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Archive for August, 2010
Business Development Strategies for a Web 2.0 World
1 year ago
by admin
in Web Development
A few successful websites were built almost entirely through viral growth. The vast majority, however, started off by partnering with other, already successful websites. Even Google began by partnering with Yahoo. As superior as Google’s search algorithm was, it was very hard to get the masses to switch to a new search engine.
In the web 1.0 world (approximately pre-2004), integrating two web services involved lots of manual work, such as negotiating legal contracts and custom technical integration. Creating these kinds of partnerships is usually referred to as “business development” or “BizDev” (personally, I usually just call it “BD”). In the web 2.0 world, it became common for websites to create fully functional, self-service API’s with standardized legal terms. This made it possible to drastically reduce the friction of integrating services. MyHunch cofounder Caterina Fake coined the term “BizDev 2.0″ to refer to this idea (and of course Flickr was a pioneer of super robust APIs).
There is no question that removing legal and technical hurdles is a win for everyone (except lawyers). However, unless your service is extremely high profile and its value is easily understood, it still needs to be marketed to potential partners. Many websites won’t consider using a self-service API until they’ve seen it working on other sites with measurable results. So how do you overcome this particular kind of chicken-and-egg problem?
During his interview process, Hunch’s Shaival Shah, said something that struck a chord with me: he didn’t want to be called “VP BizDev” because, he said, a good BizDev person makes BizDev irrelevant. The idea is to create a number of BizDev 1.0 partnerships while simultaneously building and marketing a full service API. If you can do BizDev 1.0 with some number of (ideally high profile) websites and demonstrate that it is valuable to them (ideally quantitatively), you can then scale your service BizDev 2.0 style. Maybe this could be called BizDev 1.5.
Shaival wrote up a much more detailed post on self-cannibalizing BizDev that is well worth reading.
Vital Knowledge about Graphic Designing
1 year ago
by admin
in Web Design News
We cannot imagine our world in present day without the use of graphic design in our day-to-day life activities. Entire world of advertising has evolved due to application of graphic design tools in different forms and formats. Art of graphic designing is highly creative and can be done in different ways depending upon the medium on which it is being applied to. Many creative ways can be used here for producing mesmerizing designs.
In graphic designing images, letters and numbers can be used for getting information and also build up good platform for communication. You can use it for conveying your messages to the target customers using varied means like visual presentations, pictures, sound and so on.
The way your designs shape up is entirely dependent upon the creativity of your graphic designer. Manner in which designs are created rely on the minds of these professionals. A professional graphic designer has the knowledge about how to turn imaginations and dreams of their clients into real graphical images. For this the first and most important thing to be done is selecting right format of template and computer programs.
Online market is filled with different types of software programs that can give designing assistance for graphics and site layouts. Such software has made the work of graphic designers very easy and faster, they can now work in hassle-free atmosphere and get access to higher version of designing tools that can generate good quality of designs without wasting much time.
Integrated Marketing Communications
1 year ago
by admin
in Internet Marketing
Integrated Marketing Communications is a term used to describe a holistic approach to marketing communication. It aims to ensure consistency of message and the complementary use of media. The concept includes online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization, pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS, podcast, Internet Radio and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry relations, billboard, radio, and television. A company develops its integrated marketing communication programmed using all the elements of the marketing mix (product, price, place, and promotion).
Integrated marketing communication is integration of all marketing tools, approaches, and resources within a company which maximizes impact on consumer mind and which results into maximum profit at minimum cost. Generally marketing starts from “Marketing Mix”. Promotion is one element of Marketing Mix. Promotional activities include Advertising (by using different media), sales promotion (sales and trades promotion), and personal selling activities. It also includes internet marketing, sponsorship marketing, direct marketing, database marketing and public relations. And integration of all these promotional tools along with other components of marketing mix to gain edge over competitor is called Integrated Marketing Communication.
Using outside-in thinking, Integrated Marketing Communications is a data-driven approach that focuses on identifying consumer insights and developing a strategy with the right (online and offline combination) channels to forge a stronger brand-consumer relationship. This involves knowing the right touch points to use to reach consumers and understanding how and where they consume different types of media. Regression analysis and customer lifetime value are key data elements in this approach.
Reasons for the Growing Importance of IMC
Several shifts in the advertising and media industry have caused IMC to develop into a primary strategy for marketers:
- From media advertising to multiple forms of communication.
- From mass media to more specialized (niche) media, which are centered around specific target audiences.
- From a manufacturer-dominated market to a retailer-dominated, consumer-controlled market.
- From general-focus advertising and marketing to data-based marketing.
- From low agency accountability to greater agency accountability, particularly in advertising.
