Webinars. Webinars. Webinars. This is equivalent to TV commercials in the online world. Turn around and you have plenty of free webinars for your taking. Personally, I have registered in a few and as a default missed them or didn't sit through. This raised a serious question in my mind... how does Webinar fare as a key tool in lead generation.
I got some convincing answers from one of the leading names in global marketing research and consulting. Their inference on why some or many webinars fail :
1. Content was not as advertised
2. Presenter(s) read directly from the slides
3. Webinar began with company/sales information (pitches)
4. You were familiar with the information in the first few slides
5. The webinar was an hour long
6. Presenter(s) spoke slowly
7. Skipped / failed to mark in calendar
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Sales is 'Presence of Mind'
If Business Development is walking in isolated polar regions to hoist a flag of friendship or partnership; Sales is like racing a camel in sahara to win a customer who hates open sky. Then imagine sales through cold calling ??
Cold calling is energy and confidence sapping exercise. But listen to an interesting 'presence of mind' story - when some of my 'breaking the glass' techniques with one of the global giants prospect in sofware product industry failed, I resorted to an old technique - cold calling.
I was kind of not prepared for the call and after a few attempts I got a voice mail. Cleared my throat and started my pitch... as fate has it... I lost my thought track in the middle and stopped abruptly and cut the line.
A 2 minute break did it, I realized where I missed, called the customer again, as fate dictated, I did a remarkable comeback messaging with the following start : Hello... I am Satish and extremely sorry that we got disconnected earlier. As I was illustrating about our strengths on....
Share with me your lively examples of 'presence of mind' in sales and business development.
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
Cold calling is energy and confidence sapping exercise. But listen to an interesting 'presence of mind' story - when some of my 'breaking the glass' techniques with one of the global giants prospect in sofware product industry failed, I resorted to an old technique - cold calling.
I was kind of not prepared for the call and after a few attempts I got a voice mail. Cleared my throat and started my pitch... as fate has it... I lost my thought track in the middle and stopped abruptly and cut the line.
A 2 minute break did it, I realized where I missed, called the customer again, as fate dictated, I did a remarkable comeback messaging with the following start : Hello... I am Satish and extremely sorry that we got disconnected earlier. As I was illustrating about our strengths on....
Share with me your lively examples of 'presence of mind' in sales and business development.
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Human body as a billboard !!
Crazy!! Human body is the next target for marketers!
New Zealander James Stewart is taking guerrilla marketing to a new level by selling tattoos as advertising space on his leg in a bid to raise NZ$1m (£384,000).
Stewart, a 24-year-old geology graduate, is promoting a website for local artists and will sell tattoos for NZ$500 per square centimetre.
His left leg offers 2,000 square centimetres of ad space in total and he has already confirmed the first tattoo will be a 10 x 7cm image of a seated fairy on a striped background.
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
Client Presentation
Client Acquisition Presentations? Hours and hours of number crunching, pots of coffee, packs and packs of Gold Flake Kings... you hit a great presentation. Catch some sleep, jet your way to client's place and... And... present it. I really like it if my client, after my 20 minutes gyan, says leave the presentation with him or send him the e-file. In fact I encourage them to use my presentation to present it to their superior bosses.
If the presentation can make them look and feel smart... you have the second line of management backing you as a preferred vendor!!
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
If the presentation can make them look and feel smart... you have the second line of management backing you as a preferred vendor!!
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
PR Agencies Versus Advertising Agencies
When it comes to 'seat-share' in a boardroom or 'spend-share' in a marketing budget -I have seen that the advertising agencies eat a bigger pie compared to the PR agencies.
Public Relations professionals often shy away from asking their clients to enhance their pockets of budget in the marketing mix. Why? Are they unsure about their strong points?
But things are changing with the advent of blogs and social media. My thinking is that the PR agencies might overtake the ad agencies in the new media zone. That is, only if they recognize their strength and play up to it.
Social Media is content driven and PR agencies' strength lies in 'content' messaging. Whereas, ad agencies thrive on 'call-to-action' or 'glamour' messaging.
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
Public Relations professionals often shy away from asking their clients to enhance their pockets of budget in the marketing mix. Why? Are they unsure about their strong points?
But things are changing with the advent of blogs and social media. My thinking is that the PR agencies might overtake the ad agencies in the new media zone. That is, only if they recognize their strength and play up to it.
Social Media is content driven and PR agencies' strength lies in 'content' messaging. Whereas, ad agencies thrive on 'call-to-action' or 'glamour' messaging.
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
Saturday, August 9, 2008
A Cat could forsee 'Death'!
Surf. Surf. Surf. And yet you see nothing different amongst Indian News channels. One formula, multiple sentional stories or probably made in-house, replays till you yawn and drop; and different faces with honking vocal chords!!
This raises an interesting question - do audience want NEWS as NEWS or do they want it with spice and panneer? I think there is audience fatigue because of the kind of news we get today. NEWS channels know that and they try to beat it by 'having' or 'creating' a personality. And this personality brings in entertainment as a differentiator. Remember a news item about a cat which could ‘foresee’ death! Who's going to give who a break !!
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
This raises an interesting question - do audience want NEWS as NEWS or do they want it with spice and panneer? I think there is audience fatigue because of the kind of news we get today. NEWS channels know that and they try to beat it by 'having' or 'creating' a personality. And this personality brings in entertainment as a differentiator. Remember a news item about a cat which could ‘foresee’ death! Who's going to give who a break !!
