Monday, November 11, 2013

Corporate Event Management Techniques

Top 4 Techniques That Make Corporate Event Management Easy

Corporate events are a best option to effectively improve your brand and company image in the eyes of targeted audience. A mismanaged and messed up event could affect your company image, so when you are planning another corporate event; think about hiring an expert or at least use the techniques they suggest. These techniques could add to your corporate event ROI and cut down manual workload in spur-of-the-moment, also increasing your revenue and attendance.

So, keep these techniques in mind to make your corporate event management easy:

Online Corporate Event Registration & Payment

Sharp and efficient corporate event management companies suggest for making attendee registration payment online and automated. Going online not only helps the attendees but also corporate event organizers. Event attendees can register at any point of time, and directly connect through your website. Tailor-made online corporate event registration can enhance your event turnout. Not only this, attendees could be informed about all the developments regarding the event anytime and from anywhere. Online registration also helps you to receive payments anytime via debit cards, credit cards, cheques, POs and commonly used payment gateways like PayPal etc.

Corporate Event Promotion and Marketing Techniques

It is disheartening to see vacant seats in any event, especially it affects the corporate events management companies. It’s intimidating to see time, money and efforts getting wasted as there are no attendees or very few people present. One of the major reasons behind this could be lack of promotional activities. If your targeted audiences don’t have any information about the corporate event you are organizing then how could you assume that they would attend the same. Corporate event companies like Ascent Brand India understand the importance of promotion and marketing and they use all possible marketing tools like email marketing, early-bird pricing, social media, gift cards, discount/promo codes, and other such tools to promote their events to targeted traffic. With the advent of modern technological tools, corporate events management companies can easily send out invites to projected audiences and contact through RSVPs, email marketing and reminders.


Real Time Analysis of Corporate Event

How will you measure the success of your corporate event, if real time data is not obtainable? Real Time Data could include sales, registration percentage, logistics, attendees, event feedback and other such relevant information about event. Now things have changed as there are various real time data analysis tools that offer pre-built template and dashboards to retrieve all event related data and measure ROI in flick of a second. You can see the results on screen or can even download in different formats. These pre-built templates and post-event surveys have made corporate event reporting very simple and can save your time and money that is involved in this process.

Incorporation of ERP, CRM and LMS systems

In present advanced technological scenarios, leading CRM and LMS systems are incorporated in commonly used online corporate event management tools. These systems help in managing your leads and can even use them to offer online training. These systems not only help in keeping your event data in sync but also help in registration and online payments. These tools help in lowering the cost and enhancing the ROI.


Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Corporate Event Management In India

Importance of Corporate Event Management Company



These days companies hire experienced and professional corporate event management companies to make their simple and insipid corporate event into completely exhilarating and thrilling event to be remembered. Corporate event management companies in Delhi use their professional skills in completing the needed work regarding conceptualization, planning and executing the same. It is crucial that a qualified company take care of minutest details while planning for the ideal corporate event or party as these get-togethers helps in enhancing your business’ standing and brand image.

Ascent Brand Communications, the topmost trailblazing corporate event management company in India, organizes and plans customized corporate parties to meet all your party theme requirements and also special requests if any. They make certain that every event organized is flawless and presents an extravagant style, relaxed ambience, lavishness and suppleness for superior customer satisfaction. Whether you want a theme party or a corporate event, skilled corporate event management companies in Mumbai conceptualize and set up idyllic party environ to make the occasion special for employees and the company.

Organizing and creating corporate events can surely be demanding and nerve-racking at times but when you appoint skilled and expert event planners in India then you should be rest assured that your event will be successful as they leave no stone unturned to face any possible hindrance or distress. Some realistic advantages why corporate event management companies can ascertain to be of great significance to make any corporate event remarkable and vibrant are as discussed here:


