Archive for the ‘Product promotion’ Category

Indian Advertising Space: Biggest spenders

Indian middle class is the king-maker. Every pawn, rook and queen of the marketing gamble is maneuvered with the Indian middle class in mind. A single sneeze launches a million dollar  cough  syrup ADs. TV advertising is the biggest beneficiary with AD spend growing at a healthy pace in each quarter. Print Media has also witnessed a gradual upsurge in the AD spend in the last couple of years – the concept of multi-channel marketing being cautiously embraced by the marketing think-tanks. This infographics captures some annual spend figures from various brands and industries…


Video Marketing: By the, For the,Of the User…

As social networks brace for increased bandwidth to accommodate the increasing appetite of consumers for videos and graphics. Pre-purchase experience is sought after by most consumers before making a decision regarding any product or service.  Industries like Retail, Hospitality and Media are in particular the most video-friendly segments. The visitor-to-customer conversion is to great deal influenced by the strategic placement of product / service video on your site or landing page.  According to a recent survey by eMarketer “77% of US Internet users will be watching online video content at least monthly by 2014 “.

Keeping aside the undisputed benefits of video proliferation over the targeted networks, the major obstacle for online marketers is consistent creation of quality videos and further engaging the potential customers with the video. As many marketing division would secretly reveal that it is indeed a demanding task to consistently churn out high-engagement videos. Sears Holding (K-Mart), while understanding the twin importance of quality video marketing as well as the engagement of the customer community, adopted a unique and unorthodox approach towards video based persuasion – By launching BillionPoints.

What is BillionPoints.com?

This is a KMart-Customer managed site which accepts 45 seconds videos describing the best way to spend the 1 billion cuctomer points. This site came into existence after Sears decided to publish consumer generated videos and aimed at promoting its ‘Shop your way rewards program’.  “The contest is a fun way to engage our more than 17 million members while also giving them the opportunity to help others,” says Scott Freidheim, executive vice president, operating and support businesses. That’s one of the most effective examples of customer engagement in the online video arena. The online video that receives the highest number of votes will be adjudged the official winner in Fall 2010. While the winner keeps the 50%, the rest of it goes to various charities selected by the winner.

“Rebuilding Together is thrilled to be one of Sears’ chosen charities for this exciting, national campaign,” said Gary A. Officer, President and CEO of Rebuilding Together. “This campaign highlights the great philanthropic philosophy Sears Holdings embraces through countless employee-volunteer hours and millions of dollars it donates each year to important causes, such as Rebuilding Together.   This is a great way for Americans to get involved, win a great prize, and support their favorite cause simultaneously.”

Facebook going for the ‘Top Kill’

Wardrobe malfunction is always a great PR tactic and let’s not call it a malfunction anymore – its a PRFunction. So, does the ‘Quit Facebook  day’ really bothers the Zuckerbergs? If you have the statistics in front of you, you would be surprised by the silent mileage extracted by FB. The overnight anti-FB count read at 26521.  Now if you want to count the kill after this ‘Quit facebook movement’, you can do that at your own risk – particularly if you are in the MySpace camp. The wardrobe malfunction does pay, even if you are the president.

A couple of things went right for Facebook at the same time – First it got a much needed facelift – Second it was splashed all across the TV channels that it was banned Pakistan and Bangladesh for hurting the national sentiments – Now that’s called the perfect recipe for a ‘Top kill’ PR campaign. Google would pay billions to be in FB’s shoes at this time…

Remember Starbucks – the maverick marketing team that changed the way cappuccino cups can be used as billboards… Lets get a glimpse of Starbuck-facebook tango –

So, now you know why the book has a new face…Its the new billboard. If Coffee can be sold here, then why not Ski rentals? Take a look for yourself…That’s economics for you and we know that it works, no matter how many people are after your ass…

Can You Go To Hell For Unethical Affiliate Marketing?

You have been a perfect husband, a good father and a decent provider for your family. In real life you have helped people, but still when you die, you are sent directly to hell. You ask God why? And he shows you the extent of damage and deaths that were done through your affiliate marketing.


Affiliate marketing is a premier automated internet business that is carried out by many reputed bloggers and reviewers. But most of the times, when people venture into affiliate marketing; they conveniently tend to ignore the ethics that is required to support it.

