A REPORT ON

MARKETING STRATEGIES OF IT SERVICES

BY Sandhya XYZ INC.

A REPORT ON

MARKETING STRATEGIES OF IT SERVICES

BY:Sandhya 08BS0003870

In the partial fulfillment of the requirements of the MBA program of ABC BUSINESS SCHOOL BANGALORE

Date of submission- 23rd May, 09

CERTIFICATE

The Report MARKETING STRATEGIES OF IT SERVICES is submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirement of MBA Program of ABC Business School .

BY Sandhya 08BS0003870

Under the guidance of

Ms. Deepika M.G. Faculty Guide ABC, Bangalore

Ms. Hemapriya Company Guide XYZ inc.

Date of submission- 23rd May, 09

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I, Sandhya, am thankful to Mr. Raju, India head of XYZ inc. for providing me with an opportunity to work on these projects successfully over here. I am also thankful to Ms Hemapriya, HR XYZ inc. , Mr. Johnson Crasta, VP Sales, Ms. Kamalkali Mukherjee , VP Marketing for their immense help, guidance and valuable inputs to work on two projects simultaneously. I am extremely grateful to them and consider this as a privilege to get the opportunity to work under their guidance and supervision. I Acknowledge my indebtedness to my faculty guide, Ms Deepika M.G, for her invaluable guidance, supervision, keen interest and untiring help, without which this Project would not have been accomplished. Additionally, I would like to thank all the teaching and non teaching staff who has helped us for accomplishing the project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Authorization Acknowledgement Synopsis

(i) (ii) (iii)

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Project proposed/Purpose/Objective 1.2 Scope of the project 1.3 Methodology used 1.4 Schedule followed 1.5Challenges faced/Limitations 1.6Learning/ Key takeaways 2. INDUSTRY PROFILE 3. COMPANY PROFILE 4. MAIN TEXT Marketing Strategies 4.1Online Marketing 4.2Client Surveys 4.3Telemarketing

-1 -1 - 2 -2 -4 -5 -6 -7 -13

-16 -21 -22

4.4Testimonials 4.5Newsletters 4.6Public Relations/ Press Releases 4.7Search Engine Optimization 4.8Social Marketing 4.9Webinar Marketing 4.10Whitepaper Marketing 4.11E-blast Marketing

-23 -23 -24 -25 -26 -27 -28 -29

5. FINDINGS 6. CONCLUSION 7. ANNEXURE 8. REFRENCES

-30 -31 -32 -33

SYNOPSIS
This project is divided into two sub-projects. First one is being INDUSTRY RESEARCH which is the pre-requisite for the second project namely MARKETING CAMPAIGN driving and contributing towards the project MARKETING STRATEGIES OF IT SERVICES in totality. Industry research comprise DATA MINING where we find out the leads which have substance, understand XYZ s ideal prospect file and build database to achieve annual revenue goal which is a pre-requisite to Lead Generation. The methodology used was the collection of secondary data i.e. research through various web tools like Hoovers, Manta, LinkedIn, Zoominfo etc. and through various industry reports like FORESTER, GARTNER. etc. Marketing Campaign was designed with the whole perspective of enhancing sales touch points with the Marketing department aided with targeted BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE surveys under which we use the same contacts , profiled under INDUSTRY RESEARCH to drive White Paper campaigns to test the markets which in turn generate demand, educate them about OUTSOURCING and create brandawareness. The methodology used was to collect the primary data through SURVEYS. Both INDUSTRY RESEARCH and MARKETING PROMOTION which are practicalbased projects where INDUSTRY RESEARCH being pre-requisite for MARKETING PROMOTION CAMPAIGN helped me to understand the various aspects and prepare the project MARKETING STRATEGIES OF IT SERVICES.

INTRODUCTION

Project Proposed Marketing Strategies Of IT Services

Purpose of the Project

To study the challenges and opportunities of marketing strategies of IT services globally and to conduct an exhaustive study of the predominant and most effective marketing strategies by which XYZ is or can be benefitted.

