marketing

4 Keys to Reining in Social Media Overload

by Paul Joseph February 9, 2012 Featured

Most businesses understand that they need at least some kind of social media presence nowadays. But what about those who are too deeply entrenched in Facebook status updates and tweets? Or those that can’t keep up with LinkedIn invites and Tumblr reblogs? What about entrepreneurs who are finding it harder and harder to manage all of their social media profiles and run a business at the same time? It’s easy to get overloaded with social media, but if you feel like you’re drowning, it might be time to start simplifying your routine and finding ways to cut back on your time spent without sacrificing your level of community engagement. 1. Pick a Management Tool Balancing all of your social media accounts sometimes comes down to switching back and forth between different applications and websites. This can waste your time, especially if you have to manually go to the Facebook and Twitter websites to see if you’ve received any comments or mentions. To combat this, download a social media management tool like HootSuite or TweetDeck. These applications allow you to monitor and use all of your social media profiles from one convenient interface. Of course, the constant messages popping up on your desktop to inform you that you’ve received a new comment or mention can be distracting. To save time, turn off these notifications. 2. Focus Your Efforts While the primary thing you should be doing on social media sites is being social, don’t let this distract you from your overall goal: to interact with customers and market your business. Your first priority should always be to relay a specific message to your target market. Don’t try to speak to everybody, everywhere. Speak only to those that would be interested in purchasing your product or service. Seriously, generic status updates and tweets are the bane of businesses. Be specific and you’ll be interesting. Also, avoid checking social media sites over and over again each day. Set aside a specific time to check them and post updates. Schedule them if you have to. Just don’t cut away from your business tasks every five minutes to check comments on Facebook. That’s a super productivity killer. 3. Use What Works If you have no need to use Tumblr or Pinterest for your business, don’t. There’s no law saying you have to use every social media site out there. Instead, only use the sites that work for your company and that are easy to manage. You should be getting more out of your social media efforts than what you’re putting in. If that’s not the case, it may be time to reevaluate your approach or ditch that specific site. 4. Take a Break If you still feel up to your ears in social media, it may be time to take a break. We have a tendency of being connected to our networks too often, in both our personal and business lives. To cut down on the noise, set aside 30 minutes a day to shut off your phone and close your browser. Take some time for yourself to think uncluttered thoughts. It can do wonders for your productivity once you switch your connections back on. Adam Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Matthew. Adam is co-author of the newly released book: Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs .

Tagged as: business psychology, entrepreneur, facebook, internet marketing, management, marketing, social-media, twitter

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Are the Indian Tech Startups Building Platforms or just Products?