- From traditional compensation to performance-based compensation (increased sales or benefits to the company).
- From limited Internet access to 24/7 Internet availability and access to goods and services.
Selecting the Most Effective Communications Elements
The goal of selecting the elements of proposed integrated marketing communications is to create a campaign that is effective and consistent across media platforms. Some marketers may want only ads with greatest breadth of appeal: the executions that, when combined, provide the greatest number of attention-getting, branded, and motivational moments. Others may only want ads with the greatest depth of appeal: the ads with the greatest number of attention-getting, branded, and motivational points within each.
Although integrated marketing communications is more than just an advertising campaign, the bulk of marketing dollars is spent on the creation and distribution of advertisements. Hence, the bulk of the research budget is also spent on these elements of the campaign. Once the key marketing pieces have been tested, the researched elements can then be applied to other contact points: letterhead, packaging, logistics, customer service training, and more, to complete the IMC cycle.
Rules and Policies on Forums
1 year ago
by admin
in Internet Marketing
Forums are governed by a set of individuals, collectively referred to as staff, made up of administrators and moderators, which are responsible for the forums’ conception, technical maintenance, and policies (creation and enforcing). Most forums have a list of rules detailing the wishes, aim and guidelines of the forums creators. There is usually also a FAQ section contain basic information for new members and people not yet familiar with the use and principles of a forum (generally tailored for specific forum software).
Rules on forums usually apply to the entire user body and often have preset exceptions, most commonly designating a section as an exception. For example, in an IT forum any discussion regarding anything but computer programming languages may be against the rules, with the exception of a general chat section.
Forum rules are maintained and enforced by the moderation team, but users are allowed to help out via what is known as a report system. Most American forum software contains such a system. It consists of a small function applicable to each post (including one’s own). Using it will notify all currently available moderators of its location, and subsequent action or judgment can be carried out immediately, which is particularly desirable in large or very developed boards. Generally, moderators encourage members to also use the private message system if they wish to report behavior. Moderators will generally frown upon attempts of moderation by non-moderators, especially when the would-be moderators do not even issue a report. Messages from non-moderators acting as moderators generally declare a post as against the rules, or predict punishment. While not harmful, statements which attempt to enforce the rules are discouraged.
When rules are broken several steps are commonly taken. First a warning is usually given; this is commonly in the form of a private message but recent development has made it possible for it to be integrated into the software. Subsequently, if the act is ignored and warnings do not work, the member is – usually – first exiled from the forum for a number of days. Denying someone access to the site is called a ban. Bans can mean the person can no longer log in or even view the site anymore. If the offender, after the warning sentence, repeats the offense, another ban is given, usually this time a longer one. Continuous harassment of the site eventually leads to a permanent ban. However, in most cases this simply means the account is locked. In extreme cases where the offender – after being permanently banned – creates another account and continues to harass the site, administrators will apply an IP ban (this can also be applied at the server level): if the IP is static, the machine of the offender is prevented from accessing the site. In some extreme circumstances, IP range bans or country bans can be applied; however, this is usually for political, licensing or other reasons. See also: Block (internet), IP blocking, Internet censorship.
Offending content is usually deleted. Sometimes if the topic is considered the source of the problem, it is locked; often a poster may request a topic expected to draw problems to be locked as well, although the moderators decide whether to grant it. In a locked thread, members cannot post anymore. In cases where the topic is considered a breach of rules it – with all of its posts – may be deleted.
Troll
Forum trolls are users that repeatedly and deliberately breach the netiquette of an established online community, posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages to bait or excite users into responding or to test the forum rules and policies, and with that the patience of the forum staff. Their provocative behavior may potentially start flame wars (see below) or other disturbances. Responding to a troll’s provocations is commonly known as ‘feeding the troll’ and is generally discouraged, as it can encourage their disruptive behavior.
Sock puppet
The term sock puppet refers to someone who is simultaneously registered under different pseudonyms on a particular message board or forum. The analogy of a sock puppet is of a puppeteer holding up both hands and supplying dialogue to both puppets simultaneously. A sock puppet will create multiple accounts over a period of time, using each user to debate or agree with each other on a forum. Sock puppets are usually found when an IP check is done on the accounts in forums.
Spamming
Forum spamming is a breach of netiquette where users repeat the same word or phrase over and over, but differs from multiple posting in that spamming is usually a willful act which sometimes has malicious intent. This is a common trolling technique. It can also be traditional spam, unpaid advertisements that are in breach of the forum’s rules. Spammers utilize a number of illicit techniques to post their spam, including the use of botnets.
Some forums consider concise, comment-oriented posts spam, for example Thank you, Cool or I love it.
