Prayag anchors CSAT studies for a few clients and a valuable lesson learned is the importance of working closely with your customer when the initiative is in progress to ensure the desired results.  Running a CSAT initiative required detailed planning and faultless execution – after all you are dealing with your client’s customers. So, it makes sense to involve your client every step of the way to make sure the study goes through smoothly.

One area especially where client support really matters is in getting responses from the end users – your client can be really useful in reaching out to their clients and urging them to respond to the questionnaires.  While you will continue to follow up with the target audience (client’s client) to gather  feedback, we need to remember that too many follow ups are not acceptable and can work at cross purpose. Here, if the account managers from your client organization pitches in and convinces their client to respond, chances of getting responses are higher. Why is it important for the account managers to collaborate? Couple of important reasons why –

1. Opportunity to show the target audience that you care for their feedback
2. Demonstrating your commitment to customer satisfaction to your organization

On the flipside, not being proactive leads to the unwanted conclusions such as fear of negative feedback or reluctance to engage with the client and so on. In fact, one of our clients has made it a practice to identify account managers who have not managed to get their clients to participate in the CSAT few times in a row. This list is then analysed and shared with the CEO underlining the importance placed on customer feedback in this particular organization.

The point is, we need to work in partnership with the customer during a CSAT study – we have found this to be a good approach given the sensitive nature of this exercise and also provides some comfort to the end client.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Anybody who surfs online has, at some point or the other, used Wikipedia. And maybe you use it several times a week. But how much do you really know about the world’s leading online encyclopedia?

I have used Wikipedia first at college and later at work and consider myself quite an expert on how to work with and around the website. Here are some of my suggestions to get the most from your favorite encyclopedia:

1. Google Maps and Wikipedia: Did you know that Google Maps comes with a Wikipedia layer? Try this out by clicking on the menu on the top right of your Google Maps page and selecting Wikipedia.
2. Better search results: In addition to the usual search shortcuts such as double quotes and hyphens, Wikipedia offers a few more tricks. Add an asterisk (*) to a search term to pull up all results containing the word. Use a tilde (~) to access “fuzzy” search results – useful when you don’t know the exact spelling (happens when you’re dreaming in class).
3. Publish your very own Wikipedia book: Arrange Wikipedia articles into a book by selecting ‘Create a book’ under the Print tab on the left side of the page. Add appropriate Wikipedia articles into a book and then download it as a pdf.
4. 4. Mobile Wiki: Go mobile by using the ‘lite’ version of Wikipedia. Use http://en.m.wikipedia.org/ for a better reference option when you are on the go.
5. Leave out distractions: Dozens of links in a Wikipedia page may make it too distracting to read. Simply make the page a printable version by clicking on the option under the Print tab on the left menu.

Have fun trying out these new tricks and let me know if you have anymore.

Popularity: 35% [?]

The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) in association with MarketingProfs conducted a research study in 2011 on the changing field of B2B content marketing, with quite interesting results. The resulting report, “B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends,” is extensive and exhausting covering the entire gamut of content from social media to sales collateral.
While we always knew that social media is becoming a priority in marketing, the report shows that it has quickly overtaken other media forms with article creation and social media and blogs currently used by 79%, 74% and 65% of B2B marketers, respectively. Content also continues to be king with a quarter of the B2B marketing budget devoted specifically to content.
Interestingly, among the content collateral that showed an increased adoption rate were blogs and whitepapers. And while video is not strictly content, it was the third most widely used channel attesting to the growing popularity of podcasts and Youtube channels.
And for those companies that do not yet take social media seriously, statistics show every social media channel is seeing increased adoption, often by 15-20% in B2B marketing. And while marketers still consider in-person events and webinars to be the most effective distribution or communication channels, blogs and case studies are also ranked pretty high.
So, do you think content marketing is overlooked by B2B companies? And can you think of any ways to strategically market them?

Popularity: 35% [?]