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

Let me start by asking this question – what differentiates a platform from a product? A product is typically targeted at consumers and the only metric to measure the success of a product is the number of consumers using the product or the market share. But what is a platform? A platform is a product that goes beyond the consumers and builds a thriving ecosystem around it. Majority of this ecosystem consists of developers and other product companies that embrace and extend the original product. Facebook is undoubtedly a platform. That is because there is a very healthy ecosystem around Facebook that literally brought everything from the digital storefronts to the commercial e-learning services into Facebook platform. The other example is Amazon.com, which is one of the early companies that realized the advantage of building a platform and not just an online ecommerce store. That enabled Amazon to quickly become the only digital outlet for traditional brick and mortar retail companies. In the recent past many companies successfully transitioned from a product company to a platform company. Apple and Google are the examples of the new generation platform companies. Of course, Microsoft made sure that everything that they built is a platform by encouraging its partners to complement the functionality. Do you know that the most popular consumer product of Microsoft, Microsoft Office is a strong platform? There are tens of thousands of companies whose products and business models revolve around the Microsoft Office platform. Technically what turns a product into the platform is the Application Programming Interface or API. An API is a hook for developers to tap into the power of a product. This opens up many avenues for the developers to extend the scenarios that go beyond the original intent of the product. An API lets developers automate the functionality without going through the user interface. For example, if you are an ecommerce website, you can integrate your product tracking page with the Blue Dart API to provide a unified and seamless experience to your customers to track the status of their order. Interestingly, once a product starts exposing the basic API, the consumers of the API will drive the innovation and will influence the evolution by shaping the roadmap. Over a period of time, the API becomes mature and starts powering other successful products and services thus transforming the original product to a complete platform.   When it comes to Indian startups, it is hard to find APIs even among the popular ones. For example, redBus.in can open a simple REST endpoint to find all the bus operators available in a specific route. Flipkart.com can expose their catalog as a search-able API. WhatsonIndia.com can provide an API for the TV listings. JustDial.com is a great candidate for the local listings API. These products / services might be technically designed to expose the APIs, but the fact is that they are not discoverable by developers. Exposing a part of the product/service through APIs will only help in driving the adoption and growing the ecosystem. More developers means more consumers and more consumers will bring the social aspect to the platform. In the long term, the API will become the force multiplier of the platform. I did find a couple of Indian tech companies exposing the API. One is Zomato.com and the other is KooKoo.in. The later had to expose APIs because it is their core offering but I was glad to see Zomato.com dedicate a section to developers . I may be missing other companies offering the APIs. If you have an API for your online product / service, please do let us know. We will be happy to cover or provide a sample use case to our audience.   Do remember that the browser is not the only channel for your customers. With the Android and iOS penetration, many customers prefer to have an App in their mobiles or tablets to access the product. Going forward, it will be Smart TVs that will become a frontend inviting the couch surfers to use your product. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Zomato App on my 55” Samsung Smart TV! I want to share one final thought. Many product architects and developers may think that an API layer can be added later after going live with the product. But remember that the API design is very crucial to the product strategy and it has to be baked into the core design right from day one. It is extremely hard and expensive to add an API layer after on-boarding hundreds of customers. Let’s hope to see more platform companies emerging from India in the future! Janakiram MSV , Chief Editor, CloudStory.in This post was originally posted on CloudStory.in

Tagged as: cloud news, enterprise, india, innovation, marketing, startup, tech news, unsexy-startups

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Unitus Seed Fund Launches with Three Social Enterprise Investments in India

