Sign in to follow 's advice will appear in your account when you log in. Follow specific Community Members and never miss out on their views and insights. Build a group of Members who you want to listen to.

Email: Password:

Don't have SiliconIndia account? Sign up Forgot your password? Reset

Ask Ashok Gopalakrishnan for Advice

If your advice request is relevant to other Community members, our Editorial team may choose to send this request to all Experts to attract a wider range of answers and share them with the Community. Rest Assured, we will protect your privacy (unless you recommend otherwise).

Advice Request

Submit Cancel

Ashok Gopalakrishnan

Next Member >>

Ashok Gopalakrishnan

IBM Authorised Trainer and WebSphere Champion for 2013

Divyashree Software Engineering and Technology Inc

Ashok Gopalakrishnan is a member of:

Ashok Gopalakrishnan's Advice

Online Marketing is a future trend

Five years ago a solid email marketing strategy combined with offline marketing endeavors—like print and radio ads—would see your small business rolling along just fine in the marketing department. Today, however, the list of small business marketing tasks is both exhaustive and overwhelming. Marketing has become a whole new world with social media, email marketing, e commerce and search engine optimization to name a few. In 2013, mobile optimization and creating excellent, top-notch content are the two trends that run through all types of marketing activities. Overall, mobile is this year's exceptionally big trend, and we see it deeply tied to most aspects of online marketing.

Differences

Marketing identifies appropriate prospects, effectively communicates image and capabilities of the firm, creates awareness of,and emphasizes an appeal—a differentiation factor—about the firm, perfects customer service, requests feedback from clients on a regular basis and anticipates and meets needs. Marketing often necessitates cultural changes at every level in the firm.

Selling is:

• proactive seeking of prospects
• interacting to qualify prospects
• effective acknowledgment of the prospect’s concerns
• closing the sale—getting hired
• following up and staying in contact when not hired

Successful sellers use active listening skills and demonstrate the ability to meet the prospect’s needs by conveying competence and confidence. Sellers rely on public perception of expertise and/or excellence—a product of marketing; therefore they feel obligated to meet these expectations and to follow through impeccably.

Importance of 4ps

They are product, pricing, placement and promotion. All the 4 marketing p's are also known as "the marketing mix" furthermore are frequently used by a marketer to plot a plan, and place the foundations of fresh projects/campaigns, it is an astonishingly useful strategy that has been used ever since the early 1960's, and will be constant for as long as new-found projects/campaigns are being produced. They are extremely important for any company to grow

Motivating Factor

I would say it was the confidence in myself that has enabled me to achieve the impossible.

Marketing

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (Approved October 2007)

A company cannot grow if it is not properly marketed

Importance of On line marketing

These are some of the many advantages that online marketing offers over traditional media outlets: 1. Reduced Cost The starting cost of online marketing is only a fraction of the thousands of dollars that Yellow Pages, television and radio ads cost.2. Everything Is Measurable When you place an ad in the newspaper or a magazine, it can be difficult to assess the direct sales impact for your business. With online marketing, everything can be tracked and illustrated in detailed graphs. 3. Brand Engagement In the crowded market, you need to establish and maintain positive brand awareness and client loyalty. 4. Demographic Targeting.5. Real-Time Results With online marketing you don’t have to wait weeks to see a significant boost in your business. 6. Easily Refine Your Strategy. 7. Long-Term Exposure. 8. Product Information Today’s savvy consumers want to compare reviews and opinions of friends, trusted bloggers and industry experts before they make a decision. 9. Less Intrusive.

Future trend

Five years ago a solid email marketing strategy combined with offline marketing endeavors—like print and radio ads—would see your small business rolling along just fine in the marketing department.

Today, however, the list of small business marketing tasks is both exhaustive and overwhelming. Marketing has become a whole new world with social media, email marketing, e commerce and search engine optimization to name a few.

In 2013, mobile optimization and creating excellent, top-notch content are the two trends that run through all types of marketing activities. Overall, mobile is this year's exceptionally big trend, and we see it deeply tied to most aspects of online marketing.

Achieving Targets

Evidence repeatedly shows that turning around a sales team starts with turning around the sales manager. Sales managers are uniquely positioned to influence and empower sales reps to greater levels of success, but sales managers sometimes become so busy and distracted that they neglect their own professional development as they get caught up trying to survive the latest fire drill. It only takes insight into three key areas to dramatically increase the positive impact the sales manager can make on the whole sales team: Alignment, Motivation, and Performance.

As we continue to work with successful sales organizations all around the world, we have discovered that highly effective sales managers have a set of skills and characteristics in common that set them above all the rest, and which enable them to help their teams to achieve results that are also way above average.

Role in an organization

The good startup CEO role can be hard to define. Simply put, my job role is everything and anything. That’s where the startup CEO is at this moment…but you’re end goal is to move out of that managing phase, and into one of freedom; while still preserving your vision and the startup you built. There’s a lot of emotional challenges and issues that come along with building a team, recruiting a startup ceo, or even being the founder and ceo.

The startup ceo role can be categorized into 3 clear roles. My role as a CEO is summed up in:

1.Vision
2.Team
3.Fundraising & Relationship Building

Recommendation

Some people argue that theory is just books and not a practical approach. They do not realize the fact that the book has the practical experiences of the author.

1. Endless Referrals:
This book is written by Bob Burg.
2. Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business
Jay Conrad Levinson is the author of this book.
3. The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly
This book is authored by David Meerman Scott.
4. Primal Branding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future
This book is written by Patrick Hanlon.
5. Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking
The author of this book is Andy Sernovitz.
6. My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising (Advertising Age Classics Library)
This book is authored by Claude Hopkins

Importance of Marketing

I would put it as 90% of my time since I believe that even though I am the CEO, I am primarily a marketing person who can make or dissolve my company. I project my company first and then my employees continue to project it with due diligence of their work.

Importance of STP

Segmentation
: grouping consumers by some criteria
•
Targeting
: choosing which group(s) to sell to
•
Positioning
: select the marketing mix most appropriate for
the target segment(s)

As one notices, its very important for a product to be sold

Positioning the product

Though I have competitors out there with similar products, I know that I stand an edge on them because of my approach and the confidence that I have on my employees when they are given a task. They believe that, 'Give us an opportunity to show ourselves and a lever for us to hold and tighten our products; we will definitely move this earth and the technology with it of its orbit'

Importance of sales

In any business organization, sales is the department that generates revenue. No matter how good your manufacturing operation is, how cutting-edge your technology is, how tight your financial goals are or how progressive and forward-thinking your management techniques are, you must still have a sales mechanism in place, or everything else is useless.

Brief yourself

I am a product of IIT Bombay, Oxford University and Georgia Institute of Technology. I earned 7 Master's degrees and 2 doctorates. Worked in the US with IBM on a variety of projects and came back to India to start Divyashree Software Engineering and Technology Inc. It received the coveted CMM level 3 certification in just 3 months after it began operations. We received a number of awards from IBM in the US. I am an authorised IBM corporate trainer and received the coveted IBM Champion award for 2013 in WebSphere Technology. I stay in bangalore