OMShare - Taking Events Global! » OMCAR

Top 7 Ways to Promote Your Conference Online - Acquire New Delegates & Sponsors

Pradeep Chopra — Fri, 29 May 2009 12:03:36 +0000

Given the current economy, online promotion is becoming increasing relevant for any kind of product or service. Occasions such as a conference or an event, which in the current market situation are struggling to acquire paid delegates & sponsors, are even better candidates for online promotion. In the last 6 months, I’ve seen 3 conferences, where I was supposed to be a speaker, got canceled due to inadequate response.

What can an event or a conference organizer do in such times? Going online is no more an option and this medium is seeing significant growth and receptivity worldwide. Over the last 2 years, we’ve had the opportunity (both as an event organizer - for OMCAR 2008 & 2009 and as event promote) to successfully promote many conferences including some really large & global conferences such as PanIIT 2008 (3500+ participants), PanIIT 2009 & Leaders in India (in process). I am glad to share our experience as top 7 ways for online event promotion.

Social Networking (including personal networks):

Social Networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn & Orkut offers numerous opportunities to promote any event. You can create & leverage a community (e.g. Facebook Page or LinkedIn Group) to promote an event or a conference. You can create and promote Events at LinkedIn & Facebook. The status messages at these sites (particularly Facebook) can really create a meaningful buzz & engagement in the target community. Lastly, the core team can use their own network (by sending event invites; e.g. on LinkedIn) to spread the word about the event. Check out PanIIT 2009 Facebook Page and Leaders in India – Business Forum 2009 LinkedIn Event.

Online Advertising:

Again, there are many ways to reach out to your target audience through Online Advertising. Google Adwords (which allows you to publish text & banner ads on relevant sites) is one of my favorites. Others include Facebook, LinkedIn Advertising, Ad Networks and directly advertising on relevant sites.

Blogging (and Microblogging):

Whether it’s a pre-event, during the event or post event, you can highly leverage both Blogging & Microblogging (e.g. Twitter). It’s a great idea to launch your event blog (may be even before your conference website) while you are launching the website/microsite for your event. In addition, you can leverage other relevant blogs (create blog badges like Proto did) to promote your events. Live conference blogging is a great tool to create valuable content for event promotion in addition to enriching the experience of the delegates.

As a central platform, blog also helps you promote other social media channels & content (e.g. photos, videos, presentations, twitter). Check out OMShare’s Twitter account - a resource for latest & greatest information about various events & conferences.

Mailers:

One of the old methods, sending event invites through mailers is still a very effective mean to reach out to the relevant people. However, more than the message, it’s the database of the recipients, which determines the success or failure of your email campaign. While signing up for media partners (who promise to send your event mailer to their database), don’t just be enticed by the volume of their database - relevancy of their member base is much more important. One of the important areas which generally get ignored in case of mailers is the ‘subject line’. E.g. for one of our recent conferences on Online Marketing, we had an option to choose between ‘OMCAR 200 - Online Marketing Summit’ or ‘7 Days to OMCAR 09 - Online Marketing Summit. Join Now!’ Guess, which one did we use (no prize for correct answer)?

Leveraging Content (Photos, Presentations, and Videos etc):

Even today, most of the events don’t last beyond the day on which they happen. However, there is an incredible opportunity to leverage the content (in the form of session takeaways (an important reason for live blogging), photos, presentations, videos) to promote the event & the organizer’s brand - can significantly contribute to the next year’s conference or other conferences by the same organizer. So, please plan to capture and use the wealth of content which gets created during the event. For e.g. our own Social Media Channels - Speaker Presentations, Event Photo Galleries, Session Videos have driven thousands of views for various events. Another great example to check out is NASSCOM’s SlideShare channel - over the last 2 years, it has received over 150,000 views across various event presentations.

Online Press Releases:

I think the time for traditional, offline Press Releases is gone - many can’t afford it and for most of others, there are much better alternatives. Online PR is no more an option and given most of it is free; there is no reason why you’ll not leverage it. They don’t just allow you to directly reach out to global audience (if that is important) but also help you improve your Search Engine rankings. Given their value, I strongly recommend diverting most (if not all) of your offline promotion budget to paid PRs (e.g. PRWeb.com) and to Online Advertising. Here is a list of Online PR sites you can use to promote your event.

Events Directories:

Again, submitting your event to various event directories doesn’t cost you any $. It only brings new delegates and helps you improve your Search Engine rankings.

Before you arrive at your own list of online promotion channels, I strongly recommend answering the following questions:

Who’s your target audience (including sponsors)?
Which online channels are they present on?
What’s their concern that is being addressed by your event?

I hope you find this interesting and useful. Although this article is targeted at event/conference promotion, I believe that most it is replicable for promoting many other products & services (e.g. training).

I’ll appreciate if you can provide your inputs or share your own experiences. Please feel free to ask me for any query or clarification.

OMCAR 2009 - The Online Marketing Summit, Appreciating Feedback

Paritosh Sharma — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:08:32 +0000

FEEBACK

OMCAR 2009 - The Online Marketing Summit was a grand success, with 250 + delegates, top thought leaders form the industry as speakers, sessions ranging from SEO to SMM to How businesses can leverage online marketing to achieve their marketing objectives.

I would personally like to thank all the stakeholders from the Delegates, Partners, Speakers and the Sponsors and the entire organizing team from OMLogic and the OM Careers society.

The event was truly promoted on the spirit of online marketing, with the promotion happening entirely online, achieving success at such times in the market and creating an event with such high value was surely not an easy task, though was surely made easy with the unending spirit of the organizing team members and the stakeholders.

I am thankful to all the delegates who have written in with their comments and suggestions at the event site and also post the event through their comments on the OMShare blog as well as with their best wishes through mail and other channels.

