing, they must have an online presence as well in order to boost awareness and improve leads. Unlike social media, digital marketing is a proven marketing strategy, and social media is an important part of that strategy. The array of online channels used to advertise is numerous, whereas social media marketing alone uses different social platforms. As opposite to social media, digital marketing works just as well in the offline environment. It’s not that powerful, but it works. Offline, social media has zero value.

Social media – the favourite branch of digital marketing

Digital marketing loves social media; and social media can’t live without digital marketing, so it’s a win-win. Whether we like it or not, these two are closely tied together. If you want your business to thrive, you need both. It’s the only way to make yourself stand above the competition. Companies of all shapes and sizes need to adopt the right digital marketing tactics to thrive. Decide on a channel – or multitude of channels – that best match with your business goals. Websites need to be linked to both Twitter and Facebook to generate organic visitors. But they also need to use direct mail campaigns and offline strategies to make themselves known to the masses offline.

When mixed together, social media and digital marketing work the best. Your new startup will thrive, online visitors will become paying customers and your website will end up on the first pages of major search engines. But that doesn’t mean offline tactics don’t matter; because they do, especially when attempting to appeal to local communities.

This is a guest article by Denny Averill & DataDial.net