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

New Unitus Labs Initiative Seeks to Accelerate Development of Innovative Startups Which Have the Potential to Significantly Benefit Families Living on Less Than $2 Per Day Seattle , WA and Bangalore, India, February 6, 2012  - Unitus Labs, an international non-profit focused on reducing global poverty through economic self-empowerment, is launching today the Unitus Seed Fund, a new seed stage venture fund that invests in Indian startup businesses with potential for large-scale poverty impact.  Unitus Seed Fund is also announcing its first three investments in Indian startups Bodhicrew Services, Hippocampus Learning Centres, and Milaap Social Ventures. “After a decade of helping accelerate and scale the Indian microfinance industry, we are excited to launch the new Unitus Seed Fund initiative in order to support development of more new pro-poor businesses,” said Dave Richards, CEO of Unitus Labs and Managing Director of Unitus Seed Fund.  “We are seeing a new group of highly capable and socially motivated entrepreneurs who believe that they can realize more wide-scale and sustainable poverty impact by operating as a business rather than as a non-profit.  The Unitus family of entities has always been willing to invest on the cutting edge of economic empowerment concepts and projects.” Unitus Seed Fund targets investments in companies meeting the following criteria: Businesses serving Indian markets Potential for scaled impact on 800 million people inIndialiving on less than $2 per day Strong, experienced management team Business developed beyond the concept stage Clearly differentiated value proposition Strategies to build effective distribution and marketing programs “Unitus Seed Fund addresses an important gap in the social impact venture ecosystem by funding and supporting businesses which are beyond bootstrap but not yet far enough along to receive growth capital,” said Vineet Rai, Founder and Chief Executive at Aavishkaar Venture Management Service and a pioneer investor for inclusive economic development inIndia. “If they can find and nurture more businesses to the point of readiness to scale rapidly, it will allow other social venture funds to focus on realizing the impact potential of these businesses.” “Unitus Seed Fund is providing a critical role as a supplier of very high risk, flexible capital to entrepreneurs who are trying to improve the lives of poor families in many important sectors including education, healthcare and livelihoods,” said Samit Ghosh, Managing Director at Ujjivan Financial Services and investee of Unitus Lab’s Unitus Equity Fund. “We received very valuable funding and management support from Unitus during our vulnerable early stages of our history.  Today, we are recognized as one of the best microfinance institutions in India providing financial and microfinance plus services to over million customers and their families across twenty states in India, thanks to our friends like Unitus.” Announcing First Three Seed Investments Unitus Seed Fund has made its first three seed investments — all in India — in three sectors: skill development and job placement services, affordable rural education services, and new areas of microcredit financial services. Bodhicrew Services:   Skill development for those working in the unorganized sector “We are very pleased to have Unitus Seed Fund as an investor in Bodhicrew because this is not only testament to our commitment to promote skill development of those working in unorganized sector in India but also to our business model and vision”, said Vivek Kaushik, CEO of Bodhicrew Services Pvt. Ltd. “With this investment from Unitus Seed Fund, we will be able to provide a truly integrated employment and skills services to the most disadvantaged in the labor market in a sustainable way.” Bodhicrew Services provides skill development for those working in the unorganized sector. Bodhicrew provides a complete domestic work solution to the rapidly growing middle class of India. Bodhicrew offers a one-stop solution to employers for an ethically sourced and well-trained workforce. To the workers, Bodhicrew offers technical training and guarantees safe placement and fair wages. It also supports legislative, administrative and policy changes which contribute to the employability, dignity, and welfare of the workers and their families. Bodhicrew is based in New Delhi, India. For more details on Unitus Seed Fund’s investment in Bodhicrew Services,  click here Hippocampus Learning Centres:   Improving learning outcomes for children in rural India “We are excited to have Unitus Seed Fund as a seed investor in Hippocampus Learning Centres because it vindicates our project, the first of its kind to provide affordable education services to remote rural populations”, said Umesh Malhotra, CEO of Hippocampus Learning Centres. “With this investment, we will be able to expand our reach into 100 villages, reaching out to more than 5,000 children and employing nearly 300 women by June 2012.” Hippocampus Learning Centres (HLC) believes that one of the sure shot ways out of poverty is education. HLC’s work focuses exclusively on the 700 million rural Indians with the aim of improving the learning of children. HLC establishes learning centres in villages offering preschool and after school programs to age groups from 3 years to 10 years with the aim of improving a child’s capacity to learn and do better in school. The fees at these centres are between Rs.60-Rs.100 (USD$1-$2) per month, which is affordable for poor families. The curriculum is centrally developed to cater to mixed age groups and is largely teacher facilitated. HLC hires woman from the local community as teachers, trains them to run the centres and provides them ongoing support. HLC intends to make these ongoing sustainable community enterprises and also achieve financial sustainability as an organization. HLC is based in Bangalore, India. For more details on Unitus Seed Fund’s investment in HLC,  click here Milaap Social Ventures :   Online platform to make microloans to India’s working poor “We’re excited to have Unitus Seed Fund as an investor in  Milaap  as they bring with them years of knowledge and experience in the microfinance and fundraising space,” said Sourabh Sharma, CEO of Milaap Social Ventures. “We look forward to their support and guidance as we try to help thousands of people get out the vicious cycle of poverty.” Milaap is an online microlending platform which enables anyone around the world to  lend money to the working poor  in India through the website  www.milaap.org . Milaap was founded in 2010 by a team of young and passionate entrepreneurs from premier institutions in India and Singapore. Milaap envisions a world where the poor are valued as dignified consumers, suppliers, and producers as opposed to mere borrowers. The loans aim to provide the poor with access to basic amenities including clean drinking water, toilets, education, renewable energy as well as income-generation opportunities. So far, Milaap has raised USD $200,000 for borrowers in various parts of India with 100% repayment rate. Milaap is based in Bangalore, India. For more details on Unitus Seed Fund’s investment in Milaap Social Ventures,  click here About Unitus Seed Fund Unitus Seed Fund is a seed stage venture investor in businesses which impact poverty.  Unitus Seed Fund identifies startups with strong entrepreneurial teams who have a mission to build large sustainable businesses which improve the lives of those living at the base of the economic pyramid (income of less than $2 per day.)  Unitus Seed Fund makes small equity investments and provides support to these social entrepreneurs to expand beyond their initial pilot to refine their business model and operations understanding to prepare for significant future growth and impact. Once solid progress has been accomplished, Unitus Seed Fund assists social entrepreneurs in raising growth capital to expand further.  Unitus Seed Fund is a project of Unitus Labs and is currently focused on the India market.  Unitus Seed Fund has offices in Seattle and Bangalore.  See unitusseedfund.com  for more details.