Mr. Pradeep Chopra (Co. Founder, OMLogic) and Contributor OM Careers Society, shared his views by congratulating the entire community in making OMCAR 2009 A Grand Success:

I applaud the community which made this event possible and creating it such a grand success. We have surely grown from the last year, with 90 per cent corporate delegates and the student community joining in as well. Also I am thankful to the speakers who made OMCAR a high net worth event. I would like to thank the sponsors and partners personally.

I am glad in sharing some of the feedback from the esteemed delegates here:

OMCAR 2009 was very informative - Roopali Bahal (TCS)

in future do lemme know the objectives of OMCAR, i will be happy to volunteer myself for OMCAR - Nikhil Bathla

Also, I would like to take this opportunity in inviting the entire community with their comments and suggestions so that we could create better value and a higher engagement in future. Please send in your suggestions as comments to this post and I assure you of prompt action and getting back to you!

Thanks for making OMCAR 2009 A Grand Success!!

Some moments to steal:

OMCAR 2009 - The Online Marketing Summit, Celebrating Success

Paritosh Sharma — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:13:49 +0000

I take the pleasure of authoring this blog post, which I am feeling much proud doing! At the onset, I would like to announce that I feel proud and happy declaring OMCAR 2009 - The Online Marketing Summit, a success. It was surely an effort by the organizing team which made possible an event in such times of recession which has had much effect over the event industry. I have seen in my past experience some big events coming down due to non availability of enough delegates. OMCAR 2009, I would term as an event which marks the evolution of the Indian Internet industry. OMCAR 2009 was the succession to the OMCAR 2008, which the world’s first event with a vision towards creating high net worth resources for the online industry in India. While OMCAR 2008 got an unprecedented response from the student and the comunity, OMCAR 2009 saw coaporate India coming down in numbers to know how they could implement the right strategies and leverage online marketing to achieve cost effective business success. How did it all happen? ,p>Well, OMCAR 2009 had its own share of troubles, breakdowns and moments of happiness and success!,/p> Let me first introduce the partners in action : OMCAR 2009 was a joint effort by TiE New Delhi and OMCareers Society. Some real known faces form the industry came together and sat across the table to chart out the plans. It was lots of thinking, yes’s and No’s …there were questions and some real hard hitting ones’ ….we all had our doubts! There were times when I personally used to be negative as to, this wont work and when Pradeep (Co. Founder, OMLogic) and my colleague used to re-create the possibility with me that we could take it up further. OMCAR 2009 was Postponed as well, we all had our share of doubts Initially we planned OMCAR for January, postponed it to March and still we weren’t sure. Finally we took our chances and went ahead with a firm belief in our planning and some gut feeling and with all the efforts went onto create what we all saw on the 23rd of May 2009 - success! There were sleepless nights YES! In fact so dedicated was the team that I personally with Nitin (Associate Director, TiE) were at the venue at 12 AM, a night before the event, looking at the arrangements, not leaving anything to the last minute. Pradeep, Nitin, Digbijoy all were into meetings and mails. There were times when we used to go on endlessly strategizing and supporting each other through good and bad both. A great help came from TiE New Delhi, which flawlessly took care of the logistical part for the event, it was amazing. And our team at OMLogic, took charge of the promotional aspect. The power of Online Event Promotion How does this sound? OMCAR 2009 was entirely promoted online, and there was no offline promotional activity done for the event by any of the involved parties. The event was also LIVE blogged by a team of bloggers, at OMShare - The First from India, Online Events Promotion Platform. And how do we define success

250+ satisfied delegates who got empowered towards leveraging online marketing for their businesses
Some of the best speakers from the industry coming from varied business verticals
The event had one of its kinds Site Clinic, which got the participants excited about the realities of the online domain and how could they look at revamping their web sites to get then aligned to their business objectives
The event was LIVE blogged at OMShare - the First from India, Online Events Promotion platform, with the event presentations, pictures already available and videos to be added soon
Delegates were in the room till 7PM and were highly supportive of the event

Feedback we received from delegates:

OMCAR 2009 was very informative - Roopali Bahal (TCS)

in future do lemme know the objectives of OMCAR, i will be happy to volunteer myself for OMCAR - Nikhil Bathla

And I take this opportunity to thank the Partners and Sponsors OMCAR 2009 was possible with the great support from the partners and sponsors, I personally take this opportunity to thank each one of them for their support and great participation. First and foremost, all thankfulness to AMITY UNIVERSITY, The AMITY Innovation Incubator, one of the premier incubators in the country, to support OMCAR 2009 with their amazing infrastructure and food. Our other partners, Innobuzz knowledge solutions, SEMPO:, MILAGROW, I thank them for their support to the cause of the online industry in India. Our Online Media partners which included: SearchMyCampus, ITVidya.com, NASSCOM EMERGE Forum, i2K2 networks, MBA UNIVERSE.com, proto.in and sharemanthan, the event was promoted and sold to the full by using online event promotion only and hence I personally thank each one of our partners. Last but not the least, the event was a success because of the communtiy only. The delegates made it all possible and worth an experience. My honest thanks to each on of them. Looking forward to making OMCAR bigger and Better then next year! I invite your feedbacks and suggestions for the event!!

Making SEO, PPC, SMM & Mobile Work Together by Mahesh Murthy (Pinstorm), Paritosh Sharma (OMLogic) at OMCAR 2009

Deepanwita Chatterjee — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:35:53 +0000

Post tea, peppered with some avid networking, we gather for the next session, ‘Making SEO, PPC, SMM & Mobile Work Together’, presented by Mahesh Murthy, CEO Pinstorm and Paritosh Sharma, (SMM Evangelist, OMLogic). I am LIVE Blogging the session and I can’t help notice the excitement that has been generated in the room at the announcement of the session

Paritosh starts the session by explaining that he will be discussing his views about SMM and how business can benefit from SMM.

