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5 things you did not know about podcast and employee engagement (and Artificial Intelligence) #AI

Introduction

Podcasts are one of the most popular forms of audio content in today’s world. Podcasts are an excellent way to promote your brand, product, or service for free. They can also be used as a lead generation tool and a recruiting tool for your business. The good news is that there are many things you did not know about podcasts and employee engagement!

Podcasts are the modern way to motivate employees

Podcasts are a great way to keep employees informed.

Podcasts are a great way to keep employees engaged.

Podcasts can be used as an employee survey, but they can also be used in an employee engagement program or even as part of your annual review process!

Podcasts help your organization align around mission and values

Podcasts can be a great way to align around mission and values.

Mission: Podcasts are an excellent way of communicating the overall mission or purpose of your organization, as well as its vision for the future. This is especially important if you’re looking at a new product line or initiative, because it will allow everyone involved in bringing it about (employees, investors) to understand where they fit into the bigger picture.

Values: You’ll also want to make sure that everyone understands what makes your company special—and not just by sharing core values like “Our focus on customer service” or “We believe in giving back.” If there’s a more specific statement about how those things apply in real life (e.g., “We’re here for our customers 24/7”), then go ahead and write it down!

Podcasts hold leaders accountable for company culture

Podcasts are a great way to hold leaders accountable for company culture. They can be used for many things, including:

Showing leadership and the company’s values

Demonstrating your mission as well as how it relates to customers

Ensuring that everyone in the organization knows what’s expected of them

Podcasts let everyone feel like they’re in on something special.

You can use them to create an intimate experience with your employees, customers and fans. The best part about podcasts is that they’re easy to make—you just need some video equipment!

Podcast content takes many forms: tutorials, interviews with industry leaders in your field or topic area, and Q&A sessions where you answer questions from viewers who have submitted them via email or social media channels (like Twitter). It doesn’t matter what kind of content you create; all that matters is making something valuable for those who consume it.

Anyone can make a podcast with just a phone.

Podcasts are simple to make, and most people can easily listen to them on their phone or computer. If you have the right software, you can even make a podcast using your tablet!

You might be wondering how this works. Well, it’s actually pretty simple: just record yourself talking into your microphone (or headset) while holding up a piece of paper with your script written on it in big letters. Then save the file as an MP3 file and upload it to one of those services like SoundCloud where people share audio files online for others to listen too!

Your organization doesn’t need to be an expert at media production to make a great podcast.

Podcasts can be made with a phone and sharing them is easy, so you don’t have to be an expert in video editing or audio production.

Anyone can make a podcast because it doesn’t require special equipment or knowledge of any particular field like video editing does.

Podcasts are an excellent way for your organization or business to share expertise with the public and grow its reputation as an authority in its field by putting their best foot forward through podcasts!

Conclusion

Podcasts are a great way to keep your team engaged, informed and united behind a common mission. We hope this article has given you some inspiration for creating your own!

PS: This entire content for this article is created by @copy.ai. What an amazing tool. I just added a few keywords and wow! Here is what it is.
The associated images (2) - top and bottom are created by another AI tool https://creator.nightcafe.studio
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12 Steps to Run a Social Media Contest That Converts like Crazy [Infographics]

Running a social media contest is a fantastic opportunity to amplify your brand, products, and services. With organic reach on the decline, social media contests are one of the few effective ways to boost your brand online with a minimal promotional budget.

Contests can consist of a simple giveaway from a small brand or full-blown campaigns that create an avalanche of media buzz.

  1. Decide on a contest owner
  2. Set your goals and budget
  3. Choose your prizes and an exciting hook
  4. Build your contest, define contest rules
  5. Determine jury, jury evaluation sheets
  6. Create a promotion and engagement plan
  7. Choose contest entry structure and social networks
  8. Determine the length and frequency of your contest
  9. Test and publish your contest
  10. Use e-mail autoresponders to contact, all entrants
  11. Convert
  12. Analyse, reflect, learn, repeat

When you target prospective participants and actively engage with your entrants, the real winner of the contest will be your brand.

Decide on a contest owner Set your goals and budget Choose your prizes and an exciting hook Build your contest, define contest rules Determine jury, jury evaluation sheets Create a promotion and engagement plan Choose contest entry structure and social networks Determine the length and frequency of your contest Test and publish your contest Use e-mail autoresponders to contact, all entrants Convert Analyse, reflect, learn, repeat
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Part 2 – Marketing in the times of Corona [Thought Leadership and PR]

PR and Thought Leadership_CoronaTimes

What #Marketing, #Sales, #BusinessDevelopment and #ChannelManagement teams can do in the times of #Corona #Lockout #Quarantine
(Part 2 of n – This is the first in the multi-part series on how business can thrive in these times)

In my earlier post on LinkedIn and ZMOTly, – Carpe Diem – Marketing in the times of Corona – I had shared how these times provide an extraordinary opportunity for marketing to lead the industry. Only the innovators with innovative marketing organisations will survive. The rest will perish and fall by; I spoke about 3 points earlier.

[1] Reset and recalibrate the internal marketing
[2] Reach out to currently engaged prospects
[3] CRM, Database clean up, and customer segmentation.
Here are the next three –

[4] Engage Senior Leadership Team in Marketing

As is usually the case in many organisations, there is an acute misalignment between the marketing team and various business units about the understanding of marketing and expectations from it.

  1. Alignment with Marketing: If you are a Senior Leadership Team member (SLT) or a CMO, this is an ideal time for you to rally the resources and brainpower within the company towards marketing. Your SLT will be, in all probability, be not ‘travelling’ though they are OOF 😊. They will, in all likelihood, be locked up at home with abundant energy and less busy than their usual selves. You use this opportunity to brief your SLT about the company’s marketing objectives and strategies. You can seek participative inputs from the leadership and seek specific feedback or buy-in. Your marketing team can gain insights into various business units and their challenges. That can help you to craft better marketing strategies. What more, you may even crawl some budget from different business units if you provide value.
  2. Management Team as Ambassadors: You can leverage SLT as social media influencers. You may educate some of them on the powers of Social Media and have a streamlined approach to social media. Your SLT is one of the best brand ambassadors inside and outside the company. Leverage them and their networks for writing blogs, social posts on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. That will amplify your company’s brand presence.

