As more and more people spend more time online, the need for accurate and effective digital marketing is assuming an increasingly important role in the marketing strategy of companies. The Web has become an extremely powerful medium to reach out to hundreds of thousands of users, which is why effective digital marketing holds the key to growth.
The process goes beyond building an online property or developing a Web-based solution. There are various elements that go into creating, developing and maintaining customer relationships online.
Ybrant Technologies, part of the Ybrant group of companies, is leveraging the Indian advantage of low-cost labour and high-quality talent to deliver clear and measurable results in several domains, notably online customer support.
Suresh Reddy, co-founder and Chairman, says any enterprise that cannot sufficiently perform the process internally takes this route. "In the context of digital marketing and media utilisation, outsourcing makes scalable and affordable solutions possible."
He believes outsourcing benefits any organisation by improving the level of support offered to end-users, sharpens focus on core business, reduces operating costs and improves system reliability, among others.
On convincing clients abroad on outsourcing creative work to India, he says: "As long as one offers quality services in any area, it does not matter which country it is offered from." In essence, he says, the creative services offered are part of the full offering.
"Our proposition is a broad digital marketing services portfolio comprising technology platforms, search marketing services, custom software development, marketing creatives, display ad management and e-mail marketing methodologies."
He says Ybrant has "expert resources" that have proven to complete tasks within half the time expected by clients.
On the quality of talent in India, Reddy says 20 per cent of the graduates passing out are "employable in the real sense. Another 40-50 per cent requires a minimum of one year's training to start giving quality output. Our academic institutions definitely need to improve their education processes to make the students more employable."
At the entry level, Ybrant looks for individuals with good aptitude and strong fundamentals. "We recruit for attitude and aspiration and give them the best knowledge base and learning space to grow."
In a market like the US, which has 150 million Net users, and where billions of dollars worth of business is done online, e-marketing has become an inseparable part of every company's game plan.
"Digital marketing is the current mantra. The core strategy of digital marketing services depends on the clients' needs, the target audience they need to reach out to and the profile of the target audience, including demographics and psychographic segmentation."
Blogging as a marketing tool
Blogging has now become an indispensable marketing tool and part of the communications strategy of companies. Ybrant is already on the cutting edge, including it as a very important tool in the marketing mix.
"Businesses have found a way to use blogs to sell their products and promote their companies," says Reddy.
"In case of response to companies, over the blog, it's not the company responding, but rather individuals. If people can identify with you and your values, it is often a much more productive and effective relationship when you work together, rather than working with people who don't share your values. This is very effective with blogs."
According to him, blogging also helps companies market their products and their Web site. "News in blogs apparently appears faster in search engine results rather than regular HTML pages. Blogs have really simple syndication (RSS) to alert readers when there is an update, which means that anyone who uses an RSS reader stays updated." In a nutshell, he says, the blog is a faster medium to "relate and respond to your true customer."
In India, mobile penetration is miles ahead of Internet penetration, but little progress has been made on the mobile marketing front.
"It's more of a partial `push' marketing that is happening, limited to SMS and at the most, minimal image messaging. There is a long way to go before consumers get acquainted with the concept and then go on their own to a Web site for a service or purchase. This may take some time." However, he adds, across the world mobile marketing is on the verge of a major explosion.
"Another point is that sites in India are still not fully geared to take on mobile marketing. They need to be revamped. Our audience is not Internet-savvy, so may be the need is not looked on yet."
According to Reddy, `full service digital marketing' is the company's forte. "Each of our listed services is not generic but caters to a specific domain called digital marketing. For instance, when we say customer service we are not implying a call centre but are talking about account management services to a digital marketing intermediary."
The company has a presence in a wide range of sub-verticals, such as search engine optimisation, e-mail marketing, pay-per-click and Web redesign, rounded off by customer support.
But the company is also engaged in customised software development, which seems to rob it of the advantage of being a niche player. Reddy says: "We are an end-to-end digital marketing services business with established technologies serving the global market. If a client is developing a Web site, eventually we have them coming back for SEO/PPC, e-mail marketing, lead generation and so on. So, there is no question of one being too far off than the other. They are interlinked essential services."
Digital marketing is trackable
According to him, the key difference between traditional and digital media is that digital marketing is trackable. "One can track the behaviour of the consumer through technology, which also drives all aspects of a digital marketing campaign."
Now that the market is awash with customer support companies, how does Ybrant try to beat the competition? "We do not compete with the conventional customer support firms in any way," says Reddy. "We customise technology based on the requirement of the marketing agency. This strategy, along with the quality of processes and services, places us above in the crowded digital marketing arena."
He goes on to say that Ybrant is never selective about the number of companies they work with. "However, we restrict our work to services surrounding marketing through the digital media. The Ybrant family offers comprehensive end-to-end digital marketing services to direct marketers, brand advertisers and marketing agencies."
Ybrant also offers system admininstration services. Reddy says maintenance is a growth area. "We are restricting our system administration services to our clients. We don't go after ISPs or big corporates."
Open source development is another area where Ybrant is active. Reddy says the company takes commercially available or fully tested open source software and uses them to develop customised software applications. "By doing so, we enhance the acceptability of such software in the market."
However, he says: "We do not get into the business just because something is available at a low cost, but only when it is need-based and when required by our clients."
Source : thehindubusinessline
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