He starts by displaying a slide with a picture of a colorful grocery store with blue and red boxes. I specially like the story telling method by which he makes his point. He says that once he went to buy a product of his favorite brand and that brand was not available so he had to settle down for his second favorite brand. So inspite of being a brand loyalist he had to settle with his second choice.

Social Media Marketing And Mobile 2.0 presented by (Paritosh Sharma) at OMCAR 2009

View more presentations from Omshare Community.

SMM can be explained in two words - message and media.

Paritosh makes the session very lively by citing an example of advertising for a bicycle manufacturer. He quotes 3 example campaigns

1. A description of the specifics of the bicycle

2. A picture of the bicycle

3. A video of a woman riding a cycle showing how easy to ride

No need to mention the third method clicked. What really worked is the content, the message, and the media.

He cites another example of the inventor of sliced bread. The person patented it, advertised it still it didn’t catch up for 15 years. Another bread manufacturer came along and packaged the sliced bread in the right manner and it appealed to the user.

He rightly makes a point that there is no single rule for marketing. Advertising on SlideShare may work for a business and YouTube for another. It is important to understand the needs of the client and the client’s client.

He is explaining that the way to go about it is to create a message and target it to the right set of consumers.

He goes on to cite another example which triggers a lot of laughter - TataSky did an adult site, the moment anybody clicks on the site the questions like age and gender comes up which create the impression of the contents within. But the moment you click it it says ‘dude a paap hai’. The campaign sure has been done in a very witty manner which creates a huge recall value.

He also cites the example of jagore.com and the ‘pappu pass ho gaya’ campaigns about which we all are well aware of. Both the campaigns and the were huge successes and the radio campaign ‘dot is hot’ was a runaway success as well. Jagore.com was a purely online site, and the message ‘chai peke jaago’ was very intelligently done. Kudos to the tata guys!

Television is a passe. There was a time people bought advertising space. But now people are spending more time on the internet on Orkuts and FaceBooks.

The audience silently agrees to that.

Paritosh says that SMM is more about customizing, customizing according to the needs of the customers. He goes on to elaborate the four steps of creating a campaign.

The first step is to listen and learn. Even the customer is not clear about what he wants from SMM.
The second step is to audit and analyze the customer’s business model, whether SMM will be good or PPC.
The third step is to develop and test.
The fourth step is to execute and monitor. Metrics are difficult in SMM. But it is not that difficult if you understand the business perspective of the client. And till the time there is no metrics, one can always customize metrics for the clients.

He adds

Position your brand right. Do it with the right medium and to the relevant section of the audience online.And thats where the PPC and SEO’s come into action.

He is now telling us about Skittles where every page is a social media, on one page there is twitter, on another youtube and FaceBook on yet another. There is nothing good or bad it is about.

He then shares about Webchutney.com. On the home page, there are two tabs saying ‘I have 5 mins’ , and ‘I have plenty of time’, clicking on either takes the user to separate pages. He cites an example that if one sees a YouTube video of a bicycle gear that she likes and on clicking on it she is taken to the home page of the bicycle website, then one wouldn’t be too happy about it. The concept of separate landing works. I can’t help thinking that yes, that has happened to me many times!

He makes a point by reiterating that markets have evolved overtime and its time that one starts marketing to the innovators and early adopters. They are the ones which will take to your product and will do a much better viral campaign on the internet rather than the late adopters.

You have a great product…. You have identified the target market… and people are talking about u….. and before the fizz goes out, market it…

Paritosh wraps up the session saying

The riskiest thing that you can do for your brand is to be safe.

Even if anybody writes anything bad about your brand, one can be alerted by a google alert and can pacify them.

Thanks for the useful insights Paritosh, it was great listening to you.

Mahesh Murthy, starts by clarifying that he is not politically aligned and suggests an analysis of the BJP, Congress online campaign. It sure did trigger some muffled laughter among the audience.

He says that analysis shows that the composition of the BJP was in the age groups of above 60 or 18-20. The composition of Congress was mostly the working class population. The focus of the BJP message was always a strong and decisive campaign and most working class do not see the current government as indecisive and weak.

Mahesh says that he has worked with many media in his life. He says that one media does not necessarily kill another and that one should communicate with all the medias where consumers are listening. Interesting thought Mahesh!

He then rightly points out that pace of change is increasing.

He throws light upon the importance of integration of the media channels for advertising. He gives us the example of Coke which has a presence in over 20 countries and in all those 20 countries maybe there are 20 different media. Now, if there were specialized advertising agencies for each media and it would be very difficult for Coke to manage them. Rightly said Mahesh!

Integrating Digital Marketing presented by Mahesh Murthy (founder and CEO, Pinstorm)

View more presentations from Omshare Community.

Mahesh says that every specialist becomes obsolete. Now however scary, this is a true. He says, TV became obsolete when internet came along and so on and so forth. So it is important not to stuck up in anything. He rightly points out that internet is a niche media and not a mass media but it sure does have the users with a purchasing power.

He goes on by saying that before devising a digital marketing strategy one has to answer a few basic questions

Where are my consumer? How many are on the digital medium and how much time do they spend on the digital medium. What is his behavior?

He says that there are 4 stages of marketing

- Creating awareness

- Generating interest

- Generating desire and

- Action

He goes on saying that it is important to understand how does digital medium fits in any advertising campaign. It is important that a mix of media is used.

He goes on sharing some great insights on the digital campaign

- For awareness - CPI and not CPM, Contextual, Social, SEO, ORM

- For generating interest - CPUV not CPC, Contextual, CPUV display, Mobile, ORM.

- On increasing Desire - landing pages, microsites, CPQL, social, review sites and mobile web.

