Today the Internet is one of the fastest growing media for advertising. It is emerging as a Marketing Option that can be cost effective, targeted and effective. Yet most of us in business are not optimally using this medium or do not yet understand how best to use it. This Panel discussion brings together experts to share thoughts on how best to use the Internet to reach potential customers.

The Panel members were

Vinod Harith
Head - Marketing Communications,
Wipro Technologies

Raghuveer Singh
Sr. Manager, Natural Search Internet
Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

Hemant Soreng
Deputy General Manager - Interactive, Lenovo (India) Pvt. Ltd

Excepts from the Q & A session:

Q: We registered our web site 2 years back, we attached Metasearch engine and tried searching through Google, our site was listed first for a while but later slipped down, can you throw some light on search engines ?

Raghuveer: The meta Search searches from the database, so keep updating the database, if other web sites had better parameters, then the search engine will list them first and your website slipped back.

Q: If we have an organisation with a service to offer and want to use Internet as the only medium to market, can you provide us some advice ?

Vinod: If you research your eco-system and then plan your promotional activities your costs will come down. Find out who can be influencers for your service and focus the touch points around them. Find out your moments of truths - it just needs to be identified.

For e.g. Lots of CIOs visit Bangalore in search of software and they stay at the Leela Palace. Wipro decided to tie up with the Hotel, and target the 200 or 300 odd companies. Each of these guests are offered a card with 2 complimentary drinks at the library bar at the Leela, a business card of Wipro, and a booklet of services offered by Wipro. We found this to be hugely effective , share of mind went up considerably Leela provides us the data of who used the library bar card and how many people availed the offer etc.

We also did a similar activity with British Airways and Delta airways business class passengers, we have placed what is called a Magic Box - a small puzzle in their business class lounge, they can complete the puzzle and mail it to us and winners get a gift. This way we are targeting all the Platinum and Gold card holders, premium customers who travel often and who are our target audience.

These kind of activities and concepts can only be developed by the company, as you know your business and your customers well and not the advertising agency.

Q: Can you give some examples of virtual engagement ?

Vinod: In our ‘Thought leadership program', we tied up with Orkut to co-produce and host some white papers on both our web sites. We look at our customer databases and figure out who would be interested in these topics and send them the white-papers, wait for some time to analyse who read these White papers and then host a web event around the topic and Invite them to participate in the web event. On sites like Second Life we also run people through a presentation on the web and get them to post their resumes.

Balaji: There are fewer indians who participate in this ?

Hemanth: Leads for our company are generated on Orkut.

Vinod: 6 years back when I was associated with Automobile and Real Estate, before a buying decision was reached, people used to consult their social circle, today people living in apartments don't know who their neighbours are. So one depends on the Internet. Internet provides a forum and a discussion group. You will find information on every builder and every project, with details like current prices etc. You can even check these forums to see if a particular car model has a problem.

Hemanth: Most of the business enquiries also happen online.

Raghuveer: In India there is no business network related to Internet marketing. But LinkdIn gets used for such forums.

Q: For B2B what is the best website that I can have everybody looking in ?

Raghuveer: Any purchase to be made by a corporate company they search on the web for options. Blogs can be created and used effectively. General Motors has a blog for Top executives and Customers.

Hemant: If you want a marketing forum or a peer group, We don't have one in India focusing on the marketing community.

Balaji: Are there any cost effective ways to do marketing.

Vinod: There are simple things that one can do. For instance we as an organization send so many emails, all we need to do is have a banner in these emails. We use the staff strength of Wipro, close to 80,000 people, we use banners on all the mails, so when these mails go to various contacts, these banners get seen and it is at Zero cost.

Q: A client of mine has a service Industry, can you please suggest how he can solicit for clients on the net?

Raghuveer: There are no rights or wrongs for online marketing. You need to know your clients / prospects well, unless you do that, you can not form a effective strategy.

Hemanth: If a large base of his customer is online then online marketing makes sense, like anything else look at the cost and benefit. Look at different ways of reaching out. Make this data driven and optimise the medium as you go along.

These were excerpts from a Panel Discussion organized by Businessgyan and TASMAC on the topic ‘Internet Marketing'. 

Compiled by Ms. Mangal D Karnad for Businessgyan

Issue BG83 Feb 08

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