[5] Extend your online education for Free–

The magnitude and pace of disruption because of this pandemic is “unparalleled.” It has also opened immense possibilities for students (adults and children alike) to adopt remote learning. The physical classrooms have closed. There is massive adoption of online education through zoom sessions and the likes.

As a savvy marketer, you should seize the moment. You must ‘be there as this massive tectonic shift in learning paradigms are happening across the world. If you have online courses (non-confidential and value-led) built internally, they can be excellent ammunition today. You can use them and make a loyal following for your solution, product or industry; Some examples may be – Artificial Intelligence, Effective Delegation, Crucial Conversations, Financial Management, or Building Operational Excellence.

High-quality training content is of tremendous value to the receiver. As a marketer, you may not want to miss the opportunity to add value to society by enriching your lives. Marketing plays a vital role in building an emotional connection with the audience – your future customers, partners, vendors, influencers, or employees.

My suggestion would be to open it up to the audience for FREE and take the lead in your industry; Digital learning improves access and reduces the cost of continued education, and you would have been an innovator on that front in your industry and your customers and prospects.

[6] Organise Community Outreach and Seek and share personal stories

Your organisation or some individuals in your organisation are probably doing commendable work and community outreach.

If you are not, it is an excellent time to encourage doing such work by your teams and individuals. As a marketer, it is right down your sleeve to give wings to such an effort and gain internal and external recognition for such work. Share such work via your social media channels with pictures and videos. Do branding around such work. Get your PR engines to go full steam. Don’t worry – you can do this shamelessly. After all, that is the industry norm for successful companies and ‘philanthropists.’ All this would help you score better on your glass door raking and boost your brand significantly.

Let me know your thoughts, and I shall continue to build on these on my next posts in the series. You can also reach out to zmotly@futureshift.com.sg, and I will be glad if I can be of help

/Rajesh

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Marketing in the times of Corona

CarpeDiemMarketing_1

Carpe Diem!

What #Marketing, #Sales, #BusinessDevelopment and #ChannelManagement teams can do in the times of #Corona

(Part 1 of n – This is the first in the multi-part series on how business can thrive in these times)

With COVID-19, the world is passing through extraordinary times. Companies require super-extraordinary approaches to survive and thrive in such situations. In this multi-part series, I will address what an organisation can do to lead the industry and leave the competition far behind.

Businesses will be restored to normalcy in due course; only the innovators with innovative marketing organisations will survive. The rest will perish and fall by the end of this pandemic. What remains hence is the impact that you have created in the coming weeks and months. Towards that goal, we will see and share a few tips in marketing and business development.

With the partial to a near-total shutdown of businesses worldwide, the domestic and global companies are facing a watershed moment. Their inbound marketing leads and enquiries have dried up. The social distancing norms constrain the sales team and outbound team. Many businesses are working from home. Revenues are barely trickling in.

Yet, this provides one of the perfect opportunities for a savvy marketer. Here are a few things that you can do –

[1] Reset and recalibrate the internal marketing

Lockouts and quarantine times, such as this is an ideal time to set the internal house to order. The marketing team can now experiment with things that you always wanted to do but never found adequate time. Some of the areas could be

  • Create ‘stock’ content like blogs, white paper, case studies
  • Revisit the calendar for ‘flow’ content like posting blogs and social media.

[2] Reach out to currently engaged prospects

Today is an excellent opportunity to reach out to prospects and customers that are engaged with you presently. The trick is reaching out to them, ‘not with a sales pitch but with ‘hacks’ or ‘tips and tricks. Such a sharing of high-value content that truly eases their lives can add tremendous value to their businesses and organisations. Your customers have all the time in the world now, and you can even reach out to them with web sessions like Zoom or Facebook / Instagram Live. Here are some examples of topics that you can use –

  • Everything you need to know about X.
  • Why most Y strategies today are destined to fail.
  • Three steps by that Y can do to stop Z
  • COVID-19 – How X can change the future of Y.

[3] CRM, Database clean up, and customer segmentation.

One of the vital things a sales team (and the marketing organisation) must have is a well-segmented target audience. It would be best if you used this time to look at the database of current opportunities in your CRM system. If you have not updated the customer database/ CRM, use this time to reach out to sales teams to update the CRM. You can then segment / re-segment the prospect and customer data. You may want to customer lists into categories or based on the sales cycle or with tags that your company is comfortable with. You would need to have a specific plan of engagement for each type.

Let me know your thoughts, and I shall continue to build on these on my next posts in the series. You can also reach out to zmotly@futureshift.com.sg, and I will be glad if I can be of help /Rajesh

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What a simple pencil sharpener can teach you about big ‘I’ Innovation vs. small ‘i’ Innovation

What a simple pencil sharpener can teach you about big ‘I’ Innovation vs. small ‘i’ Innovation
What a simple pencil sharpener can teach you about big ‘I’ Innovation vs. small ‘i’ Innovation

As a parent, with young children, while I go around doing routine stuff, I usually keep a watch on how small and subtle changes are happening in the world of stationery – of pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners, rulers, glue sticks, and such mundane stuff. I am childlike when getting hold of these things and often stumped with subtle innovations that are happening in the industry.

#Innovation happens at multiple levels. There are the big ‘I’ innovations that happen once in a while that make headlines and get some multi-million-dollar funding, and the world talks about them to no end. Then there are millions of small ‘i’ innovations that go under the radar, many of which we use and yet one talks about them.

Unlike big Innovations, small innovations happen daily and impact life significantly and make life easier its own small little ways. We seldom discuss them, and in many situations, we do not even observe that innovation, let alone acknowledge or amplify that innovation. Small innovations are under the radar, but I believe, when put together daily, they impact the quality of life and save us time and money significantly.