- Action - CPLV/CPA, SMS, Call, Chat,Call centre, Analytics

Mahesh goes on to share a very interesting example on how they increased the conversion rate for Yatra. If anybody searched for a Nagpur - Mumbai flight and for every travel site the user is taken to the home page where the user again has to enter the details. For Yatra, they created 15000 landing page, a separate landing page for Nagpur - Mumbai, a separate for Mumbai - Nagpur and so on. And surprise! their conversion rates went up by 70%.

He gives another example of a bus service, Redbus - it increased sales many folds within 2 years ago. How did they do it - they advertised by integrating two medias - website and phone.

He is making a very important point by saying

Focus on the audience and the message and not on the media.

He shares a quick case when they had to sell a student travel package for Jet Airlines with some benefits such as 10 kg extra luggage. They advertised this package on sites for overseas education. And everytime anybody asked a question on those sites, they answered it with links. No need to mention that sales picked up.

Mahesh speaks about an occasion when they needed 2 interns, they twitterd about it and got 11 applications, without spending any money!

The session is now going into Q&A mode.

One of the most interesting sessions I have blogged. Thanks Paritosh and Mahesh.

Case Studies - Best Practices in Online Marketing by Gaurav Gupta (General Motors), Nikhil Rungta (Yatra) and Vasant Singal (NIIT) at OMCAR 2009

Deepanwita Chatterjee — Sat, 23 May 2009 09:34:13 +0000

Post lunch we again gather for yet another interesting session at OMCAR 2009 : ‘Case Studies - Best Practices in Online Marketing, presented by Nikhil Rungta (Marketing Head, Yatra), Vasant Singhal (NIIT) and Gaurav Gupta (General Motors). Kapil welcomes the audience and remarks that the post-lunch turnout is much bigger than what was expected and he introduces the panelists. I am very pleased to be LIVE Blogging this session. Gaurav begins the session by asking the audience profile. okay so we have Gaurav introducing the GM portfolio in India. Sharing his thoughts on Internet usage in India, Gaurav is now sharing with the audience the impediments for the digital today! Interesting to know how GM has its Digital Architecture defined, im sure this is going to be an amazing case study!

Yatra.com - The Yatra’s Internet Yatra - a Case Study (Nikhil Rungta)

View more presentations from Omshare Community.

There are 3 pillars of Digital Architecture at GM. Gaurav shared about various campaigns they launched under their Digital Marketing strategy. The 1st pillar of their strategy is about Innovation. One of the key campaigns was around the launch of Captiva. They did a Viral on Spark brand. Under this they’d almost 16,000 games being played in less than 3 weeks. Aveo U-VA campaign on Yahoo was another innovation under digital marketing at GM. 2nd Pillar is Strategic Partnerships. Under this, they leveraged a Guaranteed Return Deal, through which they almost doubled their ROI - 15% ROI versus 7% average. Given that GM’s potential/customers have gizmos, they exploited SMS to get captive attention to create traction. It included Mobile Gaming. They achieved a CTR of over 4% through this. The 3rd pillar is about Sustenance & continuity under which they used SEO, SEM & SMM including directly interacting with the customers to get valuable research & feedback, which is now an integral part of their marketing. Before their focus they’d over 15% negative feedback on blogs which improved later to around 5%. One of their latest cars, was promoted only using Online, a classic and a very unconventional approach. In short, Gaurav’s message is about how innovation and openness, when embraced over a period of time can create exponential & surprising results. Gaurav thanked Quasar, their digital marketing agency and his own time for their wonderful contribution. ‘SIP’, consisting of Specialize (development of media), Involve (key stake holders) and Proactively (share early success) is the model which is not formally instituted at GM. Digital now has become so integral to their strategy today and if digital is absent in any of their marketing plans at GM, questions are posed by management. So now we have the Head sales at Yatra.com speaking about Yatra’s yatra…Nikhil shares Yatra’s state in the present times. I see that the company has really churned good numbers here. Nikhil is now talking about how they launched their website in august 2006, when they still had enough competition around as MakeMyTrip.com and the rest of course. Interestingly Nikhil is pointing out the challenges that they faced at that time.

NIIT Emperia - A Case Study by (Vasant Singal, NIIT) at OMCAR 2009 - The Online Marketing Summit

View more Microsoft Word documents from Omshare Community.

Task at Hand: Nikhil is now sharing the marketing plan that they thought of and how did they really get on to deciding on the best available options at that point in time, when Yahoo and the rest were still non existant. So we used various channels. in 2006 when there were fewer web sites, we went to the TOP sites, advertising on them, though now we have a much more diverse portfolio. And well, now comes the real deal, Nikhil shares some amazing numbers and they have grown over time, I am amazed how being online has helped yatra. The question that we ask as a marketer, initially is HOW MANY? That is how many leads would we have? but one key difference of the same question in the online world is: WHO? Its who you are targeting and how you are doing it and with what! Nikhil shares his learnings now. How traditional marketing is like spray and pray - which is i’ll spray someone with a message and well, I’ll pray for sales. But the Online industry is about aiming and shooting. This is the online budget I have and I am clear about it. Also the best part is, I can be fairly highly specific in my advertising. I can reach out to a filtered customer and then only target these customers, says Nikhil while comparing online marketing with traditional marketing. Taking the learnings further, Nikhil talks about targets and budgets and how they are being focused in seizing the opportunity by prioritizing the market. Nikhil now shares how they decide on the marketing spend online and well I feel it is pretty interesting methodology and a great way to assess your ROI! great going Nikhil! DEFINE YOUR OBJECTIVES Nikhil shares how it is very critical to be defining the outcomes for the marketing efforts that you are implementing. How you need to create metrics for the business that you are in. Interestingly we are now discussing the NEW CONSUMER BEHAVIOR! Hinting upon how the new consumer has lack of time! The mantra is when your customer comes to you online: dont make him think! Keep your message as short - simple and easy to understand. When it comes to online, companies like yatra are also to blame: banners like zero value fares! We need to define transparency in the online domain. “Ek baar teer chhod diya toh use wapas nahi laa sakte” - this is what is the advantage with the online media and which is not present with the traditional media. Nikhil now recaps the session in some important pointers and wallah we have some amazing case studies opening more than just few eyes, in fact opening brains Nikhil now shares the power of mobile and how it is going and getting bigger, 3G, bigger screens, GPRS And finally NIkhil shares his love, the video ads! on various sites, the click to play ads, we pay only when someone clicks, video ads is captive viewing, coz its a story you are waiting for! And now we have a few laughs towards the end of the session

Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the Online World by Alok Mittal (Canaan Partners), Kiran Gopinath (Ozone Media) at OMCAR 2009

Deepanwita Chatterjee — Sat, 23 May 2009 05:58:40 +0000

Today we have gathered for OMCAR 2009 and the room is full with enthusiastic audience. Kapil Gupta, co-founder OMLogic Consulting introduces the speakers for the next session Kiran Gopinath (Co-Founder, CEO, Ozone Media) and Alok Mittal (Managing Director, Canaan Partner). They are going to take a session on a very interesting topic ‘Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the Online World’ and I am LIVE Blogging the session. There are quite a number of entrepreneurs among the audience and it is going to be extremely useful for everyone.

Alok starts the session by acknowledging the rapidly growing businesses on SMM.

The reach of internet is expanding and it is growing at the rate of 25% user growth which can translate into business.

He says that the internet penetration is going beyond the metros and that the range of usage is vastly increasing with the inclusion of videos and travel oriented sites. He says that today there are a lot of businesses are on the internet, it started with employment and currently covers advertising, travel, matrimony, gaming, real estate and there is no end.

He speaks on the importance of SEO, and speaks about an online book selling business which is hugely successful, inspite of spending any dollar on marketing. He cites the example of Chakpak which rode on SEO and did not spend any dollar on marketing. That signals how important SEO is for any online business!

Next he goes on what interests him on the internet from a funding perspective - concept Arbitrage. He starts by saying, ’search engine’ has a global implementation while there are places where local presence is required like job, matrimony and travel. He says that sadly these spaces are done with from entrepreneur perspective. Areas which are not done with are e-comm, advertising, education, insurance, personal finance services. Very useful information for the aspiring entrepreneurs among the audience!

He says that luckily there are some aspects that are unique to India - mobile penetration is more than internet penetration. But not every aspect of the internet can be extended to the internet space and vice-versa. Expanding in the mobile domain needs a lot of innovation and Indian companies can take a lead in these areas.

He touches upon some examples

- Financial Services - Due to deregulation happening where private players are participating this area is looking up and there are vast opportunities in insurance, payment space, general wealth creation, comparison shopping businesses , transaction processing businesses etc.

- Education - He says that it is a known fact that the working age population is going down and the labor markets are going to be strong.

- E-Commerce - There is a growing comfort with e-commerce thanks to online travel. But still e-commerce opportunities on product or service has not been explored currently.

- Social Media - There is a distinct pattern for entertainment in India ex. Bollywood. There are many underlying opportunities which can be explored in this area.

Alok touches upon a very interesting fact, the growth of mobile is helping Social Media. He points out to the sms alert system on Facebook.

He now speaks on the investment interest on Canaan Partners which is early stage business, preferably on the technical domain.

He speaks on their business interest on consumer internet - Bharat Matimony, Chakpak ; on the Mobile domain - Cellcast; on Enterpriese and managed services - iyogi and UnitedLex.

Emerging Trends, Areas & Opportunities in the Online World (Alok Mittal, Canaan Partners) at OMCAR 2009

View more presentations from Omshare Community.

Thanks Alok, for a very intereting and useful session.

Kiran Gopinath starts the talk by focussing on how to explore the business opportunities on the Online space.

He rightly says that online business is not much different from the offline model. Innovation, understanding the customer, and building the right team, which will help to execute the business plan are some of the very important and common areas to both online and offline business models. Could not agree more!

He says that there are a lot of business opportunities in the Online space. On one hand there is the big picture, big business like financial services and on the other hand there are small areas. He speaks of a very interesting example - Driverbangalore, they provide you drivers if you contact them.

Innovations are the key to success in the online space, you can’t be a me-too, you will have to constantly continue innovating.

Rightly said and we fully agree to it. He wraps off the session by adding that things change very rapidly in the online space. The session is now moving in Q&A mode.

Online Marketing: In-house or Outsource? by Gayatri Buddha (MakeMyTrip), Pradeep Chopra (OMLogic) at OMCAR 2009

Deepanwita Chatterjee — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:44:00 +0000

The much awaited session ‘Online Marketing : In-house or Outsource?’ by Gayatri Buddha (MakeMyTrip) and Pradeep Chopra (OMLogic) has been announced at OMCAR 2009 and I am LIVE Blogging the session. I can’t help noticing the enthusiasm generated at the announcement of the session.

Pradeep starts the session by thanking the audience for attending the event. He says that he will be touching upon which areas should be considered before anyone decides whether to inhouse or outsource the Online Marketing function.

Online Marketing: In-House or OutSource? [Pradeep Chopra (Co-founder, OMLogic)] at OMCAR 2009

View more presentations from Omshare Community.

He says that higher ranking does not necessarily mean more traffic. It is very important that to know who you need to reach out to. And more relevant traffic does not translate to more conversions.

He goes on to say that marketing and online marketing are still treated differently. He says that the ideal scenario is when online marketing should be a part of marketing. Online Marketing should be part of any company’s ongoing marketing strategy.

