The latest buzz word in the digital marketing world that is steadily catching up with brands is ‘Influencer Marketing’. Western companies have leveraged this strategy of marketing for the past few years and the trend is quickly catching up with Indian brands as well. Brands in India have actively come up with successful influencer campaigns for the past 2-3 years.
What is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is a term that has risen from the realization of brands about the power, peer influence and customer recommendation has over other forms of marketing. Especially in a time, where consumers have started using social media in huge numbers and have been public about their views about brands and products. Brands have realized that people are largely influenced by second-hand information from opinion leaders and this has led to a lot of brands identifying top influencers in their respective fields to try and reach out to consumers better.
Live Chat is an efficient communication medium for proactively engaging customers and converting them into leads. This can be done at ease with the help of well trained agents using some of the many Live Chat tools avalable. However, deciding which one to pick be a bit confusing. Hence, we have put together a list of the 10 best live chat softwares for your website that can help boost sales and service your customers.
Before we go into the details and the USPs of each of the live chat softwares available, here's a quick comparison of the features these platforms have to offer and their pricing:
USP: Social Discovery to help better understand the customer
Facebook ,Twitter and LinkedIn icons are bound with the chat option and if the agent feels that he/she can connect with the potential customer through social networking sites the customer can give a friend request or follow the customer directly from the chat area. This feature is called as ‘social discovery’, which is a unique feature and it also helps the agent to know about the customers better and further chats can be made more customisable. The details of the customers can be seen only after accepting the chat requests. Apart fom this, Snap Engage also allows the agents to remotely control the user's browser and help them navigate to the right pages quickly. Also, tthere are blogs written in their website which helps the agent to enhance his/her skill to be a star agent. Unlimited access to sites is provided by Snap Engage. CRM and help desk can be integrated.
PRICING
The basic price is $60 in which 4 agents can be employed.
USP: Competitive Pricing
Zopim is an affordable, easy to use Live Chat option. When you engage with a customer, a separate pop up doesn’t appear on the screen for every customer, instead all the windows and controls are integrated with the dash board they offer, unlike many other chat options. Automated chats are possible so that you can reach out to customers, before they complete their conversation. Integrating with Zen Desk can help in multi-channel support like emails and social media. Chat history is available by which it becomes easy for the agent to know the customer.
PRICING
Free version is available and the basic version costs for $11 (single agent) per month.
USP: Customizable GUI
The customisable graphical user interface GUI makes Olark stand out from the rest. When it is Christmas time, it gets updated to the Christmas theme. Every celebration can be more fun with the GUI it offers. The logo of the organisation can also be incorporated in the paid versions of Olark. After every chat, rating can be given for the chat from which instant feedback of the conversation through live chat can be noted. Another noteworthy component of Olark is ‘savethecart’ feature by which the agent can know what is the product that is stored in the cart and based upon this the chat can be done and targeting becomes easy.
PRICING
The basic version costs $15 (single agent) whereas the free version limits in the number of chats.
USP: Geo targeting and content targeting
The geographical location of the website visitor can be tracked along with the content what they are looking for so that even the greeting by the agent can be of the language which the viewer follows which gives a personal connect to the user and the user is more likely to buy the product. Keeping track of the content can also help in product that can be promoted through chat as a follow up. Unlimited access to sites and can be managed centrally. There are three versions like other chats that include basic business, smart business and enterprise Omni.
PRICING
The basic price is $29.95 and free version is available with limited features
USP: Integration with G-talk and Instant Messenger
Ogg Chat can be integrated with G-Talk and Instant messenger. Separate desired departments can be created and operators can be added to the chat. Every operator can include a schedule chart to keep a track on the pending schedule. Some data are available that can be used to analyse like brief chat history but however real time monitoring of the viewers, usage of canned messages is a considerable setback.
PRICING
The basic version of the product costs $9.95 and all plans include a 14-day free trial
USP: Real time translation
Internationalisation is possible as it offers real time translation feature. Languages are translated instantly which makes it easy to use in non-English speaking nations. The admin interface isn’t much cluttered. It is a simple, user friendly admin which the consumer may like to use. Prioritising the mails become easy with the email management system that is offered. All the information about the clients can be viewed in one click, but a separate window opens up every time which may be tough to view for a series of clients.