Here is one such innovation – on a pencil sharpener. As a child and over the last 40 years, we have experienced this is the situation, thousands of times, yes, thousands of times While sharpening a pencil the lead gets stuck at the far end of the sharpener. I have personally spent, and I am sure if you are someone like me who is a millennial generation, we have spent countless minutes,  time trying to use a sharp instrument to pull out the stick lead. If it happens to be a color pencil, the lead is so soft that it gets stuck far more and it is much more difficult to retrieve.

Now, imagine this innovation (in the picture attached). There is a small opening at the far end for the broken lead fall away. A circular design, a little ide than the size of the lead that lets the broken lead automatically fall off. This, I believe, is a phenomenal small ‘I’ innovation.

There is a small opening at the far end for the broken lead fall away. A circular design, a little ide than the size of the lead that lets the broken lead automatically fall off. This, I believe, is a phenomenal small ‘I’ innovation.
There is a small opening at the far end for the broken lead fall away. A circular design, a little ide than the size of the lead that lets the broken lead automatically fall off. This, I believe, is a phenomenal small ‘I’ innovation.

Now about the business value and thus money that could be made by the innovator – Even if the innovator or the product marketer charges ₹2 (or 20c) extra per sharpener vs. ₹5 (or 50c) otherwise, the innovator would be amply rewarded. This does not happen in real life. That small innovator is not able to market that innovation, let alone price it at a premium. The user, on the other end, is unable to comprehend the significant value that innovation brings to them. Imagine, in this case, that extra minute the user has in trying to remove the stuck lead and that would have at least happened 100 times a month. That is a good 2 hour extra for just ₹2 (or 20c).

What are your thoughts?

What do you think about small innovations versus big innovations?

Is there merit in small innovations? How can they be monetized?

Are there any small innovations that you think have gone unnoticed?

Please share in the comments section. I would like to hear from you.

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5 Steps to Scaling your Startup – An open letter to entrepreneurs

Dear Entrepreneur:

Starting a business is easy. It requires courage. It requires an idea. It requires passion and commitment. You are one of the very few in this world who has taken that critical step.

You are even willing to make sacrifices and commit to hard work. Your next goal is to make your all this count. To make the business successful. To do that you have to scale and scale sustainably.

How would you do that? At Futureshift, our ZMOTly framework helps you to achieve your goal with a structured way to scale your business. Towards that end, our clients love this ZMOT.ly Smart Scaling Framework, they held them to look at incubation to mainstream under a very predictable model.

This model brings science to the art of business scaling. The more detailed you are with your plan using this framework the better you are set to reach your goal.

Why do some companies achieve things that ultimately exceed our expectations and defy all of our assumptions for what’s possible?

Would you startup be one of those unicorns?

Check it out! Take the plunge head-on with ZMOT.ly Smart Scaling Framework.

  1. Discovery: In this phase, you would Identify, define and prioritize opportunities that will deliver revenue/ growth. You may list all revenue/ growth model.
  2. Concept Development: In this concept development phase you would define the user, stakeholder partner value proposition and architect execution and revenue/ growth models for each revenue/ growth model.
  3. Proof of Concept: This is a very critical phase where you would validate the value proposition, revenue/ growth, and technical feasibility at a single location for each selected revenue/ growth model.
  4. Pilot; In this phase, you would test the complete model in multiple locations to validate scalability, for every scalable and sustainable model from POC. Many startups fail here.
  5. Scaled Deployment is all about focussed field execution to achieve stated goals and objectives. Here it is critical to achieving maximum revenue/ growth with minimum or administration.

Mainstream: This is no more a phase. At this stage, you have had a full adoption across all markets and integrate into core execution engines. This is business as usual and in all probability, you will have other competitors in the market. It is all about efficiency. But more importantly, this is the time to get focus to newer innovations and incubations.

Having said this, the idea of each of these models is suggestive. If a specific product or idea or a revenue model fails in any of the phases to achieve its desired objectives- you as founders and management team would need to have a real strong discussion on to do a Go-NoGo decision.

Hope this helps. Please feel free to reach out to zmotly@futureshift.com.sg if you need our help.

  • ZMOT.ly Team/ Futureshift
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How To Make Your Employees Share Content?


How To Make Your Employees Double Up As Content Marketing Warriors?

What can you do about it to have them more engaged in your social media activities?

Do your employees want to share your corporate content on a social network? If so, what would they want to share? Also, why do they think that it is valuable to share this info in their social networks?

Every marketing team would want to have their tens, hundreds or thousands of non-C level employees to share the corporate posts and content on their personal social networks and build the brand. The question is how?

Not long ago, Trapit, a company that enables social network content sharing by employees, commissioned what it calls the first survey of rank and file employees about their thoughts on sharing company info on a social network. Takeaways from the study and what the results mean for companies looking to improve their staff advocacy on social suggest that employees see great value in sharing via a social network. Many companies must catch up to do to take benefit sentiment.

The Observation

When study asked about the benefits their company would receive from social sharing, a three in four respondents perceive an advantage, while ten per cent see no value. Notably, 43% say it would increase brand consciousness, 21% believe it would aid brand credibility, while only 11% say it would boost sales. – Employees are supportive of social network and acting on a social network on behalf of their companies.

Another observation is that 55% of employees think it best to share 3rd party content in addition to their company’s content advertising. Moreover, 34% say that they are more than likely to share news articles about their company via a social network. This study suggests that employees are calling for help on the content front. They want the content from the creator, so that they can be active on social, and still help build their individual brand while promoting the company. Your employees do not want to spend their whole day farming for content on their very own. Corporate white papers and promotional materials are not enough. Your employees want an expansive mix of content.

So, what should a company do?

Your employees are not charmed in just being a corporate volunteer on their social network. They would like to be intriguing and engaging in their network and be reliable. These are the six things that you should do.

  1. Provide them with a good selection of content that includes ‘promotional’ corporate assets, as well as high value-assets like, industry news analysis, research, thought leadership
  2. Help them round out their personal profiles and their personas on social.
  3. Help them get some authentic engagement going versus just relaying more advertorial
  4. Additionally, content created for sharing, give them insights or a dashboard on their social sharing activities.
  5. Help them see some personal Return on investment for their efforts, just as you would for your business.