Pradeep is now citing an example of a Google ad of Whizlabs(a company that he founded), which helps prepare professionals for online certifications. He explains that any ad should provide the answers to some very fundamental questions which are discussed below, keeping the Google ad for Whizlabs as an example

The very relevant questions which are answered by the Google ad are

What does the company offer? (Online certifications)

What have they done so far? (since 2000, 1M+ users

What is the credibility? (Factual details like 99% success rate)

Will it be be valuable for me. (comprehensive report)

Is there any call to action. Can I try it? (online mock test)

He cites this example to show that even if a page gets a lower ranking but it can get more conversions depending upon the relevancy of the ad.

Pradeep is also saying that the Online Marketing strategy actually depends on the business objective. It is very important to understand it as, if the clicks do not get converted then the whole exercise is futile. He adds that Social Media marketing can help in a brand being promoted. How much close you are to the customer can decide on conversions.

He now touches on how to decide whether to do Online Marketing in-house or outsource The reasons for doing it in house

1. Ownership and commitment - Of course nobody will be committed as one will be for your business.

2. Closest to the customer - Needless to say that only the company is the closest to its customers.

3. Organizational structural limitations.

4. Ultimate cost may be lower - It is possible that the cost is lower if done in-house.

5. Privacy of data and content.

The reasons for outsource Online Marketing

1. To learn from scratch - If anybody chooses to outsource Online Marketing then they will have to learn it. 2. The necessary tools - If the company has not indulged in Online Marketing in the past then it is unlikely that they will be having the necessary tools. There are high chances that the marketing agency will have the specialized tools.

3. Better Understanding - There is more probability that the marketing agency will have better understanding about the market.

4. Economical

5. The professional marketing agency (SEM service) will have good industry contacts and they are likely to get direct insights from Google.

6. Many times it is too complicated to track and measure in-house.

Pradeep says that which one to choose is a matter of choice as both are equally good.

Pradeep wraps up the session by saying the final words to consider for deciding whether to do Online Marketing In-house or to outsource it.

The company should analyze the commitment and passion to invest in

- people

- market

- technology

Thanks Pradeep for sharing the very useful and interesting insights.

Gayatri Buddha from Makemytrip starts the session by saying that though deciding whether to do Online Marketing In-house or Outsourcing it to an agency can be a tough decision, it can be made easy by keeping a few points under consideration.

She then proceeds to say that the fundamental question remains

What and when to outsource? The only thing that you cannot outsource is how much to spend, when to spend and where to spend.

Gayatri says that before deciding what functions to outsource, one should ask and answer a few questions like

Online Marketing In House Or Out Source presented by Gayatri Buddha (AVP Marketing, MakeMyTrip) at OMCAR 2009

View more presentations from Omshare Community.

1. Are you competent enough to understand the entire function.

Before outsourcing, it is very important that you understand your business objectives so that you are able to decide the right marketing strategy.

2. Speed to market.

If you want to market it fast then outsourcing is a good idea. She gives an example of her entrepreneur friend, since she is not in a desperate hurry to market, so she is learning the tricks and doing Online marketing herself.

3. Hiring talent is never going to be easy.

Gayatri claims that hiring and retaining the right talent can get difficult at times. An agency will have the necessary talent and will have more functional knowledge.

4. Resources in-house.

She says that Online Marketing is a specialised area, SEO is no more putting up some the keywords, it is much more complicated than that.

5. Cost benefit analysis -

The way to judge is if the benefit is short-term then it is better to outsource but in the long term it is better to do it in-house.

Gayatri is now suggesting a very interesting exercise. She says suppose you have outsourced the whole thing and now you want to bring it in-house, then you should go about it in the following order

1. SEO

2. Analytics

3. SEM

4. Creative design and development

5. SMM

6. Display advertising - not recommended to get this in-house at any time.

Gayatri is now suggesting some very important pointers which can make the decision making process simpler.

Analytics is complex area and availability of resource is scarce. If you are planning to do it yourself then it can be fun and easy at first but it is complex after a certain point of time. Suppose traffic is great, page views are high but conversions are not happening then you need to dig deep, then it becomes a real challenge.

She says that easiest and less complex ones are - SEO, SMM and PPC, one can do it at the base level as a lot of tools are available. But expert help can be needed at some points.

She also says that one should always outsource creative design and display advertisement. There are high chances that you will get it cheaper outside and if one has a strong guideline principle of ones’ design in place then it is always better to outsource it.

Gayatri is now exploring a very important issue. What is it that should one look out for while hiring an agency

1. It does not matter if the agency is big or small, what matters is if the agency is asking the right questions. If the agency is asking the right questions then there are high chances that they will provide the right answers.

2. Inability of the agency to translate your brief into action items - This can happen if the communication is not perfect. If there is a gap between your expectations and their understand, then these things are bound to happen.

3. Lack of clarity when setting measurable metrics - One should always demand measurable metrics from the agency.

4. Inaccuracy in cost and time estimations - One should be wary and on guard if the time and cost estimates provided by the agency are too way off mark.

She gives a very important suggestion of asking the agency for case studies. While one is asking for case studies then it is a good idea to ask for recent ones and also successful and unsuccessful ones.

She says it is also important that one discusses ROI with the agency as well as check their record of timely delivery.

After a great session, and sharing some real thoughts and insights into how can a business really decide upon either to create an In-house team or to Outsource the function, has now opened the session for Q and A, and as I sensed it, there already are hands up in the air, which Kapil Gupta is moderating.

Thanks Gayatri, for such an amazing session!

6 reasons why you should register for OMCAR 2009

Deepanwita Chatterjee — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:55:50 +0000

Here are 6 reasons why you should register for OMCAR 2009, The Online Marketing Summit, which revolves around ‘empowering businesses to grow by leveraging the power of Online Marketing’, being held on May 23rd, 2009, from 8:30 AM - 6:00 PM at Amity Innovation Incubator, Noida.

