4 Amazing Child Prodigies Of Our Country

It’s children’s day today. This day is celebrated in honour of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who was born on November 14th 1889. It was because of his love and affection towards children we celebrate children’s day on his birthday. He once said

“The children of today will make the India of tomorrow. The way we bring them up will determine the future of the country".

This children’s day we dedicate this blog to those wonderful and amazingly talented children who outsmart each and everyone around them. We celebrate the smartness and the innocence of such children. Below are kids who are so awesome, we can easily get embarrassed in front of them for their amazing skills and talents.

Every child is an artist- Pablo Picasso

1. Shorya Mahanot- One of the youngest abstract painters the world has ever known. He picked up his brush when he was 4. He was born in 2006 in a family from Neemuch, a town in central Madhya Pradesh. His father who also had a keen interest in fine arts noticed his son’s talents and began uploading Shorya’s abstract art paintings on Facebook, that was appreciated by many. Soon Aditya Singh managed to do an art exhibition for his son’s paintings which turned out to be a very successful event. Now just 11 years he has got attention from art world and has sold paintings worth $3,500

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2. Truptraj Pandya- “This young boy was born with a sense of rhythm,” says the father of a then 2 now 7-year-old Truptraj, the young and talented table player. He started playing with aluminium dabbas when he was little sitting next to his grandmother who would sing devotional songs to him. Today he holds the Guinness world record for being the youngest tabla master the world has known.

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3. Pari Sinha: When we were 3 we could barely say checkmate. But this little 3 yr old checkmated children twice her age at the State Chess Championship in the under 7 category at Kishanganj. Meet Pari Sinha, from Bihar, born in a family of chess players loves chess more than chocolate. On an average pari spends more than an hour daily playing the game. Can’t wait for her to grow older and bring laurels to our country.

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4. Chitresh Tatha: This young boy who is today known as the country’s youngest sailor. He hails from Tamil Nadu and began sailing in 2009 when he was just 8 yrs old. He represented the country in the 2014 Asian games too! He first developed an interest in the sport when he saw his sister Meghna sailing in the Laser Radial category and thought of giving the sport a try himself. Since then, he has never looked back and even won the gold medal at the India International Regatta (Under-12) in 2013.

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It's amazing how these children can do wonders even at such a young age. They certainly prove that age is just a number. Here's wishing all those curious minds a Happy Children's Day.

Social Media Marketing for Franchisees

- Pratiti Nath

Earlier this month the internet went crazy over a handsome looking roadside tea vendor.  Now, the buzz is that he has become a model. Well, it all started when a few people started raving about his good looks and sharing his pictures on Facebook.  Gradually it spread like a wild fire with major newspapers reporting it and soon he became a face to reckon with it. Here, Social Media acted like a catalyst speeding up the process in a jiffy! 

Now think of it this way. There are billions of people all over the globe. Of these billions, a moderate percentage has access to the internet. So it comes down to some millions people using the social media. Hence, it is an ideal platform for marketing your franchise. In fact a more viable form of marketing because of its greater outcome and outreach with very limited expenditure in a short span of time.  lt’s like the saying by AnushkaSharma in “Band, Baja and Baraat” – similar to weddings as cited in the film social media too is a never ending sphere. Irrespective of the economy or climate or social trends it continues to click.

What exactly is social media marketing?

From the name itself , it is clearly understood that it deals with marketing done via various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. This type of marketing strategy emphasizes on gaining more viewership for your website by promoting your franchise – gradually engaging people and drawing investors.  

Of all the social media platforms Facebook and twitter are more widely used. The reason being their relative predominance on the global sphere. While Facebook is used for global as well as local exposure , twitter is mainly used for global outreach.

India is  the 3^rd highest populated nation and much of its population is on Facebook. Hence, it is the ideal place for social media marketing.

Now the question is - what is franchise business model? How can social media marketing help?

Franchise business model is the legitimate use of a company’s business model - their ideas , vision and brand . A particular company has a given set of business model applicable to all of their brand outlets present all of the globe. This builds up a franchise business model for the company. All local and regional centers follow this franchise model. 