PRICING
A 30 day free trial is available with constraints and the basic version of LiveHelpNow chat costs $21 per month
USP: Quick response through the Mobile application
Users find the mobile application very useful as the agents can respond to the queries from any place. However, the user interface doesn’t support any other language other than English which is seen as a drawback. Live Chat tickets can be administered through e-mail. Service Level Agreements are complex when compared to other chat options. Kayako allows the user to create a macro which enables automatic response to some of the basic and repeated queries as it reduces the response time of the agent.
PRICING: The basic version of the Kayako Live Chat costs $24 and three versions of Kayako are called as Case, Fusion and Engage
USP: Ease of file sharing
Casengo has one inbox for all the chats, emails and social media posts. The cloud based application allows the responders to post their answers in a quicker phase than other options. The customers of online retailers and other small businesses have the response in a very fast time period. Most of the live chats, attachments can be sent only through downloadable links, where as the file itself can be sent as an attachment, however sending multiple attachments is not an easy task using Casengo.
PRICING:
The basic version costs $9.65 (9Euros), Free version can be used in which enables only the chat option
COMM100LIVECHAT
USP: Guaranteed 100 percent uptime
Comm100livechat, as the name suggests this live chat claims to produce 100 percent uptime. A typing indicator allows agents to see what their customers are typing before they submit their message. With 'MaximumOn' technology, the software also ensures that your live chat program runs continuously without interruptions, despite failures at both server and data center levels. Chats can also be extended onto mobile platforms; including on iOS and Android devices.A drag-and-drop file transfer feature allows agents to share a file that provides all the requested information. However, no real time translation is available and no co-browsing option is available.
PRICING
The basic version of the live chat costs $29 and there are different versions based on the Shared Server and dedicated Server
USP: An all in one live chat with email integration
If your business is a small firm and is looking for a one stop solution that integrates e-mail with your live chat options, website live chat can serve your business. It supports till 20 multiple chats with quick tabs to enable swift performance. The user interface helps to edit the interface without coding. Internal operator chat that helps to interact internally when a query hard to manage by an agent can be used to clear his doubts.
PRICING
The basic version of the live chat costs $20 and there are different versions available with different pricing.
The way products are displayed online creates a great brunt on the buying choice of a customer. Amateur looking photographs can destroy a consumer’s expectations and trust on the website or the brand. E-commerce websites need to display visually appealing products that will influence the customer to buy it from them, rather than making them prefer a brick and mortar store.
Business owners have spent a lot of money on building websites, hiring secured payment channels and other facilities. As a part of this checklist, it is time for them to look for people who would start taking photographs of their products and display on the website, in the most appealing way.
Here is a list of some top eCommerce Product Photographers and Studios in Bangalore.
G16 Studios
G16 Studios is one of the leading e-commerce product photography studios in Bangalore. They work with top Indian E-Commerce websites like Zara.com, HM.com & Mango.com. They have an exclusive approach to product photography and organize models from across the world for photo shoots. In addition to their photography services, the studio also helps large volume businesses to set up their own photography studio. This move is said to bring down the production cost by 60%. Contact: Abhijeet Sojwal +91-9886652280
Aroun Kesavaraj
Aroun Kesavaraj is one of the most acclaimed professional photographers in India. With over a decade of photography experience, he has worked with Prasad studios (Prasad SFX) under various projects. He is also an Auto-desk Combustion certified professional. Widely known for his commercial and professional portrait photography skills, Aroun has a keen eye for detail and exquisite visual language. This makes him a natural choice for product photography. Contact: Aroun at +91-9900001943
Kiran Nama
An architect turned photographer, Kiran Nama is first in the city to start the digital photographic trend. He is a renowned product photographer who has closure with various high profile clients. He is much interested in trying out new things and hence does not practice single photography style, but most of his works are as a product photographer. Contact Kiran: +91-9845255406
Jaggi
Experimenting with still life and lifestyle photography, Jaggi has been stinking awe and wowing clients as an advertising photographer since 2000. He brings a unique combination of skills to photography and is one of the most technically savvy and aesthetically inclined photographers in the industry .He also has the penchant being a virtual one-stop show when it comes to recreating, fabricating, or improvising with products, props or background, including pre and post production. His skills are admired and are proved to be very effective in product photography. Contact Jagadeesh +91-9845054400
Purnendu Bala
With over 6 years of experience as a photographer, Purnendu Bala owns an eminent fashion photography studio. While his expertise lies on his specialized skills required to groom a model's personality, Purnendu also excels in product photography dedicated to provide professional level of quality of work which not only reach your business to your audience but give you Return on Investment. Contact Purnendu: +91 8147872032
Full House Labs
Established in the year 2012, Full House Labs is a media content production house started its operations to provide quality media ingredients for business promotion. The production house is a pool of innovative freelancers working on advertisements and social media branding. They also have a team of expert photographers and editors who work on product photography for Ecommerce websites, in which they are a prodigy at. Contact them at +91-7411167810
Have we missed any other Product Photographers in our list?