Before venturing into affiliate marketing there is a set of questions that you need to ask yourself.

  • Do the people, who on your trust would click on the link, would genuinely receive value to their money?
  • Do you know the depth of the product? Have you tested the product on yourself?
  • Would you give the suggestive medicine that you are marketing to your own children/family?
  • Would you feel happy seeing your testimony on the landing page?
  • Are you really sure of the product? Is there is any chance of it being harmful or a scam?

If any of the above questions represent a “no”, than you are doing unethical affiliate marketing. Ethics and business are cohesive factors for achieving success levels. If you have attained success due to unethical affiliate marketing, you would eventually fail; primarily due to two reasons, karma and loss of your brand name. The entire platform of trade is executed on the internet on just one word, and i.e. “trust”. If people who have been following you on your blogs and have been crediting your website as a good piece of work, then you are eventually demeaning yourself by being associated with unethical marketing.

Medicines are one of the prime examples that are being used in affiliate marketing in an unethical way. Drugs that have more side effects than curing the patient are being marketed aggressing by respected bloggers.  These drugs play with the consumer emotionally by promising them instant weight loss or overnight acne cures. Some drugs cause adverse side effects like seizures, nausea and loss of consciousness and in some cases even deaths.

People have debated that if every sales person would try the product they sell, than there would be no salespersons. Well if their assumption is true that there should be official salespersons for guns and dope as well. There is no harm in affiliate marketing as long as you are ethically comfortable with the product. You would not like to get associated with murderers and scam artists in real life, than why affiliate yourself to such products online. Work ethically for your affiliate marketing, and you will have a sure shot success as your product would be genuine and would definitely help your consumer, thus increasing your sales and reputation.

In the end I can only tell this “Ensure ethical marketing and save yourself from going to hell.”

Go Green: Adapting Green Strategies for Marketing

Marketing and advertising has always been a prime mover of economic activity. They create a huge direct and indirect employment, a flow of money and initiate consumer activity that is a lifeline of any economy.
Owing to the criticality and necessity in business and revenue generation, marketing activity has mindlessly taxed the precious resources to achieve its motives and targets. The resultant is visible in the form of ruthless ecological destruction, depleting resources and energy crisis. The global concern for sustainable development has highlighted the need for going green in every sphere of human life; and that includes marketing.

Green Marketing for better future
Green marketing means deploying resources in a manner that reduces adverse impact on the environment. It incorporates processes that take care of sustainable ecological development and advancements in technology simultaneously. Digital advent is effectively helping ‘greening’ of marketing activity by changing the very fundamental methods of marketing. Green marketing can be effectuated,
• By utilizing greener mediums of marketing like internet marketing. The internet has been the key-initiator creating paper redundancy. Hitherto traditional marketing methods relied heavily on paper that gobbled a chunk of our green cover.
• By using mobile phones and cellular network to send messages directly to prospective customers. It can do away with the need of circulating pamphlets, brochures and other printed material.
• By using solar, wind and other non-conventional energy resources for illumination. It can reduce our dependence on traditional energy resources that are generated by fossil fuels or natural resources.
• By doing away with the use of plastic and other non-biodegradable materials used commonly in marketing and packaging. Internet marketing can, instead, reach consumers’ homes without depending on these.

Green marketing from the core
Other than these outwardly methods of going green, the campaign will be effective and successful in a true sense only if it is incorporated at the root of every process including designing, manufacturing, marketing and waste disposal.
Internet marketing has already affected the marketing methods and strategies. More and more companies are adopting this eco-friendly method that rides on advantages offered by the internet. Consumer awareness program shall also be crucial in this aspect. Eco-aware consumers can opt for the product and methods that are less taxing on the environment. Large consumer preference for greener products will compel the manufacturers to adopt eco-friendly practices.

Search Budget Presentations

I-informationGlobe-819x1024Times, when most marketers are having trouble getting the CEO’s understand and interested in search. Any CEO, in fact, would hardly be willing to care about search marketing, as the way he sees it are two separate subjects. SEM for him is a combination of marketing and technology, and few marketers are able to make them understand how searches are capable of affecting their business goals.

