For quite some time, lead generation for a product line at a leading financial services company was struggling to achieve projected growth. The powers-that-be in the company brought in Regalix, an online marketing services company, with the hope that it might be able to turn things around. Regalix’s integrated online marketing approach combined with depth in Web analytics  helped grow the lead generation for the product in a significantly short span.

Says Vikas Sharan, CEO, Regalix, “With increasing complexity of the market, working with a wide set of programs and vendors becomes cumbersome and unproductive.” It was on this premise that Regalix built its core value proposition; that of innovatively using the optimal combination of Web technology, in-depth analytics, and online marketing technologies to achieve its client’s strategic and revenue goals while maximizing RoI on the client’s marketing budget.

Clearly Regalix knows how to satisfy the big guns, as is evident from this customer quote: “Citibank views Regalix as a trusted strategic marketing partner. They have consistently delivered innovative solutions of exceptional quality over the last couple of years of our engagement. Regalix has proven experience in supporting an enterprise of our size and diversity, while respecting the stringent quality standards that we’ve set.”

Crowded Landscape
The marketing services landscape, as one would agree, is very crowded. There are traditional as well as new media players (read Internet, Web 2.0, Marketing 2.0) that build their value proposition around one particular aspect of marketing. For example, there are companies that operate in the market research area - helping clients with pre-product launches and feedback. Other marketing services companies are built around a tools perspective. Some operate in the marketing strategy arena. With the popularity of Google and Yahoo! one has seen many companies proliferate on the principle that search ‘is’ marketing. Then there are companies built around e-mail or social media marketing.

The problem here, as Sharan points out, is that none of these firms look at objectively solving the client’s marketing problems but often force-fit their services for short-term revenue, even if there is no hope of RoI on the overall marketing spend. “CMOs would have to go to different players for different marketing needs,” he says.

The Right Approach in the Internet Age
Marketing agencies should firstly understand their client’s strategic goals and existing marketing and lead generation programs. Agencies need to understand the tangible and intangible results of each marketing program and arrive at a normalized measure to compare results from each program – the RoI on program-wise spend. For example, if a company runs a TV commercial, the cost of producing and airing the commercial, and the benefit it returns by way of branding and new sales.

With online marketing, a marketer can switch on and switch off programs based on analytics and RoI. In short, the measurability and flexibility of the Internet is a marketer’s dream come true, provided he’s got the analytical rigor to make sense of all the data and dynamically respond to market feedback.

Internet is also about interactivity - with social networks, blogs, forums, Web applications, personalization, and marketing-based games. Enterprises can get customers to interact with its products and services at every stage in their purchase cycle. They can incorporate customer feedback, virally spread success stories (be warned, there’s the flip side of corporate bashing, which, if caught early and acted upon can really win customers over) and listen in on how they and their competitors are doing.

For companies like Regalix, where the team has IIT roots blended with Stanford and Wharton credentials and Fortune 500 and successful Silicon Valley startup experience, the logical thing was to set up headquarters in Palo Alto and service their global and India clients from Bangalore, Delhi, and Chandigarh. With its early start in this field, Regalix is a pioneer and today, the largest online marketing services KPO.

Comparing the progress of the marketing landscape with the IT services arena, Sharan says that like CIOs in the earlier decade, CMOs today are looking for vendors who support them end-to-end. Also, the fact that the marketing spend of companies is three times their IT spend makes an integrated player that much more desirable, and affords a tremendous revenue and growth opportunity.

Holistic and Channel Agnostic Approach
Take the case of a leading medical surgery company in the U.S.A., another Regalix client. The medical firm is engaged in providing specialized health treatments to the elderly (50-70 years). While the target group has access to the Internet, they are more likely to watch TV. Accordingly, Regalix designed a marketing framework with considerable spend on traditional media for this particular client.

Sharan Says, “We do whatever makes sense in a particular market for our customers.” His team, based out of the U.S.A. and India, believes that every marketing channel needs to be considered and integrated, i.e. figuring out how foot-falls in stores, advertisement on TV, Internet, print, and radio come together for a client’s marketing needs is what sets Regalix apart from other vendors.

