Marketing | The blog

As you get ready to roll out a new product in the market you need to understand that a product launch is a great chance to get the attention of your prospective customers. You need to take a step ahead and grab this opportunity to make a very good first impression. One of the main reasons for failure of a new product is lack of preparation. So before you go in to launch a new product you need to make sure that you are ready with everything. Now I would like to draw your attention to some important things that you need to work on before launching a new product.

1. Set your targets. To get started first of all you should be clear of your targets. As you are on the initial stage, your targets might be small like creating awareness about the product, looking for a small market share say in 3-4 months time and so on. These small targets can serve to be stepping stones for your bigger goals later in the business.

2. Decide your target markets. It is very important to know that if you go about selling a new product to everyone out there, its probably not going to work. You have to decide as to who are the people to whom your product will appeal the most. For eg. if you are launching a new chocolate, children of age 4-16 years may be your primary target market. After you've decided on this all your advertising and marketing needs to be built around your target market so that they feel a connect with your product.

3. Create uniqueness. You will have to give people a reason to switch to your product. Nobody is going to buy your product unless you create uniqueness about it. You will have to explain it to everyone that how your product is better or different from the others. For this you will first need to conduct a detailed study of your competitors. That will give you an idea about what is already being offered to the customers and what can be the unique feature of your product.

4. Define medium of promotion. Think about what all mediums can you choose to spread awareness about your product. You need to choose the mediums of promotion keeping in mind your target customers. You can use different mediums for promotion of your product like social media, blogs, electronic media or you can even plan a launch event.

Now you are ready to launch the product. After launching the product, keeping track of your progress is very important. You need to constantly monitor your growth in order to achieve your targets. Also you should be aware of the life cycle of your product so that you know when do you need to revise your strategies.

Even if you have the best product in the world and you don't communicate it, nothing will work for you because nobody knows about it. Creating awareness about your product is very important and that is the reason advertising has been so popular. The only problem with advertising has been the huge cost associated with it. But thanks to the social media platforms which have given us the power to communicate to the world. Facebook is one of the most powerful tools among all the social media platforms. With over one billion active users, there are a lot of people to communicate with and the best part is...Its free. In this post I will try to tell you how to go about with Facebook to help your business or how can you create awareness about your business using Facebook. So lets get started.

1. Facebook Page  To start with first of all you need to create a Facebook page for your business. Remember do not create a Facebook profile for your business but go for a Facebook page because there are some limitations for a profile which will restrict you to promote your business and engage with your customers in the right manner. One big limitation is that the no. of friends are limited in a profile whereas a page can have any no. of likes to it.

2. Vanity Url While you create a Facebook page try to get the vanity url for your business name or brand name. For example, the Facebook page url http://www.facebook.com/marketingtheblog has been taken for Marketing | The blog.This helps both search engines and Facebook to track you when someone conducts a search. Also it will be helpful for maintaining your online presence.

3. Display Picture Adding your logo as the display picture of your Facebook Page helps brand your Facebook Page and will bring more authenticity to your page.

4. Description There are two types of descriptions Facebook allows you to write about, short and long. The short description is shown below your display picture on the timeline whereas the long description will be available to the visitors only if they go to the about tab of the page. In the short description you should always mention your website's link along with a brief view of your brand because it will surely move some traffic to your website.

5. Facebook Insights One of the best features of a Facebook page is Facebook Insights. It allow you to track analytics for your page. It helps you to tack the amount of views for a post and also monitors your weekly reach and the engagement through likes and comments. These statistics can assist you to understand how your posts are doing and measure the improvement over time. These figures will also help you to build new strategies or design your objectives.


6. Gathering Likes Nothing works like word of mouth marketing. Whenever you post a new product, try to provide a tip or some useful information that your Facebook fans can share to their networks. This will increase your visibility and give people a reason to come and like your page. Create a like box on your website so that people who visit your website can like your Facebook page. Ask your friends to like and share your page to get some initial likes.

7. Start Creating Content Now when your Facebook page gets ready, start posting details about your business events in the events tab or provide exclusive discount offers to your Facebook fans. Providing information about topics that are on the mind of your customer will be of great help. You may also include details about your latest products or services, but remember not to do it too much or your fans will feel "marketed to" and leave. Motivate your consumers to post their feedback each item you share some important information with them. With Facebook, you get the opportunity to instantly communicate with your customers and get their feedback.