Social media with its crisp and highly engaging content can easily promote and strengthen your franchise. It comes with minimal cost and a greater target audience. It can be simply achieved by opening a Facebook page or a twitter handle for your franchise. Start promoting your website by presenting your ideas- the unique way you are solving the problem.  One benefit of using social media is its personalized and creative connect.  Like you can share videos, short messages, photos, giphs to attract people. On Facebook, you can go live and directly interact or create events related to your business.  You can host special contests and give away a gift from your franchise to the winter. The most important aspect of social media marketing is constant engagement with your audience. It is essential to be quick and responsive. Twitter is the most responsive in this regard. It is  usually used by people to gauge different trends and directly contact with people. So make sure you reply to tweets, re-tweet people who give you feedback, use hashtag to promote your products or use trending hashtags for your purpose. 

This is essentially how social media marketing works.

However, there is an exact model of how to set up things for social media marketing.  There are 4 structures of social media marketing that franchises can opt for.

 

Centralized structure

Here the brand  has single centralized presence in social media, like a same page for all activities relating to the franchise. Thus  content will flow in-out of the same outlet.  This ensures your global outreach and all contents being restricted to your brand without diluting. However, there is one drawback losing out local customers and failing to meet cross-cultural differences.

Centralized Blend Structure

In this model, the same corporate house maintains different social media profiles relating to its franchise. Here different content is generated across various profiles according to various locations/divisions but related to the same franchise. Hence all contents are driven to the same brand and local customers are kept engaged.  It requires a robust social media team to pull this up

Controlled Structure

This structure is quite similar to centralized blend. The only difference is their management.  Here the different franchise profiles are managed by their respective team s but the content is provided by the parent franchise brand.  This involves greater involvement of the franchises with their respective audience. However, conflict of interest may arise due to discrepancy in content approval. Also outcome may vary across different franchises.

Monitored Structure

Different franchises manage their own social media presence without any involvement from the parent franchise. They only follow a set of guidelines from the parent company. By using this model local area content is well established forming a niche in the local market.  This kind of model requires a big and strong social media team to maintain all franchises. 

These are the ways to generate a social media marketing campaign for your franchise.

Despite all these, there are certain problems that franchises face while embarking on a social media marketing campaign.

 What are these potential problems?

The problems are quite genuine and have a potential to derail your social media marketing strategy.

Setting the correct target audience

It is important that you target the correct audience. Any miscalculations in this regard can greatly affect you and you can lose potential customers.

Creating different page for different locations
In order to cover different regional bases over a wide geographical area , it is preferable to opt for different pages for different location. Your brand may be a global one but you need local presence to monopolize the local market. Hence your local business outlet should have a social media presence.

Opt for a fan page or create a group to boost audience interaction
Interacting with your audience is essential for social media marketing campaign. Sometimes it becomes difficult to handle all feedback coming from different franchise sources. The best way to deal with this is to create a separate fan page or a group for your franchise. Add your regular customers and people who are active on your profiles. This way it is easier to get customer feedback and give them personalized response.

Like all marketing campaign, social media campaign also comes with certain checks and balances.

So, what are these checks and balances?

Maintain visibility
Keep updating contents on a regular basis. Come up with refreshing and engaging contents. Make sure your franchise remain visible in their newsfeed.

Always maintain contact with the audience
Keep in touch with your customers. Engage them, interact with them.  Make sure you are responsive to their comments and queries.

 Be Creative
Look out for new ways of engaging people – like creating contests on special occasions, urging your customers to share some unique/memorable experiences related to your brand.  Use different tools like pictures, giphs, videos, and blogs to share contents.

 Make call for action proposals
Post contents that urge people to act and make them curious to look for more. Ask them to subscribe more to avail greater discount or share it with friends to earn reward points. Urge them to download your franchise app and win 1 year free subscription. Attract customers with these kinds of deals.

Circulate content to and from your parent franchise
Remind the audience that you are part of a franchise. Share contents to your parent franchise and post contents from their page as well. Make people aware of your brand credibility.