Objective of the Project

 To study and understand the real-time applied MARKETING STRATEGIES for IT services at XYZ and at a broader level, to study the various marketing strategies by IT services companies and understand what is working out and what is not.  To correlate the real time experience of the organization to the study-paper  To understand the various trends in the marketing strategies of IT services. 1

Scope of the Project

This project will be used for updating INDUSTRY RESEARCH and devising strategies for MARKETING CAMPAIGN by XYZ Inc. The project comprise of the EXPERIMENTAL WORK done to find out the various marketing strategies that can be used and REAL-TIME implemented marketing strategies used at XYZ. Also, it includes the Market Research done, which serves as a pre-requisite for driving MARKETING PROMOTION CAMPAIGN.

Methodology Used
(a) For EXPERIMENTAL-WORK:Collection of Secondary Data through various sources like RESEARCH PAPERS, BLOGS, Websites like WIKIPEDIA, MARKET RESEARCH and various books and journals.

(b)For the Project INDUTRY RESEARCH Collection of Secondary data through various RESEARCH TOOLS like ZOOMINFO, HOOVERS, JIGSAW, MANTA, SPOKE etc. Collection of Secondary data through various INDUSTRY REPORTS like GARTNER, IDC, FORESTER, AMR etc. Data from WEBSITE of the companies concerned Data from SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES like LinkedIn, TWITTER etc.

CONTD...

(c) For the Project MARKETING PROMOTION CAMPAIGN

Collection of Primary data through TELEPHONIC TARGETED SURVEYS for EXECUTIVES of the Software Companies Collection of the Primary data through MAIL SURVEYS

SURVEY-QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN -Unstructured and Undisguised Questionnaire -Mix of both OPEN ENDED and CLOSE ENDED questions

TARGET MARKET -US MARKET ( Companies either headquartered at US or having sales office in US)

TARGET RESPONDENTS -CXOs , Director Sales, Director Marketing, VP sales, VP marketing and VP Business Development of SOFTWARE Companies

INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUES -Telephonic Interviews and Mailed Questionnaire

SCHEDULE FOLLOWED AT XYZ INC. (a)For INDUSTRY RESEARCH

TIME-PERIOD 10th Feb, 09 to 16th Feb,09 16th Feb,09 to 23rd May,09 INDUSTRY RESEARCH Training session Going online on Industry Research

(b)For MARKETING PROMOTION CAMPAIGN

TIME-PERIOD 10th Feb, 09 to 16th Feb,09 16th Feb,09 to 18th Feb,09 18th Feb ,09 to 25th Feb,09 25th Feb ,09 to 27th Feb,09 1st Mar,09 to 5th Mar,09 5th Mar,09 to 08th Mar,09 08th Mar,09 to 15th Mar,09 16th Mar ,09 to 23rd May,09 MARKETING PROMOTION CAMPAIGN Outlining the framework of the campaign Preparing the Whitepaper Finalizing the Survey Questions, Pitch and Voicemail Scripts Designing the Email templates Final Documentation of the Process Designing the PLAYBOOK Mock-Call Sessions Going online on conducting Surveys, conducting Email campaign clubbed with White Paper Campaign

CHALLENGES FACED (a)INDUSTRY RESEARCH (1)Obsolete data in most of the Research Tools (2)Hard to find the Management of the Companies (3)Not easily available contact details (4)Incomplete data is available on various Research Tools

(b)MARKETING PROMOTION CAMPAIGN (1)Getting pass through Gatekeepers for Telephonic Surveys (2)Time constraints ( Executive Interviewing) (3)Convincing them for the surveys (4)Contact details (5)Language Skills

LIMITATIONS FACED (a)INDUSTRY RESEARCH (1)Most of the Advanced Research tools are paid tools (2)Data available on free Research tools is not completely reliable (3)Data available Web is not totally accurate (4)Research takes a lot of time

CONTD.. 5

(b)MARKETING PROMOTION CAMPAIGN (1)The study can also be limited per the Respondent s experience and personal bias. (2)Greater tendency of Respondents to stick to shorter answers like Not Ascertained (3)Time length of Interviews is less (4)Absence of face-to-face interaction (5)Conducting international Telephonic interviews is Expensive (6)Time Zone was a limitation as well

LEARNING/KEY TAKE-AWAYS  Corporate culture  International Marketing Exposure  Correlation of Real-time experience with theoretical knowledge  Networking  Knowledge of various Research tools  Understanding of Advanced Research  E-mail etiquettes  Language skills