It is simple – Businesses must help measure the impact of social sharing – be it for your marketing team or your employee.

If employee-led social selling and employee engagement are not essential initiatives for the sales and marketing teams but the entire company including Human Resources and Senior Management teams.

This article first appeared on April 12, 2019 in a Times of India Blog titled How to make your employees double up as content marketing warriors?

#ContentMarketing #DigitalMarketing #EmployeeEngagement #Marketing #SocialMedia #SocialMarketng #ContentWarriors #EmployeeLeverage #SmartMarketing

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A #BetterFuture with #BetterBhavishya

Better Bhavishya
Better Bhavishya

While this forum is usually used for talking about innovative approaches of ZMOTly, we will share in this post about one of the exciting things we do at Futureshift in the area of social impact.

At Futureshift, we work on creating impact at the intersection of technology and strategy.

This translates into frameworks, innovative products and solutions that solve real issues in the business and social sector. The outcome is about creating a sustainable and lasting impact.

In business scenarios, ZMOTly provides the frameworks for success and Futrlabs offers solutions and products to achieve the delivered outcome.

In the social sector space, a segment that we are passionate about, we have a pillar called Better Bhavishya (better future). We leverage the skills in consulting and global experiences to be a change-maker in our little way.

At #BetterBhavishya, we work in the social sector space leading with ZMOTly impact framework and with products from Futrlabs that can help them achieve their goals faster. They are either continuous long-term partnerships or one-time engagements.

Better Bhavishya’ s works on these four areas – education, healthcare, environment and human rights.

  • As technology partners with an International Human Rights NGO, we helped them on some of their very key projects.
    • An Indian healthcare authority worked on a prototype and delivery mechanism for vaccination alerts that would help them prevent one million deaths and over 950,000 preventable disability each year.
    • Together with the NGO and a government ministry, worked on the prevention of bullying in schools.
    • Together with the human rights organisation, worked on jail reforms to reduce the number of undertrials held illegally in prisons.
  • Engaged with an NGO, funded by one of India’s reputed philanthropic foundation, for improving literacy and numerous is amongst children with low-income parents.
  • With another substantial philanthropic foundation, we developed a project impact assessment framework and helped in some other charitable initiatives.
  • For a not-for-profit working on building a community for parents of autistic children, worked on developing a strategy and reach.
  • At an NGO in Hyderabad, worked on developing a content and delivery framework and roll-out for long-term education for underprivileged children in the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana region.
  • In a village in Tamilnadu, have taken an initiative to convert 500,000 sft of barren land with an agroforest with over 15,000 trees.

Our founder’s prior experience in driving the Unlimited Potential initiative for Microsoft Asia Pacific plays an essential role in recommendations for our clients. The Unlimited Potential initiative was the outcome of Bill Gates vision to enable sustained social and economic opportunity for the following 5 billion people. The strategy was to reach incremental 1 billion people by 2015 by expanding deeper down the economic pyramid in a sustainable fashion by building non-traditional partnerships, breakthrough technologies and business models. The focus was on education, fostering innovation and creating jobs and opportunities through relevance, access and affordability. Bring one of the first employees in Asia-Pacific, driving that initiative has helped significantly in structure and systematising our approach better bhavishya projects at Futureshift.

Currently, we are working on a big idea that can transform hundreds of millions of rural lives by increasing local entrepreneurship opportunities and agriculture productivity. The core philosophy is to create local micro-innovations and income that would bubble up to have access to better education and healthcare opportunities.

This would more almost double the farm output and will dramatically transform the lives of rural India, where 70% of the Indian populations reside. We expect this to be a $1 billion+ social entrepreneurship business by 2022, creating an ecosystem with 10x more economic activity.

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9 PR rules shattered (2017)

 

#PR #Advertising #Marketing #CMO #PRO #Business #Entrepreneur
#PR #Advertising #Marketing #CMO #PRO #Business #Entrepreneur

If you are a professional, a businessman or an entrepreneur, ,you need PR to get visibility for your brand, product or service. The traditional rules of PR that helped well till a decade ago are is dead. The Web 2.0 has brought down the walls and unless you have adapted to the new world your PR strategy will not work in 2017.

#PR #Advertising #Marketing #CMO #PRO #Business #Entrepreneur

The 9 cardinal rules, shattered.

  1. Formal Media: The only way to get noticed was through formal media. The internet has changed all that. Today, you control your media. Your twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn – each of them with access to billions of users provide you a platform to get noticed. In fact, the so-called formal media has ended up picking news from these social platforms.
  2. Press Releases: Companies communicated to journalists through press releases. Press Releases are a passé. It is time to keep communicating as conversations with the public. You can share your idea, launch details, plans and seek feedback from your users directly.
  3. Exclusivity: Nobody other than a handful of reporters and editors Would see the Press Release. In fact, many demanded exclusivities. In today’s context – exclusivity is suicidal. The strategy should be rot reach your buyers through as many channels as you can. In fact, being accessible to your buyers at their point of interaction is the key.
  4. Significant News: Companies needed significant news before they could write a press release. Today, the rules are changed. The audience is looking for being engaged with you through your evolution. While significant news can still be leveraged to do some burst PR, the social media helps you to teach out to share the developments as they happen.
  5. Jargon: Jargon was okay because those specific journalists understood. Jargon is not okay. You audience needs to understand you and it must be simple. The lower your denominator for comprehension and understanding you higher are the changes of connecting with you and have meaningful engagement and conversations.
  6. Third party Quotes: Your press release included quotes from customers, analysts and experts to be complete. While all these would help, it is no more mandatory. Once your piece of blog or post hits the online media there will be a 360-degree feedback and that is more authentic. Today, users are looking at authenticity more than spin.
  7. Media as Gatekeeper: The only way buyers learnt about your product was when media wrote about it. Today, the barriers of media as a gate keeper are broken. In fact, organizations have started to completely bypass the formal media d have started engaging directly with the audience. So, you see artists launching anthem album via you tube or governments declaring their plans through tweets and media losing its gatekeeper status.
  8. Press Clips: The only way you measured 3effectiveness of press release was through ‘press clips’ that was maintained painstakingly each time media reported it. Today is measure being far simpler, it all measures what is the virality and click rate for your article. The more relevant and useful the content, the it is shared sand more is the visibility. In fact, main stream media has started writing articles from those 140-character tweets.
  9. Silos with Marketing: PR and marketing were separate silos and ruin by separate goals, strategies, measurements. Marketing is PR and PR is marketing. The walls are shattered. Both works in tandem to ensure maximum reach and engagement.