Thus by formulating a proper social media marketing campaign one can easily boost his franchise business model.  Social media is not just a trend.  In fact it sets up new trends. Who knows with a dynamic strategy YOU MIGHT BE THE NEXT BIG THING!!

Reasons How Email Marketing Can Help Your Business

- Pratiti Nath

Thousands of companies spanning different genres are plaguing the market. Every minute a hundred more are trying to break into the market. By the time you are gearing up to make a mark another dozen are waiting to snatch your place. It’s a never ending vicious circle. Numerous new ones arrive each day. Some survive the test of time while others fade into oblivion.  You must be wondering, “How to stand the test of time and make a mark?” Well the answer is Email marketing. Over the years it has garnered the most revenue- approximately 38$ for each 1$ spent. It is  like the saying by Julius Caesar “Veni, vidi, vici – I came, I saw. I conquered”

E-mail marketing is a phenomenon of marketing your business venture by means of authorized e-mails. It involves sharing monthly newsletters offering new discounts, products, soliciting sales, sending business requests and advertisements. All directly to your prospective clients in their personal electronic letter box!

So what are we waiting for?  Let’s explore the email marketing avenue keeping in mind these insightful points! Here are some reasons to opt for email marketing:

            Direct involvement with customers

Through e-mail you are getting into a person’s heart. It is the most direct form of communication. It’s like a letter from a friend who knows you. Your company will be that friend to the customers.  This is easily achieved by sending e-mail layouts of handpicked products, special offers and discounts, questionnaires for surveys.

Boosts your sales

E-mail marketing draws more people towards your business and retains your loyal customers. Special offers and discounts for new sign-ups, creating more follow-up mails over the time – all these makes you click. It spreads like a word of mouth by means of referral programs.

 Keeps you connected and in top of business

It helps you keep connected with your clients which make sure you are on their mind in times of need. A regular weekly or monthly follow- up email helps you stay connected and also provides great opportunities to draw attention to new schemes/products.

Increases your  brand credibility

Email has the ability to make a personal imprint in the customer’s heart. Almost all of us receive a flood of emails from our subscribed companies. Majority of us delete them as spam mail. However, unique layouts, catchy headlines, action-prompting opening lines makes an impact which prevents us from deleting them. Hence we try to stick to the interesting and credible ones. Credibility comes from consistent efforts of including special features, personalized tips and blogs about your business.

 Cuts down on the expenditure

E-mail is just like a business letter only with less expenditure. One can target a wider audience  within minimal time with the least expenditure. Most email marketing strategies comes with various templates. You just need to improvise, customize and add some creativity. Voila! You are done.

Creates brand awareness and recognition

While using email marketing one uses crisp catchy sentences and words, along with  brand names, logo, tagline, company motto and business vision. Thus the email layout helps to build up your brand recognition and also draws potential investors.

Increases your business knowledge

Emails help in gauging the market mood and customer satisfaction. This is easily done by quick surveys and questionnaires which make you aware what’s clicking and what’s not. You get a firsthand account on how you are faring and where you need to improve.

Email marketing - is it a boon or a bane?

Despite the many benefits of e-mail marketing there is a controversy surrounding its utility. Due to its passive conversational nature many of us doesn’t regard it as a viable option.  There is always a fear of going unheard /unseen. People may delete your newsletters without even taking a glancing or it can end up in their spam folder. Even worse if they get annoyed and unsubscribe.
In spite of these apprehensions it is still very much the in-thing as it involves absolutely zero cost and yields great results within a short span of time. One way of tackling invisibility in email marketing is making sure you follow up with a call and by adding a spam filter. If used properly it can be a good medium for conversing with the customer.

Now, the question arises how do you measure its success rate?

One of the major advantages of E-mail marketing is the relative ease of measuring its success. One can easily analyze this by incorporating certain metric analytics in your email campaign system. These includes measures like bounce rate (% of emails undelivered), delivery rate (% of emails delivered to inbox), e-mail list growth rate, % of people clicking your mail, % sharing your mail, conversion rate (% clicking the links on email). An absolute measurement is Revenue per email sent that is , the total revenue collected from a particular email campaign.