Double posting
One common faux pas on Internet forums is to post the same message twice. Users sometimes post versions of a message that are only slightly different, especially in forums where they are not allowed to edit their earlier posts. Multiple posting instead of editing prior posts can artificially inflate a user’s post count. Multiple posting can be unintentional; a user’s browser might display an error message even though the post has been transmitted or a user of a slow forum might become impatient and repeatedly hit the submit button. Multiple posting can also be used as a method of trolling or spreading forum spam. A user may also send the same post to several forums, which is termed crossposting. The term derives from Usenet, where crossposting was an accepted practice; however, it causes problems in web forums, which lack the ability to link such posts, so replies in one forum are not visible to people reading the post in other forums.
Word censor
A word censoring system is commonly included in the forum software package. The system will pick up words in the body of the post or some other user editable forum element (like user titles) and if they partially match a certain keyword (commonly no case sensitivity) they will be censored. The most common censoring is letter replacement with an asterisk character; for example: in the user title it is deemed inappropriate for users to use words such as “admin”, “moderator”, “leader” and so on, if the censoring system is implemented a title such as “forum leader” may be filtered to “forum ******”. Rude or vulgar words are common targets for the censoring system. But such auto-censors can make mistakes, for example censoring “wristwatch” to “wris****ch” and “Scunthorpe” to “S****horpe.”
Social Media Marketing
1 year ago
by admin
in Internet Marketing
Social media marketing is a recent component of organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans. Integrated marketing communications is a principle organizations follow to connect with their targeted markets. Integrated marketing communications coordinates the elements of the promotional mix—advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity, direct marketing, and sales promotion—to produce a customer focused message. In the traditional marketing communications model, the content, frequency, timing, and medium of communications by the organization is in collaboration with an external agent, i.e. advertising agencies, marketing research firms, and public relations firms. However, the growth of social media has impacted the way organizations communicate with their customers. In the emergence of Web 2.0, the internet provides a set of tools that allow people to build social and business connections, share information and collaborate on projects online.
Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention, generates online conversations, and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. The message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from a trusted source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.
Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access, opening doors for organizations to increase their brand awareness and facilitate conversations with the customer. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. Organizations can receive direct feedback from their customers and targeted markets.
Platforms
Social media marketing which is also known as SMO Social Media Optimization benefits organizations and individuals by providing an additional channel for customer support, a means to gain customer and competitive insight, and a method of managing their reputation online. Key factors that ensure its success are its relevance to the customer, the value it provides them with and the strength of the foundation on which it is built. A strong foundation serves as a stand or platform in which the organization can centralize its information and direct customers on its recent developments via other social media channels, such as article and press release publications.
The most popular platforms include:
- YouTube
- MySpace
- Digg
- More…
Recruitment Process Outsourcing
1 year ago
by admin
in Outsourcing
Recruitment Process Outsourcing is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) where an employer outsources or transfers all or part of its recruitment activities to an external service provider.
The Recruitment Process Outsourcing Association defines RPO as follows: “when a provider acts as a company’s internal recruitment function for a portion or all of its jobs. RPO providers manage the entire recruiting/hiring process from job profiling through the onboarding of the new hire, including staff, technology, method and reporting. A properly managed RPO will improve a company’s time to hire, increase the quality of the candidate pool, provide verifiable metrics, reduce cost and improve governmental compliance.
The RPO Alliance, a group of the Human Resources Outsourcing Association (HROA), approved this definition in February 2009: “Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) where an employer transfers all or part of its recruitment processes to an external service provider. An RPO provider can provide its own or may assume the company’s staff, technology, methodologies and reporting. In all cases, RPO differs greatly from providers such as staffing companies and contingent/retained search providers in that it assumes ownership of the design and management of the recruitment process and the responsibility of results
Occasional recruitment support, for example temporary, contingency and executive search services is more analogous to out-tasking, co-sourcing or just sourcing. In this example the service provider is “a” source for certain types of recruitment activity. The biggest distinction between RPO and other types of staffing is Process. In RPO the service provider assumes ownership of the process, while in other types of staffing the service provider is part of a process controlled by the organization buying their services.
While temporary, contingency and executive search firms have provided staffing services for many decades, the concept of an employer outsourcing the management and ownership of part or all of their recruiting process wasn’t first realized on a consistent basis until the 1970s in Silicon Valley’s highly competitive high tech labor market. Fast-growing high tech companies were hard-pressed to locate and hire the technical specialists they required, and so had little choice but to pay large fees to highly specialized external recruiters in order to staff their projects. Over time, companies began to examine how they might reduce the growing expenses of recruitment fees while still hiring hard-to-find technical specialists. Toward this end, companies began to examine the various steps in the recruiting process with an eye toward outsourcing only those portions that they had the greatest difficulty with and that added the greatest value to them. Initial RPO programs typically consisted of companies purchasing lists of potential candidates from RPO vendors. This “search/research” function, as it was called, generated names of competitors’ employees for a company and served to augment the pool of potential candidates from which that company could hire.