These were some of the things I have shared. There can be a few more. Please feel free to share your views.

The author is an entrepreneur with two decades of senior leadership experience in India and Asia-Pacific and now runs Futureshift, a boutique consulting outfit that helps businesses chart their digital marketing strategy with the @ZMOTly framework to achieve impactful outcomes. He is available at rajesh@futureshift.com.sg

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8 Point Checklist before creating your eCommerce Website

Many retailers usually start out by listing on the online marketplaces or e-marketplaces as they are called, such as Amazon, Flipkart, Ebay, Snapdeal, Myntra, Jabong etc. What most vendors don’t realise is that there are many hidden expenses and opportunity costs that could add up to ruin your business.

Instead, if one is willing to invest the time and effort, there are significant benefits of selling through direct channels.

You could build your website from scratch / hire an expert to build your website or buy ready-made templates and customisable platforms. Based on your business needs and technical capabilities you need to select the right system

  1. Technical competency: Can you learn how to build a site from scratch or would you prefer to buy custom built templates? Are you capable and willing to hire additional staff with expertise if required?
  2. Pricing: Is a monthly or a yearly plan better for the different components of the site or platform? Pricing also increases as features provided improve.
  3. Back Office Integration: How does the system fit with your existing back office capabilities? Is there a possibility for smoothening the move or extension of current facilities into online capabilities?
  4. Time available: Not just to understand and set up the best possible option but also to maintain and update the site to keep it running smoothly. If time is critical, are you capable and willing to hire additional staff with expertise to save time?
  5. Support offered: What are the levels and mode of support offered by the different platforms when problems arise? What is the level of responsiveness when help and guidance is required?
  6. Website features: Evaluate the additional features such as the website’s ease of use, security, mobile friendliness, etc as per your expectations and requirements. Keep in mind that basic features offered may be enough for starting out, but evaluate additional options on offer since it is almost a given that these will be required at a later point.
  7. Marketing tools: Tools for SEO, email marketing, CRM and integration with other websites are decisive tools in order to grow your market and brand.
  8. Unique customisations and features needed: Do you have any unusual needs and can the platform cater to your special requests?

Final note

The final decision will definitely depend on your requirements and needs. It will also vary based on the time, money and effort one is willing invest into this venture. Furthermore, you will need to consider long term strategies and evaluate whether the current decisions will leave room to scale the operation based on future necessities.

Remember that no matter what method you choose to go online, you don’t need to be restricted to just one channel. Selling through your own e-commerce store doesn’t mean that you cannot also sell your products through a e-marketplace to reap the benefits of both; Nor are you restricted to listing in only one online marketplace. Many successful retailers, especially the larger ones, prefer to be involved in multiple channels. However, each additional route takes time, money and energy to understand its processes and maintain it. What is important is that you take the time to consider the options available and formulate a strategy that works the best for YOUR requirements.

In my next post, I will look at some of the prominent ecommerce platform options available and rate them according to the measures mentioned here.

#emarketplace #ecommerce #marketing #digitalmarketing #sales #onlinesales #onlineshopping #retailer #tips #amazon #flipkart #snapdeal #myntra #ebay #retail #jabong #koovs

This post was first published on  LinkedIn, by Karina Pais, Consultant with Futureshift on Karina is an MBA graduate from UK and engaged with us a a consultant in digital marketing.

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Are you losing money on Amazon and Flipkart over selling directly?

Are you losing money on Amazon and Flipkart over selling directly?
Are you losing money on Amazon and Flipkart over selling directly?

In our earlier post – Business not online? Get ready to pack up – we shared that if you’re in the business of selling products, there really is no excuse for you to not have an online presence. 31% of consumers indicated that online shopping is their preferred mode of shopping and the trend is rapidly going upwards.

Many retailers usually start out by listing on the online marketplaces or e-marketplaces as they are called, such as Amazon, Flipkart, Ebay, Snapdeal, Myntra, Jabong etc. What most vendors don’t realise is that there are many hidden expenses and opportunity costs that could add up to ruin your business. These expenses are especially damaging if you are a small business competing with large multinational companies who have access to the massive budgets to spend on marketing and sales.

The best margins for selling online are usually attained by selling through direct channels. These include

  1. Build your own website with shopping cart facilities from scratch
  2. Utilise custom built templates or platforms already available to create your own e-commerce store
  3. Hire a professional to build and maintain your website (External consultants or internal dedicated employee hire)

There are significant benefits of selling through direct channels

  1. Showcase entire range: With your own online-store, you have better control and flexibility over the showcasing of all your products.
  2. Build Loyalty: Your own online store helps build brand loyalty. Loyal customers and repeat customers prefer reaching direct to store online and offline.
  3. Higher Profitability: Around 30-40% margin of online sales are eroded in commissions on other sites. Additionally, competition driven pricing and discounting cuts into profits through marketplaces.
  4. Increase your Valuations: Having your own store helps differentiate brand value and valuations flexibility, offerings.
  5. Analytics can be used to Grow Business: Ability to gain insights and analytics on buyer behaviour by driving targeted online campaigns.
  6. Lead generation: You have a chance to capture customer details through your landing pages and cross-sell more products.

Whether you have just one product with multiple SKUs or multiple products it is beneficial and worthwhile to build your own channels. This is especially true if you already have a loyal fan following or if your strategy involves creating a strong brand for your products.

As with anything, there are tradeoffs to this approach

  1. Initial capital will need to be set aside and invested to set up the various components involved. These can easily compound if invested in components that are not right for the business.
  2. A significant amount of time and energy might have to invested especially if one is learning about these tools for the first time.
  3. Driving customers to the site may prove to be big challenge if the brand is not yet well established in its niche.  However, this can be mitigated by utilising the various digital marketing tools available.