Do write to us or share their details in the ‘Comments’ section below.
As the growing digital population is all set to rock India's economy and business landscape, it has become vital for businesses to go online as well. A budding entrepreneur who is looking at selling his products online can create his own e-commerce website or sell products on other online marketplaces such as Flipkart, eBay, Amazon, etc.
After registering with these online marketplaces that allow you to sell products for a commission, managing different dashboards, stock list & inventories becomes difficult. In order to simplify the online selling process, tools have been developed to integrate all of these into one single dashboard.
Tools like Browntape, ecomdash, boostmysale, etc provide one common dashboard to manage all your orders and inventories across e-commerce platforms. Let’s take a look at what each of these softwares have to offer:
Selling across multiple ecommerce marketplaces in India
If Indian market is your main business focus, the below mentioned tools are some of the key players in providing inventory and order management solutions:
1. Unicommerce
Unicommerce, recently acquired by Snapdeal has an inventory management software for e-commerce, integrated with some of the world's leading online marketplaces and cart solutions.
It helps in complete order fulfillment life-cycle through real-time maintenance of inventory, orders and shipping process. One can also view key metrics and insights with respect to sales and performance using a single dashboard.
2. Browntape
Browntape lets you sell your products across 8 platforms which includes eBay, Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Rediff Shopping, Tradus, Naaptol, shopclues, etc.
It provides a centralised inventory management system that keeps track of the stocks and orders that come in on a real-time basis. One can also print out the shipping labels and send out automated emails to the customer about purchase order status.
This easy to use e-commerce solutions provider integrates inventories, sales and other management factors in one single window. It not only streamlines and automates the processes but also provides insights on scaling up your business and visibility. With real-time inventory and sales figures, Boost My Sale helps in quick decision making and growing the business without having to worry about everyday challenges in sales & supply chain management.
Selling across multiple ecommerce marketplaces globally
Businesses that operate on a large scale and have tie-ups with global online marketplaces can make use of these tools for hassle-free sales and operations:
4. Ecomdash
ecomdash is yet another inventory management & order fulfillment software for multi-channel e-commerce sellers. It provides a single view of all e-commerce operations using a single dashboard. Sales, shipping & inventory management is all automated and also lets us monitor sales & supply chain through effective data management.
5. Orderhive
Orderhive is a multichannel order & inventory management system that is integrated with leading marketplaces and businesses. It cuts down on the additional infrastructure and maintenance cost for online sellers through its simplified back-end process management. It also provides customised offerings to suit your business needs, in terms of having a dedicated server (such as Bluehost) and managing it efficiently.
It’s a cloud based inventory management application that consolidates and processes orders from multiple marketplaces. It removes the clutter out of multichannel selling and gives real-time updates on competitor's pricing as well. It also analyses shipping rates and gets the most cost-efficient rates from leading delivery companies to process the orders.
Online selling across various marketplaces means having to oversee and manage different channels and processes. As and when the business grows in terms of more online marketplaces and product orders, resorting to such tools & solutions providers becomes inevitable. They greatly help in streamlining processes, reducing the infrastructure cost and provide great insights, which might otherwise go unnoticed in a daily tracking routine.
Do try out the trial versions or subscribe for the above mentioned tools for your business and share your experience with us in the ‘Comments’ section. And in case we have missed out on other important channel & inventory management tools, do write to us.
Product Photography is an important design element for an e-commerce portal, as the sense of sight plays a major role in online shopping. One of the challenges for an e-commerce site is to satisfy the needs of a customer wanting to touch and feel the product before buying it. Visually appealing product images have the power to impress & persuade a customer into buying a product and tend to affect your website’s bounce rate and conversion rates.
Product images should not only be appealing, but also match your brand’s image and the overall aesthetics of your website. Instead of solely relying on your vendor for product images, one needs to plan and make use of the best product images that have the potential to sell. This is where professional product photographers come into play, to bring out unexplored angles of a product and visually explain the product functionality in the simplest way possible.