  • While assimilating your corporate events or parties Ascent Brand Communications, a leading corporate event management company in Mumbai, employ their wide experience and learning about the field activities, which is of ultimate importance to make your event triumphant. With their skilled knowledge they can administer any event and can competently manage emergencies and tragedy. The experts are well aware and updated about venues, latest trends, vibrant and fashionable hues and other technical aspects that are needed to execute a successful corporate event. Appointing a skilled professional assures a magnificent and breath-taking corporate event.
  • Corporate houses can completely depend upon event management companies as they take up all your tasks related to corporate event with more professional attitude and keeping a close eye on perfection and superior quality. Their professional relations and planning capabilities are of enhanced benchmark from lightening, décor, power backups to floral arrangements to offer you satisfying customer service.
  • Over the period we have developed strong and lively professional relations with various customers, suppliers and buyers and this turns out to be important for the success of your corporate party and to build a vivacious and dynamic ambience. In addition to this professional event management companies in Delhi give numerous reasons as why it is vital to hire an event management company while planning an event as they have deep insight and knowledge about this industry. They give timely deliveries and with less efforts in the said duration of time.
  • While conceptualizing and planning for a corporate event or party, companies might come across difficult situations or last minute crisis but with a professional event management company in India all these emergency situations can be handled smoothly. While handling such urgent situations, a professional event planning company ensures that they don’t get in the way of your enjoyment, giving you the best solution so that your event is a success.


Hiring professional and knowledgeable corporate event management companies in India can provide you with superior quality services. Organizing a well planned and conceptualized event with the help of skilled Event Management Company is far better than hosting an event that has hiccups and crisis solutions. For planning any corporate event you should hire and trust a well-known and experienced event planner like Ascent Brand Communications Pvt. Ltd.

Add zeal and elegance to your corporate event or party by hiring a corporate event management company in India. The skilled team of professionals at ascentgroupindia.com ensures to offer you the best quality and unique ideas to organize a flawless corporate event.


Monday, October 14, 2013

Rural Marketing India

Rural Marketing and Ascent Brand Communications


Rural marketing in India has witnessed an exceptional growth in the span of last few years since the urban markets are getting saturated due to overflow of brands. Ascent Brand Communications, one of the leading rural marketing companies in India, is giving progressive and advanced services in the fields of Rural Communication, Brand Management, Rural Distribution Management, Rural Marketing, Advertising, Promotions, Rural Research, and other related services.

Due to the far-reaching impact of media, consumers in rural India are very well aware about various products and brands. In the current economic scenario almost 50% of India’s GDP and around 70% of the country’s population comes from rural India. Per capita GDP in rural part of the country is growing at a faster rate as compared to the urban areas. So the companies cannot take any chances to ignore the consumers residing in rural India.

Being the topmost innovative and committed rural marketing company in Delhi, we offers back-to-back rural marketing services in the country. Foreseeing the vital importance for companies to reach out to rural markets, we have shaped up the proficiency in rural marketing and rural communication in India, even before other organizations could think about it.

Rural marketing is a challenging task in itself that’s why most of the companies are finding it difficult to evaluate and capture rural markets. New companies may face some roadblocks like under developed markets, sparingly located and populated villages, illiterate people, distribution and network problems, product prices in accord with rural customer base, etc.

Promotional and advertising techniques used for rural marketing differ from the ones applied in the urban areas. With the expertise and skilled resource centre and rural knowledge, We have established our self as a pioneer rural communications and rural marketing company in India.

The main objective of our rural marketing division is committed to public relations and rural communications. The wide range of services offered by Ascent Brand Communications encompass hosting and managing rural events, conducting marketing communications and rural advertising, managing and maintaining rural public relations, getting involved in rural brand management, handling rural promotions professionally and controlling rural CSR activity. Along with this we are also focusing on generating and promoting rural healthcare progress communications.

Our objective is to build a strong and positive brand image for our customers in the rural markets. Our professionals concentrate on the multi-pronged approach that forms the foundation for any rural marketing campaign. While designing any rural marketing campaign it is really important that marketing plans and the driving force of communication techniques are developed as per the requirements of a particular rural market.

First and the foremost requirement of rural marketing and rural communication is to conduct an analysis and research the behavioral patterns of the rural customers and understand how local and rural traditions affect their thinking. Realizing the significance of these traditions is important as they directly impact rural promotion drives like street plays, fairs, rural events, community programs, video shows, and advertisements in specific magazines, local newspapers or regional TV channels. At Ascent Brand Communications, we develop rural marketing and rural communication activities on the basis of what the rural customers are looking for and relate to and are customized to suit the requirements of specific rural audience.

