Domain name goes Hindi...

There is good news for SMEs! The dot-Bharat domain name in Hindi is set to be launched in India by May next year, with the aim of bridging the digital divide in the country. This will enable organizations and individuals to register their website addresses in Hindi and later in more Indian local languages like Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Gujarati. This is a great opportunity for SMEs to draw a large proportion of Indians who use content on Internet but aren’t familiar with English.

Now days even if content are in local language still user need to type the URL in English. This is a large step towards developing a multi-lingual computing environment in India i.e. already proved to be a great use in countries like Japan and South Korea.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which governs domain names internationally, has allowed India to register domain names in above mentioned Indian languages.

What's in it for SMEs?

Internet is a low cost medium for SMEs to reach out to new potential markets and engage their existing customer base. The advent of e-commerce has opened up a whole new set of opportunities for SMEs. Still there are few hurdles on the way. According to 2001 Census, about 11% of the India’s population understands English, while 40% are well-versed in some form of Hindi. Also there are close to 100 million Internet users in India, in which74% are literate, according to Census 2011. Clearly there is a huge opportunity for SMEs to engage customers in a language which they are more familiar with.

Although there are other aspects too to achieve complete multi-lingual computing environment in India, like operating system, language keyboards, script sets and browser in local language. Once in place, Internet in local language will available in India over the next 10-15 years. 

 

How it will affect your business?

The domain name helps users find their way around the Internet. Every computer on the Internet has a unique address, just like a telephone number, which is a rather complicated string of numbers. It is called “IP address” (IP stands for “Internet Protocol”). IP Addresses are hard to remember. Here the domain name comes for rescue and helps user to easily remember a familiar set of alphabet (i.e. “domain name”) to be used instead of the IP address. If this domain name is available in language like Hindi which is commonly understands by a large chunk of population then it will be much easier to target them. Now SMEs can innovate and offers specific product and services which are well customized as per the requirement of regional customers, and this will help them to move from common to niche approach.

Record Your Screen and Host in on YouTube with Screenr

Many product companies, especially the one's which have products which can be used online by customers look for creating product demo videos. Though some of them get the work done by professional agencies, but most of them actually don't have the budgets to hire professional agencies to do the same. Product demo videos are generally the demo of the usage of the product with a background explanation sound.

Creating these videos, while capturing your screen has always required a setup with a video camera, editing the video etc. which again requires professional efforts for it to look fair enough online, such that your customers see it interestingly and hence engage.

Create videos with screenr
Now you can create your own product demo videos by simply recording your screen with Screenr. The software is online and there is nothing that needs to be downloaded. Moreover the same is free.

The above screen capture shows how simple it is to launch Screenr, just type the following URL in your browser: www. screenr.com and click on the "Launch screen recorder now" button. Once you do , you will reach to the following screen as shown in the screen capture below:

All you need to do is to drag the dots and select your screen size which you intend to capture and press the "red" record button. Once done, you will be able to start recording your screen with the sounds.

Once done, you can host the recording on YouTube/ other social channels, which essentially will help your customers better understand your product. Screenr helps you in greatly reducing he cost of making small and powerful product demo videos and hosting them online.

Team IndiaMART Knowledge Services is committed to enable SMEs with tools, tips and techniques to help them reach up the value chain and hence achieve the next level of growth. For more information on how you can create new opportunities for your business, drop in a comment to this post and we will get in touch with you!

Don't Have Budgets for Television, Make YouTube Work For Your Business

One of the biggest challenge with almost every Small and Medium Enterprise today is of allocating marketing budgets while leveraging the various available options to increase outreach to the relevant target audience.

The engagement factor!
Almost everyone agrees to the fact that if you see a review of a mobile phone working in front of you on a screen, rather than a piece of text reviewing it with photographs, it makes it more engaging and results in better understanding of the product and also increases the chances of the viewer taking an action, like picking up the phone and enquiring more about the product!

But TV, we don't have the budgets!
For an SME, airing a commercial on TV is out of question. With bootstrapped budgets, SMEs are bound to look out for innovative ways of reaching out and engaging their audience. But if video is the way to go, then what options do the SMEs have?

Get a branded channel on YouTube!
How about having your own video show which gets updated each week for your customers? Instead of doing Email newsletters, you o video news letters, in which you update your customers of the latest additions to business and engage them in your conversation? Well, its fairly easy to do!

Create a YouTube account!
Go to www.youtube.com and you can either create a stand-alone account on YouTube OR else login with your Gmail account. Once you are logged in, you will reach onto the HomePage, which will look as shown in the screen capture below:

On the top right corner of the screen, there will be a drop-down with your channel name, as shown in the screen capture below:

Click on the "Channel" option as shown in the screen capture above. Once you do, you will be re-directed to your personalized channel on YouTube, which will look something like as shown in the screen capture below:

To customize your channel with your own branding etc. all you need to do is click on settings in the top menu over your channel and then click on the "Themes and Colors" tab, which will show you the following screen:

You can now choose the color of your text, set the background image, by uploading any image you want from your computer. This helps you create a powerfully branded channel, which ensures that whenever your users land upto your channel, they see a properly branded YouTube channel with your videos playing!

There are many such ways with which you can create powerfully branded properties online, such that your target audience engage with your brand and communication in a streamlined and properly guided manner. To know more on how you can leverage YouTube to engage your audience, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will get connected with you!

Your Products Review Change the Game for Your Buyers: Online Buying for SMEs

With the internet changing the name of the 'buying game', product companies are changing the way they operate and manage their processes. There are many ways of generating interest and assessing the market need for a product to be launched through the online media.

Buyers Buy, what has changed?
Buyers buy! Simple! But something has changed overtime drastically and this is one change no organisation/ no seller can oversee or even think of overseeing. What has changed is the buying patterns and the buying behavior of the consumers. Today's consumer is an evolved lot. Brands today are going that extra step to engage the target audience into their messaging to ensure that they move ahead of the competitive pack and be the customer's choice.

The media has changed: there was a time when before making a big purchase, you used to call up your near and dear ones and there grew your confidence and you made the purchase. What has changed now, is the fact that internet has opened up the world to consumers.

The buying: decision making
With the power shift in consumption happening, which is driving consumption from across sections of the audience which starts from kids to females and males, companies are looking at all possible innovative methods of communicating with the target audience.

Decision making nowadays is much influenced by reviews of various products available online.

Example: if you need to buy an LCD TV, you would probably go to YouTube and search for the top LCD TV reviews, which will give you search results with all the reviews.

What should you do as a business?
As an emerging business, with low marketing budgets, you can make innovative use of YouTube and other such video uploading social networks, by creating and uploading video reviews of your products/ services. If you want to take it a step ahead, ask bloggers and other powerful content producers, who engage the audience well, to feature you on their YT channels. This mode of marketing, not only reduces down the cost of outreach for SMEs, but also creates trust and increases confidence in the end customer towards the product.

With a LIVE demo of the product on the video, a brand is actually able to show the real working of the same and hence the viewer is able to assess and see what all values can the product deliver.

There are many such online platforms available, which are benefiting the Small and Medium Enterprise segment. To know more, get in touch with the experts at IndiaMART Knowledge Services. Do drop in a comment to this post to let us know what else would you want us to share about!