Moving my blog over to Wordpress platform

Came back from a great vacation in Goa.  My blog on marketing resumes.

Effective this month, I have moved my blog over to the WP platform. So, those of you who have bookmarked the old location on blogger, please do a favour and move on over.

The new blog address is http://marketingdunia.wordpress.com

Trends for the online advertising market

Reality Sinks In at Online Advertising Confab - Advertising Age - Digital

I wanted to draw your attention to this very important, if depressing message coming out of (predominantly) US. Online advertising is not as immune to recession as previously thought. There are firms fighting for survival as budgets get squeezed and the whole display advertising business is coming under question.

Basically, there are two reasons to advertise: 

- the short term goal is to generate enough sales leads for the sales force to chase 

- the long term goal of building your brand

As their clients fight for survival, the ad agencies are under pressure to deliver short term leads. However, quality is bound to suffer in this short term focus. I expect more creative, if loose, definitions of what a lead is. And, that will be sad, because that is just postponing the problem by a quarter. This current market is unlikely to get better in a few months and dud leads will be shown up for what they are. 

IMHO, the online advertising model(before the advent of Web 2.0) has basically been largely about putting the alphabet 'e' before the corresponding traditional media version. So, we have banner ads (e-advertising),  e-direct mailers and e-newsletters and webinars (e-seminars). In many cases, we have been seduced by the efficiency of delivering content but we have not been as worried about the effectiveness of the message as it is delivered.

What does this mean for Indian marketers? I firmly believe that the only way for small businesses to make an entry today in the market is rely more on the internet to drive product adoption. Given that online media is still vastly under-represented in the marcom mix of most Indian companies, big or small, I think the market will still grow, albeit slowly. Here we are still on the efficiency curve. Also, there is an election coming and Obama has inspired all our political parties to explore the internet as a means to connect with the population. Given these factors, I still think the online advertising market in India will grow, even if the growth rate is nowhere as much as was forecast even a few months back.

Seth's Blog: Get rich quick

Sharing ideas is the best way to learn.
Why do I blog? What is it that draws me to the keyboard and share my thoughts with the world? It is the hope that someday, I will be welcome to participate in the discussions with you on marketing, the Indian SME space, how we can drive efficiencies and effectiveness in the way SMEs today approach marketing.
This is my own "Hyde Park corner". This is my pulpit. I do not sell snake oil, nor do I offer instant solutions to the many challenges that beset marketers, particularly in the SME space in India. My hope is that by throwing up issues to discuss, we will trigger thoughts. Hopefully, you will someday honour me by allowing me to eavesdrop into your thoughts and conversations.

Ownership of the funnel

- why clear demarcation of territories is unhelpful, even dangerous
Sales is responsible for immediate, this week/ this month and marketing looks at next month, next year and next life! Funny, but this is the kind of thinking that has ruined customer relationships, reduced sales role to deal management and restricted marketing to a role akin to a scriptwriter in a Bollywood movie; lucky to see his name featured in the credit-roll, if at all.
What is needed is a realization that both sales and marketing have long term and short term objectives/ goals and they need to collaborate in long to medium term growth in prospects, opportunities and leads. They each have a stake in ensuring the leads convert into orders and in promoting usage and thus customer satisfaction, loyalty and word of mouth.
Sales fights the battle, but today marketing is no longer just an enabler but active participant. The battle is not joined only on the day the salesman negotiates the final purchase with the customer but, on the days and months leading up to that day where the customer has moved from a state of no awareness to awareness to interest, evaluation and purchase. Marketing, sales and even customer support: they all play a role in these stages.
The engineer in me likens the various influences on a purchase process to the addition of lots of vectors. As we know, the maximum that you can obtain in a vector addition of several vectors is the sum of the magnitudes should the vectors be all in the exact same direction. Enough said.

Why marketing must partner sales

I have had the good (!) fortune of being on both sides of the great sales and marketing divide in B2B S&M organizations. When in marketing, the lament was how all efforts go to waste because sales "does not follow through and close the leads we generated" and in my stints in sales, I was convinced that "marketing is clueless"- about the market, about customers and their needs. Their leads were of no use to me. It was as if our goals and priorities were different.
The truth is that in large B2B companies, local marketing in countries are focused on the heavy-lifting; running trade-shows, sending out mailers, placing ads. The accent is on getting things done rather than genuinely trying to listen to customers and integrate their feedback into the product or service introduction process.
So, marketing runs programs with no feedback loops. Any customer response, howsoever "raw" is passed on to sales as a "lead". There is no way of telling a good lead from a bad one and since "lead-nurturing" as a concept does not exist; sales essentially starts working with a prospect who is at the very early stage of awareness.
What is the solution? Marketing and sales need to work together on an acceptable definition of a lead. This will vary from industry to industry and company to company but the agreement needs to happen so that marketing can work to create programs that nurture the raw leads further and pass on leads that interest the sales. On their part, sales could do more to spot the micro-trends in their industries, the customer pain-points and decision making roles in client organizations and log them formally. This will help marketing to create programs that address the right customer problems, identify the right solutions and target the right communication to the right customer contacts involved in purchase.