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
A strategic tool called Branding
Economic Times 21 Jul, 2008, 2355 hrs IST, Niranjan Mudholkar
Involving employees in the branding exercise will give them a sense of belonging as well as a sense of ownership and will prove very beneficial in retaining them. Attracting the right talent and retaining it is indeed a huge challenge for most SMEs. Just as people love to buy well-known brands, they also love to work for well-known brands. Sadly, SMEs are usually not looked upon as ideal employers even if they may have employee friendly policies.
“SMEs follow best of the class HR practices, employee welfare and provide extensive trainings but still end up loosing people to a large company thereby end up being training grounds for bigger brands,” says Mr Neeraj Mediratta, CEO, Ace Data. That’s an observation with which many SMEs would be able to relate to. That’s why he too insists that SMEs should focus on branding. Branding can do wonders in attracting (and retaining) the right people. “It has worked remarkably well for us. There are talents from biggies and giants of software industry joining us now,” states Mr Satish Chathanath, Head, Corporate Communications, Aspire Systems (India) Pvt Ltd.
By not creating a strong brand image, many SMEs could actually be losing out on good business opportunities even if they have the right products or services at a competitive price. “Being focused on the core area SMEs are able to maintain good quality of service delivery. Despite this, most of the large customers choose to go with a bigger brand and not a small company. Many a times the proposal from an SME is not looked at by an enterprise customer because the top decision makers have not heard of that name,” explains Mr Mediratta.
A good brand not only gives market recognition but also helps outshine competition. With globalisation, competition has now acquired wider dimensions and therefore branding makes all the more sense. “Every corporate has potential competition not only from the national and regional counterparts but also from the international players! Brand strength can alone help the company withstand the pressure of competition, sustain base and grow parallely,” remarks Ms Usha Periasamy, AGM (Brands and Communication), Royal Classic Polo Group. “It is even more critical for SMEs in the retail era where visibility directly or indirectly results in business. Branding thus is a crucial differentiator,” adds Mr Raghu B Viswanath, MD, Vertebrand Management Consulting Pvt Ltd.
Branding empowers a company to stand out in the commercial crowd and enhance its position; SMEs need to realise that branding can be used as a strategic tool for growing their businesses. “For a long-term and sustainable business, it’s very important to also pay attention to the brand. The brand is what will keep you top-of-mind, so that people will reach out to you when they have a need for you – creating a pull in addition to your push,” says Ms Kirloskar. “It is through its brand image that an enterprise will attract and, more importantly, retain consumer loyalty for its goods and services and thus bring very real and concrete value to its business,” adds Mr Rajesh, MD, Rajathi Group.
If business is about creating value, branding is about giving ‘meaning’ to that value. It ‘means’ what your business stands for. It means a lot!
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
Involving employees in the branding exercise will give them a sense of belonging as well as a sense of ownership and will prove very beneficial in retaining them. Attracting the right talent and retaining it is indeed a huge challenge for most SMEs. Just as people love to buy well-known brands, they also love to work for well-known brands. Sadly, SMEs are usually not looked upon as ideal employers even if they may have employee friendly policies.
“SMEs follow best of the class HR practices, employee welfare and provide extensive trainings but still end up loosing people to a large company thereby end up being training grounds for bigger brands,” says Mr Neeraj Mediratta, CEO, Ace Data. That’s an observation with which many SMEs would be able to relate to. That’s why he too insists that SMEs should focus on branding. Branding can do wonders in attracting (and retaining) the right people. “It has worked remarkably well for us. There are talents from biggies and giants of software industry joining us now,” states Mr Satish Chathanath, Head, Corporate Communications, Aspire Systems (India) Pvt Ltd.
By not creating a strong brand image, many SMEs could actually be losing out on good business opportunities even if they have the right products or services at a competitive price. “Being focused on the core area SMEs are able to maintain good quality of service delivery. Despite this, most of the large customers choose to go with a bigger brand and not a small company. Many a times the proposal from an SME is not looked at by an enterprise customer because the top decision makers have not heard of that name,” explains Mr Mediratta.
A good brand not only gives market recognition but also helps outshine competition. With globalisation, competition has now acquired wider dimensions and therefore branding makes all the more sense. “Every corporate has potential competition not only from the national and regional counterparts but also from the international players! Brand strength can alone help the company withstand the pressure of competition, sustain base and grow parallely,” remarks Ms Usha Periasamy, AGM (Brands and Communication), Royal Classic Polo Group. “It is even more critical for SMEs in the retail era where visibility directly or indirectly results in business. Branding thus is a crucial differentiator,” adds Mr Raghu B Viswanath, MD, Vertebrand Management Consulting Pvt Ltd.
Branding empowers a company to stand out in the commercial crowd and enhance its position; SMEs need to realise that branding can be used as a strategic tool for growing their businesses. “For a long-term and sustainable business, it’s very important to also pay attention to the brand. The brand is what will keep you top-of-mind, so that people will reach out to you when they have a need for you – creating a pull in addition to your push,” says Ms Kirloskar. “It is through its brand image that an enterprise will attract and, more importantly, retain consumer loyalty for its goods and services and thus bring very real and concrete value to its business,” adds Mr Rajesh, MD, Rajathi Group.
If business is about creating value, branding is about giving ‘meaning’ to that value. It ‘means’ what your business stands for. It means a lot!
~ Satish Chathanath
Call : 9884011654
Mail : csadhy@yahoo.co.in
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