Online Advertising

Online advertising market to touch over Rs 3,500 crore by March 2015 

Rising marketing spend in sectors like e-Commerce, telecom, FMCG and consumer durables will help the online advertising market in India, which is projected to grow at 30 per cent to touch Rs 3,575 crore by March 2015, a IAMAI-IMRB study today said. 

According to the study, the online advertising market has grown from Rs 1,140 crore in 2010-11 to Rs 2,260 crore in 2012-13 and was estimated to be worth Rs 2,750 crore in 2013-14. 

The online ad segment is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 25 per cent between FY'2011 to FY'2013. 

The overall ad spend in the country across all media is Rs 38,598 crore as of 2013 with a year-on-year growth rate is 12 per cent, with television accounting for 44 per cent of the spend. 

"The gradual increase in adaptation of Internet has opened the door to the marketers to go online and spend on digital advertisement.With mobile devices becoming a predominant mode of Internet access among the users in India, this number is expected to increase (further) 

"Although traditional media still holds strong ground in the Indian ad space, digital advertising is catching up fast and is expected to overtake traditional media within the next 5-10 years," Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International said. 

The high growth can also be attributed to increasing advertisement measurability, which is both quick and effective, it added. 

"In addition to the increasing adoption of mobile devices, the increasing connectivity and improvements in broadband infrastructure will lead to increased investments in more content rich advertisements viz video and social media advertisements," it said. 

Digital ad spend on mobile devices stood at 14 per cent, whereas on desktops and laptops at 86 per cent. 

As of June 2014, there were 243 million claimed Internet users in India out of which 192 million are active users (use Internet at least once a month). 

The growth in e-Commerce industry and their ad-spend in digital media is the highest, contributing close to 20 per cent, followed by telecom and FMCG & consumer durables. 

The digital ad spends by the e-Commerce industry has been growing at a CAGR of 59 per cent since 2011 and stood at Rs 495 crore at the end of March 2014. 

Spend by telecom stood at Rs 413 crore, followed by FMCG & consumer durables (Rs 385 crore), BFSI and travel (Rs 303 crore each). 

Currently, search and display contribute 38 per cent of the overall ad spends, followed by display ads (29 per cent) and social media (13 per cent). 

"It is estimated that the proportion of spends on search advertisements will reduce and spends will increase on email, video and mobile ads," it said. 

SOURCE: Economic Times

2011-2013:media trends & bets

2011-2013: Top 10 Digital media trends & bets

Internet in India is on the threshold of inflection. In this scenario what will be the big trends & bets over next 3 years? List of my Top 10 is given below.

1. Mobile broadband: With close to INR 70,000 crore having been paid by the Telecom companies to the government for the 3G licenses, we should see a surge in number of users connecting to the internet through their mobile phone which will be aided by the fact that almost all modern mobile handsets have the capability to access the internet.
2. Continued interest in Social Media: The stats released by Com-score for December 2010 revealed that more than 33 million Internet users in India visited social networking sites, representing 84 percent of the total Internet audience. This was a growth of 43% over a 12 month period whilst the Total audience grew only by 13%.
3. Decline in standalone email & instant messaging usage: The email & instant messaging applications of the social media platforms undergoing a huge improvement and matching the features & functionalities of the stand alone services. As users get more hooked onto the Social media platforms like Facebok & Orkut, the users will start using the instant messaging & email services built into these platforms to interact with others more and this will gradually reduce & replace the usage of standalone email & instant messaging services
4. Surge in eCommerce: Barring Travel, that too Air & Railway tickets, India has not witnessed significant numbers in other ecommerce verticals. Foreseen non travel e-commerce taking off in a big way over next 3 years spurred by verticals like Deal-a-day, Books, Gifting, Luxury retail etc.
5. Explosion of Digital advertising spends in India: Digital advertising in India to constitute at least 7% (up from under 3% as of now) of total ad spends over next 3 years. The growth will also get spurred by mobile advertising & DTH advertising. There will be continued dominance of performance metrics based pricing.
6. Demand for relevant Audiences: There will a demand from advertisers for delivery of audiences vis-à-vis delivery of traffic. There will be emergence of more options for targeting users on behavior, demographic & contextual relevancy including location based advertising.
7. Rich media consumption: With higher speed of internet access, users will start consuming more rich media content.
8. Mobile internet: Users will access internet through various devices (ala iPads etc.) and not only through smartphones or desktops/laptops. With this there will also be an explosion in usage of mobile applications.
9. Mobile payments & mCommerce: Mobile payments & M-Commerce should take off over next 3 years in a major way.
10. Innovations & Entrepreneurship: We should see a Silicon Valley kind of environment in India over next 3 years with lot of entrepreneurial ideas & innovations happening.

