Social Bookmarking and it's compititive advantages

Although the concept of shared online bookmarks dates back to 1996, the term social bookmarking is a relatively new and was first used in 2003 by Delicious web service. The term 'tagging' is also associated with social bookmarking. Using social bookmarking, users can search, save, manage, and organize web pages/websites for sharing or for remembering. With the rising number and growing popularity of online book marking services, social book marking is also called social book marketing. Over time, book marking services have proven to be excellent tools for online marketing. When combined with Search Engine Optimization, social book marking can be the key to success of online marketing campaigns.

Higher rankings by search engines facilitate brand awareness. The primary objective behind search engine optimization is thus, to ensure better rankings, and thus, social book marking has emerged as an effective tool for providing back links and getting higher traffic, which in turn help in securing better Search Engine Rankings. Bookmarks represent links through tagging. Unlike a hierarchical structure, tagging is done through a bottom-up method, which create many broad categories to fit in the links. As a result, the users can assert the metadata adding relevance to the links. This equates the marketing appeal as a 'word of mouth' campaign, in which friends and families validate the quality of the product/service.

Just like keywords tags and the links they are attached to are indexed simultaneously by search engines. As a result, content supplied by you adds the links with the appended keywords. Thus, along with getting links from websites with heavy traffic frequency, you also get links from websites that are relevant. Once you start getting links from big book marking websites, your website will automatically get indexed by the web spiders of all major search engines.

Apart from providing SEO benefits, social book marking can be a very good marketing tool in itself. Viral marketing campaigns can be very successful using these kinds of web services since the ranking of the bookmarked links depends on the ratings by the users. SEO firms tend to count on the well known users in order to get their assertions for the web pages/services included in book marking sites. Sometimes, this might pose some risk if the service/product receives negative reviews from the authoritative users. Moreover, there is a risk of getting branded as a spammer if the users find the submitted links to be irrelevant. All this makes optimization a tricky business!

In spite of some risks, the importance and benefits of online marketing through social book marking has proven to be phenomenal over the years.

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Basics for Email Marketing Strategy

It has become increasingly more difficult to promote a business using e-mail marketing. Spam clogs up in-boxes and most people are quick to delete without reading the deluge of mail they receive.

Nonetheless, e-mail marketing, if done correctly, can be an inexpensive and quick way to reach a large audience. The key is to get people to want to receive your mailings.

• email has increased liability compared to other marketing tactics
• email is the most cost effective means of communicating with prospects
• The many stages of the email funnel
• you must consider the life time value of customers that convert through email
• you must offer something of value to build your email list
• a generic email list is of little value
• The difference between good and bad sign-up forms
• to collect email addresses and grow your list
• to manage your email marketing list
• you should avoid abusing the blind carbon copy
• bulk email programs are not desirable
• an email header is and why you should understand its purpose
• to ensure that your email messages are not blocked by an ISP
• to write emails that avoid the appearance of spam
• to pay for an email service provider
• to choose the day and time to send your email
• you should offer a means for changing email preferences
• the "from" line in your emails should be your company name
• personalized emails are opened at a much higher rate
• to take advantage of the content preview text
• many characters your subject line should contain
• to craft an engaging and honest subject line
• The two questions to ask to create a subject line
• to conduct a subject line test to increase open rates
• schedule the first and second follow ups
• respond immediately after received any feedback, queries, complaint etc.
• call to action should be properly visible and redirected well designed landing page

For more in-depth knowledge about email marketing please visit here

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Online Pharmaceutical marketing the new wave

Online Tools & Techniques Strategies for reaching today’s Health Care Consumers

The direct to consumer pharmaceutical marketing landscape was much straight forward ten years ago. This day’s consumer shift to new online media and technology, especially for health and pharmaceutical information, is transforming the game. And while they are plenty of examples of innovative digital campaigns in pharmaceutical (Lifestyle medication), the reality is that pharmaceutical marketing is struggling to keep up with the media preferences of today's healthcare consumer.

There’s a learning curve associated with the evolution of an online marketing model, and Pharmaceutical marketers have the added challenge of complying with strict regulatory guidelines and managing public and media scrutiny of DTC Online advertising. Key Factors Pushing new media to the forefront of Online Pharmaceutical Marketing. The emerging media mix and consumer’s access trend to them is changing rapidly, they have more option for obtaining news entertainment and information through available media mix.

The Digitalization has been changing marketing landscape since 2002, online health information seeking has more than doubled since 2002 and online pharmaceutical information seeking has more than tripled in the same time period and the online health resources consumers find are impacting the healthcare decisions they are making for themselves and their families.