Why this kolaveri di? A” bordering on the inane” song from a soon to be released tamil movie with music composed by a young 21 year old debutant has opened a whole new debate on the power of viral marketing.
This is why- as I sit down to write this blog, the song has been downloaded over 2 million times on youtube within a week of its release, it has been trending on twitter for the last six days and has over a million shares on facebook- the song has not only become popular in India, but also across the globe.
I first heard this song on the day it was released officially as a single- I found it was strangely appealing and showed the video to my teenaged daughter and she loved it. She has it on her ipod and has promptly marketed it to her friends! In the next few hours I saw many of my facebook friends, including one or two of Prayag clients, sharing the video. I said, alright, this song is really making an impact. Before I know it, it is everywhere.
Of course, there are some detractors, but there is no doubt that it has become a huge rage. I see some comments on facebook saying- oh, all this is the power of viral marketing. Being in the business, I thought to myself- I wish it were so simple!
For any content to go viral, it needs to appeal to a wide cross section of audience. And to achieve that is not as easy as it seems, believe me! The interesting thing about kolaveri is that it did not set out to impress this huge audience. It is a simple, unpretentious attempt to create a fun song that would appeal to tamil youth- what it has ended up doing is catch the imagination of youth all across, as the lyrics are in “a version of English”,  and also win over older people because of its honest and fresh approach.
The team behind the song has been clearly taken by surprise, but is now going all out to make the most of it- online chats, prime time interviews, exclusive video interviews, front page on mainstream and business dailies- you name it and they are there.
To me the biggest takeaway as a marketer is that content should be honest, and be right for the audience. Also don’t try too hard. But, be ready to cash in if the viral effect does kick in.
PS: My writing was interrupted by a call from my mother- she said, what is that song, kolaveri, I pestered your sister to play it for me. And, on twitter Junior Bachchan follows his father in acknowledging the song.
Is there a need to say more? Instead, go watch the video if you haven’t already

Popularity: 36% [?]

It’s a sign of how much things have changed. In an age of instant information and online self-publishing, webcomics are fast becoming popular with an increasingly web-savvy audience. I’ve always considered myself a staunch loyalist to the ageless, paperback Marvels comics and not to mention an eternal fan of Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes series. But Matthew Inman’s “The Oatmeal” or Allie Brosh’s “Hyperbole and a Half” are just some examples of a completely new breed of comics that use a strange mix of childish drawings and diabolical dialogs… that are far from the norm, and yet good enough to be right up there with the best comics!

Which brings me to this… Brosh’s and Inman’s successes lie in the fact that they relate to their audience. They have a knack in figuring out what makes them laugh and then provide them with just that. They use their audience’s language, talk about what makes them click and attempt to be one of them. Mostly importantly, they don’t mind trying out new and weird things and they make full use of a new-age internet platform to be seen, heard and go viral.

And so it should be with the corporate world or any organization for that matter.

Relate to your customers, know what they want and need and put yourself in their shoes. And above – be different from the others. Easier said than done, but it’s not always about churning out innovative products and services. Rather what we need to do is to find those little ways to separate our products or service apart from the herd, and entice customers with just that. Because ultimately it’s our customers that have a final say in determining if we’re good enough for them, or not.

There’s a lesson to be learnt here. Who would have thought a webcomic would set me on this train of thought… but there you have it!

Popularity: 35% [?]

Many new-fangled phrases about technology releases are being bandied about – you would have heard of consumerization of IT, social computing, analytics and what not. What is achievable with these new technologies is quite amazing both for businesses and consumers. The consumer world has never been as spoiled for choice before. Consider this – smart and smarter devices, multiple forms of communication and collaboration tools, intelligent buildings and so on. And now there is Siri. Apple as usual has managed to get a headstart by introducing this really cool piece of technology. For the uninitiated, Siri in layman’s terms is a virtual personal assistant that operates on voice based commands and is available on latest versions of the iphone. Here’s more – you can command Siri to perform tasks using natural language. Apple has a demo on its site – apparently, if you ask Siri, what is the traffic like at this point, it identifies your location and then figures out the traffic in that neighbourhood and gives you an update. How cool is that?

Yesterday, I happened to see a demo of Kinect and my first thought was that the holodecks of Star Trek is no longer a fantasy. Guess it is only a matter of time before we start seeing them.

On the social side, much has been discussed about the power of social media – be it to fuel the Egypt revolution or in other parts of the Middle East/West Asia.

On the business side, context specific help can be made available through specially designed eyepieces. With these, workers can diagnose and resolve problems much more effectively. The possibilities are countless and am not even going to get started on using smart devices at work to improve productivity and so on. Those seem like basic uses suddenly.

Have you come across any technology that you have used and which has made a difference? Do share – will be interesting to compare notes.

Popularity: 28% [?]