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.
JadeMagnet is a bangalore based startup founded by Sitashwa Srivastava and Manik Kinra. JadeMagnet is Angel funded by Muki, is a TIE venture and is Asia’s largest crowdsourcing platform for the creative services.
JadeMagnet is a B2C platform where services range from branding, advertising, animation, communication, graphic design, and product design across various media. These can be delivered through a network of thousands of creative providers. The ecosystem includes partners who take care of execution of campaigns, printing and, plugging technology behind designs and many other services. Jade Magnet currently has close to 2500 providers and 150 clients.
Sitashwa Srivastava, Co Founder & CEO and is responsible for building the ecosystem. His last stint was with Cognizant Technology Solutions as a CRM Consultant. Manik Kinra is Co-Founder & CMO and is responsible for managing client acquisitions and platform marketing. He was associated with CSC handling sales and delivery function in UK.
The uniqueness of the platform and operating model enables clients to get solutions delivered largely at their own budget and competitiveness of platform ensures high quality output and also offering immense range of options any other agency can give.
If you have any creative need you know now where to look at.
Leading Indian digital media network Komli Media, announced its acquisition of PostClick, Australia’s leading premium website representation firm, this week.Together the company now reaches over 30 million unique audiences across Asia to become the leading digital media network platform in the region, according to a press statement.
Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Sydney with offices across Melbourne and Singapore, PostClick represents Bloomberg and Hotfrog among other premium websites. Headquarted in Mumbai, Komli Media partners exclusively with top global publishers including Facebook, Expedia and Miniclip in India. The network also has offices in New York, Toronto, Palo Alto and New Delhi.
Andrew Lockwood will continue as managing director of PostClick as it becomes a division of Komli Media.
“We are extremely excited to partner with PostClick to expand our presence in the Australian and Southeast Asian markets and bring Komli Media’s industry leading solutions to new advertiser and publisher partners,” said Amar Goel, Komli Media founder and CEO.
Performance products under the expanded online media network include premium brand solutions, performance marketing and audience measurement. “Komli Media has been at the forefront of bringing leading solutions to the digital ecosystem and we are thrilled to be part of the Komli Media team,” said Andrew Lockwood, founder and MD of PostClick. “We are confident that joining forces with Komli Media will help us deliver more value to our partners and grow our foot print across Australia and Southeast Asia.”
Just like the offline world, promoting a site means employing techniques to make consumers aware of its existence and the products and services it sells and making them believe that they need these products to enhance the quality of their lives.
To promote your website and drive traffic to it without draining your bank account, here are cost effective techniques you can use:
Spread the news to family and friends. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool. The average person knows about 250 people close enough to tell them about it.
Enroll in a leads service on the Internet that will refer leads to your website. Getting the right service will give you a positive return on your enrollment fee.
Join forums by posting your insights and opinions that will help others. This gives you credibility and enhances your image as an expert. This will also refer people to your site.
Place Solo Ads in intended ezines. As electronic newsletters aimed at particular groups, this indirectly advertises your products and is a method that always produces results.
Lure would-be clients with Google Adwords. They get directed to your site when they search for words or phrases you have chosen.
Give out promotional handouts to people you meet. It is a proven method to create awareness and direct them to your site.
Advertise in the newspaper classified ads. Weekly papers don’t cost much to advertise in yet bring you the income you are after. Choose those that are read by your target market.
Write and publish articles that will showcase your competencies and attract clients to your website.
Start a blog. Blogging is very flexible regarding the amount of content you put in. You can create copy that will direct potential customers to your website and back.
Write an eBook. If you can’t, or won’t, then have one written for you. The eBook should refer and link readers to your site all throughout. Having an eBook says you’re an authority on your subject and people can learn from you. Give free eBooks, too.
The definition of a landing page is simply “the first page that visitors hit on your site”, so it is not strictly a certain page but any page that a user “lands” on. All websites have landing pages, whether they like it or not, even if it was not specifically designed as such. Understanding this is a key part of good website marketing.
anding pages can have a substantial impact on your e-commerce website. A poorly-developed one can hasten its breakdown just as an effective landing page can drive traffic to your site, respond to calls to action and make your business website a success.
One vital measure of the effectiveness of your ecommerce website is the “bounce rate”, or the percentage of visitors who immediately leave your site without making any other click. The bounce rate is inversely proportional to the effectiveness of the landing page. Basically, this means that a high bounce rate indicates that your landing page isn’t compelling enough for the visitor to pursue his interest or take some other action.
Most usersprefer to skip information which is irrelevant to their needs. They want to get directly to their search, hence the need for a landing page that delivers just that. They are spared the time and hassle of having to navigate through layers of data when they already have an idea of what they want. The bounce rate is a key measurement for determining the effectiveness of landing pages.
Another measure for landing pages is the success of a “next action”. It might be purchasing the product, requesting more information, signing up for a free trial, etc. A concept that is intrinsic in creating effective landing pages is “alignment”. This is the connection between your source (where the visitor came from) and your landing page. The more connected they are, the higher the success of conversion.
A good example is a banner ad for a specific product from a beauty products company. Clicking on the banner ad and being directed to a landing page showing the exact same product yields a higher conversion rate. Conversely, if the alignment is absent, there will be a significant drop in conversion rates.
In general, a landing page must stir these positive emotions in a visitor for it to be effective:
Credibility Your page must be able to capture the visitor’s trust by presenting a credible appearance. Get rid of red flags, such as lack of contact information, typo errors and wrong grammar, use of incorrect jargon, low-resolution graphics, and excessive use of Times Roman font.
Recognition Your page must provide your visitor a “This is what I’m looking for!” moment upon landing.
Persuasiveness Your page must be able to convince visitors that your product or service can help them achieve their goal. Keep in mind what attracted the visitor to your product in the first place so you will understand what he is looking for.
Action You must highlight an action for the visitor to take while he is in your landing page.
This hoarding caught my attention and the next moment i captured it on my camera, someone seems to be cashing on the popularity of Chetan Bhagat. I am not sure Advertisers got the consent from CB. But looking at the Ad Its a smart marketing spoof.
The definition of a landing page is simply “the first page that visitors hit on your site”, so it is not strictly a certain page but any page that a user “lands” on. All websites have landing pages, whether they like it or not, even if it was not specifically designed as such. Understanding this is a key part of good website marketing.