Pharmaceutical marketers are catching on to the trends, but there's a long way to go before brand media closes the gap between where consumers are and where budgets are going, only a small fraction of overall pharmaceutical advertising spend is currently allocated to online campaigns. But as we’re seeing with our clients, consumer trends are prompting marketers to put more weight behind digital strategies.

Shifting focus to niche therapies:

As the pharmaceutical industry shifts its focus from blockbuster drugs to niche therapies, different online marketing strategies come into play. While mass media campaigns were successful in raising awareness of conditions of interest to a broad base of individuals, promoting niche drugs requires precision targeting and fostering one to one relationships with patients. Traditional broadcast media doesn't necessarily fit in well with this approach, but strategies around online social media, search marketing, behavioral targeted advertising, video podcasting and the like can help marketers target better defined audiences and engage with them on a more personal level. Example: You may have heard about the new “diet” pill Alli. Alli is a milder formulation that has been made to be purchased over the counter, launched by GSK. The online marketing campaign of alli is well known to pharmacy marketers.

Online Marketing Gimmicks and ROI:

Companies all across the board are struggling to make sense of online ROI, especially those in industries like pharmaceutical where most of the transactions take place offline, (now a day’s online pharmacy grab 20% market share for prescription and non prescription lifestyle and over the counter medication), but advancing analytics technology will provide marketers with a clearer link between digital strategies overall should help marketers to more efficiently reach a critical mass of healthcare consumers of better target those within a specific condition group. As pharmaceutical companies become more comfortable with new media, they will be better able to leverage its power to enable cost effective marketing strategies.

For more detail about Online marketing trends and its application please Refer this post: http://ksujay.blogspot.com/2009/01/online-marketng-trends-for-2009.html

So if online digital media is poised to increase its role in pharmaceutical marketing, what are some of the key points that marketers need to know to stay ahead of the curve today?

In light of where pharmaceutical marketing has come today and where it’s heading in the near future-it's critical for brand teams to be educated in the latest trends and best practices in new online media and digital marketing. Of course agency partners are valuable for providing expertise and tactical execution, but in pharmaceutical marketers don't have a solid grasp on the wide breadth of digital strategies available to them, they may be missing out on channels that are most relevant to their particular audience.

Once marketer understands their target audience's media preferences, the ball is in their court to use the knowledge to form brand strategies and campaigns. Market analyst and agency partners can guide brand teams on how to best use new channels to communicate with patients in a relevant and authentic way.

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Online marketing opportunity for Over-The-Counter (OTC) market in India

Calling the cash counters all the way, the Over-The-Counter (OTC) market in India is growing 7.7 percent and has grown steadily at a CAGR of 8.3 percent in the period 2003-2008. Valued at $3.0 billion in 2008, the market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.3 percent during 2006-2011 to touch $4.4 billion by 2011. Exhibiting a y-o-y growth which is higher than that of growth globally, Indian OTC performance could be stated as good.

Sales of OTC healthcare products remained buoyant in 2008, driven by a growing Indian economy that led to rising disposable incomes. While growth was led mainly by urban consumers, those in rural areas were not too far behind. Rural consumers increased consumption of analgesics, cough, cold and allergy remedies, while urban consumers purchased more digestive remedies and medicated skin care products. The expansion of distribution networks also led to increased penetration of OTC healthcare products.

2008 saw increasingly rapid urbanization and more hectic lifestyles (opportunity for on line marketers). The forecast period is expected to witness strong growth rates in constant value terms. The rising disposable incomes of consumers in rural and urban India is set to increase demand for OTC healthcare products. While all sectors are expected to perform well, more mature sectors, such as analgesics and digestive remedies, will grow more slowly than medicated skin care, eye care and adult mouth care. Growth in cough, cold and allergy remedies is likely to be strong, due to the effects of pollution and colder winters. Urban consumers are expected increasingly to demand products in niche areas, such as emergency contraception, Obesity, NRT smoking cessation aids, calming and sleeping products, and OTC stains

The Indian online marketing industry is getting mature day by day and provides a good online marketing solution for many business models. To find out easy and cheaper alternative channel to reach towards your potential customers is key to success for OTC product. The Online marketing for life style medication has been changed the sky in Europe and USA, India would be next destination. Pharma Marketer must sense the early call and devise their strategy for future online marketing challenges. The online marketing for OTC product in India would be a goldmine if you take early call.

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