I have been discussing with one of the biggest brands in India towards partnering with them on their social media marketing initiative. To give you the basics, they are in the B2B space and the idea of being present in the social media was initiated by their CEO. As expected, they put together a team that wanted to study the space and figure out vendors who can help them. I happen to visit their office to discuss... 

Budding entrepreneurs in the software space should focus more on market gap, customer need and user adoption than on the ‘coolness’ quotient of their product or the ‘cutting-edge technology’ buzz. Why do many entrepreneurs and even the CEOs of MSME / SMEs get into this kind of trap? In my daily job of selling branding, marketing and outsourced sales services to such individuals and companies in the technology... 

Does the ‘Home Page’ still matter in website design? I think ‘Proposition/Solutions’ page should replace the home. In my opinion we should show what the customer wants and give exactly what he has come in for. Not what we want him to see and not what we like him to act on. Let me give an example to illustrate my point better. Last month, I travelled 200 miles north to attend an important business meeting.... 

Most statistics show that 33% of all new businesses fail after just 2 years and 56% fail after 4 fighting years. When it comes to software product businesses, the numbers are really scary so… let me leave it at that.   Ask failed software entrepreneurs, they will agree that ‘building a great software product is necessary but not sufficient.’ Myself and Saba, co-founder, DJargon, met a technology start-up last week... 

Before you take the plunge, take my website redesign color test at http://bit.ly/Wn1tk  then come back and check out my quick checklist given below: 1.    Honest Frisking : Check what you have got in your existing site. Hear it from your key stakeholders. 2.    Forget Committees : Don’t get caught in the usual brainstorming committees. Form a key website team with marketing, sales, tech and decision makers.... 

What is the trigger to the free fall in trust in print and TV Advertising? Is it the emergence of internet? Or the rise of digital marketing? Or the power of word of mouth marketing? Or the latest heart throb – social media marketing?   I think it is none of these that contribute to the falling trust in consumer advertising. It is how the Ads are made and delivered. Hopelessly, majority of them are misleading. Am I... 

Often times, I come across people who keep asking about SEO and SEM. In most instances, the differentiation between these two terms as well as the relationship between these two terms is not understood very well. This post is towards demystifying what it means and what it can do in a B2B setting. SEM encompasses SEO and Paid Advertising and in a B2B setting, SEM is all about SEO and nothing else. Some trends that support... 

During difficult times, what is the first thing that we hear? Let us cut down on spending, and who are the first candidates for that? It predominantly is advertising and marketing, and surprisingly it is interchangeably used in many IT services companies. This can actually work for big players who have loads of legacy revenue coming in, and aren’t too concerned about getting additional business as opposed to retaining... 

Is Blogging intangible? I think Blogging is a great B2B search marketing tool that is reliable, scalable as well as measurable. Time and again research shows that customers and browsers click on the list of organic search results.   Outsourcing Blogging? If you are outsourcing Blogging to a specialist, don’t fall for empty words like blog community, blog rules and customer engagement. Talk and seek accountability... 

This scenario repeats itself in most of the small and medium sized enterprises. The company is growing or stagnating and the clarion call is: “we need marketing”. Sales says: “we can’t do it all!”   Management turns to HR – “get us a good marketing resource that will fit our culture!” HR comes up with either with a one-liner or an elaborate job spec and waits for the perfect match.  Days, weeks and months...