Over time, as business in general embraced the concept of outsourcing more and more, RPO gained favor among Human Resource management: not only did RPO reduce overhead costs from their budgets but it also helped improve the company’s competitive advantage in the labor market. As labor markets became more and more competitive, RPO became more of an acceptable option. Furthermore, through the advent in the 1980′s and 1990′s of human resources outsourcing (HRO) companies that began taking on the processes associated with benefits, taxes, and payroll, companies began recognizing that recruiting–a significant cost of HR–should also be considered for outsourcing. In the early 2000′s more companies began considering the outsourcing of recruitment for major portions of their recruiting need.
There have been fundamental changes in the US labor market that serve to reinforce the use of RPO as well. The labor market has become increasingly dynamic: workers today change employers more often than in previous generations. De-regulated labor markets have also created a shift towards contract and part-time labor and shorter work tenures. These trends increase recruitment activity and may encourage the use of RPO. It should also be noted that even in slower economic times or higher unemployment, RPO is still considered by companies to assist in an increasing need to screen through a larger candidate pool.
Benefits
- Quality and Cost – RPO providers claim that leveraging economies of scale enables them to offer recruitment processes at lower cost while economies of scope allow them to operate as high-quality specialists. Those economies of scale and scope arise from a larger staff of recruiters, databases of candidate resumes, and investment in recruitment tools and networks. RPO solutions are also claimed to change fixed investment costs into variable costs that flex with fluctuation in recruitment activity. Companies may pay by transaction rather than by staff member, thus avoiding under-utilization or forcing costly layoffs of recruitment staff when activity is low.
- Service and Speed – The commercial relationship between an RPO provider and a client is likely to be based on specific performance targets. With remuneration dependent on the attainment of such targets, an RPO provider will concentrate their resources in the most effective way – at times to the exclusion of non-core activity. Traditional internal recruitment teams are less likely to have such clearly defined performance targets.
Organizations with efficient hiring process that are viewed as employers of choice by potential staff may stand to gain benefits from an RPO process.
Important Companies: Kenexa, Hyphen Recruitment Outsourcing, Adecco RPO, Artech Infosystems, LanceSoft Inc, Tek Systems, Aditi Technologies, Excel Data Systems, Volt, Rose International and Tec Caliber IT Services.
Website Management Outsourcing
1 year ago
by admin
in Outsourcing
Website Management Outsourcing (WMO) is the contracting of the management of a website and entire online environment to a third-party service provider. A variant of Business Process Outsourcing BPO, WMO is an outsourcing service typically offered to SMEs and in particular, Medium-Sized Enterprises, that don’t have a specific internal web team or web-marketing team.
The days where a single design agency or development company can create and manage a successful online offering for an organisation are gone. In today’s business environment, the online presence of an organisation is increasingly layered and complex.
Online projects now require the skills of designers, developers, hosts, project managers, editors and marketing experts in addition to an internal project team in order to create an effective online environment. This has fueled the need for WMO services.
What is WMO?
A WMO company work on behalf of a client organization to manage the designers, the hosting company, the development partners, the content editors, the online marketing company, SEO specialists and the internal marketing team of the client, to ensure that their online environment meets their commercial objectives.
Typically, a WMO company will manage the provider companies to Service Level Agreements SLA, follow best practices, and assume full responsibility for the success of the deployment and ongoing management of a website.
Just as with BPO and other forms of Outsourcing, WMO companies work with SMEs and Medium-Sized Organizations on an ongoing basis rather than a simple per-project basis – implementing new techniques and technologies to make the website more effective throughout the lifecycle of the site.
The most common examples of WMO are website marketing, website development, website design, support and maintenance, and website project management.
Affiliate Marketing
1 year ago
by admin
in Internet Marketing
About Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an online advertising channel in which advertisers (online merchants that sell products or services) pay publishers (independent parties that promote the products or services of an advertiser on their Web site) only for results, such as a visitor making a purchase or filling out a form, rather than paying simply to reach a particular audience. Affiliate Marketing is a “pay-for-performance” model, which is in essence the modern version of the “finders’-fee” model, where individuals who introduce new clients to a business are compensated. The difference in the case of affiliate marketing is that advertisers only pay their publishers when the new client introduction results in a sale or a lead, making it a low-risk, high-reward environment for both parties.