From all this we can gather that E-mail marketing is here to stay. It can never become obsolete. It is a potential tool to build up your business content. As the American actor and playwright Jason Miller said, “The key ingredient to a better content experience is relevance.”

  

5 REASONS WHY YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS A GOOD SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

-Ankita Roy

“In the world we live in today, we no longer have a choice on whether to engage in social media or not. The question is, how well we do it.”

You can buy attention. You can beg for attention from the media. Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free. When it comes to marketing, what are the uses of social media and why it would do you good to hire a social media marketing agency? Why use this platform?

Marketing is no longer about YOU but about the STORIES you tell. A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other. And what could be a better platform to achieve these objectives than social media and by the very people who specialize in exactly this!

At this point in the game, not having an active social media presence is kind of like pulling out a flip phone at a business meeting and then not understanding why your boss keeps giving Ramesh all the new accounts. But some people still own flip phones, and some people dig in their heels and say, what is social media marketing going to do for me? Do I really need it? Yes. Yes you do — and here are some of the most compelling reasons why: 

Know your customer base

Part of what makes things like Twitter and Instagram marketing so cool is the interaction you get to have with your customer base — you can read their tweets and status updates to get insights into their daily lives (and maybe adjust your marketing strategy as a result). What products are they buying and why? What are they doing on the weekend? What kind of posts do they love to share, and from what websites? You can also use social media as a tool for connecting with complementary, non-competing businesses, thought leaders and tastemakers in your space, as well as journalists who cover your industry. Sometimes, becoming besties starts with a simple retweet. 

Respond to customer complaints

If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.

If there’s a problem with your product or service, you want to know about it right away. With the feedback you get in the process of social media marketing, you’ll be the first to know when there are issues – and you can take steps to resolve them right away. Study after study has shown that consumers appreciate companies that respond to customer complaints (and don’t hesitate to rant online to anyone who will listen when companies don’t take the time to make things right).

Stay ahead of competition

Did you know that 91% of brands are using more than one social media platform? This isn’t something you want to fall behind the competition on because it’s much harder (and more expensive) to play catch up than it is to get in on the game early. If your competitors get to your potential customers first, they’ll earn their loyalty and you’ll have a hard time winning them over. If you’re active and engaging on a variety of networks, you can gain those friends and followers first and your competition will be playing catch up instead of the other way around.

Tap your potential Customer

Customers, you didn’t know existed will find (and buy from) you. In the process of marketing with Facebook, you’ll probably join a ton of groups related to your products, industry and customer base. By posting links on these groups, you’ll help influence customers to check out your site. Answering questions You Can't Beat the Price (or ROI) of Social Media.

Get featured on a trending topic

When it comes to newsjacking, social media is king. Sometimes your brand is mentioned on a cable TV show. Sometimes it’s not, but you know just how to slide your product into the story to aim the spotlight in your direction. Facebook, Twitter, and even Reddit marketing gives you a front row seat to the news that’s becoming viral right as it’s happening. Jump in at just the right time and you’ll earn some major media attention — and that’s something you just can’t do with a traditional ad campaign. 

Get website traffic/Store Walk-ins

People view Twitter and Facebook as social networks, not marketing machines. As a result, they’re less likely to see what you post as an advertisement and will be more likely to hear what you have to say. This translates to serious web traffic when you link to your site and posts that market themselves as your friends and followers share what you’ve posted.

Simply put, social media marketing is part of doing business in the new millennium. If your business isn’t already active on social networking sites, now is the time to start. Before you go blindly winging your way into the social mediasphere, a word of warning if you will: PLAN YOUR ATTACK!! You can waste hours on social media marketing to no positive effect, therefore allocate some marketing budget to dip your toe and get some assistance if you are not 100% sure of how to approach the medium. That is to say, hire the social media marketing guys to do it for you. 

The Story of Alma Mater

-Pratiti Nath

Ever dreamed of a store delivering customized t-shirts, tops and all other kinds of apparel? Alma Mater is just that. Now wait! it isn’t just any other kind of customized product selling merchandise. Here you get products customized according to the institution you are affiliated to. Your very own customized college products.

