The dreaded "R" word...

Here's why the "R Word" shouldn't stop you from making decisions about your internet marketing strategy: 

• Be Where People are Looking. Inbound vs. Outbound. The internet is primarily an "inbound" marketing channel where you "pull" prospects to you, by being where they are looking for your solution. The internet can deliver sales ready leads.  If they are looking for your solution, your sales cycle will naturally be shorter.  

• Spend Time. Not Money. Almost all internet marketing strategies require more of your time and less of your money compared to traditional marketing and advertising solutions. 

• Everything is Measurable. You can test everything. Some people get a little carried away with measuring every move. Not every connection on a social network, every email blast you send or every blog post you write, etc is going to turn into business. But, when your online marketing activities turn into leads, opportunities and sales, you will know exactly what activity to do again.  

• Your Competitors are Shifting Their Spending. According to eMarketer, more will be spent on online marketing and shifted from traditional marketing approaches as a result of the "R" word. (IAB too.) Can you afford not to be where your competitors are? 
  

• Constant Improvement. If you're doing the same thing you did to advertise and market your business as you did 25 years ago, you have a problem. Your problem is not that you're still wearing bell-bottomed nylon suits. It's that you probably don't know what's working and what's not working. (See #3 above.) Measurability has a really interesting side effect. Since you can now measure things, you can now improve. I'm not talking about tweaking colors and copy. I'm talking about walking into the CFOs office and showing how you delivered more opportunities to the sales team on a smaller budget.  

• Prepare for the future.  It's hard to argue with the statement that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong". Ok, it isn't hard to argue with that. But, much more experienced marketers than I have proven that investing in down times is the surest way to capitalize on good times.
  

When times are tough it is time to invest, not cut. This comes from years of research dating back to Ogilvy's Alex Biel and Millward Brown interaction surveys. All show that, if we cut marketing during such times, the impact is damaging and it can take you longer to get back to where you were. 

Of course, this is easy to say, but harder to do. The Pavlovian reaction is to cut, but the media industry can learn from someone like Rupert Murdoch, who historically has never done that. You'll see him investing in editorial and products at a time when other people are throwing the baby out with the bath water. The talk to do ratio is high, the doing is low.

Why it is Important!

Website Design is one of the most significant parts of internet marketing and the same should be performed carefully with expertise for actual results and increased revenue. Designing a website does not entail much knowledge but the same shall be not useful as well if made by a non professional web designer.

Amateur website designing is not appropriate for business and corporate firms which intend to sell some product or service and should be designed professionally. An amateur may design the website easily without much cost to be incurred and the same can be run easily but will not be of any use as the amateur designer may not be acquainted with knowledge of professional designs and may goof up with the coding which shall be used for programming for the web. The amateur website designer shall know seldom about the content that should be positioned on the website and may not understand the search engine friendly criteria which is required to make a website popular. Apart from these, a business website can not attract visitors without product specific information and related testimonials which the amateur designer will not know how to craft. These are all required for any business website and can be done only through a professional.

The main reason why a company should opt for professional web design is that the visitor should be overwhelmed while reaching the site or home page. The visitor is out looking for the finest of websites when he is searching and the same shall be possible only through intelligent content management and design which appeals to the visitor and creates an impact of professional approach by the company. A professional web design will acquire much attention as it will have specific content and information which will be useful to the visitor while browsing and exploring the website.

The professional web design will empower the user to navigate easily and open pages quickly within seconds which will be the best experience for any user. The professional web designer shall always check for the HTML validation and CSS validation before launching the website. The designer will also review the websites with multiple browsers to check whether it works fine with all the browsers. These measures shall help create the best website and will surely deliver an exhilarating experience to the visitor. Any visitor checks out a website for acquiring required information and searching for products and services. The professional web designer shall check for such information and post only required content leaving all useless material while making the site simple and easy to open. 

Most of the times, companies who hire amateur web designers lose money because the designer is not aware of the industry norms and is not capable to design the specific material with required content which makes the website boring to read. In case if the designer has problems with coding, this shall further pose as a bug in the website which will crash the browsers explorer.

A professionally made website will help the seller promote his product and market his services globally which is not possible otherwise and the same can be also used to impact the potential customers in the most positive manner.

Seeing it through the mist of recession...

