Monday, April 11, 2011

OME Community March Meetup, Christ University, Bangalore

OME Community March Meetup Christ University, Bangalore. MOM & Discount to SEO, Web Marketing Training

OME Community March Meetup, Christ University, Bangalore
Online Marketing Enthusiast Community Bangalore, the largest network of Online Marketing Enthusiast in India with more than 480 Online Marketers including SEO, PPC, Affiliate Marketers, Social media marketers, students, working professional, Entrepreneurs, Professors come together every month to discuss the latest happenings in online marketing eco system supported and mentored by NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore, Christ University, Web Marketing Academy met in Christy University in March 2011 to discuss The state of Affiliate Marketing in India and across the globe.
With close to a year, OME community is educating small businesses, students, individuals through their monthly meetups. An informal setting with open network opportunities and some of the highlights for march meetup were:
  • 2 great Affiliate marketing experts including Shary from Coimbatore and Harish from Bangalore were the guests and speakers
  • Christ University auditorium was a perfect setting for a Sunday meetup
  • Daze Info gifts and prizes for most of the attendees worth more than Rs 6000
  • Web Marketing Academy issued the certificates to the attendees of Search Marketing Summit, the first International Search Marketing Summit which was brought to you by OME Community, Web Marketing Academy in aid of Akshaya Parta foundation
  • Power Tip session, the popular session in OME Community

OME April meetup will be held on the 3rd weekend of April, stay tuned for updates
OME members are also having a informal get together for a snack, dinner and possible barbeque with marketing talk this Sunday April 16th around 6 pm. A great networking opportunity to get to know each other and to share your experience. Attendees shall Dutch the expenses for Food. See who are coming and all the updates are posted in ourOME Face book Group. If you not part of the OME face book group, you are missing out a lot, here is where all the experts come together and answer your marketing question.

OUR OME FACEBOOK GROUP LINK


Minutes of Meeting:
OME Community as always started with a round of introduction, each participant shared who they are, what they do and how they came to OME. Interesting to see people from different background and industry. Swati welcomed the attendees, and Suresh Babu, Co-Founder introduced about OME Community.
We appreciate and Thank Christ University for providing this wonderful auditorium for OME.

Our special thanks to:
  • Professor Kshetragna, Marketing department who is the person behind all the latest initiatives, seminars and workshops for Christ University
  • To all the attendees, who made it to the event, inspite of the being a lazy Sunday
  • Our members and Volunteers in OME, who help organize the monthly events
  • The Students are amazing. We thank Rajas Thanekar for all the efforts and arrangements, Rajas is a great asset for OME
  • Daze Info, one of our media partner. This month Daze Info gave prizes to OME March attendees worth more than Rs 6000. We Thank Amit and his team for the coverage and gifts.
  • Your Story, the other media partner. Shradha and Vallabh for their support

Affiliate Marketing
· How can others earn money? Partnership/Relationship building
· Amit-Ecosystem Tech-ERP/Smart solutions
· Other dimensions attached- Social Media, Learning technology, Internet
· Rethink on the revenue model
Agenda
· What is affiliated marketing?
· How can we get benefitted out of it?- AD sense from Google
· Example by Suresh Babu- Carnival cruise line : Miami to eastern/western countries : Travel agents, they create lead sales and get treated as VIPs : Travel agents as affiliates e.g. Redbus.in
· We think big and kickass – Google AD sense – IBM
· Harish – 1. 2004, Affiliate Marketing , 13 years back, Christite 2. Mondera – sell diamonds to US 3. Chris Anderson - Guru

Q- It was asked that a lady wanted some work related to the online marketing and she also promised that she would bring in business. But she didn’t do it. What is to be done in these situations?