Ascent Brand Communications endeavors to plan all rural communication and rural marketing campaigns for rural India in way to attain maximum benefits for its customers.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Marketing Fundamentals: Above the Line & Below the Line

Scope of Above the Line & Below the Line Techniques


The Art of Marketing explores ones creativity to advertise/ build a brand / sell a product or a service. And amazingly, there is a hypothetical line to distinguish between the kinds of marketing tactics one opts for.

Normally organizations market or promote their products in various ways. All these efforts fall under either of these two types:

Below the line (BTL) is an advertising tactic that is normally used in organizational business and marketing communications. This marketing technique uses less conventional ways to promote a product or service than the usual particular channels of advertising used in above the line (ATL). BTL may comprise of activities like direct email campaigns, building public relations and sales promotions for which one has to pay an agreed amount of fee and is charged up front.

Whereas Above The Line is an advertising tactic which is done through different media including TV, cinema, radio, print, banners and search engines.

BTL normally focuses on one-to-one communication which is mostly done through emailing campaigns or direct mails, a lot many times using the list of highly targeted customers to increase response rates.

Most of the marketing strategies fall under the categories of Above the Line (ATL) and Below The Line (BTL). Both these advertising techniques indicate the diverse nature of promotional activities performed by organizations.

In other simple words one can say that ATL marketing tactics are the promotional activities that performed with the help of mass media. In normal terminology advertising and all other remaining forms of marketing promotions fall under the category of ATL techniques and only direct marketing falls under Below The Line category.

Though there is another terminology that exists which is called Through The Line (TTL).  On the whole TTL points out all the activities that performed to integrate both ATL and BTL.

One will not find a clear academic definitions for both ATL and BTL terms in the marketing text books as these two techniques do not form a part of the core marketing concepts.

Bothe these marketing jargons Above The Line and Below The Line are focusing on one word and that is “LINE”. Thus it becomes important to realize the meaning of the word LINE used both these terms in order to see where these two marketing techniques differ.

Amusingly there is no clear meaning give for the word LINE and is taken as a hypothetical term as result there no clear demarcation boundary that prevails between ATL and BTL.

According to Mr. Michael John Baker, the term came into existence in the year 1954 when Procter & Gamble paid advertising agencies differently from the ones who undertook marketing promotional activities other than advertising. Since then marketers have started to demarcate promotional activities under a different head termed as Below the Line Promotion.

Below The Line marketing promotions comprise of consumer promotions, PR, sales promotions, events, point of purchase promotions and all alternative tools that marketers take up to promote their business or products.

Honestly there is no such requirement to create hypothetical boundaries like ATL and BTL as both these marketing techniques are needed to promote a business. In the current economic scenarios, ATL promotional marketing is used to build a brand with an objective to generate a mind share in the market whereas BTL is being used to generate customer loyalty and repeat sales. ATL promotions are designed for mass audience while BTL targets at an individual level of a customer depending on his requirements and liking. ATL marketing promotions are difficult to measure but on the other one can BTL promotions in terms of sales and feedback. IT also offers a valuable insight on return on investments to the marketers. BTL is more targeted and customer focused thus making it more cost effective and efficient for businesses.

Monday, September 30, 2013

BTL Companies in India

The increasing scope of BTL advertising in India

In marketing lingo, on-the-ground events and promotions are called 'brand activation', and they generally form the largest chunk of a company's non-advertising activities. Spurred by brand activation spends, called below-the-line (BTL), are gaining share over advertising spends at several leading consumer companies.

With increasing choices, the consumer has become more discerning therefore, ground activations are gaining traction due to the added impact they give beyond the media clutter."

Today, consumers have started saying, 'show me something real. All this is translating into more business for brand activation companies in India and help them with their brand-activation strategies. Clients are questioning the delivery from plain advertising as it has its limitations and delivery from brand activation is almost immediate. It is predicted that, in the next five years, the split between BTL and ATL (above-the-line, or advertising) spends will be equal. Currently, companies spend more on mass-media advertising than on events and promotions but advertising budgets will not fall in absolute terms; rather more of the incremental allocation will be to BTL activities. Overall spends on BTL will significantly rise as people begin to see its impact.