Through this blog post, we bring to you some of the top e-commerce product photographers in Chennai:
Kunal Daswani is one of the leading photographers in Chennai with a unique style and eye for detail. Much known for his fashion and commercial photography, Kunal has worked across various brands & industries. Contact Kunal: +91-9840823223
Specialised in advertising and commercial photography, Prasana is one of the most sought after professional photographer for major retail and corporate clients. He has won awards in recognition of his work and is now the official photo mentor of Nikon School for Tamilnadu & Pondicherry. Contact Prasanna: +91-9884878101
3. Sukil & Khushboo Photography
Sukil & Khushboo are professional photographers with experience across various fields and have assisted iconic photographers such as Iqbal Mohamed & Sundar Ram. Their strong technical knowledge and passion for the art has helped them go a long way in accomplishing projects for clients in the field of fashion, food, architecture & consumer goods. Contact Sukil & Khushboo: +91-9841226201
Backed by a well-equipped studio and an image processing facility in Chennai, John Sudhakar has produced some of the remarkable works in the field of Photography. He’s been teaching Photography at various ad clubs &training institutes over the last few years and has represented many iconic brands photographically. Contact John: +91-9382148000
Dewakar is a Chennai based professional photographer with more than 10 years of expertise in this field.
He has worked with a wide range of corporate clients as well as advertising agencies and specializes in identifying and highlighting the uniqueness of each product through his camera lens. He infact owns a product photography studio that gives him the flexibility to explore new techniques and styles. Contact Deewakar: +91-9840053133
Muthukannan is not only a successful wedding & commercial photographer in Chennai, but is also known for his photography institute called the Visualite Academy. He strongly believes that a good product photograph can increase its chances of selling and uses his several years of experience in creating the right product portfolio for his clients. Contact Muthukannan: +91-9790836256
Are there any other Product Photographers that you know of and we've missed them in our list?
Do write to us or share their details in the 'Comments' section below.
Brands/Businesses conduct events with an end goal in mind. Charity & institutional brands would want to raise funds for a specific cause or movement. Conferences/Summits/Conclaves want participants to network and learn, in turn spreading a vision which is believed by a brand. And then there are launch, sporting, or gaming events which brands want people to remember, delivering recognition for talent.
Social media has become an essential part of events and has transcended into a real-time platform to showcase the happenings of an event and build awareness for the brand.
The following are 4 key essential tips that can be followed while providing live social media news feeds for an event:
1. Promoting The Hashtag: Create a unique/synonymous hashtag that can be treated as a signature for your posts, during the event. Use this hashtag in your creative and posts, as a method for your audience to engage with you and other audience throughout the duration/phase of the event. For example: The 2015 edition of the Murugappa Kovai Quotient Quiz which was promoted with the hashtag #MKQ2015, present in every news feed or conversation that happened during the event.
The launch of The Madras Song also stirred up conversations in platforms like Twitter where we trended hashtags like #TheMadrasSongs & #Madras375, which helped us spread the word and prompted people to share the video.
2. Make Your Feeds Entertaining & Engaging: One should make sure that the social media news feeds are catchy, informative, carry the essence of the event and have a strong call-to-action aspect embedded in the post. During the Murugappa Kovai Quotient Quiz, we asked interesting questions inspired by the questions put forth by the quiz-master on the dais.
3. Informing People About What They Are Missing Out On: Giving a glimpse about the happenings of the event is vital. It helps your audience to experience the event even if they are not physically present in the venue. We covered the outdoor activities which took place at the Murugappa Kovai Quotient Quiz, showcasing enthusiastic students who clicked pictures at a photo booth which was placed outside the auditorium.
We were also able to engage with a huge cluster of audience through live feeds at the Global Alumni Meet of Don Bosco, held at Egmore, Chennai.
4. Follow Conversations & Engage With Audience Even After The Event: Live social media news feeds generate a high influx of conversations. A live feed helps create a buzz at the event, prompting the crowd to engage in a conversation. It is very important that these conversations are tracked and addressed. Continuing the conversations with the audience even after the event will build credibility and will boost engagements in the forthcoming events. Our posts for Murugappa, during the Aircel Chennai Open 2015 built conversations that lasted even after the event's closure.
In a dilemma to integrate social media for your events? We highly recommend that you do!
