Brand Advertising: Chicken Soup for Business

Somewhere SP’s adopting online medium to advertise and marketing there are also some partners who choose print medium as a ‘Sasta and Tikao’ agenda to advertise and marketing. Advertisement in news paper and magazines still very low budget and SP’s who don’t have very limited budget for advertisement, they choose print as a weapon of their marketing strategy.

Apart from the traditional modes of advertising, which includes advertising through print and electronic media, billboards, word of mouth publicity, digital advertising and social media advertising is gaining huge momentum among the Sps. Shiv Modi, CEO, Trisita Marketing Kolkata shared his views on the same and said, “This is very difficult to finalize and calculate budget for advertisement when you have very limited budget. For Small IT player, this is very confused task to select the perfect medium for advertisement. Mostly what I choose for advertisement is print medium. Print has decent reach, in budget formula and pretty satisfactory in terms of marketing. We give ads in news paper and magazines like The DQ Week, DQ Channels and other IT magazines. We get a good response. So my preference is print according to my budget.

Shiv K Modi, CEO, Trisita Marketing

Once the product and its environment are understood and the target consumer has been specified, the routes of reaching the consumer must be assessed—the media of communication. Not even the social networking, people in the IT industry is subjected to a publicity blitz trough out the year. Newspapers are flooded with ads announcing discounts, special offers and road shows. During the festival seasons, City streets become awash with banners that scream the same message. Ads, exhibitions, mailers, special offer, the works! It looks as though vendors and resellers are waiting to release the pent-up marketing budget.

Adding in the same, Satpal Singh, director, Dataspect targets the festive season to advertise for giving boost to his business. “My strategies are very different from others. I prefer the festive seasons to advertise. Through heavy discounts during festive seasons, Road Shows and participating in exhibition like Apson and Zebra and showcasing my products in different photo exhibitions I catch the eye of customers at the peak time” he added.

Satpal Singh, Director, Dataspect

Chennai based Anantharam Varayur, Director, Webcom shared hid strategies of their marketing and advertisement and he said, “Currently we are marketing through word of mouth through a network called BNI. BNI is world’s largest referral organization. Being of members of BNI we are able to reach right prospects with in no time. Our focused medium is BNI that is very cost effective, highly reliable and direct connection to end user. In BNI for whole year it costs max 70k and ROI is very high in one referral I can get back my entire Investment also I will be able to pay for next 5 years subscription”.

Ananthram Varayur, Director, Webcomm

Advertisement plays important role in brand building and sales and it also helps distributors to connect with target customers. In next couple of years, Digital advertisement or social media advertisement will take over major portion of advertisement with distributors making smart and effective use of this platform for the benefit of their businesses. Though, advertising is one of the 4 pillars of product promotion. Advertisement gives 360 degrees visibility to all sections and demographics of the end user but there are many challenges that occurs in front of SP’s in terms finalizing the budget, man power and choosing the effective medium and also the price war between the competitors.

Talking about the same, Yogesh Jain, Director, Kplus shared his views and said, “This is very difficult to finalize and set what should be the price set for the product in front of customers when you have so many competitors around yourself. It is very difficult to convince your customer with your price in era of online marketing. Also, E marketing, the number of online shoppers is increasing day by day. Due to global reach and effective communication, e-commerce and e-marketing becoming more popular.

While budgeting and adopting the man power for advertisement strategies, Yogesh Jain from KPlus believe in Talent and Functional Expertise. Having the right people involved is essential for his company success.

He also talks about the digital environment which is more important than even to have an understanding of technology and the best ways to utilize it within a marketing program. “It is valuable to ensure that technological capabilities are thoroughly assessed as it relates to the nature of the assignment and projected scope of work. The scope may call for social media marketing, application development, website hosting, or digital advertising in general. It is important for us to able to adapt to these changes in requirements. We are making sure that processes and procedures in place for when/if changes occur so that work is not delayed or pushed over budget” Yogesh Jain added.

Yogesh Jain, Director, Kplus

Delhi based software solution company Softmart talks on their budgeting challenges and Alok Gupta, Director, Softmart added, “As our strategies of marketing and strategies are via email, web and very limited in print as we publish our ads in The DQ Week and DQ Channels IT magazine. The major challenge for us is Advertising cost for B-B entities which are very high. So we define the budget at the start of the year. If profitability is high, we increase the budget during the year”.