Origin of the idea

"Three years ago, two friends, one too many beers, one kickass business idea, one million dollar company… This, in a nutshell is how Alma Mater came about."- this is how the alma mater story begins in their facebook page. This company is a brain child of 2 people- Varun Agarwal and Rohn Malhotra way back in 2009. They hit upon this idea while reminiscing their good old college days over a chilled beer. That’s when the idea of catering to the needs of alumni of various colleges came into light. Thus, the name Alma mater. Varun started this apparel store targeting the necessity of memorable items and apparels for different institutions alumni. Soon, after that he wrote a book titled ‘How I braved Anu Aunty and co-founded a million dollarcompany’. This became an instant hit paving the way for him and his company. The company is based in Koramangla, Bangalore.

The Journey So Far

The major feature of this online apparel website is its “PLAY” tool.  As the name suggests you can literally play with the design, graphics, colour, fabric and other aspects of your desired products. Unlike other websites they don’t offer you selected choices. Here you can make your own designs and order them. Their unique outlook and aesthetic designs led to huge leap in profits. They manage to ship 15000 products every month. 

Keeping the target audience in mind the price range remains at an affordable limit of 450-700 rupees. Till July, 2013 they have sold 3,00,000 products. With the help of these tool you can draw doodles, make designs. As many as 800 fonts and 2000 vectors are at your disposal. Apart from that you can add your institution logo and change the background colour. Thus it provides huge pool of creative potential to unleash your creativity and wear it on your t-shirt. A plus point of this tool is its social forum. One can form groups here and easily discuss & build design with their friends. Till 2013 the response is substantial with almost every associations using it – from school students, college students to start-up companies to individual group associations. The company first started out-sourcing their work but now the manufacture & printing process is solely done by their 200 dedicated workers. This has removed the hazard of relying on others and minimized errors. With the incorporation of the PLAY tool, work has cut down further as continuous involvement with the customers aren’t required. One can just create their design and order it. As of now, they have worked for 2500 schools/colleges, 600 corporates, 100 start-ups spreading over 180 different cities of the world. This includes India and 6 other countries. Till May 2016, the company website registers 323401 happy customers, 15232 customized designs, 3554 college clients and 458420 likes on facebook 

Future outlook

The current focus of the company is to be the number one merchandise in customized t-shirt & products market. Their sole agenda is to completely monopolize this market and rake the 25-30% gross margins to even greater percentage. 

The Story Of Chumbak

-Pratiti Nath

We all like to travel and collect souvenirs and mementos from places we have visited. Now, think of a foreign traveler, travelling to India and looking for objects to remember the place. Well, here the market is flooded with conventional showpieces and mementos of monuments like Taj Mahal, Howrah bridge, India gate or Qutub Minar. At best clothing like saris and pashmina shawls.

A couple from Bangalore got bored of all this. Vivek Prabhakar and Subhra Chadda thought of channelizing their frustration to come up with a business enterprise. Thus, in 2010, started the journey of Chumbak, the popular lifestyle brand. The name by itself attracts like a magnet, and indeed true to its property. As illustrated by the co-founder Vivek Prabhakar, the name means “kissing stones”. As they wanted to monopolize the Indian refrigerator magnets market. Their tagline “home is where the love is” delivers the ultimate attraction punch for a lifestyle 

The Journey so far

Chumbak with just 45lakhs arranged by the couple by selling their house. It started as a 30 member souvenir store and ended up being a 150 member lifestyle store. The duo coupled their knowledge with pragmatism. It started as an online store that continued to flood the e-commerce market. 2012 brought the opportunity of seed funding via Matrix partners. Then , in 2013 they opened their first flagship store in Bangalore. 

Visiting their store or browsing through their products will make you gasp in disbelief. It has a quirky, colourful and vibrant range products. They have a magnificent range which spoils you for choice. It has  a wide range of lifestyle products – from key chains to mementos to dresses to footwear to apparel to jewelries to bags, wallets, watches, phones- all under one roof. 38 categories with more than 500 products. Thus, here is a brand which perfectly understands your needs. Price, design, style, range, colours EVERYTHING!!!

