zahir.in » December 2007 – 2

Relationship Marketing: Business Blogs are the Key

Malay Shah — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:36:38 +0000

Relationship Marketing. You’ve often heard the term used, but were never really certain what it meant. It does sound kind of touchy feely, doesn’t it?

Really all it means, however, is building good long term customer relations through interpersonal communication. Relationship marketing looks at customers and clients over a longer term. It takes into account the lifetime value of a customer. Many experts think it costs anywhere from six to ten times as much, to find a new customer, than to sell to an existing one. With those financial realities in mind, the approach makes some sense, and some real dollars.

Relationship marketing is based on the idea that people prefer to do business with people who they know and like. After all, it’s easier to buy from a friend, than from someone you’ve never heard of before. It’s a matter of building trust. It’s said that people need to hear an offer at least seven times before they buy. That concept certainly works against the single step marketing method.

That is where a business blog can be really helpful. A reader can be reached seven times with ease, and many more times besides, through the blogging interaction. As you write your daily blog entries, your readers get to know you and your business on a more personal level. Your blog begins that all important relationship with your prospects and current customers. You have started a blogging conversation.

As they read about your daily business activities, your problem solving ideas, your business advice, and your various products, they begin to think of themselves as a part of the company.In fact, they are!

Your existing customers will remain loyal to your business, through the regular personal contact of your blog. Your customers will not only stay loyal, but they will often bring tons of valuable referral business to your company. Happy customers are your best marketing friends. They will become customer brand evangelists for your business and its products and services.

By creating a business blog, you can develop strong bonds with your existing and future customers. Instead of treating them as numbers, you have formed a long term relationship with them. By means of the interaction created by the blog, you have helped them become part of the business process. They are not simply customers or consumers, but an integral part of the company. Their purchases, of your products and services, are a natural response to your blog entries.

It is certainly not a one step sales system! Creating a relationship with your customers and clients doesn’t just pay off financially for your company. It is also rewarding personally for you; and for them. Start your blog and build those long term relationships. You’ll be glad you decided to utilize a business blog for your relationship marketing. The results will last a lifetime!

Compare Prices with PriceAdvance

Vishaal S Shah — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:09:31 +0000

The PriceAdvance Plugin for Firefox, in beta currently, finds better prices for the products you’re already viewing on any one of their supported merchant sites (Amazon.com, Buy.com, BestBuy.com, or CircuitCity.com).

It’s an easy way to compare prices available of various other sites like buy.com, walmart, J&R, Overstock, etc. It’s simple and easy to install.

After installing the PriceAdvance FireFox addon, browse to a product page on one of sites mentioned above and a list of merchants and prices will appear top left. These are the other merchants with the product you’re already browsing, sorted by price.

For example, when I browsed to the page of Canon Digital Rebel XT Digital SLR camera on Amazon.com, the PriceAdvance searched the same product on J&R, buy.com and computers4sure.com with the prices sorted. You can then click on any of the compared product links and see the product details.

To install firefox plugin Click Here

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Vishaal S Shah — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:53:24 +0000

It’s a hectic day. You are 40 minutes late for an important meeting and stuck in an annoying traffic-jam, drumming your finger impatiently on your car steering wheel, just waiting to zoom off ahead of the cheeky driver who overtook you at the signal. Suddenly, a familiar “jingle bells” floats from his car radio and before you know it you are humming along and even smile and wave as you pass him by.

Christmas is in the air!

Come December and you are no longer the same. Because there is something about this season that is truly magical. No matter which part of the world you are in. Something that makes one feel happy and generous and full of love and brotherhood and forgiveness! It is as if all the irritations and pressures that hound you year around disappear during this magical season. And all you want to do is to smile blissfully and spread joy to the world.

Think Christmas. Think snowflakes, Xmas trees, snow sledges, mistletoes, carols, silver bells, reindeer and of course, Santa Claus with his big bag of goodies! Though we never really have any of these in India, having grown on a staple diet of popcorn and re-run Christmas miracle movies on HBO and Star Movies.

Xmas is always picture perfect to me! So I may not have snowflakes outside my window, but there will always be the dreams of Santa making my wishes come true!

360 degree Solutions for Enaltec Labs

Vishaal S Shah — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:30:31 +0000

How do you make a world class API suppliers look passionate about what they do and yet appear non-pharma like?How do you capture their spirit of creation without sounding clichéd?

How do you provide a 360 degree solution that reflects their core values?

Enaltec Labs is a company driven by a group of young, raring-to-go professionals with a passion for innovation. The challenge for PHI was to not just conceptualize and evolve a strong brand identity for Enaltec Labs in terms of design and outlook but also to carry the flavor across its various mediums of communication – right from house styling to corporate brochure to website.

The genesis of the new brand identity for Enaltec Labs started with its new logo design. Inspired from the concept of five elements that create life, we designed this logo keeping in mind the company’s values, ethos and its great work. A five-spiked star with each spike representing one of the elements of nature and as a whole signifying ‘creation’. Fashioned in five bright colors, this logo emerges like a bright colored star with a promising fire within.

The website carries forward this concept with menu function categorized thematically on nature’s 5 elements. A subtle play of flash animation coupled with brilliant design treatment takes the website to a new aesthetic level.

The brochure recreates the magic of this concept, displaying all the five elements together on its cover page, with each inner page taking further on one of the element. The house styling does complete justice to adaptation of this new identity. From visiting cards to letter heads and envelopes, each is as fresh as the energy behind Enaltec Labs. Successfully adapting a common theme across different platforms is what truly makes this a milestone project for us.

For website visit www.enalteclabs.com and to see brochure work click on the following.