How Affiliate Marketing Works
Advertisers in our Affiliate Marketing Network, the CJ Marketplace, populate their ad links in the interface, making them available for placement by publishers. Each link is assigned a commission, such as a fixed amount per lead or a percentage of a resulting sale on the advertiser’s Web site. Publishers looking to monetize their traffic apply to join an advertiser’s affiliate program. Upon acceptance to the advertiser’s affiliate program, the publishers select and place the advertiser’s links on their Web sites, in their email campaigns or as part of search listings.
When a consumer clicks on a publisher’s link, a cookie is set on the visitor’s browser that identifies the advertiser, the publisher, and the specific link and payment rates. When the visitor makes an actual purchase online or fills out a form, that transaction is tracked and recorded by Commission Junction. Upon recording the transaction, Commission Junction handles all of the collection and processing required to ensure fair and timely commission payment for the publisher, and all of the administration and verification necessary to ensure quality sales and leads for the advertiser.
Article marketing
1 year ago
by admin
in Internet Marketing
Article marketing is a type of advertising in which businesses write short articles related to their respective industry. These articles are made available for distribution and publication in the marketplace. Each article contains a bio box and byline (collectively known as the resource box) that include references and contact information for the author’s business. Well-written content articles released for free distribution have the potential of increasing the authoring business’ credibility within its market as well as attracting new clients.
Traditional Article Marketing
Article marketing has been used by professionals for nearly as long as mass print has been available. In paper-print form (as opposed to online forms), article marketing is utilized commonly by business owners as a means of obtaining free press space. A local business provides useful content to the newspaper free of charge, and in return the newspaper prints the business’ contact information with the article. Because newspapers and other traditional media are expected to present content on limited budgets, this arrangement is generally advantageous for all parties involved.
For example, an accounting firm may market itself by writing an article entitled “The Top 10 Ways to Avoid Being Audited” and offering it to the local newspapers several weeks prior to tax season. Similarly, a roofing company may offer radio stations a concise article entitled “How to Avoid Ice Damage to Your Roof this winter” shortly before the winter season.
Internet Article Marketing
Internet article marketing is an Internet marketing technique to subtly advertise products and services via online article directories. Most directories receive a high volume of traffic and are considered authority sites by search engines, which often results in submitted articles receiving substantial free traffic.
Internet marketers will often try to maximize the results of an article marketing campaign by submitting their promotion to multiple article directories. However, most search engines filter duplicate content to prevent the same content from appearing multiple times in searches. Some marketers try to circumvent this filter by creating multiple variations of an article, called article spinning. By doing this, one article can theoretically gain traffic from multiple article directories.
Most forms of search engine optimization and Internet marketing require a domain, hosting plan, and advertising budget. However, article marketing uses article directories as a free host and receives traffic via organic searches due to the directory’s search engine authority.
Accessible Web design
To be accessible, Web pages and sites must conform to certain accessibility principles. These accessibility principles are known as the WCAG when talking about content. These can be grouped into the following main areas.
- Use semantic markup that provides a meaningful structure to the document (i.e. Web page)
- Semantic markup also refers to semantically organizing the web page structure and publishing web services description accordingly so that they can be recognized by other web services on different web pages. Standards for semantic Web are set by IEEE
- Use a valid markup language that conforms to a published DTD or Schema
- Provide text equivalents for any non-text components (e.g. images, multimedia)
- Use hyperlinks that make sense when read out of context. (e.g. avoid “Click Here”)
- Don’t use frames
- Use CSS rather than HTML tables for layout
- Author the page so that when the source code is read line-by-line by user agents (such as screen readers) it remains intelligible. (Using tables for design will often result in information that is not.)
However, W3C permits an exception where tables for layout either make sense when linearized or an alternate version (perhaps linearized) is made available.
Website accessibility is also changing as it is impacted by Content Management Systems that allow changes to be made to webpages without the need of obtaining programming language knowledge.
It is very important that several different components of Web development and interaction can work together in order for the Web to be accessible to people with disabilities. These components include:
- content – the information in a Web page or Web application, including:
- natural information such as text, images, and sounds
- code or markup that defines structure, presentation, etc.
- Web browsers, media players, and other “user agents”
- assistive technology, in some cases – screen readers, alternative keyboards, switches, scanning software, etc.
- users’ knowledge, experiences, and in some cases, adaptive strategies using the Web
- developers – designers, coders, authors, etc., including developers with disabilities and users who contribute content
- authoring tools – software that creates Web sites
- evaluation tools – Web accessibility evaluation tools, HTML validators, CSS validators, etc.
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