Battle of the Smartphones
With the new Motorola Droid out in the market, the virtual war of the smartphones has indeed become intense. Before I start comparing different phones, the hardware and the software, let me list down the current players - Nokia, RIM, Apple, Microsoft, Google and others. Nokia and RIM still hold the majority of the market share but not for long. Their technology looks obsolete in front of the iPhone, Windows Mobile and the Droid. It wont be long until one of them becomes the front runner. The question is who? I personally feel it is going to be the Droid.
Lets start with the phone and interface design. Apple, as usual, went with their classic approach. Keep it simple and perfect. But I feel they got it wrong with the iPhone. There is one big button at the bottom of the screen and nothing beside it. This baffles me. why reduce the screen size to have just one button and so much free space? With a couple of more buttons they could have added so much more functionality. Clearly, the Droid and Win mobile win. Next, is my personal favorite – the sliding keyboard. iPhone does not have one. Did they have all their personas as touch screen users? Smart phones have not been in market for too long. Most of the users are beginners and giving them an option between keyboard and touchscreen during this transition would let them chose what they are comfortable with. And what about the users in cold regions who have to take their gloves out and get their fingers frozen just to type a single text message? One might argue that Apple intention behind not having a sliding keyboard is to have a sleek design. Did you look at the new Motorola Droid? It is about the same thickness as the iPhone and with a sliding keyboard!
The interface: Apple has a smaller screen and lesser resolution compared to the Droid and Win Mobile. Hence, with the latter two I get a better web experience. What I like about the iPhone is the way the icons are arranged. You can have different screens for related icons. But with the Droid’s and Win Mobile’s vertical scroll it becomes tougher to organize the icons. Also, the scrolling in the iPhone seems to be much smoother providing a better user experience. And what the hell is a ’start’ button doing the main screen of Win Mobile. I think Microsoft is trying really hard to replicate their desktop OS experience to their smart phone. Bad move. I do not want to see a start menu with extra small drop down. But I do feel Win mobile has much more information in the home screen than the iPhone’s list of app icons.
The Apps: Ray Ozzie recently said – “It’s not the applications available on the various platforms that will be the differentiators”. Really? I consider the sole factor determining the market share today is the Apps. Of course, WinMo is not even visible in this domain. Apple recently reached 100,000 apps and Droid market has up to 10,000 Apps. But how many Apps do we really use? Not only does Droid has all the major Apps which run on iPhone, but also they have few really good exclusive apps. For example – the barcode/ QR code scanner. Droid has the auto focus which makes it so much easier to just scan items (rather than enter the code manually). This is where the Google Engineering edges over Apple. Also, there is the ‘Google Voice’. It is just the matter of time that Google comes up with a desktop application like the iTunes which would encourage more and more people to develop Droid apps. Also Google is working on the ‘App Inventer’ – this would bring in even the novice programmers into the picture.
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Black hat vs White hat SEO
Search engines have established various guidelines for the development of websites. Following these guidelines helps the search engines to find, index and rank the web sites. White Hat SEO is optimizing web sites while adhering to these guidelines. Whereas, Black Hat SEO involves illicit practices which violates these guidelines to get better ranking faster. Some of these are:
- Stuffing meta tags: Stuffing in lot of keywords and description in the meta tag. The keywords are random and might not be related to the site content at all.
- Hidden content: Involves camouflaging the text with the background and stuffing content in the comment tag, invisible div, off screen.
- Link farming: Exchanging links or paying someone to link to your site.
- Doorway pages: Deceptive Pages which look like they have the right content but you get re directed to another page when you click on it.
Following black hat SEO practices ensures quicker visibility at the top of the search result but at the expense of getting banned if detected. But still many SEO have changed their hat from white to black because they are unable to compete with the already established sites for the SERP using white hat techniques. If the site gets banned, they create a new one.
There has been a big debate between black hat and white hat SEO. Many Web site developers are not convinced with some of the guidelines the search engines have established. For example Google Ad by itself is a link farming technique. You pay Google to get links to your site.
With thousands of web sites following illicit design practices, it has become a big challenge for search engines to detect all of these. However, as the search engine algorithms become more advanced, the future of black hat SEO does not look bright.