When asked why a corporation would choose Regalix over another vendor, Sharan’s reply is two-pronged. Firstly, marketing principles are horizontal and apply across verticals. Secondly, Regalix has adopted a vertical strategy, having already built a fair amount of expertise in retail, technology, and financial services. “We will expand our suite of offerings and verticals as we grow our client base,” he quips.

Innovation
Take the case of a leader in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software. A couple of years ago, the company approached Regalix seeking its support in building a key differentiator as it was competing against other entrenched, large enterprise software providers. “We collaborated with them to build a vertical search engine focused on compliance,” recalls Sharan. ComplianceOnline.com today is one of the largest vertical search engines focused on GRC.

In addition, Regalix’s team of Web programmers significantly differentiates Regalix. Most competitors still apply only a traditional approach to online marketing, such as using banner ads, and miss out completely on the customizability that comes with integrating technology with online marketing.

Global Context
In a way, Regalix is unique in the market. Sharan says that even though there are players who offer end-to-end marketing services, their understanding is limited to the local and regional market. Regalix, on the other hand, understands the global marketing context.
On behalf of its clients, it aspires to optimize and not maximize media spends. In doing this it realizes that different populations respond to different media at varying degrees. That this understanding is not baseless is proved by the company’s customer profile; there is a customer from almost every major market in the world. Among its clients are large corporates such as Citigroup, Reliance, and Airtel, along with a slew of younger venture-backed companies in the U.S.A. and India.

Piece of the Pie
Unlike IT, certain aspects of marketing have always been outsourced; be it on the strategic marketing consultancy side or market research or the development of TV commercials, print ads, or other creatives using various agencies. The management at Regalix senses an openness among CEOs and decision makers on leveraging agencies for strategic marketing advice, program development, implementation, and analytics.

Agencies like Regalix also bring in a wealth of experience and cross-learnings from running large multi-channel campaigns within and across various vertical and geographical domains and are far more cost effective than in-house teams. From a corporation’s standpoint, the sensible approach is to have a lean marketing team focused on the big picture, and to leverage an integrated agency with a global delivery model, like Regalix, on program design and implementation.
For quite some time, lead generation for a product line at a leading financial services company was struggling to achieve projected growth. The powers-that-be in the company brought in Regalix, an online marketing services company, with the hope that it might be able to turn things around. Regalix’s integrated online marketing approach combined with depth in Web analytics  helped grow the lead generation for the product in a significantly short span.

Says Vikas Sharan, CEO, Regalix, “With increasing complexity of the market, working with a wide set of programs and vendors becomes cumbersome and unproductive.” It was on this premise that Regalix built its core value proposition; that of innovatively using the optimal combination of Web technology, in-depth analytics, and online marketing technologies to achieve its client’s strategic and revenue goals while maximizing RoI on the client’s marketing budget.

Clearly Regalix knows how to satisfy the big guns, as is evident from this customer quote: “Citibank views Regalix as a trusted strategic marketing partner. They have consistently delivered innovative solutions of exceptional quality over the last couple of years of our engagement. Regalix has proven experience in supporting an enterprise of our size and diversity, while respecting the stringent quality standards that we’ve set.”

Crowded Landscape
The marketing services landscape, as one would agree, is very crowded. There are traditional as well as new media players (read Internet, Web 2.0, Marketing 2.0) that build their value proposition around one particular aspect of marketing. For example, there are companies that operate in the market research area - helping clients with pre-product launches and feedback. Other marketing services companies are built around a tools perspective. Some operate in the marketing strategy arena. With the popularity of Google and Yahoo! one has seen many companies proliferate on the principle that search ‘is’ marketing. Then there are companies built around e-mail or social media marketing.

The problem here, as Sharan points out, is that none of these firms look at objectively solving the client’s marketing problems but often force-fit their services for short-term revenue, even if there is no hope of RoI on the overall marketing spend. “CMOs would have to go to different players for different marketing needs,” he says.

The Right Approach in the Internet Age
Marketing agencies should firstly understand their client’s strategic goals and existing marketing and lead generation programs. Agencies need to understand the tangible and intangible results of each marketing program and arrive at a normalized measure to compare results from each program – the RoI on program-wise spend. For example, if a company runs a TV commercial, the cost of producing and airing the commercial, and the benefit it returns by way of branding and new sales.

