Knowledge Snippets on Sales & Marketing

Here is something latest and different than marketing for a change. This is latest water color creation I made it for my home. Haven't been able to put it on frame, Some Friends suggested to post it my blog, so here it is. I hope you will enjoy it.

Recently I read an interesting article on the marketing of Open Source Software. Author claims marketing of open source software is marketing in its purest form. Well I must say it is statement in its purest form. However, some points made in the article seems interesting. The fact that open source software projects are great involvement for the developers and not for the general users certainly drew my attention. Author reminds marketing is not advertising nor it is telecalling. He feels generally people think; marketing is all about conning people, making people buy what they don't need. I feel failure of marketing is evident when it fails to stops the organization to produce or promote something people don't want buy. More »

I have been reading about Gandhism off-late and more I read about the concept, greater I have respect for Mahatma Gandhi. And the thought which goes in mind very often; Are the Gandhi's thoughts relevant to marketing as well? The Gandhian concepts have become more relevant with concept of 8th P "PHILOSOPHY" being more talked about in the marketing field. The elementary basis of Gandhian philosophy is Satya and Ahimsa. Satya is a sanskrit word meaning "truth" and Ahimsa means "Non-Violence". More »

eMarketing is a comprehensive domain, it includes marketing via internet i.e. the banner ads marketing, affiliation programs, search marketing etc. It also includes marketing through email, blog marketing etc. The business model associated with are B2B (business to business), B2C (Business to consumers) and P2P (Peers to Peers). eMarketing has huge promises and certain limitation as well. More »

More than ever, marketers are being pressured to deliver hard data on how their efforts increased the company's bottom line. In these days of lean profits and leaner budgets, a focus on metrics can mean the difference between a marketing department that's considered highly valuable and one on the brink of extinction. Three primary metrics are suggested as a starting point for marketers to track their performance.

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The gaming market is in infancy but it is growing fast. The companies like Microsoft are aggressively promoting XBox 360 (first of its kind in India) and SONY is also very active with PS3. The telecom companies like Airtel are promoting the Gaming through Internet sites in a big way. Reliance Infocom recently announced for PC gaming facility in their 240 odd webstores. Hutchison-Essar also offers a range of 450 games on their site.

So it is right time to take decisions to enter into India. As per the estimate, the Indian gaming market is currently valued at around $30 million and growing by at least 60-80 per cent annually. According to a Nasscom report, the market for gaming is expected to witness a CAGR of 78 percent and reach $ 300 million by 2009 from $ 30 million in 2005.

The potential customers would be kids and teenager. The adults I doubt would be interested in Gaming.

In India retails shopping malls are mushrooming everywhere, most Indians rarely do lots of shopping in malls it is more of a window shopping. However, Indians prefer to eat the food which offers good value of money and other foreign brands are only for taste sometime purpose. Nevertheless, even taste sometime is big business. So one need to decide on pricing strategy he would want to position premium or for masses, off course this will also depend on the cost incurred for the presence in the malls. The advantage of the mall is that you spend less effort in drawing crowd so more visibility, ease of operations and jump start in the business.

Similarly, one may think of tie up with Cinema theaters, in India concept of Multiplex has just started and many theaters are still stand alone. People may like to experiment while waiting for tickets or in intermission. Many multiplex’s are now in malls and many malls have gaming corner. Presence in a malls gaming corner is also a good idea.

Another option is start a large outlet, this will act as signature outlet for your brand and create an experience for the user. However, looking at real estates prices in India this would be very costly proposition. But if you pockets are deep this would be good step and great brand experience.

One can also try for partnership with hotels and restaurants, as the children accompanying families like to play games and normally Indian families go outing every weekends. Some foreign owned brands in India are Pizza Hut, Subway. You can also try for the Coffee Shops in India. Barista and Coffee Day are very popular outlet in India. There are many local hotels chains very popular in India like Bangalore it is Nandini

The Biggest market though difficult to enter in Airports and Railway stations. Many people wait and your franchise can be good handout. However, for this permission has to be taken from adequate authorities. For railways it IRCTC and Airports it AAI

One can also tie up small telcom cards retails vendors which are present in every nook and corner.

One notable example for online lottery started by ZEE branded as Playwin, its outlet were very common in Bombay and Bangalore, but it ran into regulation trouble.

You may have to look into legal aspect as there are some limitations in the FDI in retail. I would suggest for a proper due diligence before taking any steps.