Category Archives: Sales & Marketing

Advertising, Business Strategy, Innovation, Internet, MyOrbit Blogs, Online Marketing, Sales & Marketing, Start-ups

Search Engine Marketing update: Google Instant

Hello Folks, you may have started seeing the latest update in Google search engine. Its called Google Instant.

Since many companies and professionals have used MyOrbit services for their online business, I wanted to share this with you. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/sep/09/google-instant-effect-on-seo

What is clear is that Google wants to offer long-tail keywords to users as early as possible in the search process.

For example, along with the keyword: “Hair Transplant Surgery Cost”, people will also see options like: “how much does hair transplant surgery cost”, and the latter phrase will now receive many clicks too, even though its hardly a keyword in today’s internet marketing book.

Earlier such a longer sentence or question would have received very few direct clicks because people won’t type long text, but people can surely select longer text if its offered as a drop-down like it is being done now, thereby generating more exposure/visits to web content built on long tail keywords than today.

In addition, Google has been working hard to improve “personalization”, which means they want to show you things relevant to your search profile based on past searches, geography, etc.

What does it mean for website owners and SEO? I believe websites that cover their topic thoroughly using all possible keywords and their natural expressions will ultimately come out winners.

We will study this further to see how Google Instant can be used for our work, and will share the learning with you. Meanwhile all basic SEO work should continue because that is essential to get started in the search engine indexing game.

Best Wishes,
Shankar

5 Questions, FAQ, Innovation, Internet, MyOrbit Blogs, Online Marketing, Sales & Marketing, Start-ups

Online Payment Service Providers – Opportunities and Challenges

As the usage of Internet for business transactions increases, we now have dozens of online payment service providers, of which are specific to a country and some are global.  This wikipedia page has a comprehensive list:

PayPal is the undisputed leader in online payment service providers. Google has tried to build market share for its Google Checkout over the last two years but feedback from my customers and business partners is that Google Checkout is still not their preferred online payment mechanism.

Most other online payment service providers are limited in their appeal, and are used by specific niches of customers. For example, there are some payment providers for online pharmacy transactions and online betting transactions. These are large industries however as the legalities are not the same or favorable in all countries, therefore such payment providers are able to offer a solution that is needed by the companies in these industries. Continue reading →

Advertising, MyOrbit Blogs, Sales & Marketing

What Makes An Ad Stand Out?

uganda_aids_ad.jpg

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The above ad is from the AIDS prevention campaign being run in Uganda. It was shared by Perry Marshall over the weekend. It stands out from the usual ads, and has an immediate on the reader because of its ability to directly address the target audience — middle aged men with the income and propensity for procuring teenage sex.

What makes this ad stand out? Some reasons I can think of are:

1. It is dealing with morals/values, where its possible to act differently in private from what we  accept in public.

2. It uses just a few words and that too as questions, which you will tend to answer within yourself.

3. The few words are supported by a carefully chosen image, which really delivers the full impact of the ad.

4. It puts you on the defensive; very few ads can achieve that. It makes you respond internally. So you are likely to remember it for some time.

These days we see hundreds of ads every day on the Internet and in print media. Our mind has been slowly getting trained to separate the signal (content) from the noise (ads). In the early days of the web, 1997 to 2000, there were not that many ads, and the technology behind them had no capability to geo-target the audience.

The above ad is a great example of a powerful ad.
See how you can use its structure for your own business.
– Shankar

5 Questions, Online Marketing, Sales & Marketing

Phillip Kotler shares the Mantra of Marketing

According to marketing guru, Phillip Kotler, the mantra of marketing is creating, communicating and delivering Value to the Target market at a Profit.

Creating value for the product or service is called product management. Product management is creating or innovating products or services. For example P&G decided to make some funny thing on each Pringle (a potato chip), the scientist could not find a solution internally until they discovered cookie maker in Italy who printed funny things at his cookies. This is called open innovation or open technology used for product management which means ideas are taken from where ever the companies can. Continue reading →

Advertising, Internet, Sales & Marketing

Philp Kotler on Marketing Lessons from Barack Obama’s US Election Campaign 2008


In the above interview, Philp Kotler expresses his opinion on marketing lessons from Barack Obama’s 2008 US election campaign. Barack Obama made perfect preparation with discipline and right choice of bright people.The key marketing lessons that can be taken from Barack Obama’s marketing campaign were ‘high tech’ and ‘‘high touch’. High touch means there is an emotional component selling hope and high tech is using the Internet to its best. They created database for sending relevant messages to right people the right time. Continue reading →