A few weeks back I sent in my proposal to a client after reducing costs as much as we could due to the recession issues and it was at the brink of approval, when my client called me up to say that he got someone over the internet offering $500 to build them a site. That sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it? Wasn't great news for my company?

I actually feel bad for the companies who fall for this kind of cost-efficiency. What they don’t see is that this offering is probably from a two man team at the most. Professional web designing companies won’t last too long if companies are ready to sacrifice their quality to save their money.

Here are questions you ask yourself when choosing a web designing company:

What are their success stories like?

The only way you can forecast the weather is to look at prevailing patterns and historical data. Choosing a web design firm is no different. You need to make yourself aware of what work they have done before and what the quality of their work is. Big names are attractive in a portfolio, but are they doing a neat job at it?

Specialization in Web Design?

It’s always smart to have an agency that specializes in Web Designing and doesn’t just do it as a brand building exercise. Can they handle creating a website that is Search Engine Optimized (SEO) friendly and in turn generates more business?

Are they looking at helping you or simply just helping themselves?

Any responsible Web design agency will look beyond just creating a site for you. The site will need to be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) and will help visitors easily move on to leads or sales. A site created completely in Flash will not show up on a Search engine like Google or Yahoo.

The same questions can be asked of companies who offer search engine marketing. It needs to be a part of the primary services of the company you choose.

Hiring an amateur or inexperienced web designer can hurt you in the short run and the long run. I see people start small business who spent tons of time and money on brochures or embroidered shirts when they should concentrate on a good web site and even better business cards. Great business cards are cheap and easy to design, and communicate a lot about you when you hand it to a possible new client.

And having a great web site says even more about you than the great business card. It will be a foundation for your business for years to come. And that can’t be found by having your site designed by an amateur.

Let us Steer you in the right direction!

Outsourcing in Dubai

In 8-9 years, it’s a remarkable way in which the Middle East and North Africa region has become familiar with the term outsourcing and its allies. In this short while, it has gained immense popularity, which encouraged new concepts such as the Dubai Outsource Zone.

I read about this and according to global market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), spending in information systems outsourcing, which started with a small base in the UAE, has increased by nearly 7.5 times recently. Services related to hosting infrastructure also made striking advances, rising by 69 per cent in 2005. The firm predicts outsourcing spending, which amounted to around 15 per cent of the total information technology services market, will reach approximately 23 per cent of the spending by 2010.

The added interest in the region comes just in time when doubts have been cast over the outsourcing success in various hubs such as India and the Philippines. Being an Indian, I’m thoroughly aware that India has been described as "the poster child" of the global off shoring industry, and clearly its success has encouraged other countries to tap into this growing industry. By 2007, worldwide spending on globally sourced resources (near shore and off shore) with external providers nearly surpassed $50 billion for information technology (IT) and applications services, 10 times what it was in 1998. This represents a shift from between two and three per cent currently to between 7 and 10 per cent of total worldwide external IT spending, said Luis Leamus, Gartners president, executive programme, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMA). I’m happy to see that expansion is happening fast, and the IT outsourcing industry is predicted to grow at about 28 per cent a year. However, the advantages to banks and insurers of using offshore call centres are diminishing as wage costs rise in markets such as India, according to a new study.

I am sure many have heard about Search engine optimization. SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" search results. Typically, the higher a site's "page rank" (i.e, the earlier it comes in the search results list), the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. Its a great way to get effective traffic to websites. And the flexibility of the internet to provide with Multimedia advantages like Flash and video/movie animation. Just think, If a picture can speak a thousand words in Print Media, how much will a video/movie animation say to the audience?

I had a talk with Mr. Eric, CEO of Greenfin Solutions, and he agreed that today there is a strong need for outsourcing as an estimate of about 11 per cent of the total service sector in the US and Europe can and probably will be outsourced by 2010 of which the financial services sector is a very important part. He said: "Research in the UK suggests that the financial sector is planning to increase outsourcing of processing at a rate of 34 per cent a year over the next four years."
Even China, a country once recognized as a net gainer of outsourcing services, is expected to outsource some of its business processes, said Lambert. In Singapore and Malaysia too, research indicates that 50 per cent and 80 per cent of businesses respectively are planning to outsource over the next five years.