The online marketing and social media conveys details of a product quicker than conventional advertising. The influencing touch points are shifting. The customer comes armed with his own research. So, conversion with demo and explanation has become an area of great focus.
It's also the current tight business environment, where advertising symbolizes 'theme' and BTL representing 'sales'. In a tough market, cash flows are an imperative. Thus people are putting their big bucks on BTL, and money is certainly moving from theme to scheme.
The basic idea is to engage with the consumer despite the higher costs. In case of traditional advertising on television or print, cost per contact is very low. BTL activation is costlier, but it's the quality of engagement with the consumer that makes a lot of sense.

Many big companies have been relying heavily on BTL activities in tier-II and tier-III towns. With rural consumers increasingly moving towards branded products, just leveraging mainstream media is not enough to connect with them.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

CRM Channels In India

Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM): Importance of Different Channels


In our previous article we discussed the importance of Customer Relationship Marketing for any business. After analyzing the intellectual usage of Customer relationship marketing, it is difficult to visualize how a marketing division can sustain without it. The potentiality of CRM is literally eternal.

In this article we will discuss about the different channels used in India through which customer relationship marketing can be enhanced. These channels help you to build a brand and an image in the market. As a result of these efforts you will be able to add a list of loyal customers who like to talk about your products or services. These six channels are:
  • Customer service

  • Content

  • Social media

  • Email

  • Customer Loyalty Programs

  • Surveys


Here we explain how these specific channels can be used in your business. The businesses that give priority to customer relationship marketing have been fully rewarded for their efforts.
1-Customer Service – Regardless of the advent of technology into customer relationship marketing, the personal support and attention will always form the basis of remarkable customer service. Reciprocity and personalization are two major keystones for an outstanding customer support. To accomplish these objectives, it’s really important to establish a balance that aligns employees with proper demarcated aims and guidelines. Always remember that the businesses who are pioneers in offering in comparable customer service have this aim embedded in their business culture, so you should also ensure that you should also make efforts and invest in employees who realize the importance of customer support.

2-Content – Everyone around is talking so much about Content Marketing. However there is a reason behind this. The traditional paid advertising or marketing revolved around letting the customers know about your products or services or may be getting clicks for your business through online mediums. As soon as you stopped investing money in these marketing channels, the results also stopped.
On the contrary, by the help of content marketing you can make long-term relations with your customers. It should not be viewed in the light of traditional marketing expenditure as the returns on investment made on unique and informative content will be last till the time the information is related and significant.

Although content is just not limited to customer acquisition. You can also use content as a support system for customer relationship marketing. Webinars, support documentation and free resources can promote your content to customers if it is: 

  • Comprehensible
  • Usable
  • Functional
  • Motivational
  • Enjoyable

Content marketing explains customers why they should do things, how to do and what things they should do.

If your content is not explaining these three points to your customers then you need to re-evaluate your content marketing channel.

3-Social Media – With its far-reach, social media can be a very useful channel for customer relationship marketing.
There can be multiple methods to use social media to develop strong relationships with your customers, all of which are required to correctly display your products’ brand values. You can use this channel to build trust and prestige among your customers and to successfully resolve any issues or problems related with customer service.

At the same time if your business doesn’t serve to professional business requirements then you can even use it to connect with your customers through interactive aids and humor. Social media helps in customer relationship marketing as it let you to identify your target audience and informs you about what services they are looking out for. If your efforts are making you a part of your customers social media circuit then maintain the place by offering them with the apt content that they really need.

4-Email
 Marketing – Since years email marketing has proved to be the strongest medium to build customer relationships. Add in this channel by providing free informative content and product updates through emails. A regular flow of unique and usable content assures that your campaign is meeting its objectives which the companies haven’t been able to achieve through social media and ad displays.

Email marketing can prove a boon for small businesses as an opt-in email list ends up in building long-term relationships with customers and prospects.


5-Customer Loyalty Programs – Generating long-lasting loyalty programs for your customers is not an easy job but the success of these programs makes it more significant irrespective of the efforts and hard work involved in it.
As with each facet of customer relationship marketing, developing an excellent loyalty program begins through understanding the needs of your customers and what they intend to do in turn to achieve it.

