I had an opportunity to attend a session on High tech product management at recently concluded Nasscom Product Conclave Meet. Session was phighly useful. I am highlighting one topic from the session which is “Lifecycle of a product”.
The Product Lifecycle Stages:
Development – this is the most costly stage of the cycle as there are no revenues to support development efforts. Losses occur in the short-term, as precious resources are allocated to development efforts.
Introduction – Product is introduced in the market, in this stagelosses continue due to high costs and low revenues. There is little or no competition and demand needs to be generated. Customers need to be .sold. on trying the new product.
Growth – Sales effort bring results,costs reduced from economies of scale, sales volume increases significantly, and profits are earned. Competitors begin to develop competing products while prices are at their maximum.
Maturity – costs are relatively low as the need to generate demand has decreased; sales volumes peak, competition starts to heat up. Prices drop based on competitive pricing, mergers & acquisitions occur, and brand & feature differentiation becomes more important.
Decline/Stability - Its that stage where product demand tends to decrease, sales volumes level off or begin to decline as competitors chip away at market share. Prices diminish and production & distribution efficiency become top drivers of profitability.
Have you ever pondered how B2B marketing differs from B2C marketing? B2C space is much more sophisticated about sales & marketing because they operate in markets with millions of potential customers. Most B2B companies serve addressable markets numbering in thousands.
B2B markets are altogether a different market and need different approach to market it. B2B markets are generally small and intimate compared with B2C markets. So what you should do in B2B market – My advise would be to know your market, nurture your market and feed the sales team.
Invest resources in data gathering, data maintenance and CRM despite how time-consuming, costly because they give you the power to know your market.
Use communications, events and all the other marketing tools to deliver useful information and experiences to prospects even as you sell them, because that nurtures the market. Do remember sales team is the pointy spear Marketing team should constantly feed the sales team with the knowledge and tools to maximize their productivity which leads to conversion.
Lead generation, lead management and lead nurturing are critical components of B2B marketing. if i need to rank them Lead management has to come first, because without it, lead generation is wasted and lead nurturing can’t take place. It is the least glamorous, most dauntingly complex part of the job.
Lead Nurturing takes the second place since B2B markets tend to be of such limited size with relatively high revenue per account, the payback from nurturing leads over time is enormous. Lead generation is relatively most easy part, can get good number of leads while attending trade shows, or some by cold calls etc.
Viral marketing is fastest growing marketing methods in the online industry. Viral Marketing a vital advertising technique that quickly spreads the message of your products and services. In this modern era business entities are realizing the significance of Viral Marketing. Viral marketing is one of the most cost efficient and effective forms of online marketing.
Viral marketing campaigns promote websites by driving targeted traffic to site, it really boosts site SEO, increase brand awareness, gain incoming links, visibility and awareness of the site. If Viral campaigns designed and have right messaging are capable to grown on its own and spread automatically.
Other advantage of viral marketing is that it will be not perceived as SPAM on email servers since customers use the viral marketing to send it personally to their friends and known people.
So how to get Viral Marketing done? Best option is to hire a smart Ad agency who can create effective marketing campaigns. One of the best Viral campaigns i like is embedded below -
If you are a doctor or a group of doctor running a clinic and finding it tedious to collect patient information and manage it, here is good news for you. Practo, developed by Naabo Soltuon, a bangalore based startup which provides SaaS based online practice management software for individual doctors who practice independently, small and medium size clinics to manage their practice and provide better services to their patients.
Practo automatically reminds your patients about their appointments and also does scheduling. Practo allows you to save patient records, photos related to treatments in a systetmatic fashion, but also take care of your accounting and billing.
Additionally Doctors and individual clinics also get their own webpage on Practo, which can leverage it for online presence and marketing. To maintain a cordial relationship and giving a human touch Practo allows you to wish your patients on their birthday via SMS.
Practo’s prominent feature is Billing and Accounting. Doctors can create a price catalog for each line of item with their description, doctors can also analyse and work on spend management and also tally their accounts by fetching period accounts from Practo.
Practo pricing starts from 699/month/doctor to 2999/month/hospitals(15users). Indeed Practo helps you Practice Smart.
E-commerce ventures have suddenly taken off in india since couple of years and lot many players foraying into this segment, some selling books, flowers, apparels, shoes etc. Important marketing and acquisition tool for ecommerce portals are affiliate programs. Affiliate program is form of marketing by which you drive traffic from one website to another.
Let’s investigate if affiliate program is really helpful and the need for your ecommerce portal. You may need to find the answers for these queries -
First and foremost question is does your product will appeal affiliates to sell, is it good enough users will buy online, affiliates will thoroughly assess your product offering against other vendors.
Do you have the right kind of setup, infrastructure to support the affiliate program, need to have marketing team which will work with affiliates like true partners. Ui team will be needed to handover the htmls, banners, images etc to the affiliates and guide them in its implementation.
How easily affiliates can join your program. Steps to be taken to make sure joining is simple and hassle free.
Do you have billing system in place to pay out their commission – billing system has to transparent and robust to display all their sales and conversion commission and can be easily accessible by the affiliate partners. Does your affiliate program stand out with other ecommerce players, why they should choose you.
How easily you can carry out payment. End of the day what matters is the commission amount to the affiliates. Any delay or tedious procedure to redeem commission can really hamper your affiliate program.
In short affiliate programs are not easy to set and run it. Having said that portals like shaadi.com, simplilearn are doing well from their affiliate programs.