Instant Updates: .tel

Instant updates:

Let's assume you run a company. For people to contact you, there is the company Web site, but is the information in the site current? One fine day you realise that the details are outdated (Oh! That explains the drop in business). You frantically call your tech department and discover the only guy who is available now knows nothing about how to change contact information. He, in turn, contacts a more ‘knowledgeable' guy who is unfortunately caught in a traffic jam. By the time the details are updated, you would have lost more business.

The same goes for personal information too. If you are a professional, you may find it difficult to inform your clients every time your phone numbers or addresses change. Or if you switch jobs it is impossible to inform all your contacts, including friends and relatives.

The Telnic service changes all that. Once you register for your .tel name, you can update your contact information from any computer or even your mobile. The details are updated instantly. Anyone can go to [yourname].tel and get the latest information. Just as you can update it from any computer or mobile, the [yourname].tel will also be accessible from any device. Your [yourname].tel will also be listed in the .tel directory. 

And “unlike a traditional directory service listing, you can publish as much information as you wish and update it at any time by simply logging into a user-friendly interface and changing your contact data or keywords,” says Telnic. Visitors can search for your page by keywords text or your location, it says.

If your company has several departments, having [yourname].tel allows multiple levels of navigation so that the client or whoever is trying to find your company can get the details of the exact department, instead of hunting about.  Through telnic, you can “publish all your means of communication, including phone numbers, fax numbers, premium numbers, VoIP and IM handles, email addresses, links to your Web sites and Google Maps, keywords that describe your business, and private information only visible to VIP customers or friends and family”. You can even integrate the [yourname].tel to  your site's contact section.

Startup Marketing Tips

Ten quick tips for starting a blog for your small Business:

A blog which is short for web log is a web page though which you post short regular updates.  It could be a personal blog to write about things that interest you or a professional journal for your business .When it comes to small businesses, a blog not only helps you to build a community but also helps in marketing your brand / business idea/ venture / you as the entrepreneur.

Ten tips to start and maintain an engaging blog for your small business

• Keep it simple - Yes everyone loves something which explains any concept/idea/venture in simple and lucid form
• The content should be relevant and useful - Don't give a hi fi sounding heading and the content is something different, please keep it to the point, everyone likes to know something which is relevant and to the point, if its useful content then you are guaranteed repeat reader.
• Post often - Don't go off on a holiday after your one great post, its internet and people love fast and regular communication, otherwise you soon become outdated
• Make it interactive - Two way communication always works, engage your reader otherwise he will not be interested in your story
• Respond to comments and have a conversation through your blog - Please don't forget to respond to comments, reply however irrelevant the question might be, everyone deserves an answer
• Use keywords relevant to your line of business - Keywords make your blog rank higher and give it more visibility, hunt for right keywords and do include it in your posts
• Don’t sell too hard - Blogs are generally place for opinions and views, don't be into " me and my story" syndrome only
• Don’t use technical jargon- brings back to the first point, keep it simple and refrain from using business jargons which an average reader won't quickly understand, you want to engage not just impress.
• Stick to a schedule - Your readers after a certain point will expect a timely write up from you... fix a day of the week and stick to it
• Use your blog to run promotions and contests - Nicely conceptualized contests always endears a reader, go for it in your blog.

Tools to grow your business globally.

Google: Tools to grow your business globally.

Imagine you’re a men’s tailor in Bangkok, and you sell custom suits to travelers passing through Thailand. You start a website to sell your suits online and begin to notice that the majority of your website traffic comes from overseas. How do you respond to this international demand?