Here’s a 3-step sum-up of how to create a customer loyalty program to meet his needs:
  1. Come up with an advantageous and useful result. Customers will never entrust any loyalty program till the time they find the results to be useful. Extra bonuses or add-ons for your services or products can help you to achieve Additional access or bonuses for your product can be time-taking but many a time’s freebies perform best.
  2. Detect an action customers will repeatedly perform. You can add a reward for simply buying the products for e.g. getting a bonus on a referral.
  3. Ensure this program is in line with your business. The loyalty program should be designed while keeping the business objectives in mind and it should revolve around your business’ modus operandi.
6-Surveys – Customer relationship marketing is about helping and informing customers regarding your products or services. Surveys have proved really important tool for this. You can use both standard and targeted micro-surveys to understand needs of your customers.
Market analysts state that customers are far more likely to relinquish details to companies they are familiar with, like, or trust and the information collected can be used to enhance the quality of your business and products. Surveys are the best technique to get feedback's from your customers.

Your surveys should focus on three points mainly:
  1. Intention. What is the objective behind creating this survey?
  2. Concision. Add questions that are important.
  3. Prejudice. Is this clearly communicating with customers?

When you carry out quick surveys on regular basis with your old and new customers, you will end-up with informative data that you can use to assess your products or services.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Customer Relationship Marketing

What is Customer Relationship Marketing?


As techopedia.com defines Customer Relationship marketing is a business process in which client relationships, customer loyalty and brand value are built through marketing strategies and activities.

Concentrating on customer loyalty, client retention and developing long-term relations with the existing and new customers is known as customer relationship marketing or CRM. It is designed to build strong associations with customers by directly offering them customized information as per their requirements, desires and interests. CRM permits companies to build long term associations which helps in streamlining the corporate performance of any business. It encompasses commercial and customer-specific business strategies through advertising, marketing planning, relationship development and employee training.


As contrasted with Transactional marketing which concentrates on direct sales, customer relationship marketing lays stress on enhancing word-of-mouth marketing, repeat business and an eagerness on the client’s side to offer information to the company. This process begins readily through an opt-in by the clienteles.

But is it worthwhile to create a relationship with customers in this manner? As the strategists point out that the actual reality behind the brand loyalty is that most of the customers do not want to be engaged with a particular product or brand but their main concern is about shared values related to different products.

The secret behind customer relationship marketing process is not related to the engagement of customers with products or brands but is linked to the practical usability of the same with your business and clients.

The results of a management study conducted by Robin Buchanan and Crawford Gillies states that the enhanced profitability linked with customer relationship marketing is based on a number of
Customer Relation Marketing
Customer Relation Marketing
factors:

  • Content, happy and long-term customers in any business’ marketing funnel are statistically less likely to change to other brand or product. Price changes also don’t have much effect on their brand loyalty. Market experts say that if customers feels, their needs are taken care of then they are less anxious about the pricing of a product. Effective customer relationship marketing stops customers from switching over to the competition.
  • Word-of-mouth activity plays a very important role in customer relationship marketing. Stronger relationships with your customers will help you build your referral promotion as, a satisfied customer will surely refer your business or product to a relative or friend. Your business’ Net Promoter Score gets better with customer relationship marketing.
  • Your regular customers form the strong pillars for your business. Regular customers normally buy your products more often and can be maintained with much ease as they are familiar with your business and the processes behind it.
  • Long-term relationships with your customers also help in expansion of your business. As per the experts the long associated customers are expected to buy your old products and will also be keen about your new launches. Customer relationship marketing actually reduces the risk of business expansion.
  • Customer relationship marketing also helps you to save on the cost of acquisition of new customers. Retaining an old customer will be less expensive as compared to acquiring a new customer. Business or products that have high number of satisfied customer are not affected by the cost of acquisition and have high retention rate.

Experts also point out that businesses which have opted for strong brand loyalty measurements are far more equipped as compared to their competitors and can survive even in turbulent market conditions. Their business doesn’t get much affected by new competing products.

Last but not the least, businesses which have high quality customer retention metrics also makes jobs of their employees easier and more content, thus reducing your workforce’s stress and makes them more competent.