Did you able to follow her?
Check out firstly the legitimate affiliates credentials. Create your community.
Bring in traffic.
Types:
1. Come and Go
2. Come, see and read
3. Come, see , read and buy.
Affiliates – Channel Partners Websites – TARGET.COM, FLIPCART, TESCO

Q- Is it legitimate to be an affiliate? Who can be a legitimate? How can you earn money?
· Discussions: Affiliated marketing – AD sense- Pay Per Click (PPC)
· Google – AD world – promoting keywords – Relevance
· Increased revenue – bloggers- Increased Effectiveness
· Affiliated network- tracking code by middleman so that merchant cannot cheat- DGM Pro
· Business owners- wants to run business online- Networks : Channel between affiliates and business owners)
· Outsource Programme Managers- Traffic, sales, information like email id, phone number
· Myths- Shell out 80% of capital cost- affiliate marketing

Q- Can you name people/merchants we can go ahead and join?
· Networks: Linkshare, Shareasale, Affiliatecurry
· Areas- Recruitment, Travel, Pagalguy-education, Matrimony-Shaadi.com.
· How much sales are required for you to pay me consistently? Win-Win situation
Money from Adsense- Mobile industry – SMEs – 1407$ or 1.25 lakhs and for merchants, niche matters a lot
Adsense tips and tricks:
· Use latest events and trends so as to keep the traffic flowing in
· Niche matters
· Traffic is not everything, Adsense background markup

Google insights for search:
· Accounts and tax in finance
· Seasonal news, trends and festivities
· Google trends- breakups of celebrities/marriage/news
· Trends- cricket, holi- from here you can find the keywords people use

How to get in?
· .net.in
· Write about controversies in blogs, own websites
· You can type alphabets as well and see what all options people type in the search engines
· Targets – Telecom, insurance, mobile broadbands, cars
· Latest is the buzz word to search for any keyword
· Linkbuilding – more people get relevant links, strategies
· E.g. Netsafe, Wiredsafety.org, Cyberangel, Getnetwise, Kidshield
· ISPA (Internet Service Provider Association)
· How do you search?- Delhi to Bangalore, take a niche in your keyword for your business. You need to index websites in Google. Write related content on the daily basis.
· Anytime you can make money with the business, i.e. Mobile Phones in Ad sense

Discussion:
· Markup.in
· E-blogger – CTR rate, ususal and unusual traffic, Google AD sense revenue model
· Google webmaster tool- expertise for wordpress- http://www.---.com-> change the location to say, Uganda
· Black and white hats techniques- SEO
· Mitsu.in, Rs 79, get the domain free
· Phpscrip- xyz fold- scrip available- wordpress – Marketing perspectives

Q- What happens if we generate cheap ways of generating traffic for our websites?
· You can get penalised but it generates leads and sales
· Choose a keyword rich domain
· You can use ( ! or - ) in the url of your website
· How do you get a domain name which is available?- Answer- keywordtool (broadband)

Websites: affiliateforyou.org, sphinn.com (Internet Marketing news and discussion)
· Broadbandcomparison.co.uk
· Jonathan Volk
· Google trends, snapdeals, groupons, bidoo are popular now

Discussion:
Conversion+traffic inflow -> mindjacking ->Sales
  • Professor Kshetragna, Christ University : Stock broker turned banker (HDFC) into academician now, basic models of business have not changed till now whether it’s normal code of conduct of business or online/affiliated marketing concepts. What is important is to consider how would to convert the traffic into conversion/business? E.g. etoys.com had brilliant Ads, offers but out of business during Christmas
· How to make money online in simple terms?
· Affiliate Marketing
· Adsense
· Google trends, Insights, Adword tool, Traffic estimator, Keywordspy- Paid and optional
· Freeinuk.co.uk - traffic 55,000/month, free samples, target, commission less around 1 pound, added section- voucher code section, GODaddy- check all the shops listed and target
·
It’s important to rank for term in the website so as gain an edge – People will be competing for the terms
· Bounce should be really high, what happens is that you’ve awesome content however, there is low conversion
· Adsense: Never gives full information, they transfer the traffic to another affiliates – come and get out to
· Broadband-org.uk- which country are you targeting? Virtualcode.in, .cc .tv extensions, keyword domain in url
· Mobile broadband- positive; i-pad launch + in brands (O2, Vodafone, Airtel), traffic would be less but conversion will be there , you need to take the call.
Websites:
· Google doesn’t promote sites but provides information about products/ services available
· Go and compare deals- done by affiliates
· Laptopreview.org.uk
· Google penalize- manual or automated panelty
· Never interlink between sites, overoptimization

Power Tips:
We had a round of power tip session, one of the OME’s Classic and best session, where everyone shares their tips, tricks and resources.