Tagged as: accounting, adventure, facebook, india, innovation, internet, lose-something, marketing, online marketing, startup

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Exploiting Innovation for market dominance: A case for Technology Startups

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

Government of India has declared this decade (2011 -20) as the “Decade of Innovations”. Manmohan Singh has promised to increase R&D spending from 0.9% to 2% of GDP by 2017. MSMEs are economic growth engines for developed and more for the developing country like India. With this notion, InnovAccer – an Indian Innovation Management firm collaborates with Yourstory.in to create awareness of Innovation and Intellectual Property amongst startups. Starting from today, InnovAccer will release one article every week for 20 weeks to help startups gear up to innovate in the right direction and protect intellectual property at its best. Anyone can run a business, but running a sustainable business depends on whether you provide cost advantage to the customer or present to them new innovative products or services. With fluctuating economy worldwide, cost advantage is no more a reliable strategy. Even China who is a master of providing cost advantage has initiated innovation strategies after rise in their labor cost. Multi-National Corporations have huge assembly lines and supply chains in process to release out a product within months, while startups have to rely on their innovative technology which is unique in the marketplace. Thus, Innovation and protecting that innovation is a key to sustainable growth of a technology start-up. Let’s shift our gears to economic advantages of obtaining a patent besides its value for exclusive right protection. Consider a scenario below, wherein figures represent cost of production. Company II is playing on cost advantage and ruling the market share. Now assume that company I obtained a patent. Whole market scenario changes from thereon. Company II and III have to give license fees to Company I and thus Company I has cost advantage over Company II and III. A company like company III which has neither cost or innovation advantage loses the race. While innovation company I always wins the race. Future posts will cover stimulating and resourceful articles on how to exploit patents to create & benefit your business and make it into a sustainable model. About InnovAccer InnovAccer (Innovation Accelerated) is an innovation management and acceleration company focused and dedicated to provide high quality innovation management services to accelerate every step of an innovation life-cycle. InnovAccer was founded with a vision of people in the fields of Intellectual Property, Business Innovation, and Technology to change and accelerate the creation of innovation ecosystem in India.  InnovAccer’s team comes from a varied background of engineers graduated from IITs, intellectual property specialists graduated from Franklin Pierce Law Center, USA, analysts, statisticians, and business innovation experts. Website: www . innovaccer . com

Tagged as: accounting, enterprise, india, innovation, internet, learning, marketing, online marketing, social-media, startup, technology, the-wachox-way

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Bullets for your valentine (Fired from the internet)