Like all start-ups they wanted to be different but in a different way. The company philosophy is to do it in a fun and lively way. This is visible in their public interaction and eccentric vibrant range of products. They team up the curiosity of a child, the innovation of youth and the experience of a knowledgeable person. 

Another potent problem for a start-up is real estate. Subhra and Vivek were pragmatic in this matter. They started with small kiosk of 150-200 square feet and then made it to 2500 sq ft. They have 20 such kiosks with more than 60 outlets in 5 major Indian cities. Of them Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore gathers the maximum revenue (60%). 15% of sales are made through online. They are first of its kind store. They are quick to adapt with changing market dynamics and fashion trends. This lead to an unprecedented growth rate of 300%  in 5years. 

Future Venture

In the coming years they are targeting a 400 crore annual revenue. It is vying to spread its wings all over India. Their future target is to open more such kiosks in other cities. Chumbak planning to boost is online sales percentage to meet the target. 

Overall, with their unique set of ideas and executions they are a force to reckon with it. A viable start-up story for every entrepreneur dreaming to make it big.

Top 10 CEOs Who Are Famous Than Their Companies On Twitter

-J.N. GNANESHWARI

“Expect the unexpected” is the phrase that would summaries this article  at “jet-speed”.  Apple, Google, Microsoft… If these are the names that you think are in the list, here are some facts that would leave your eyes wide open…

1. Richard Branson

The first man on the list of the top most CEOs on twitter, with 7.3M followers and 3,845 following is Richard Branson. Virgin group, his brainchild has 211K followers on twitter @Virgin.

2. Elon Musk

“When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world. Now I am.”-ElonMusk. He is the founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX; CEO,co-founder and product architect of TeslaMotors and the list goes on. Elon Musk has 3.5M followers while he follows only the few 50. His creation SpaceX and Tesla have 1.3M and 944K followers respectively.

3.Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey, a university drop out, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, founder and CEO of Square. Though “Twitter” outcasts him but his brain child Square has just 189K followers yet he can boast about his 3.4M followers.

4.Anand Mahindra

That's right! It’s an Indian CEO of a company born in India… Surprised? Anand Mahindra with 2.9M followers and he chooses the best 182 only to follow. He carries a legacy founded by his grandfather JC Mahindra-The Mahindra Group. The company has about 69.2K followers @MahindraRise.

5.John Legere

John Legere an American businessman who is the CEO and president of T-Mobile US currently has served various other multinational companies like Dell, AT &T etc. His personal twitter profile has 2.2M followers while T-Mobile has 645K followers.

6.Tim O’Reilly

Tim O’Reilly, the man behind O’Reilly Media, quotes-“Money is like a gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you are not doing a tour of gas stations.” This man deserves a loud applause with 1.9M followers and 1550 under following category he makes it to “The top 10”. O’Reilly Media has about 81.1K followers @OReillyMedia.

7. Kai-fu Lee

At an age of 54, Kai-fuLee is a venture capitalist, technology executive, writer etc. He is the man behind the world’s first “speaker- independent speech recognition system.” His personal twitter account has 1.5M followers while only 145 following. Innovation Works, his company has about 4196 follower’s @iwpgh.

  

8.Warren Buffet

The man who is referred as the “Wizard/Oracle/Sage of Omaha”, considered as one among the “world’s wealthiest people”, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway needs no introduction. Man with the heart of pure gold Warren Buffett has 1.1M followers and 0 Following.

9. Michael Dell

Michael Saul Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Inc., is one of the world’s well known tech giants. Dell is his brain child which has about 566K followers on twitter while Michael Dell has around 966K followers and 1963 under following category.

10. Kerth Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch is the founder, chairman and CEO of News Corporation. He has about 750K followers on twitter while News Corp has 13.9K followers (@newscorp)

It indicates that these people not only rule their companies but also rule Twitter. By connecting with their customers and other stakeholders directly, they constantly shape up their public image and also the image of their company. Keeping a highly active and vivacious profile help them form positive relationships and line up opportunities for their brand. It’s incredible to see CEO’s diving into the Twittersphere far beyond their company.