With online marketing, a marketer can switch on and switch off programs based on analytics and RoI. In short, the measurability and flexibility of the Internet is a marketer’s dream come true, provided he’s got the analytical rigor to make sense of all the data and dynamically respond to market feedback.

Internet is also about interactivity - with social networks, blogs, forums, Web applications, personalization, and marketing-based games. Enterprises can get customers to interact with its products and services at every stage in their purchase cycle. They can incorporate customer feedback, virally spread success stories (be warned, there’s the flip side of corporate bashing, which, if caught early and acted upon can really win customers over) and listen in on how they and their competitors are doing.

For companies like Regalix, where the team has IIT roots blended with Stanford and Wharton credentials and Fortune 500 and successful Silicon Valley startup experience, the logical thing was to set up headquarters in Palo Alto and service their global and India clients from Bangalore, Delhi, and Chandigarh. With its early start in this field, Regalix is a pioneer and today, the largest online marketing services KPO.

Comparing the progress of the marketing landscape with the IT services arena, Sharan says that like CIOs in the earlier decade, CMOs today are looking for vendors who support them end-to-end. Also, the fact that the marketing spend of companies is three times their IT spend makes an integrated player that much more desirable, and affords a tremendous revenue and growth opportunity.

Holistic and Channel Agnostic Approach
Take the case of a leading medical surgery company in the U.S.A., another Regalix client. The medical firm is engaged in providing specialized health treatments to the elderly (50-70 years). While the target group has access to the Internet, they are more likely to watch TV. Accordingly, Regalix designed a marketing framework with considerable spend on traditional media for this particular client.

Sharan Says, “We do whatever makes sense in a particular market for our customers.” His team, based out of the U.S.A. and India, believes that every marketing channel needs to be considered and integrated, i.e. figuring out how foot-falls in stores, advertisement on TV, Internet, print, and radio come together for a client’s marketing needs is what sets Regalix apart from other vendors.

When asked why a corporation would choose Regalix over another vendor, Sharan’s reply is two-pronged. Firstly, marketing principles are horizontal and apply across verticals. Secondly, Regalix has adopted a vertical strategy, having already built a fair amount of expertise in retail, technology, and financial services. “We will expand our suite of offerings and verticals as we grow our client base,” he quips.

Innovation
Take the case of a leader in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software. A couple of years ago, the company approached Regalix seeking its support in building a key differentiator as it was competing against other entrenched, large enterprise software providers. “We collaborated with them to build a vertical search engine focused on compliance,” recalls Sharan. ComplianceOnline.com today is one of the largest vertical search engines focused on GRC.

In addition, Regalix’s team of Web programmers significantly differentiates Regalix. Most competitors still apply only a traditional approach to online marketing, such as using banner ads, and miss out completely on the customizability that comes with integrating technology with online marketing.

Global Context
In a way, Regalix is unique in the market. Sharan says that even though there are players who offer end-to-end marketing services, their understanding is limited to the local and regional market. Regalix, on the other hand, understands the global marketing context.
On behalf of its clients, it aspires to optimize and not maximize media spends. In doing this it realizes that different populations respond to different media at varying degrees. That this understanding is not baseless is proved by the company’s customer profile; there is a customer from almost every major market in the world. Among its clients are large corporates such as Citigroup, Reliance, and Airtel, along with a slew of younger venture-backed companies in the U.S.A. and India.

Piece of the Pie
Unlike IT, certain aspects of marketing have always been outsourced; be it on the strategic marketing consultancy side or market research or the development of TV commercials, print ads, or other creatives using various agencies. The management at Regalix senses an openness among CEOs and decision makers on leveraging agencies for strategic marketing advice, program development, implementation, and analytics.

Agencies like Regalix also bring in a wealth of experience and cross-learnings from running large multi-channel campaigns within and across various vertical and geographical domains and are far more cost effective than in-house teams. From a corporation’s standpoint, the sensible approach is to have a lean marketing team focused on the big picture, and to leverage an integrated agency with a global delivery model, like Regalix, on program design and implementation.