India is a significant market for social media giants. We have 100m+ users on Facebook and over 33 million users on Twitter. Mobile web penetration has also been one of the main contributors in the active social media usage. Almost 84% of the 100 million users on Facebook access it through their mobile phones. Keeping all of the above mentioned facts in consideration, it is fair to conclude that the reach on social media is exponentially huge and for brands to tap on this opportunity would result in a vital growth for their businesses
Ernst & Young have released the second edition of the Social Media Marketing Trends in India. They collated data based on the insights shared by top brands in India that are social-media savvy. The previous Ernst & Young study was centered on how brands explored social media to build communities online & sustain engagement. This time, the key focus was on understanding how far have the brands come in the digital space and also the social media maturity levels with respect to the processes and policies, technology and governance across organizations in India.
Let’s have a look at what has changed since 2013!
(Image Courtesy - Ernst & Young)
The study also highlighted that brands across various industries have realized the implication of tapping on social media channels and understood its peculiar demands.
How do brands in India function digitally?
How do brands measure success on social media?
What’s the next big thing?
The study also states that Social CRM, Social Commerce & Gamification will be the future for the brands to explore and harness their growth on.
The full Ernst & Young report on Social Media Marketing Trends in India can be found here.
Recently, I conducted a workshop on Digital Marketing for Startups in India as part of the Weekend Ventures #StartupLounge. The workshop focused on the digital marketing methods that can help startups in building their brand & in getting results (in terms of app downloads, ecommerce sales or lead generation).
Social Beat co-founder Suneil Chawla featured in The Times of India coverage on how companies are leveraging the reach of bloggers and influencers for building their brand visibility online. We have also recently launched our new initiative for Influencer Marketing in India which can be seen at www.influencer.in
As the year 2014 draws to an end and we heartily welcome 2015, we bring to you the list of top 5 social media campaigns of the year 2014 that created a huge buzz for all the good reasons. Here goes the list:
When the #IceBucketChallenge was trending across the world, a journalist from Hyderabad, Manju Kalanidhi, had different ideas brewing in her mind. Instead of wasting water in a country where there is a scarcity of this essential life resource, why not do something that attempts to feed the millions of poor and hungry. The challenge put forth by Manju on Facebook required friends to cook or donate one bucket of rice to poor and hungry in the locality and post a picture on Facebook / Twitter doing the same with the hashtag above. Within 4-5 days, the page had more than 40,000 fans and 35000+ mentions. Even celebrities like Priyanka Chopra came out in support of this noble campaign.
When one of India’s favorite noodles brand launched a new, healthier variant – Oats Noodles, they had a tremendous task of spreading awareness about this healthy variant amidst the frenzy for its other cousins. They cashed effectively on the Selfie craze – asking fans to tweet their Selfie having breakfast with the hashtag #HealthyIsEnjoyable. Daily 10 winners were announced, each winning the monthly supply of Maggi Oats Noodles. The campaign reached 2 million+ fans and had an increase in brand engagement by more than 50%*.
Quickr, one of India’s most reputed online classifieds, leveraged content marketing to the fullest for their Diwali campaign “Buyers & Sellers ka perfect matchmakers”. Quickr encouraged customers to blog about their shopping experiences via BlogAdda resulting in immense customer engagement & boost to the traffic to the website. The campaign was extremely successful as it cashed in on the festive shopping season and customers didn’t mind blogging about their experience as they were rewarded with cashback offers and other prizes, resulting in huge buzz creation online.
22nd August, 2014 marked the 375th anniversary of Chennai, earlier known as Madras. As part of the 375thanniversary celebrations, the Murugappa group has launched the #TheMadrasSong to celebrate the occasion & give a fitting tribute to the history, tradition, and culture of this city.
The digital campaign for the song involved a multi-channel campaign, right from evocative content such as Madras Trivia, engaging contests and apps like the Madras Favorite Memory App that asked people to vote for their favorite spot in Madras. The entire campaign was a big success that allowed the video to garner 2.5 lakh+ views on YouTube. You can view the song here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAqtE4KdJL8
Procter & Gamble launched the #MyRoleModel campaign for Gillette during Father’s Day. With the target being men between ages 15-45 years, the campaign asked the father-son duos to put shaving foam and share their Selfie to win exciting prizes. The standout factor for the campaign was the 360-degree approach with even the TV Commericals sporting the hashtag. The blogger partnerships were leveraged in a big way to spread awareness about the campaign, which was endorsed by Mr. Dependable-Rahul Dravid.
Note: Other campaigns could have made to the list and missed out narrowly based on considerations of organic virality created.