India Product Management Association P-Camp

Product Camp on Sunday, April 10th 2011
  • P-Camp on Sunday, April 10th 2011 @ IIM Bangalore NSR Auditorium

    Agenda

    9 am - Registrations and Networking (Tea and Coffee)

    9:30 am - Welcome remarks by Ravi Padaki, Founder & President IPMA

    9:50 am - Introduction to P-Camp, Anand Xavier, Vice President IPMA

    10 am - Keynote by Dr. G. Venkatesh, CTO of Sasken Communications Technologies on "Top Trends in Product Innovation in India"

    11 am - Talk from Sponsor - Bala Girisaballa, Director, Yahoo! Entrepreneurship Network, Yahoo!

    11:15 am - Panel on "How to build a Product Company in India"

    Organized by Startup Saturday

    • Sujai Karampuri - CEO Sloka
    • ThiyagaRajan M - Founder Motvik, Trustee MoMo Bangalore
    • Sunil Bannur - MD GROMOR
    • Prateek Dayal - Founder Muziboo
    • Moderated by Amit Singh, Co-founder Startup Saturday

    12 pm - Parallel Sessions

    • Track 1: Compelling User Stories by Sarit Arora, Sr. Manager, UED, Yahoo!
    • Track 2: Corporate Entrepreneurship - enabled through Product Management by Shaju Nair, Director of Product Management at Wipro

    1:15 pm - Lunch

    2:30 pm - Parallel Sessions

    • Track 1: 5 mistakes you should not commit when you are a Product Manager/Owner/CEO by Ganesh Prasad Puranik
    • Track 2: How to define a minimum viable product by Viveck Kumar
    • Track 3: How do you benchmark a Product Manager? Certifications, MBA, Experience - what counts? by Pinkesh Shah

    3:30 pm Tea and Coffee break

    3:45 pm - Parallel Sessions

    • Track 1: Impact of Social channels on product innovation by Rajesh Kumar Thiagarajan
    • Track 2: Test your web 2.0 product management skills by Viveck Kumar
    • Track 3: Launching a new product in a large company - unique challenges and their solutions by Pinkesh Shah

    5 pm: Closing remarks by Chandrashekhar Naik, Treasurer, IPMA

OME Meet-Up December

Minutes of the meeting: OME Community meet-up December- 2010

Programme Outline:

  • Introduction - attendees and members
  • Introduction - OME Community (by Suresh Babu)
  • Introduction - NSRCEL and the NextBigIdea concept (by Suresh Babu)
  • Introduction to e-commerce (Suresh babu)
  • Presentation on e-commerce (A Malve)
  • Q & A
  • Coffee, Networking, and Discussions
  • Power Tips
  • Photo Session
  • Conclusion

Sunday, the 18th of December 2010 saw numerous new and most of the regular Online Marketing Enthusiasts get together for the tenth time, since the inception of OME in April 2010. From established brands to startups, from veterans to amateurs - the OME now boasts of members from several industrial sectors, who unite under the Central Pergola roof of IIMB to imbibe and share knowledge on topics of online marketing and most of all enjoy themselves immensely during the process. The start was as enthusiastic as the members on the floor; introductions revealed abundant inquisitiveness among all attendees to know what the evening had to offer them.

Introductions were followed by brief introductions on OME and the NextBigIdea challenge launched by the entrepreneurial sector of IIMB, NSRCEL.

Photos of the event

Presentation by Aashish Malve
Aashish was working as Marketing Manager - Online in Infosys Technologies Ltd., Bangalore taking care of their online campaigns and website.

Presentation on:

Optimizing and Maximizing Online Sales During Holiday Seasons - Workshop in IIM Bangalore

Suresh Babu:

Introduction to E-Commerce.

Examples of Décor- New York

Sentiment Analysis

400 Algorithms used by Google

Aashish Malve:

· We would not be talking about SEO, PPC today.

o We will find out something new: E-commerce.

o What is SEO, PPC?

o SEO, PPC will not generate business. They can only help in better search.

o E-commerce is useful. Shopping Cart, Navigation, etc helps in online buying.