Final note

If you are willing to invest the time and effort to understand and build your own online sales store, the benefits of this channel can result in a dramatic boost to your bottom line.

Remember that no matter what method you choose to go online, you don’t need to be restricted to just one channel. Selling through your own e-commerce store doesn’t mean that you cannot also sell your products through a marketplace to reap the benefits of both; Nor are you restricted to listing in only one marketplace. Many successful retailers, especially the larger ones, prefer to be involved in multiple channels. However, each additional route takes time, money and energy to understand its processes and maintain it. What is important is that you take the time to consider the options available and formulate a strategy that works the best for YOUR requirements. I will continue to tackle the pros and cons of each strategy, along with the tradeoffs in further posts.

#emarketplace #ecommerce #marketing #digitalmarketing #sales #onlinesales #onlineshopping #retailer #tips #amazon #flipkart #snapdeal #myntra #ebay #retail #jabong #koovs

This post was first published on  LinkedIn, by Karina Pais, Consultant with Futureshift on Karina is an MBA graduate from UK and engaged with us a a consultant in digital marketing.

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[Infographic] 8 Bullet Proof Hacks for Enterprise Digital Marketing Strategy

#Technology #B2B #Enterprise #DigitalMarketing #ContentManagement #Online

[Infographic] 8 Bullet Proof Hacks for Enterprise Digital Marketing Strategy
[Infographic] 8 Bullet Proof Hacks for Enterprise Digital Marketing Strategy

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3 reasons to sell on #Amazon, #Flipkart and 9 reasons not to!

#emarketplace #ecommerce #marketing #digitalmarketing #sales #onlinesales #onlineshopping #retailer #tips #amazon #flipkart #snapdeal #myntra #ebay #retail #jabong #koovs

As we’ve talked about before, if you’re in the business of selling products, there really is no excuse for you to not have an online presence. 31% of consumers indicated that online shopping is their preferred mode of shopping and the trend is rapidly going upwards.

Most vendors have thought about listing in one or more of the online marketplaces (like Amazon, Flipkart, EBay, Snapdeal etc.) at some point. Listing on these sites is appealing on several fronts.

  • The well-known marketplaces are high traffic channels with millions of active buyers. It is the preferred mode of shopping for many buyers who enjoy the variety and seamless buying experience.
  • Merchants gain increased exposure for their products which can lead to higher sales volumes.
  • It opens doors to acquiring new customers who accidently stumble across your products while looking at competitors or simply while browsing randomly.

However, there are many hidden expenses and opportunity costs that could add up to ruin your business

  • Retailers, especially the smaller ones, end up paying around 30-40% margin of their online sales to online marketplaces. This includes even lesser known ecommerce platforms like Koovs, Jabong and Myntra. These margins are high even when compared to rental spaces in the brick-and-mortar stores
  • In addition to the high margins, marketplaces regularly push retailers to give an additional 15-20% discounts.
  • Competition will be crazy. You will be ruthlessly compared with other competitors, product wise, with price being the biggest differentiator in a marketplace. This will force price wars at the expense of quality and brand name.
  • Furthermore, if you come up with a unique product or idea, it will soon be copied and mass produced at lower rates. Even if your product has a patent, its enforcement and prosecution will be time consuming and cash hungry.
  • It will be difficult to build up a brand or generate loyalty for your products.
  • You need to have a corporate tax identity before selling on most e-marketplaces. This isn’t feasible if you are just starting out and selling from the back of your garage or house.
  • The supply and operations process to list and distribute your product is cumbersome
  • A fairly large amount of precious capital will need to be set aside to make sure you have enough stock and inventory and to order the MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) from suppliers.
  • It will take time, money and effort to find the right strategy that features your product over others. The strategy will have to be tweaked between marketplaces since each platform’s promotion algorithm differs.

These expenses are especially damaging if you are a small business competing with large multinational companies who have access to the massive budgets to spend on marketing and sales.

There are other options available to sell your products online or even just to channel traffic to increase sales offline

  • Use social media to build brand awareness and direct traffic to offline stores
  • Build your own website with shopping cart facilities from scratch
  • Utilise custom built templates or platforms already available to create your own e-commerce store
  • Hire a professional to build your website (maintenance problem)

Final Note:

Listing your products on an online marketplace does have its benefits, but, the hidden costs add-up to create a big dent in profits. What’s more, it is a constant uphill battle to monitor pricing and stay on top of latest platform related tweaks to make sure that your product is placed ahead of competitors. Selling through a marketplace doesn’t mean that you cannot also sell from your own e-commerce store to reap the benefits of both; Nor are you restricted to listing in only one marketplace. What is important is that you take the time to consider the options available and formulate a strategy that works the best for YOUR requirements. I will tackle the pros and cons of the other strategies, along with the tradeoffs in further posts.

This post was first published on  LinkedIn, by Karina Pais, Consultant with Futureshift on Karina is an MBA graduate from UK and engaged with us as a consultant in digital marketing.

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3 reasons to sell on #Amazon, #Flipkart and 9 reasons not to!

#emarketplace #ecommerce #marketing #digitalmarketing #sales #onlinesales #onlineshopping #retailer #tips #amazon #flipkart #snapdeal #myntra #ebay #retail #jabong #koovs

As we’ve talked about before, if you’re in the business of selling products, there really is no excuse for you to not have an online presence. 31% of consumers indicated that online shopping is their preferred mode of shopping and the trend is rapidly going upwards.

Most vendors have thought about listing in one or more of the online marketplaces (like Amazon, Flipkart, EBay, Snapdeal etc.) at some point. Listing on these sites is appealing on several fronts.

  • The well-known marketplaces are high traffic channels with millions of active buyers. It is the preferred mode of shopping for many buyers who enjoy the variety and seamless buying experience.
  • Merchants gain increased exposure for their products which can lead to higher sales volumes.
  • It opens doors to acquiring new customers who accidently stumble across your products while looking at competitors or simply while browsing randomly.