1. India’s Leading Online Marketing Experts as Speakers

OMCAR 2009 brings the thoughts and ideas of some of the best minds in Online Marketing. The speakers are the thought leaders of this field who will be speaking on highly engaging topics. The attendees, who are seeking the edge of knowledge and and tactics in the area of Online Marketing can draw upon the experience of the experts who will be speaking in the event. The list of confirmed speaker who will be sharing their ideas are..

Jaspreet Bindra (Regional Director – Entertainment & Devices Division Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd.)

Mahesh Murthy (CEO, Pinstorm)

Vivek Bhargava(CEO, Communicate2)

Kiran Gopinath(CEO, Ozone Media)

Pradeep Chopra (Co-founder, OMLogic)

Alok Mittal (Managing Director, Canaan Partners)

Paritosh Sharma (SMM Evangelist, OMLogic)

Nikhil Rungta (Marketing Head, Yatra.com)

Manish Vij (co-founder of Quasar Media)

2. Great Agenda – latest and practical insights

OMCAR 2009, The Online Marketing Summit focuses upon empowering businesses to grow by leveraging the power of Online Marketing. The topics has been compiled with great care and will address some very important and useful issues. The speakers will be sharing some great insights together with some real life examples. They will help generate a lot of ideas which will equip people to stay ahead of the dynamic market conditions. The event will touch upon the latest trends and best practices and which will help one stand out in this cluttered competitive market space.The major topics on which many thought leaders from the Online community will be speaking are: Online Marketing - Reaching Your Customers Cost Effectively; The intersection of SEO, PPC and SMM; Case Studies - Best Practices in Online Marketing; Web Conversions & Analytics.

3. Great opportunity for networking

The event promises great opportunities for sharing the space with and networking with the experts of the Online domain. This event is expected to be the meeting point of CMOs, Online Marketing Professionals, Web developers, Entrepreneurs and CXOs Small and Medium Enterprises for high level discussions and information exchange.

4. OMCAR 2008 was successful

The previous event OMCAR 2008,which revolved around empowering Online Marketing professionals in their careers, was hugely successful with over 300 attendees. The attendees were highly enthusiastic over the stimulating and inspiring discussions on online marketing careers including practical tips and guidance by leading online marketing experts, on building a successful career in online marketing. The speakers were mostly the leading online marketing and branding experts like: Mahesh Murthy (Founder and CEO, Pinstorm), Vivek Bhargava (CEO, Communicate2), Manish Vij (Co-Founder Quasar Media), Anurag Gupta (Managing Director - DGM India), Amar Goel (Founder and CEO, Komli), Ravi Kabra (Business Director & COE Head, Havas Digital(India)), Raja Choudhury (President & CEO, C3 Cube), Sidharth Swarup (Joint Managing Director, Ishir Infotech), Kiran Gopinath (Founder & CEO, Ozone Media), Ratan KK (Head of Global Delivery Centre, Pinstorm), Dylan Thwaites (CEO, Latitude(UK)) and Harish Bahl, Founder & CEO, SITG.

5. Being organized by OM Careers & TiE Delhi

OMCAR 2009 is being organized by OM Careers (http://www.omcareers.org) and TiE, New Delhi. OM Careers, which is the world’s first online marketing careers community. A non-profit organization based out of New Delhi, India, OM Careers aims to contribute to the growth of the online marketing industry by providing a platform to create & connect right skills to the right opportunities. OM Careers has been founded and is managed by online marketing industry experts including CEO’s & Founders of India’s leading online marketing companies.

The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) is a global not-for-profit organization focused on promoting entrepreneurship. TiE helps budding entrepreneurs through advice, guidance and assistance from successful & experienced entrepreneurs and professionals. TiE’s greatest strength is its network through 53 cities in 12 countries that consists of many participants in the entrepreneurial ecosystem – successful & experienced as well as budding entrepreneurs, venture capital firms, angel investors, service providers, etc.

6. Event will be blogged live

OMCAR 2009 is of immense value, hence we would also be covering the event LIVE at OMShare - the First from India, Online Events Promotion Platform. Currently in its beta, OMShare is OMLogic’s maiden initiative aimed at leveraging social media for providing outreach and visibility to global events & conferences. Since its inception OMShare has covered some of India’s leading events across various industry verticals. OMShare is the official social media marketing partner for PanIIT and Leaders in India, two of the biggest global events, covering them LIVE apart from creating the right buzz about the events.

OMCAR 2009 - The Online Marketing Summit, history repeats itself

Deepanwita Chatterjee — Tue, 19 May 2009 03:46:02 +0000

OMCAR 2008 the world’s first online marketing careers conference. Hosted by OM Careers (a non-profit organization & an online marketing careers community) OMCAR is designed to create a confluence for the burgeoning Online Marketing Industry and the Professional talent who dream to be a part of it. With a vision of creating a talent pool for the online industry, the OM Careers society was established and is now an established entity.

The event was committed to empower the current & aspiring Online Marketing Professionals in their Careers, the conference kicked-off the much required platform to explore endless opportunities in Online Marketing Industry.

OMCAR 2008 was a huge success with over 300 attendees. The speakers included the who’s who from the online space. The attendees were highly enthusiastic over the stimulating and inspiring discussions on online marketing careers including practical tips and guidance by leading online marketing experts, on building a successful career in online marketing.

Highlights of OMCAR 2008

The delegates were welcomed and the session was introduced by Kapil Gupta (Co. founder OMLogic and team OM Careers)

Mahesh Murthy (Founder, Pinstorm) spoke on ‘Introduction to Online Marketing & Career Opportunities’. The discussion evoked lot of excitement from the audience who were looking at building a fulfilling career in the online marketing industry.