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

Bullet Points that might help you decide what to gift on Valentine’s Day We’d all want every day to be a Valentine’s day but reality always has an interesting take on things. This makes it mandatory for us to earmark a day for love. So, Valentine’s Day will always remain a day when hearts pound hard and so do the ring of the cash register (now replaced by data packets over the internet).  With only a week to go before V-Day, one must have a fair idea about what he/she would be turning up on the big day. Lovers will gift flowers and chocolates till the times we run out of cocoa or something goes terribly wrong with pollination but with the advent of the internet, there are a gazillion other things to spruce up your love life. Here are some of the options followed by the ever  green   red options. Players like Chumbak or a lesser known but equally interesting Shopo.in come with a unique offering for Valentine’s Day wherein they add a lot more meaning to a gift. Shopo has an interesting serivce wherein LoveGuru Aisha would be online in the evenings to suggest gifts.” We’re celebrating the season of love which started from January 20 and we’re seeing amazing response which was very much expected. Usually it’s a wee bit difficult for girls to find something for their men but we have a special offering this time around exclusively for men as well”, says Krithika Nelson, founder at Shopo. Deal sites like Vouchersmate also have an interesting offer. “Our Valentine catalog for 2012 is exclusive greeting cards collection with selected flower bouquets and range of gift vouchers from top brands, a complete gift box for everyone you love and care” informs Amit, Founder Vouchersmate. And if you for some reason you don’t believe in gifts, you can do something special like go for a desert making workshop! This, if you happen to be in Bangalore, can be done at Chaipatty. And if your hormones within have started whispering about how experimenting can ruin it sometimes, here’s a more conservative list. Flowers The world’s flower trade is pegged at $100 billion which makes it very easy to believe that the first thing that would crop up in one’s mind when one picture Valentine ’s Day is a red rose (and a heart). You can always get a red rose on any other day but if you’ve woken up too late, you would be lucky to find a rose stem which could signify the purity of your love. Be prepared and get your flowers before hand from the likes of FernsNPetals. A TOI report says the highest price that a rose could fetch was Rs 36 last year. But the quality of these roses which have been stored and treated for the special day (to fetch rosy prices) is contentious. In this age where every Romeo, Laila and Majnu knows about the buzzword- innovation, flowers don’t fit in the bill. it always works as an accompaniment,  but you need a plan A. Perfumes The market for perfume in India is huge now where a luxury mall can expect to do a sale of Rs 50000 on a normal day. And a well informed decision about a fragrance can definitely earn oneself some brownie points wherein the polished connoisseur part of you is to be showcased. There are a number of e-commerce companies like Perfume2order catering to this need where you can find perfumes from a Chanel to a Nina Ricci. Perfumes might burn a few holes in the pockets but it definitely mends the heart. Chocolates The chocolate market in India is Rs 2000 crore as of 2011 in which Cadbury has 70% and Nestle has 25% of the market share! But the dark horses (or the chocolates) in these race are the ‘home made chocolates’ which are no longer only made in homes but have a very high gift value. Many ventures including startups like Chocofthetown have special packages for Valentine’s Day which see huge business.   Lingerie A bold option but for a fast moving India, certainly a hot topic with e-commerce players like Zivame and         MyLace doing really well. The discounts for the Valentine’s season are as high as up to 85% which would surely be enticing. And the other plus here is that both the parties involved so this might be the option worth trying wherein both the parties would benefit. Zivame founder Kapil Karekar says, “We started the campaign in the third week of January and the response has been overwhelming!” Here is a compilation of the websites mentioned in the article (the list is solely an indicator to the possible service providers in the various segments): FernsNPetals  (MD, Vikas Gutgutia’s romatic story about finding FNP),  Perfume2Order ,  ChocOftheTown ,  MyLace ,  Zivame ,  Shopo ,  Vouchersmate  and  Chaipatty .  Hope you find the match for your match! – Jubin Mehta

Tagged as: accounting, business, education, internet, learning, marketing, online marketing, social-media, unsexy-startups

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Did Online Marketing and Social Media Change 4 P’s of Marketing?

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

All MBA students, marketers, advertisers are taught the 4 (important) P’s of marketing. Invented in 1960s, these P’s have formed integral part of marketing education since then. All elaborate marketing plans for brands and businesses are (or were?) based on Price, Promotion,  Place and Product. But, with the growing influence of social media and online marketing, have these 4, well at least 3, P’s of marketing changed? Let’s look at each of those in this light: Price: This P of marketing says that you should price your products or services competitively across distribution channels. But do you really think you can do that when there are so many deal sites and comparison sites? Today, price is one of the major factors because of which consumers join social media sites – especially in case of travel. Aren’t companies forced to let the market decide the price? Additionally, with Internet, mobiles, social media, it has become very easy for consumers to identify inconsistency in pricing if you have introduced any. This can be very dangerous for the brand image because consumers will immediately find that out and even worse, talk about that more openly and to a wider audience. So Price can rarely be of marketing advantage. Promotion: With rising costs of traditional advertising and lack of ways for measuring effectiveness, many companies are turning away from costly advertising media like TV commercials or billboards. In past as well, many brands have succeeded without costly advertising and marketing. For example: With its umbrella marketing strategy, Amul spends only around 1% of turnover for marketing. When around 3.5% of revenue is being spent on advertising by fashion retailers, the popular Zara brand spends just 0.3%! Ferrari, the Italian sports car manufacturer does not spend a single penny on advertising space. They rely completely on special exclusive events, word of mouth and of course social media as their marketing weapons. Google started advertising only recently and Facebook also did not reach the valuation to the tune of $100B with advertising. But, with Internet and social media, word of mouth and forming a close connection with customers and users seem to be the key to promotion. Conventional promotion mechanisms are no more being banked on when the world has become such a smaller and well connected place with Internet. Place: Does place really matter in the Internet age? With so many online shopping sites, eCommerce sites, reviews and social shopping sites, aren’t consumers going on web for shopping? Most of the large stores like Shoppers Stop also have special offers for online buyers. I think, therefore, the ‘place’ parameter has seized to have significant place in the strategic marketing planning. Product: So we are left with last P –Product. ‘Product’ definitely has not have changed. No matter what you use for promotion, what price you keep and where you sell it – you got to have a great product. Yes, but one thing has changed. In this age of social communication and connection, you have to not only make products that meet the needs of consumers but also make them newsworthy. Today the verdict about product on social media reaches the consumer before the company’s advertisement. So make sure your product delivers the value beyond the expectations of the consumer. Users did not want an iPad until it was built but now they wonder how they lived without it for so many years. The key here is building great products, newsworthy products and enjoyable user experiences. I think Kotler’s conclusion “ The best way to hold customers is to constantly figure out how to give them more for less. ” holds very true – even today! : – )