· Sales Guy needs to go to the consumer’s door to sell something

· Online sales: The customer comes to the seller’s Web Site.

· Many tools are available: Google Trends

o We generally notice that sales and sales planning start 2 months in advance.

o Especially Holiday season, the planning starts much before 2 months.

· In India, Coupons are not as popular at all.

o Discounts are highly favored.

o In the U.S. Coupons are growing, whereas, discounts show a declining trend.

· Christmas planning starts 2 months in advance

· India is a difficult market to understand. Discount is in our culture.

· Tip: Update your content for every holiday using: keywords, tools, analytics, trends, etc.

· Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu are major e-commerce states.

· Optimize the Web sites for U.S as well as India.

· Wants are different:

o India: Shipping Not trusted, Needs Driven

o U.S: Impulsive, Deals driven.

· There are three types of Online Customers:

o 1. Buy Online. Search Online. Do everything Online.

o 2. Avail Online. Pay offline.

o 3. Search Online. Pay / Buy online.

o The target should be the 3rd category. Lure them by providing cash on Delivery options. Give them a Hotline number. They will convert.

· Return Policies are not good in India. We should think beyond profit. Gain Customer trust.

· Best Part: Create your own festivals like Back to school, IPL, Geographically linked festivals as per the target market.

· Use Google Insights. Google trends.

o Create campaigns, applications, viral, buzz, etc like FIFA Calendar.

o Engage customers.

· The customer spends about 7 seconds on your landing page. Create value. Engage them.

· SEO Tip: Meta tag is important on a Holiday. Call to Action.

o Update meta tags

§ Seasonally

§ Festivals

§ Geographically

o Add Anchor texts

o Add Anchor links

· People want Guides, Service, Educators, Demos

o Make PPC Effective

o Start Pre-Order

o Do It Now!!!!!

o These strategies are not adopted in India.

· Indian Online companies and businesses need Repeat Orders.

· Shiva Purohith:

o Lead Visitors

o Email Storage to be maximized

o Get in Touch

· Gift me this: Shoplocal.com from Facebook

· Connect Online, SMM, Offline, etc.

· Social Media is for better awareness, knowledge sharing about the product. Not a place to push sales. It should be used to improve relations with the consumers and get closer to them.

· Like Button Deals: People click Like for different reasons:

o Discounts: 40%

o Show Support: 38%

o Share Knowledge: 13%

· It is always good to buy something for yourself.

· Why do customers leave the Shopping cart?

o High Shipping Costs

o No Money

o Compare before buying

o Security

· Indians compare before buying. Therefore, provide a compare option.

· How to offer Discounts?

o Have strong economic sense

o Price is inversely proportional to Demand

o Discounts should improve sales volumes

o Economies of scale have to be achieved

o Sell products on a higher margin via counters

o Build an online presence that is trustworthy

Inputs, Question & Answers:

Shankar SEO: What about services?

· Focus on identifying customer needs.

· Discounts, repeat orders should be the main focus

· US: Relationship model

· India: Transactional relation with the customer.

· Gain Customer Trust. It is a MUST for service industry.

Swapna: Ticket Sales?

· Print Coupons

· Luxury Sales

· Have a Physical Store for premium brands, customer want to be highly involved in buying a high-priced product.

· Check Offline. Buy Online.

Brand Bull Shyam: Retail Product Chain

Retailer should work on some percentage model

Price should be competitive

Direct delivery will not make sense

We should have delivery points, and warehouses.

Amit: Fliers can also help.

Raghava: Gifts. What is a method to sell Gifts, promote online gifting?

Lots of personalities exist.

Match and TAV concept.

Give e-books, PowerPoint presentations on the Web site. That will help them learn, get idea about the product, and understand its value.

For expensive products, such catalogs are important.

Cheaper goods: Provide choices, and a good variety.

Provide experiences, testimonials, reviews

Add, share videos, demo videos, personas.

Swapna: individualistic products do not need testimonials. Transparency is a problem in such cases.

Experiences:

1. There was a discussion on Home Shop 18. People shared the bad experiences. The lack of clarity in their transactions, and the misguiding behavior.

2. Flipkart there was a bad experience with a deal.

3. Redbus amazing service. Superb gesture.