Vivek Bhargava (Communicate2) & Dylan Thwaites (Latitude) spoke on ‘What it takes to enter into the Online Marketing Industry?’. This was beneficial to understand the areas which should be focused upon by professionals who wish to make it in the online marketing space.

‘Is Online Marketing a Different World?’, quipped Harish Bahl (SITG) & Sidharth Swarup (Ishir Infotech). This discussions evoked a lot of reactions from the audience who came up with their own versions on how Online Marketing is similar to or different from traditional marketing.

Is Online Marketing a Different World?

View more presentations from Pradeep Chopra.

Anurag Gupta (DGM India) & Manish Vij (Quasar Media) spoke upon ‘Entrepreneurial Opportunities’. The audience was deeply involved in this discussion and asked a lot of questions.

Ravi Kabra (Havas Digital) & Ratan KK (Pinstorm) touched upon ‘Ongoing Training & Skill Development’. This was a very important discussion and audience eagerly lapped up the relevant information shared by the experts

Another discussion which was highly beneficial and evoked huge responses from the audience was the discussion on ‘Personal Branding’ by Raja Choudhury (Founder, C3Cube). This was a highly beneficial discussion for anyone who is already a part of or aiming to be a part of the online industry. The audience was very involved throughout the discussion.

There was a Panel Discussion on ‘What lies in the Future of Online Marketing?’. Mahesh Murthy (Pinstorm), Amar Goel (Komli) & Kiran Gopinath (Ozone Media) participated in this important and useful discussion.

Kapil Gupta (OM Careers) wrapped up the session with a Vote of Thanks.

The event received many notes of appreciation from prominent delegates:

“I was delighted by the way OMCAR 2008 was organized. Great Job!”. -Vivek Bhargava (CEO, Communicate2)

“Outstanding Show. Congratulations!”. -Mahesh Murthy (CEO, Pinstorm)

“I liked the commitment & the passion of the team behind OMCAR.” -Harish Bahl (CEO, StudioSmile)

“Excellent Speakers.” -Geetu Ahuja (Online Marketing Head, Naukri.com)

“It was an enriching experience.” -Shiksha Bhatia (Google)

OMCAR 2009
Following the success of OMCAR 2008, the OM Careers society is now ready with OMCAR 2009, The Online Marketing Summit, being held on 23rd May at Amity Business School, Noida. OMCAR 2009 is being organized by OM Careers in association with TiE, New Delhi. The event will focus upon empowering businesses to grow by leveraging the power of Online Marketing.

The confirmed speakers at OMCAR 2009 are:

Jaspreet Bindra

Regional Director – Entertainment & Devices,
Division Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Mahesh Murthy

Founder & CEO, Pinstorm

Vivek Bhargava

CEO, Communicate2

Kiran Gopinath

Founder & CEO, Ozone Media

Pradeep Chopra

Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer

Alok Mittal

Managing Director - Canaan Partners

Nikhil Rungta

Marketing Head - Yatra.com

REGISTER NOW for the event, few seats left!

OMCAR 2009,The Online Marketing Summit presented by OMCareers & TiE

Deepanwita Chatterjee — Fri, 01 May 2009 06:33:53 +0000

With the world’s internet penetration at 16%, businesses should not miss out on having an online presence. Today a large number of people across the world is using the internet as a means of communication, entertainment, shopping, gaming and searching information. When used in an effective manner the internet has a huge potential for marketing services, products and brand building. In the current scenario indulging in online marketing is no longer a choice but a necessity.

Do you want to learn how the power of the web can be used for marketing your brand? Do you want to be a part of the booming Online Marketing industry? Do you want to interact and share experiences with the experts of the online domain? All this and more at India’s only conference dedicated completely to Online Marketing, which is brought to you by OMCareers in association with TiE, New Delhi.

After the astounding success of OMCAR 2008, which revolved around empowering Online Marketing professionals in their careers, the online marketing brains have come together for yet another conference on Online Marketing this year. OMCAR 2009, Online Marketing Summit focuses upon empowering businesses to grow by leveraging the power of Online Marketing.

OMCAR 2009 promises to provide endless opportunities of interacting with the professionals from the Online Marketing space. The one day event will have sessions on the various aspects of Online Marketing

Online Marketing - Reaching Your Customers Cost Effectively
The intersection of SEO, PPC and SMM
Case Studies - Best Practices in Online Marketing
Web Usability & Analytics
Unconference/Site Clinic

There will be endless possibilities of networking, sharing of views and learning from the experts from the online space. The event will be an exiting and enriching experience for anybody who is interested or associated with the online media. It is undoubtedly going to be a great place for CMOs, Online Marketing Professionals, Web developers, Entrepreneurs and CXOs Small and Medium Enterprises to learn about, discuss and imbibe the latest Online Marketing Techniques and Strategies.

The one day event will be held on 23rd May at Amity Business School Noida.

Previous successes

OMCAR 2008 was designed to create a confluence for the Online Marketing Industry and the professional talent who dream to be a part of it. OMCAR 2008 was a huge success with over 300 attendees. The speakers were mostly the who’s who from the online space like:

Mahesh Murthy, Founder and CEO, Pinstorm

Vivek Bhargava, CEO, Communicate2

Manish Vij, Co-Founder Quasar Media

Anurag Gupta, Managing Director - DGM India

Amar Goel, Founder and CEO, Komli

Ravi Kabra, Business Director & COE Head, Havas Digital(India)

Raja Choudhury, President & CEO, C3 Cube

Sidhrath Swarup, Joint Managing Director, Ishir Infotech

Kiran Gopinath, Founder & CEO, Ozone Media

Ratan KK, Head of Global Delivery Centre, Pinstorm

Dylan Thwaites, CEO, Latitude(UK)

Harish Bahl, Founder & CEO, SITG