Tagged as: business, culture, facebook, india, internet, learning, marketing, online marketing, social-media, technology, unsexy-startups

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Siddhartha Das Studio; Connecting Through Culture

by Paul Joseph February 6, 2012 Featured

Siddhartha Das graduated as an Exhibition Designer from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, and established his studio in 2002. He started the studio with his own money and is now looking to find a funder who shares his vision and realizes the commercial viability of the area he works in. Over 10 years, his Studio has led or collaborated on roughly 100 cultural projects in seven countries across four continents, on different aspect of planning, strategies and design for heritage, public, museum and other cultural spaces. The Studio maintains a lean core team of half a dozen cultrala and design professionals, that has built a vast network of professionals from across the country and around the world to innovatively conceive and design projects. It blends national with international, rural with urban, and youth with experience. The approach is to collaborate rather than compete. ‘ Siddhartha Das Studio ’ offers a wide variety of in-house expertise: spatial, graphic design, furniture, crafts, lighting, signage and brand design. All projects are dealt with from a systems design approach rather than a perspective of the area of design. The Studio and sometimes in his individual capacity, Siddhartha collaborates on roughly half of his projects with others from the world of arts, design and just about any area of life. This has brought designers, architects, curators and writers from Sweden, UK, Turkey,Spain, USA and Japan to come and work at the studio on stints ranging from 1 to 6 months. Some of his accomplishments include thescenography of Interior Space of the 18 th  century monument, Jal Mahal, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India; Curation & Design of a Film Museum,Guwahati, Assam, India;  One of nine international designers invited to submit concept design proposal for the ICRC/Red Cross Museum, Geneva, Switzerland; Curation & Concept Design of a public space (a Plaza) Monterrey, Mexico; and in Chiba, Japan;Curation & Design of Museum Exhibition: Indian Fans, Museum Rietberg, Zurich,  Switzerland; Co-Concept Designer of Exhibition: Encounters, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Curation & Concept Design Proposal for Museums: Museum on Transport, Children Museum on History of Delhi, for Archaeological Surevey of India; Heritage Signage & Furniture, Gateway of India, Mumbai; 19 th  century sites in Amritsar, Punjab; and  Chokelao Bagh, Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India. Besides, they have also done Photography & design for the art book on Textile: Threads & Voices edited by Laila Tyabji, published by Marg, India and Photography Projects during Visual Arts Residencies in Canada & Japan. “I have been fortunate to receive a few grants and fellowships.” Says Siddhartha, “I am Nehru Trust, Charles Wallace and an AsiaSociety Fellow. I received artist and cultural grants from the Japan Foundation, Embassy of France in India, and the Fogo Island Arts Corporation, Canada. In 2009, I was awarded the Indian Young Design Entrepreneur and subsequently the International Young Design Entrepreneur at 100% Design, UK’s premier Design event by the British Council.” He goes on to say “Getting the International Young Design Entrepreneur Award was an important landmark in my professional life. YCEprovided me with a bouquet of rewarding experiences; I was fortunate to interact with my British counterparts, whose passionate approach to how they envisioned their work and studios was contagious.  Being able to show some of my work at the 100% Design inLondon, was equally enriching through various interactions. The Award money and the program helped find an enthusiastic collaborator in a Nick Rawcliff, an alumnus of Royal College of Art, London, to work with me and 35 other bamboo craftspeople in remote Tripura, to create products that found their way back to 100% Design in London. I hope my interaction with the YCE program remains a vibrant one and I look forward to contributing to it in any way I can.” He concludes. Follow the  Young Creative Entrepreneur Awards (YCE) on Facebook .