However, there are many hidden expenses and opportunity costs that could add up to ruin your business

  • Retailers, especially the smaller ones, end up paying around 30-40% margin of their online sales to online marketplaces. This includes even lesser known ecommerce platforms like Koovs, Jabong and Myntra. These margins are high even when compared to rental spaces in the brick-and-mortar stores
  • In addition to the high margins, marketplaces regularly push retailers to give an additional 15-20% discounts.
  • Competition will be crazy. You will be ruthlessly compared with other competitors, product wise, with price being the biggest differentiator in a marketplace. This will force price wars at the expense of quality and brand name.
  • Furthermore, if you come up with a unique product or idea, it will soon be copied and mass produced at lower rates. Even if your product has a patent, its enforcement and prosecution will be time consuming and cash hungry.
  • It will be difficult to build up a brand or generate loyalty for your products.
  • You need to have a corporate tax identity before selling on most e-marketplaces. This isn’t feasible if you are just starting out and selling from the back of your garage or house.
  • The supply and operations process to list and distribute your product is cumbersome
  • A fairly large amount of precious capital will need to be set aside to make sure you have enough stock and inventory and to order the MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) from suppliers.
  • It will take time, money and effort to find the right strategy that features your product over others. The strategy will have to be tweaked between marketplaces since each platform’s promotion algorithm differs.

These expenses are especially damaging if you are a small business competing with large multinational companies who have access to the massive budgets to spend on marketing and sales.

There are other options available to sell your products online or even just to channel traffic to increase sales offline

  • Use social media to build brand awareness and direct traffic to offline stores
  • Build your own website with shopping cart facilities from scratch
  • Utilise custom built templates or platforms already available to create your own e-commerce store
  • Hire a professional to build your website (maintenance problem)

Final Note:

Listing your products on an online marketplace does have its benefits, but, the hidden costs add-up to create a big dent in profits. What’s more, it is a constant uphill battle to monitor pricing and stay on top of latest platform related tweaks to make sure that your product is placed ahead of competitors. Selling through a marketplace doesn’t mean that you cannot also sell from your own e-commerce store to reap the benefits of both; Nor are you restricted to listing in only one marketplace. What is important is that you take the time to consider the options available and formulate a strategy that works the best for YOUR requirements. I will tackle the pros and cons of the other strategies, along with the tradeoffs in further posts.

This post was first published on  LinkedIn, by Karina Pais, Consultant with Futureshift on Karina is an MBA graduate from UK and engaged with us as a consultant in digital marketing.

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Business not online? Get ready to pack up!

If you’re in the business of selling products (even if primarily in the physical world), there really is no excuse for you to not have an online presence. This is regardless of whether you are an established brick-and-mortar business with years of sales experience or if you’re a part time retailer working out of the back of your garage.

Having your products displayed online is necessary because

  • It helps you interact with a much wider audience and even have a global reach.
  • You can set up your own social media channels in a few hours and the rest in a few days.
  • Your customers can access your store at times that are convenient to them and at places that they already are.
  • It complements your presence in the physical world to maximize sales.
  • It is one of the more cost effective ways to get additional marketing and exposure for your brand.

These seemingly small gains are especially important when you are a small retailer and do not have access to the massive budgets that large multinational corporates can freely employ on marketing.

There are many options available to sell your products online or even just to channel traffic to increase sales offline

  • Use social media to build brand awareness and direct traffic to offline stores
  • List on a marketplace like Flipkart/Snapdeal/Myntra/Ebay/Amazon
  • Build your own website with shopping cart facilities from scratch
  • Utilise custom built templates or platforms already available to create your own e-commerce store
  • Hire a professional to build your website (maintenance problem)

 Whether you have just one product with multiple SKUs or multiple products it is beneficial and worthwhile to build your own channels. This is especially true if you already have a loyal fan following or if your strategy involves creating a strong brand for your products.

However, many businesses still don’t even have a social media account for their commercial enterprise. This simple to set-up and easy to use should undoubtedly be the low hanging fruit that is first targeted. Once this is tackled the next steps tend to become a little fuzzy. Is it better to sell on an online marketplace or is it more worthwhile to have your own personal platform? If you are going to create your own personal platform should you take the time to figure out how to do it yourself or is it better to use readymade solutions available out there? I will tackle the pros and cons of each strategy, along with the tradeoffs in further posts.

At the very minimum it is worthwhile to have your own website in addition to just a Facebook or other social media account. Having your own online sales channel along with this, whether through a shopping cart on your website or an entire online store by itself will be a great value add.

Final note

Once you do go online you don’t need to be restricted to just one channel. Selling through your own e-commerce store doesn’t mean that you cannot also sell your products through a marketplace to reap the benefits of both; Nor are you restricted to listing in only one marketplace. Many successful retailers, especially the larger ones, prefer to be involved in multiple channels. However, each additional route takes time, money and energy to understand its processes and maintain it. What is important is that you take the time to consider the options available and formulate a strategy that works the best for YOUR requirements. I will tackle the pros and cons of each strategy, along with the tradeoffs in further posts.

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ZMOT.ly – Your Zero Moment of Truth

ZMOT.ly (read zee-mot-lee) is all about ensuring impact at the zero-th moment of truth. This is about rapid demand creation and predictable revenue through right interventions and influencing the decision-making process even before the prospect visits your shelf (online or offline).

Unlike the  classic traditional model, where an engagement (with prospect) kicks in from the point of first interaction with your team (first moment of truth) and through the customer experience after purchase (Second Moment of Truth), ZMOT helps you actively influence the experience from inception and create a positive demand cycle for the product or service.
By taking advantage of though business insights and advanced technology skill-sets, our consultants will help architect the business impact solution – be it revenue or profit maximization or market expansion or operational efficiency. We will do it by developing solutions in our innovation labs that specialize in solutions in the cloud, mobile, social and analytics.
Reach out to us at Futureshift at zmotly@futureshift.com.sg, where our best of our brains will help you with a demonstrable impact in business.
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Social Media in Business (Part 2 )

In my earlier post of Social Media in Business (Part 1), I shared the size of the market was and the lovable demographics social media presents. In this second and final part, I will share with you the basic steps of getting there.