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Tags: SEO
Search marketing is a form of marketing which uses the search results in the different search engines. With better placement in the search engine results, websites attract more customers and generate more sales. There are 2 types of search results
Organic Search Results: These are the pages which show up in the order of how relevant they are to the keywords entered by the user. The only way to get a website in top of the organic search result is to optimize it for different keywords using various SEO techniques.
Paid Results: The web site pays to have its page shown in the search results when certain keywords are entered by the user. Few search engines also have a paid inclusion which ensures that the web site pages are properly indexed.
Google and Yahoo separate the paid and organic results. However, there are search engines which combine them.
Visibility using Organic search result involves some serious time spent on designing and editing the web page. So, why is organic search important?
1. Better conversion rate: People trust organic search result more than paid results because it seems more authentic. The way the search engines work, the organic search not only provides users with more relevant content but also it gives the users more options to choose from. However, in case of paid results, web sites which bid more have more visibility. Hence, one cannot trust how relevant the content is. This is the reason why there is better conversion rate in case of organic search results which makes it a very important marketing strategy.
2. Better recognition: Organic search result is a way to promote your brand. The higher your web site shows up in the result, the better you are recognized.
3. Better ROI: Organic search is free. You don’t have to pay search engines to index your page. The only resource spent is time and considering the fact that organic search generates the most traffic to your web site, the ROI is really good.
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Tags: Organic Search, SEO
Outbound marketing or traditional marketing is generating leads using TV ads, radio ads, cold calling, trade shows, e mail blasts, ad banners etc. This involves spending of lot of money and time. The companies hope to get the attention of the customers, which might eventually result in the customer using the company’s product or service. Today, Outbound marketing is not as effective as it used to be. The main reason for that is that the customers do not like to be interrupted by these constant ad campaigns, most of which they would not even be interested in. Customers have started using caller ids, spam filters etc to block these ads. Hence, Outbound marketing is not being able to attract customers as it used to.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand is an approach in which you let the customers find you. This includes:
- SEO : Companies follow good SEO practices like meta tags, links, site structure, headings and most importantly content. This would give them a good page rank and good visibility in different search engines. By being easily searchable (reachable), company websites can attract more customers.
- Social Media – Companies distribute their content using different social networks. Since the content spreads using the word-of-mouth approach, companies now have a reach to wider customer base. It is also a good medium to reach interested customers rather than randomly target customers.
- Blogs, Vlogs, Magalogs etc – Using various mediums, companies constantly keep the customers updated with their content. This would make the customers more knowledgeable and they would eventually reward the company with their loyalty.
The ROI of Inbound Marketing is much better compared to that of Outbound marketing. It is a cheaper and effective way to generate leads. An analogy I can think of is that Outbound marketing is like hunting for rats and Inbound marketing is what Pied Piper did. With his music he lured the rats to the Weser River. Similarly, companies should concentrate on generating good content which would attract the customers to their websites.
Picture References
http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1443-106
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Tags: Content Marketing, Inbound marketing, outbound marketing, SEO
Marketing in Recession
Few points to be kept in mind when marketing in the declining environment.
1. Inbound Marketing: In Inbound marketing the focus is on creating good and valuable content and let the customers find you, instead of you spending thousands of dollars in advertising campaigns in search of customers. In a dropping economy, such an approach is very valuable as it is cost effective and you come to know who are the people really interested in your product.
2. Cut the Expenditures, not the Investments: With less sales and profits, companies are forced to cut costs. However, no compromise should be made in the amount spent in the brand and value of the product and the content. In fact, in challenging times more money and time should be spent on this. It is an investment and not an expenditure like ad banners, TV ads, trade shows etc.
3. Concentrate on Customer Retention: It is really hard to go for Lead generation when the market is bad. The focus should be on Customer retention. You should value your customers more than ever. The more the customers trust you, better are the chances of retaining them.
4. Do a thorough Competitive Research: A good analysis of the competitor’s strategies and the impact they are having on the customers will be helpful in gaining a advantage over them in the market.
5. Know your Customers.
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Tags: Inbound marketing, marketing in declining environment
SCM – Strategy,Content & Media are three components vital for a Good Content marketing.