Alok Gupta, Director, Softmart

As per Tricom Multimedia, the major challenge that is faced by SI’s is reaching the right market at the right time with the right price and product as there are multiple variables to be taken care of. Harinder Salwan, CEO, Tricom Multimedia added, “Since the user base is huge but the buying base is barely 10 % with over 90 % piracy rates practically we end up spending more on investing in the carrot and stick practice viz doing Anti Piracy and Compliance activities which today are contributing to approx. 50 % of the achieved revenues in our market segment”.

“It is required definitely since it will help achieve awareness about our products but we have to do that once the revenues in the products that we promote are generating substantial revenues as it is only the security market which is currently spending a lot on the advertising space currently as it is today a necessity” he added.

Harinder Salwan, CEO, Tricom Multimedia

Sunny Sharma, Director, Foetron shared, “The challenges are primarily around getting the right resources to execute it. Also, in the present context, you need niche tools to drive your monitoring and planning. It can’t be done in a reactive way. Omni channel presence is pivotal too as you can’t ignore one outreach channels in favour of the other. Although, one can focus on a specific channel but one must have some sort of active presence on all channels. We are looking to acquire customers and budget is primarily driven by our new acquisition targets. Manpower not in terms of count but quality is important. The only way to manage this entire stuff is to have a 360 degree view and a set of processes in place to execute”.

Sunny Sharma, Director, Foetron

Funding from the vendors from outside is also plays a big role in advertisement and marketing for SP’s. Lots of Vendor who initiate to provide funds to Solution providers to promote their brand, products and services. This is something like ‘Ek Teer Se Do Nishaane’. On the one side, SP’s usually don’t have enough funds for advertisements and after Co-funding from their Vendors, SP’s can able to advertise their services, company and also vendors get advertisements of their brand in low budget.

Partners also gets vendor funds for co-promotion however the strategy can be decided by the partner, funds can be used for digital marketing, customer events, lead generation, technology updates, road shows etc.

Ranjan Chopra, CEO, Team Computers expressed his views, “We do participate in events.​ where we get customers to come and get a feel for solutions. Every year we plan 50 lach to 1 crore as co-funding from our vendors that helps us to make an effective advertisement and marketing. We also participate in third party events in verticals like pharma etc."

Ranjan Chopra, CEO, Team Computers

Most of the vendors are confused about this entire new world of advertising. And the key is to be remarkable. Replicating content can be futile. The need is to be remarkable. The joint marketing plans are missing and unless the partners put their heart into it. It won’t come out well. External agencies can execute things well but the core has to be come from the organization.

Added into the same, Pawan Khurana, Director QuantM shared his views on funding from vendors “Partners can use vendor funds for co-promotion however the strategy can be decided by the partner, funds can be used for digital marketing, customer events, lead generation, technology updates, road shows etc. We have yearly approved budgets which are co-funded by us and business partners. We have internal team to run digital add campaigns and social media. Marketing tools provided by business partners are a great help in lead generation."

Pawan kurana, Director, QuantM

Talking about more on getting funds, What will you say when you gets your publicity by Government of India. There are also some SI’s who partners with government and their advertisement used to run by Government as well.

Bihar based Astric computers who are partner with the Government of Bihar and they work more for the Government of Bihar and their all advertisement and marketing is done by government.

“We are partners to government ministries, agencies and society’s hence we are not concerned about funding. So far all of our initiatives are based on funding by government hence we do not have any say. To be honest we do not have a strategy towards advertisement as of now as all our advertisement is moved by government of Bihar and Government of India as we are partners to them. People in Bihar do not have a better connecting medium other than print media so our most of marketing and advertisement by Government appears more in Print” said, P.K Sinha, Director, Astric Computers.

Prabhat Kumar Sinha, Director, Astric Computers

Advertising is one of the 4 pillars of product promotion. Advertisement gives 360 degrees visibility to all sections and demographics of the end user. Almost every business in the world will deal in advertising at some point, whether it is a listing in the print, electronic or digital media. Whatever you’re planning, the strategic thinking behind all advertising is essentially the same – get to know your audience, target them efficiently and position your brand in the way that benefits your business.