Before I proceed I want to share with you a personal sorry that occurred recently.

I was disappointed at mediocre internet banking infrastructure of the two banks #hdfcbank, #icicibank and the unhelpful call center of #jetairways. The numerous attempts to the call center that either put me on hold for a good 20+ minutes or were unable to understand the requests yielded no results. Such waits and both frustrating and costly. I did what was the next step. Vent out my frustration on a tweet.

In less than 12 hours, I had ‘messages’ #icicibank #jetairways requesting for more details. In less than 24 hours of me providing my contact details, the representatives called me and promised to fix the issue. One bank #hdfcbank, just chose to be unheard and non-present on twitter. Needless to say thy just lost my $10K investment that I was planning to do to their competitor.

As a customer, I was delighted that a 140 character tweet could achieve what a 20min international phone call or a 300 word email could not. Harnessing its power,  let’s get serious.
Unfortunately, most companies are still treating social media like just another teenage fancy. When in fact, it’s so much more.

Where can Social Media help?

  • customer service, building loyalty
  • public relations, networking, thought-leadership
  • and yes, may be customer acquisition, too.
  • And because I’d hate to see it all not add up, I’ll add this tiny bit of advice. Do not assume that social media is the answer to every problem
  • If your product sucks, social media won’t fix it.
  • However, if your customer service sucks, social media can help.
  • If your repeat business sucks, social media can help.
  • If your company’s word of mouth sucks, social media can help.

So, here’s what you need to do:

Define your company’s online marketing strategy.  Hope is not strategy

Stop thinking “campaigns”. Start thinking “conversations.

Your customers are queuing there. Your resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the social web. Your competitors are already there. Your customers have been there for a long time.
If your business isn’t putting itself out there, you are putting yourself out of business?

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Social Media in Business (Part 1)

In our consulting assignments and workshop on social media, participants ask us the same question again and again. The top three questions are –

  • “Why do we as a business need to be there?”
  • “Facebook is for friends and Twitter is there for celebrities, not for real businesses”.
  • “We are a professional organization, not some startup”

In this two-part series, I will share how social media can change the business dynamics and help you get closer to your prospects and customers. In part 2 of this series I will share my own personal example with an airline and a bank on how they leveraged social media to solve customer problems.
Well are businesses really social?

Many years ago when Avinash Kaushik, an Analytics Evangelist of Google quipped “social media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it’s finally done there is surprise it’s not better”, it seemed like just that.

Now almost a decade later and wiser, Wikipedia defines thus – “Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue”,

Why should I care, you may ask?

Well, I can give you not one but six trends that possibly can change your perspective.

  • Because 3 out of 4 Americans use social technology.
  • Because 2/3 of the global internet population visit social networks.
  • Because visiting social sites is now the most popular online activity
  • Because time spent on social networks is growing at 3x the overall internet rate, accounting for
  • Because social media is democratizing communications. Big time.
  • Because social media is like word of mouth on steroids.
  • Because, social media is a force to be reckoned with! If facebook were a country, it would be the world’s most populous country just ahead of China and India.

If all this is great stuff, how does it affect my business, my customers or my prospects? I will cover these in my next issue, and I leave you with this thought –
93% of social media users believe that a company should have a presence in social media.
93% of these users want a dialogue, not a monologue on social media and believe that companies should not treat social media as yet another channel for broadcasting bulls*t.

Well now that I set the grounding on the basics of Social Media, I will take up in my next post on how businesses can leverage social media in my next issue.

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ZMOTly Impact – Pados App to Aid Nepal Relief, Reconstruction

When we heard of the massive catastrophic earthquake in Nepal and the death and destruction we started charting ways in which we can help in the relief work using technology.

Pados (www.padosapp.com)

Pados is mobile messenger service app and coincidentally named the Hindi word for Neighbourhood.

We started ensuring that we added all the 916 Neighbourhoods or Chimekas as they call in Nepal and that covers 100% of Nepal’s neighbourhoods. For example, this app has already created open group for Residents of Darchula, Darchula District, Nepal, bearing Pincode 10100 all the way up to Hangpang, Taplejung District, Nepal, bearing Pincode 57512.

This app will help the communities to rapidly rebuild themselves as logical online groups in less than 60 seconds and engage with conversations relevant to the members and survivors. The local officials, police and rescuers can also easily join the community where they are involved in and start having discussions that will aid relief and reconstruction work. Tens of Thousands of ground volunteers from India across the world, as well as NDRF are engaged in massive search and rescue operations. With the drawing of the end of rescue efforts, the community forum can be used for reconstruction, rehabilitation and logistics of the aid pouring in from rest of the world.

In fact, the community or teams
can easily create further communities or groups and start conversing in less
than 60 seconds. For example, the NDRF team working in Kesharpur can easily
create a private group called +NDRF_Kesharpur_OperationMAITRI that can involve
their ground teams as well as coordinating officers back in New Delhi or
elsewhere.

Any member can simply sign-up using popular social networking services like Facebook or Google+ or Twitter.  With Pados, the user can receive instant
messages from the community even if both of them are not connected with them on social media or phone contacts.

The service will use standard data networks like 2G/3G or Wi-Fi, and does not need to involve expensive SMS charges and messages can crisscross across continents, between mobile phones and tablets that help coordinating specific relief operations.

Pados is available for Android phones and tablets and is downloadable FREE on Google Play Store.  It is estimated that Android constituters over 90% of smartphone market in Nepal. – Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pados

We hope that we can make a difference in our own way to the relief and reconstruction efforts.

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#ZMOTlyIImpact – 150,000 Indian Neighbourhoods and counting.

Yes, you heard it right. We are happy to share with you that over 150,000 Indian Neighborurhoods are on Pados Community Network. Just type in your pincode and you can chose the neighbourhood you want to be part of.

Alternatively, you can add create your own community and invite your neighbours. Get Creative.

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5 Hot Technology Trends of 2015

5 HOT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS

5 HOT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS #ISMAC FROM FUTRLABS