Tagged as: accounting, creative, guest-columns, internet, investment, learning, marketing, startup

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Five Mistakes to Avoid in Global Marketing

by Paul Joseph February 3, 2012 Featured

Taking the leap and marketing your business overseas could be the best decision you make this year. The economic outlook might be gloomy in the United States and Europe, but that’s far from true in the rest of the world. And for small to medium business owners, the internet is a relatively cheap way to tap into growing markets. That’s not to say it’s foolproof. As with any marketing strategy, it  pays to do your homework. We’re sure that Ford wishes it did a little more research before launching its Caliente car in Mexico. The name is slang for “streetwalker” – perhaps not the image most car buyers aim for! From picking an offensive product name to falling foul of internet censorship in China, there are plenty of pitfalls waiting to trip up would-be global entrepreneurs. But the good news is, the payoffs can be huge if you get it right. While the number of foreign language internet users is growing rapidly, most content is still in English. This means it’s much easier to rise to the top of the search engine rankings in other languages, simply due to less competition. And with growing opportunities in emerging markets, such as the CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) it can represent a much higher ROI. 1. Don’t let your website get lost in translation We’ve all heard amusing translation errors, or product names that simply don’t work  in other languages. Anyone wondering why Clairol’s hair-curling iron, the Mist Stick, sold poorly in Germany should know “Mist” means “human waste”. And most users are turned off by poorly-written websites that are difficult to understand. There’s no doubt Google Translate and similar tools have their uses. But when  it comes to translating your website or marketing materials, it’s worth hiring native-speaking translators to ensure its word-perfect. Internet marketing or localization specialists can advise on countries to target and any potential issues with brand names or slogans. Don’t follow the example of Pepsi’s Chinese advertising campaign, which claimed the drink could (literally) bring ancestors back from the dead! 2. Don’t ignore local or cultural differences It might seem cheaper to set up a single website to cover France and Quebec, or assume your European Spanish site will do for Latin America. But there are significant differences in language and culture. For example a “coche” means a car in Spain, but a “baby stroller” in much of Latin America. It doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to localize each website for a specific market. This also allows you to choose products and advertising aimed specifically at each country. Plus, adding local references helps build trust and inspire confidence in your company. 3. Keep it simple. For small companies, setting up a foreign website is far cheaper than establishing an on-the-ground presence in a new country. But many fall flat by failing to have an easy system to deal with enquiries or take payments. If you can’t afford international sales staff, then restrict communication to email or online forms. Cut costs by using free translation tools to understand emails, then hire freelance translators to ensure the replies are accurate. And make sure you have an easy payment system – whether that’s credit cards, checks or Paypal. 4. SEO doesn’t always translate well There’s no point having a beautifully designed, easy to use website if no one can find it. Many companies think they just need to translate their keywords into different languages, but this isn’t always the case. Taking time to research popular keywords and commonly-used search engines in each country will pay off in generating extra traffic – and sales. For instance, did you know many Italian users often search for English words and phrases? Tools such as Google Global Market Finder are a good place to start. But remember, Google isn’t king everywhere – the Chinese prefer Baidu, while Yahoo still leads the way in Japan. 5. Don’t forget non-English speakers closer to home Around 34 million people speak Spanish at home in the United States. But if your website’s only in English, they probably won’t read it! There’s no doubt people prefer to browse the internet in their native tongue. A European Commission report found 82 per cent of online shoppers were reluctant to make a purchase if there was no information in their own language. This applies just as much to non-English speakers at home as abroad. Christian Arno is the founder of professional translation services provider Lingo24 . Launched in 2001, Lingo24 now has over 160 employees spanning three continents and clients in over sixty countries. In the past twelve months, they have translated over 60 million words for businesses in every industry sector, including MTV and World Bank.