Businesses of all sizes face a number of obstacles when they want to expand internationally. First, they must identify the right market to sell their products or services, such as custom men’s suits. Then they have to create versions of their website and ad campaigns in the language of the market they want to reach. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they need to reach new customers who may be interested in their products and services.

Starting today, businesses can access a number of new resources from Google to help them overcome these obstacles and start growing internationally. Google launching a new website, called Google Ads for Global Advertisers, which will serve as a central hub for Google’s tools and tips for businesses looking to expand to foreign markets. This website pulls together resources for businesses to find the right market for their products and services, translate their websites and ad text, find new customers with relevant online ads, and understand options for international payment, shipping and customer service.

Google also introducing Global Market Finder, a new free tool to help businesses identify markets with high demand for their products or services. The Global Market Finder automatically translates your keyword—for example, [business suit]—into 56 languages and then uses Google search trends data to see where in the world people search for your product or service. It helps businesses evaluate new markets by showing the volume of local searches, estimated price for keywords and competition for each keyword in each market. With this tool, businesses can answer questions like “how competitive is this market?”, “how does demand in one country compare to demand elsewhere in the world?” and “how much would it cost to start advertising in this new market?” You can read more about these new tools on the Inside AdWords blog.

Google has already helped hundreds of thousands of businesses reach customers in foreign markets. From a mosaic company in Lebanon to a bespoke shoe retailer in Sydney, a tech support company in India and a bed and breakfast in Poland, tools like AdWords have helped businesses reach new customers and drive traffic to their websites.This new website and tools will encourage even more businesses to expand internationally, whether you’re a small business testing a single market for the first time or a mid-size company advertising your products to an entire region. 
After all, there are more than 1.9 billion consumers online.

facebook

The world's biggest waste of time?

Facebook is developing new applications that will take advantage of the geo-location abilities of some of the latest mobile devices. And there will also be more for users who do not have data on their mobile devices.

With India a fast growing market for Facebook, the product endorsed (indirectly) by Mahendra Singh Dhoni in an advert and with a growing retinue of users, expect more from the world's largest social network soon.

• Everyday, people spend five billion minutes on Facebook, making it one of the top three properties on the Internet (there are 525,600 minutes in a year).
• Over 125 million people visit the Facebook site every month.
• Of that, 65 million people access the site on their mobile devices using either dedicated applications (BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia N97) or the mobile website (http://m.facebook.com).
• There are an estimated 4.5 million Facebook users in India alone and India is one of the site's fastest growing geographies.
• Facebook is developing new applications for people with regular mobile devices to connect on the site minus a data connection such as Facebook on SMS available at 9232232665 (92-FACEBOOK) in India.

A New Social network.

MOODLER.IN

Now, let them know how you feel..

The social media is lending itself to new innovations, the latest being a site called Moodler that harnesses the power of moods..

What's Up??

The Chennai-based Pixelkraft is a digital media communications company that describes itself as one “made up of a highly motivated (sometimes moody) lot who think that the Web is too much fun to be left to serious-sounding people”. Moodler, an icon, instead of hundreds of posts such as the kind found on Twitter or Facebook, speaks volumes. “It's a dialogue, even when you‘re not uttering a syllable, you can tell what mood the world's in just by looking at the icon, and you can do a mood graph too, to tell what mood the world is in.”

Why ‘Moodle'?

Moodler is designed to track the mood of a social network. Moods happen for a reason, and Moodler just makes it easy to have conversations around what caused that mood. it's different from Twitter or Facebook because they are all about ‘me'. But the latter two needn't be all about ‘me', one argues, they could be places to have a discussion or a debate rather than be merely an exercise in egotism. Facebook stands for “this is me”, Twitter for “I'm thinking aloud”, Foursquare for “I'm here” and Moodler for “I'm feeling/what do you feel?” On FB and Twitter, though, one has to actually read what someone else's saying, whereas Moodler is visually immediate.

Moodler, which has notched up over 1,200 members so far in the six weeks since launch, has made an app for the mobile phone, and is making apps for the iPad and Google TV.

* Its an Indian site designed as more simple and more interactive with the members in their social network. just check it out. www.moodler.in.