Straegy: It is really important to decide your goal at the beginning. Is it ‘Brand awareness’ , ‘Lead Genaration’ or ‘Customer Retention’? Brand awareness is getting more people to know about your product, lead generation is to get new customers and customer retention is adopted when your goal is to retain the existing customers. You have to keep in mind that Content marketing is not just another campaign but it is a way to connect to your customers.
Content: Once the goal is established, appropriate content is to be created. Content generation is the most important stage. So, ensure that you have an experienced team creating the content. If not, it is a good idea to outsource the job to some professionals. When creating a content, make sure that the content is authentic and interesting. You do not want to publish some stale information just for the sake of creating content. And most importantly it should not look like you are trying to sell something.
Media: When you have the right content, you need to publish it in pubic to reach the customers (potential). Your primary target are the various social networks like twitter, facebook, youtube, myspace etc. Make sure to portray yourself as an expert at what you are doing or the type of information you are giving. Also, keep the channels really active by making it interactive and having new material published regularly.
Once the content is published, the approach becomes iterative. By constant monitoring of the impact of your content on the world, you need to make changes in the content if necessary.
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Tags: content, Content Marketing
Personally, I do not prefer to use the word ‘Viral’ in the context of Content Marketing. It sounds like a negative aspect or point, which is exactly the opposite of what it actually is. But, the term Viral is closely coupled with Content marketing and is very popular.So, I will stick to it.
Viral marketing is similar to the spread of pathological viruses. With the help of social networks, businesses are trying to spread their content to people using the word-of-mouth technique. Indeed, a very good strategy as this is not only cheap but also very fast and effective in reaching a wide audience (potential customers).
Not all content become viral. In fact, it is really hard to create a viral content. Most businesses create a content as part of a viral marketing campaign. Such an approach rarely becomes successful. Content marketing should not be considered as a campaign, but as a process through which relationship with customers is built. It is a long process. Hence, instead of concentrating on making the content viral, businesses should focus more on the value of content created. Better the content, more the chances of it becoming viral. Most of the times the content which becomes viral overnight are by accident. However, by following good content creation practices and giving sufficient time for a content to get triggered, one can increase the chances of generating a viral content.
So apart from creating a good content what are some other practices one should follow?
1. Twitter: Arguably the most important viral marketing platform for businesses. Not only does twitter help in lead generation but also it is a very good medium for building PR.
- Use the 140 text limit cleverly. Be concise.
- Make your content easy to ReTweet and share. Provide links in your website to ReTweet a part of your blog.
- In the initial phase, Beg people to ReTweet to trigger the virus OR If you do not mind spending some money, give some incentives to people to Retweet and share.
2. Facebook:
- Come up with a good name for your content, group or post.
- Get the initial members to join. These are the persons you know well.
- Make multiple admins, only if you trust a person.
- Keep the group active. Display latest messages, have polls, competitions etc.
3. You Tube:
- Have a good title for the video.
- Have a good thumbnail display.
- Keep rating and comments option ON.
- Tag the video, for easy search.
- Have options to share it in other social networks.
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Tags: Content Marketing, viral marketing
Content Marketing
Marketing is not something germinal. Professional ladies of Pompeii, Rome wore sandals that left the words “Follow Me” in their footprints in the sandy streets, a marketing strategy to lead people who saw the sign to their employment site. With the advancement of technology, companies started using new and better media for direct marketing.
Recently, many companies have shifted from traditional direct marketing to Content Marketing, a technique where relevant and valuable information are created and distributed to the customers using various platforms like e mail, newsletters, social networks, blogs, podcasts, magazines, videos etc. The main aim is to make the ‘potential’ customer more knowledgeable about the product, the market and various issues around it. There are two main advantages of Content marketing
1. Once the customer is well informed about the product and market, she can make clever decision when buying a product. It has been observed that when a company sends informative content to the customer and it has the product to adhere to this content, they are eventually rewarded by the customer’s loyalty. Not only has the company gained the trust of the customer, but also it has made them clever enough not to buy bad products in the market.
2. Why do business in declining environment need it? Content marketing is viral in nature. The fact that it uses the plethora of platforms to deliver its content to the customers makes it very effective. Using media like social networks, blogs, podcasts, and video portals etc is an effective and cheaper way to spread the content.
Content marketing, even though, not a total substitute for direct marketing, is definitely an effective strategy in these challenging times.
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Tags: Content Marketing, marketing in declining environment