Tagged as: business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, global business, global marketing, marketing, marketing-strategies

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Business Center in Bangalore for Startups @ Rs 5000

by Paul Joseph February 3, 2012 Featured

Mantra Business Center has launched a very economical option for startups in Bangalore to get a shared office space at a good IT Grade facility. The facility is located in HSR Layout in Bangalore & can be a good options for entrepreneurs located in Hosur Sarjapur road, Koramangala and JP Nagar area. Check out more details at this link

Tagged as: advertising, business, children, environment, facebook, india, indian, investment, marketing, marriage

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10 Do-or-Die Tactics for Facebook Success

by Paul Joseph January 26, 2012 Featured

A couple years ago, having a Facebook page devoted to your business would have been enough. Simply existing on the site had the ability to set one business apart from the rest. Times have changed, though. Boasting over 900 million accounts – both personal and business, Facebook has now gotten to the point where it feels cluttered at times. How can you break through the clutter and make your target audience aware of what you have to offer? Below are 10 tactics that will help your business achieve success on Facebook. 1. Create a Profile That Works Make sure your profile is completely filled out. Never leave your profile looking as though it’s only half complete. Maintain a level of professionalism while making it clear that you care about your customers and will be there to answer any questions they might have. Your default photo needs to be professional looking. If you don’t have an actual photograph to use, your logo can take the place of a photo. 2. Involve Visitors in Discussions A great way to get visitors to “like” you on Facebook is to involve them in conversations. Start discussions about your business and how it’s able to help people. This will keep them coming back to add input and read what others have to say on the matter. For example, if you sell yard care services, start a conversation about landscaping, different types of flowers that will grow in certain areas, and landscaping on a budget. Encourage people to join in the conversation and include them in any way you can. 3. Personalize Your Page Allowing your page to look exactly like all of the other Facebook pages out there doesn’t benefit you in any way. Customize your page so it’s more suited to your business and your customers. Use images to make your profile memorable in a way that helps to brand you. 4. Special Events and Contests An effective way to bring your page to life and insure you’ll have repeat visitors is to host special events and contests. Any time one of your visitors RSVP’s to an event, their friends will see their RSVP on their Facebook page. This is a terrific way to reach an audience that you might not normally reach. 5. Sales and Offers Who doesn’t like a sale or special offer?  By offering sales and offers to your visitors, you’ll be piquing their interest. By offering sales, you are showing your customers that you care about their needs by giving them the best deal you can. 6. Multi-Media When possible, integrate audio and video content on your Facebook page. Doing so can be very affective in grabbing the attention of your visitors as this type of content has been proven to be much more effective than simple text. 7. Personalize Tabs Do away with the default tabs which are fairly boring and drab. By making the tabs more personalized to your business, your visitors will be more likely to remember you and your efforts. If you don’t know how to go about personalizing your tabs, there are tutorials that can be found online that will make personalization much easier. 8. Take Advantage of the Sidebar The sidebar of your page is the perfect place to put things like customer testimonials and bulletins. Placing links to any special offers you have going on in the sidebar is another way to effectively utilize the space. 9. Put a Survey on Your Page By placing a survey on your Facebook page, you are telling your customers that their opinions matter. Not only do surveys capture the attention of your visitors, but they also encourage visitors to interact with each other and your business. 10. Update Your Page Regularly One of the biggest mistakes people make is to let their Facebook page sit without any new content for extended periods of time. Make sure you’re regularly posting content to your page. This means posting new content and looking for ways your page can be improved every single day. Social media is one of the best ways to get noticed these days, so make sure you aren’t being left behind by failing to update your page regularly. By implementing these tactics, your Facebook page stands a much better chance of gaining new customers and keeping your current customers happy. Matthew Toren is an Award Winning Author, Serial Entrepreneur, and Investor. He Co-Founded YoungEntrepreneur.com along with his brother Adam. Matthew is co-author of the newly released book: Small Business, Big Vision: “Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right” and also co-author of Kidpreneurs .

Tagged as: branding, business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, facebook, internet marketing, marketing, social-media

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