Digital Marketing in India: What's wrong?

Recently, two events happened. First,  I got a call from a prominent Digital Marketing agency. During the conversation, the Delivery Head (yes, she is in-charge of project delivery) stressed that their agency operated on a pay-per-performance model (she also assumed that after 2 years of MBA I did not know what that meant). What struck me though was what happened next. She stated that they got paid for (they advised companies that the below mentioned points meant better ROI):

• The number of followers on Twitter
• Number of fans on Facebook
• Number of visits on site

Secondly, I read a post on SEOMoz , a company who I think are at the forefront of Digital Marketing.The post read " Senior Marketers Need Greater Accountability", and what followed was what Senior marketers were doing wrong. The post spoke about how Senior Marketers are focusing on simply a Time on site and Page views, rather than on conversions.

Any decent Social Media Expert/Evangelist.. will tell you that what The Indian Digital Marketing agency described as ROI is absolutely wrong. They will also tell you about the wisdom of the post on SEOMoz.

Here's what I think is wrong with the Indian Digital Marketing scenario:

• No focus on conversions: A lot of sites simply sit without basic SEO being done. Also, websites are still seen as brand awareness machines
• No real understanding of social media: Followers and fans are being construed as ROI which is not the case
• No goals or purpose: Most senior marketers are unsure as to what the real goal of a website should be.

What I think is:

• Conversions not page views are king
• Social Media is an influence engine
• Number of Followers and Fans  can never be a true count of your popularity (Read Anil Dash's great post on this)
• Content is king, especially benefit-oriented and written top down (Nobody really cares about challenges! Simply because if they aren't facing a challenge why are they looking for a solution)
• Social Media has way more usage than simply gaining fans/followers. It can be used for
• Support: Real-Time
• Trend analysis and tracking
• Brand influence and awareness
• Feedback tracking
• Flash marketing campaigns
• Collateral distribution for free and much more..
•  Tracking:  I can easily tell what my link activity has been for the past 8 months or so
• Mobile is the next big thing, but how many companies have mobile enabled websites
• Multi-lingual sites: How many opportunities do we miss because of this?

Digital Marketing has a long way to go in India. From what I've seen, we really need a tectonic plate shift in terms of what really Online Marketing can do.

Digital Marketing in India: What's wrong?

Google maps- In the air

Having just got through 10 hours of flying in a week, I had a lot of time to mull over things.

The first thing that struck me was the bland map display on most airlines. I've noticed this while traveling on Singapore Airlines, and to my disappointment, things haven't changed much. Kingfisher Airlines, one of the few airlines in India with in-flight entertainment, has the same old bland map.

The above picture is just an example(source: www.restromania.com)

Which got me thinking. Why not have Google Maps in-flight also. With their superior features, and great geo-location facility, looking at that bland map could actually become exciting.

Here's how:

• While traveling on a train , a airline passenger can see cities/towns he's crossing. He could do the same while flying
• This could also be an educational supplement for children, who might learn something. Google could add some information to each city, which kids could glance at
• Google can aid tourists by providing the drive-in facility. That way, no taxi driver could cheat you when you get off at your destination
• Airlines can benefit by adding information about other cities they connect to, while you fly over them

Juts my thoughts.

Google maps- In the air

What if Search engines didn't exist

I'm an avid surfer, and browse through numerous sites a day. I spend a lot of time looking up things, and am overtly dependent on search engines. It just struck me as to how it would affect me, or a billion other people if search engines didn't exist. So here's a case study on a search done without a search engine.

Search Term: Trekking in India

Problem

Find out the web address for trekking agency(s) in India

Approach

I started doing what I would normally do if looking for an address in the real world: look in the phone directory, or in this case look into internet directories. By the way, please remember that you don't go looking for directories you have never heard of. I applied the same approach; I only knew of Google Directory and Dmoz, and thus I only searched on these sites

Results

•  Google: The screen shots will tell you that I ended up with nothing

Home Page- Google Directory

 Category Page (I clicked on Hiking)

  Hiking Page

• 
  
  
   Dmoz: Failed again (Screenshot below)
  
  
  
  

 Hiking Page (Similar page resulst as Google)

Inference

1.  If search crashes on the internet, we are lost (people might argue that this will never happen but I'm just exploring the hypothetical case that it does)
2. Internet directories aren't the best. In fact they are unfriendly to a great extent and did not inspire a lot of confidence in me
3. These directories are a repository of information as submitted by people, website omners etc. There is no validity or logic to all the data.
4. Long live Google, Bing and all the other search engines. Simply cause if they crash, or cease to exist, the web would collapse.
5. Search engines have made us dependent; dependent on them for even looking for the simplest things for which we earlier had another search engine called Friends' reference
6. It does make sense distributing pamphlets with your web address on it
7. It makes even better to give your web address out along with tissues :) (Visit Japan to experience this)

What if Search engines didn't exist