Marketers talking to CEO’s about brand awareness, search ranking and keywords hardly help, and end up as unable to break ice. Bang clear on target, and let him know and understand, if money isn’t spent here, there will be lesser products to sell and sales will eventually drop. Explain how search marketing brings in revenue at low costs, and how what you are doing will coincide with the growth of his business prospects. CEO’s are least interested in any kind of jingo, apart from the money if this can make. They need to see that searches are able to increase share holder value and help them make money.

Marketers having a direct marketing background effectively understand the relationship with sales. Search marketers will do better and help people understand and admit that the Web is the biggest direct-marketing opportunity of all time, where every move is traceable and constantly measured so that they can be improvised and optimized. This is e-commerce, you know the value of every new visitor, the conversion rates and revisit.

Most companies look at marketing as printing a brochure or going for a trade show. Make sure to help them understand that the virtual world has a concrete and a solid base, and you can look on how every person interacts on your web-site. Furthermore, make them see where they went next and how they bought from you. Let them have a direct view of this virtual exercise, and you have a perfect tool to justify every cent of the proposed marketing expenditure plan.

internet-marketingWhat every executive really wants to see is sales, leads and leads expecting to close. He is hoping to catch on the projected revenue targets at any costs, and any talk on brand awareness, positive sentiment, site traffic or ranking on search results will only put him off. If marketers can focus on relating touches that they have made to customers and sales will be the only way to persuade people to allocate funds. Set the map right so they are able to see clearly which route is more economical and valuable as well. After all, your budget level also requires sensible justification.

Web metrics systems, like the free Google Analytics to the expensive ones that help you understand the need to be passionately made use of. Search Marketing would come to be more useful if it were, eighty percent marketing and twenty percent search. If you don’t understand the marketing basis in SEM, it would be very difficult for you to show how effective your campaign would be.

Does social media rely on traditional media?

images--2Every now and then, we hear about another nail being hit in the coffin of traditional media, especially newspapers. Recent findings have suggested that the print editions of some renowned newspapers have been victimized by some combination of blogs, free-online news and Twitter. In Canada, some Television channels have requested the government to implement a TV tax and issue funds to save the local TV.

Not many people would disagree that journalists and news publishers should be paid for their work. However, the advertisement supported model is not generating enough revenue to sustain the conventional news gathering infrastructure.

If you know the basics of Economics, then you would know that if ad-space (supply, in economic terms) is blasting on every social networking site, then without a similar increase in advertisers (demand, in economic terms) the price will drop down drastically. Considering this, we can only hope that a new model will soon come up. Some newspapers have taken initiatives to issue e-books instead of print versions as prospective models for the future.

Wall Street Journal editor, Robert Thompson, has mentioned in an article that some websites can be best described as lice in the intestines of the internet. He also says that readers have been socialized in a wrong way and that search engines like Google have profited from that wrong perception. He strongly feels that much of the content on the internet should be free.

images--1Today, significant parts of the stories we see on social networks, blogs and tweets, have originated from the traditional media. While this does not mean that the bloggers don’t provide original news content and commentary, the question is: If we need to pay more for news content that we used to get for free, then will it negatively impact the quantity or quality of social media discussions around those news items?

Time will definitely provide an answer sooner than we think.

Is Google Being Evil Again???

ppc_image2What happens when you search for “PPC Service” in Google and find “Pocket PC Services” displayed as the inaugural result.

As a customer you might just go through the remaining results, that catches your attention or try on with a new search phrase for a better set of results.

As a more technology savvy user, you might laugh at Google’s search algorithm and wonder what the “Pocket PC Services” has to do with “PPC Service” and carry on.

However, what if you are in the on-line business providing zone? Would you not rub your eyes and get blatantly surprised? You’ll wonder how it could be possible. You would go back and refresh the page, might be several times, and if still you see the Pocket PC Services as a result for PPC services, you certainly would lose faith in the business abilities of the unerring search magnum.

How can Google, the leader in PPC business not understand the impact of losing the search by one competitor, and in this case not even a competitor?
How can the ruler of SEM allow one’s quality score to get affected by such an outrageous activity?

How can the LSA fail like this? Anyone endowed with the technological reasoning would understand that the algorithm can never err. It would under no circumstances deviate like this.Evil google2

So, is the crawler crawling wrong limbs or is it one more of Google’s evil designs???

heading evil