Once you gather a good amount of fan base you need to be constant with your work of providing valuable content, discount offers, etc. Also your brand story telling may help you. If you are a good story teller than probably you will be able to convert much of your Facebook fans to your customers.

The new TVC promoting Vodafone network and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 + Gear is spectacular. This advt. shows how a man from another country travels in India in order to reach an unknown destination for reunion along with his friends. The advt. shows how the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 + Gear and the strong connectivity of Vodafone network guides him and makes virtually everything terribly easy for him in a foreign country while he does not have the knowledge of the native language. Additionally the song during this advt. is pretty impressive.

MY TAKE

I feel that Samsung is attempting to clarify how straight forward and easy life may be with the assistance of technology. With the help of Samsung Galaxy Note 3 + Galaxy Gear Smartwatch and the super strong connectivity of the Vodafone network even the foremost troublesome task might prove to be simply a chunk of cake. Samsung has seen a very high graph of success in the past and far of it's due to its marketing strategy. We have also have seen the creativity of Vodafone when it comes to marketing strategies. Who can forget the "Wherever you go We follow" campaign. Overall if you're the kind of a person who strongly believes that technology is the future or if you've got a love for music this advt. can virtually actually appeal to you.

LYRICS of the song Thirteen hours Reunion.

13 hours of bollywood on a very slow very old bus, my personal entertainment is certainly a plus... There's a sign at the crossroads but who knows what it means, a second opinion would be helpful thank goodness for machines... I think I am lost in translation and maybe lost in person, I better find a shortcut before the weather worsens... It gets lonely when there are no other humans, that is why I say to you there is nothing like reunions.

Currently  SingTel holds 74 per cent stake in the joint venture company SingTel Global (India) Pvt Ltd through a wholly owned subsidiary SingTel Australia Holding Pte Ltd while Bharti Enterprises, the holding company of Bharti Airtel Ltd, holds 9.9 per cent and Leela India holds the balance 16.01 per cent.

SingTel group is the biggest shareholder in Bharti Airtel with a direct and indirect holding of 32.5%. STAH is an investment holding company and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SingTel. The application to the FIPB was made last month, sources said, adding that the equity of the Indian promoters will be picked up by STAH. The sources said that the SingTel proposal sent to the FIPB also carries no-objection letters from Bharti and Leela in support of the transaction.

Nokia was the undisputed king of the mobile phone market for a really long time till everything went wrong for them. The immense success of Android OS by Google contributed greatly for Nokia's downfall. Nokia was rigid at using Symbian OS and the problems for Nokia just got bigger and bigger. The last few years may have been like the worst nightmare for them.

Many people believed that the end was near but all of a sudden, things have started to change. The launch of new  Lumia and Asha series has proved that Nokia is ready to compete again. The launch of phones like the Nokia 205, Nokia 206, Nokia 301, Nokia 105 and Nokia 501 clearly indicate that Nokia is back to the basics. Nokia is working on the bottom line that says "Connecting people" and that is really good to see.

Nokia with the launch of these phones is looking forward to grab the low range market by proving the customers with superior customer value at the lowest possible price and not to forget the great build quality that a Nokia comes with. Nokia has worked really hard to get back. They even had to cut off on some jobs but they kept it on and now it looks like things are getting better for them. The credit goes to everyone at Nokia including Stephen Elop who has been doing a great job out there.

Now there are some question many people are asking me that is Micromax a Chinese company or can I trust Micromax or are Micromax phones worth buying ?
So let me make this thing very clear that Micromax is an Indian company which is based in Gurgaon. So it is not at all a Chinese brand. I've even noticed that some people do not accept it as a good mobile phone brand as it is an Indian company. Believe me, we Indians have a lot of potential and we should be proud
 that an Indian company is doing so well in the mobile phone market. So I will say that Micromax can be trusted. Its products are worth buying, specially the Canvas 2 and Canvas HD are a very good buy at that price. 

I would like to tell you that Micromax is the 12th largest handset manufacturer in the world and 3rd largest manufacturer in India. According to industry analysts, as of 2012, Micromax leads the Indian tablet market with a share of 18.4%, ahead of Samsung and Apple, and is the third largest mobile phone vendor in terms of volume.  The company includes 14 locations: Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri-Lanka, Maldives, UAE, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Afghanistan and Brazil.
After the immense success of its 5 inch phablet Canvas 2, now Micromax has launched the Canvas HD. The Canvas HD looks like another upcoming wonderful phablet.
Canvas HD will be available under the 15000 price tag. A quad core processor is being used in this phone with 1GB of RAM and it runs on Android 4.0 Jelly Bean.


Micromax has being giving a strong competition to big mobile brands in the low price segment for a few years now but after the success of Canvas 2 and with the launch of Canvas HD, Micromax is ready to compete the big players in the mid price segment too. So this is a good news for the buyers because a tough competition means buyers will be able to get products at a lesser price.Micromax CEO Deepak Mehrotra told reporters at the launch that they are planning to bring in 30 smart phones this year. This is a big no. and specially after the success of Canvas 2 the big players in the market are not going to take Micromax lightly at all.

Now let us talk about how has Micromax managed to become one of the fastest growing mobile brands. Well Micromax in the beginning came up with phones having long lasting batteries like for a period of 30 days or so. But the key factors that took it to the final success are
1. Low cost & high feature products
2. A good marketing strategy
3. Distribution

To give a high on features product at a very tight budget is not an easy job, but Micromax has done it quite well. They have also been successful in advertising their products as well as their brand very well. They have sponsored numerous events like cricket tournaments, shows and many more. This has helped Micromax to connect well with the people. This has made people aware about the brand. This has in turn helped a lot. The perception of most people about the brand is fast changing except for some foreign brand lovers, who seem to a little rigid in accepting an Indian brand. Now another factor that has contributed to the growth and success of Micromax is its supply chain management or its distribution pattern in spite of being a new brand in the market.

So in all Micromax seems to be giving a good fight to all the other competitors for a bigger market share and it will not at all be surprising to me if Micromax picks up the second spot in the mobile phone market by the end of this year. Micromax is the next big thing in Indian mobile phone market.

Samsung electronics, the multi-billion dollar Korean company has become the world's largest cell phone vendor. No doubt, Samsung mobile has performed exceptionally well in the last couple of years. But if you look back, like 3-4 years ago, Samsung mobile was no where to be seen in competition to the top cell phone vendors. How did Samsung mobile managed to get on the top so quickly .. ??
In this article I will like to give you some reasons which in my opinion helped Samsung to make it this big.


1. ANDROID
Samsung adopted Google's Android mobile platform, this is the most responsible factor for the success of Samsung mobile. Google's operating system is much flexible and user friendly in comparison to the Windows and soon it became much popular among the people. The cell phone manufacturers with the help of android can modify things and in turn satisfy the needs of their customers more effectively.

2. BIG TOUCH SCREEN
Samsung bounced in the market with a variety of  big touch screen phones which initiated the attraction of a lot of customers on its side. If you have a look at mobile phones made by Samsung in the last two to three years, almost all of them have a big touch screen. Samsung has continued to get advantage of there larger touch screen phones.

3. BRANDING
Everyone knows that in order to be successful in such a competitive market, you need to be really good at branding your stuff. Samsung knew, that it needs to properly brand its new range of smartphones and tablets, so Samsung came up with GALAXY .. !!

Galaxy was a brand established by Samsung for its top quality smartphones and tabs. Galaxy has given out some very successful phones like the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy Note. Samsung has spend a big amount on its branding strategy. Also the Olympic sponsorship has helped Samsung greatly.

4. PRICE
Another very important factor which Samsung has focused on is price. Specially in a place like India where  people consider price as a big factor before they go and buy something. Samsung broke the price barrier and produced products like Samsung Champ which was a multimedia phone at a very low price and not to forget the Galaxy Y, which was the cheapest android phone when launched. So the pricing strategy of Samsung also worked for them.

5. DUAL SIM
One more thing Samsung did was that they launched a wide range of  Dual Sim phones. There was a time when a large no. of people were attracted towards this Dual Sim facility in one mobile phone. There were manufacturers with Dual Sim phones already in the market but Samsung came up with a wide range of these phones which no other mobile vendor had. This was a risk taken by Samsung but it worked their way and paid off quiet well.

6. BATTERY BACKUP
Now if we talk about INDIA, battery backup cannot be neglected while buying a phone. We have many places in our country where we still have a big problem with electricity. If we look at Nokia, one of the most important factors for its success in the past was its strong battery backup and Samsung knew it pretty well, that battery backup is surely a factor for the buyers. Samsung's battery backup was not very good in the past but knowing this Samsung worked on it and if you look at the phones produced by Samsung specially in the low price segment, you will see that Samsung has improved a lot with its backup.

So this was how i believe Samsung managed to succeed in the mobile phone market .. !!
Will be back with the next post soon till then... :)
Happy Blogging .. !!