INDUSTRY PROFILE

INTRODUCTION Information Technology is one of the most important industries in the Indian economy. The IT industry of India has registered huge growth in recent years. India's IT industry grew from 150 million US Dollars in 1990-1991 to a whopping 50 billion UD Dollars in 2006-2007. In the last ten years the Information Technology industry in India has grown at an average annual rate of 30%. The liberalization of the Indian economy in the early nineties has played a major role in the growth of the IT industry of India. Deregulation policies adopted by the Government of India have led to substantial domestic investment and inflow of foreign capital to this industry. In 1970, high import duties had forced IBM to leave India. However, after the early nineties, many multi national IT companies, including IBM, have set up their operations in India. During the ten year period 1992-2002, the Indian software industry grew at double the rate as the US software industry.

Some of the major reasons for the significant growth of the IT industry of India are  Abundant availability of skilled manpower  Reduced telecommunication and internet costs  Reduced import duties on software and hardware products  Cost advantages  Encouraging government policies Share of IT Industry can be depicted as:-

Fig1- Depiction of the share of IT Industry diagrammatically 8

Graph to show avg. it spending per enterprise Vs. enterprise size

Fig2 Avg. IT spending Vs Enterprise Size Industry Analysis India could well become the world's BPO capital in the next three years. This is what makes the outsourcing to India an irreversible process. BPO- Overview of the Indian Industry.The Indian BPO Industry is already worth $5.3 billion. It is growing at almost 60% a year- the kind of growth Indian IT services industry used to clock in the early 1990s. In fact after the tech slump, almost all big Indian IT services companies have forayed into BPO to maintain their growth rates. Quite a few of the promising start-ups 9

of last year have attained critical mass. Meanwhile, some of the biggest global players have started setting up their own operations in India. At the same time, the industry has begun to attract a bit of adverse attention-several US lawmakers have started seeing it as a threat as too many American jobs are shifting to India. At current growth rates, the 5.3 billion BPO industry is fast catching up with the much acclaimed IT industry. According to Nasscom-Mckinsey study, the IT-enabled services sector was due to employ 1.1 million people and earn $1 billion by 2008. That was soon revised to $24 billion. The rapid growth is throwing up winners and the losers who did nearly everything right and are now set to take on a larger share of the BPO pie even as they gear to meet competition from the world's largest BPO corporations which are eyeing India.

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The following figure shows the attractiveness of India vis--vis other countries in the world that are offering Outsourcing services.

Major Worries for the BPO Industry Reckless Start-ups- a vast majority of the 310 start-ups are headed for a dead-end (according to Nasscom). Their capacity utilization is less than one of the three shifts. Many of these companies that converted their empty basements and warehouses into BPO units or firms with $10 million-20 million VC funds that ran out of cash without creating anything more than white elephants. Poor Infrastructure-the industry has more to worry about than just reckless start-ups. Primary among those is infrastructure. 11

While telecom networks are state of the art, getting a connection still takes up to three months. High Attrition- another major problem is the high attrition and growth aspirations of the workforce. At least 60,000 of the 171,000 workforce change jobs every year. About 80% of them look for better leaders. Attrition rates (%) US - 42% Australia - 29% Europe - 24% India - 18% Other Preferred Destinations- the success of off shoring to India has woken up other English-speaking countries such as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. All these countries have a large pool of professionals and companies have already begun to set up their centers. But the biggest threat to the Indian Industry is from China, which has made English mandatory in schools and colleges. In another four to five yeas, China could pose a challenge in non-voice businesses, if not voice based operations. How to tackle these problems The only way to tackle such threats is to continue to do the job as best as expected and to re-engineer client's processes thereby adding value. The ongoing shakeout in the industry will only make strong players stronger and weak players even weaker. 12

COMPANY PROFILE Introduction

XYZ is a Strategic Technology Sales Acceleration company. They engage with fastgrowing high-tech companies, ranging from start-ups to mid-sized businesses to private and public companies, forming extensions of their clients sales arms and driving all inside-sales activities right from End-to-End sales to more customized services like Demand Generation (including whitepaper downloads, webinar registrations and targeted newsletters and surveys), Opportunity Qualification, Target List Management and 24/7 Sales Chat to more strategic ones like Account Management at 25% their current sales cost which translates into quadruple quotas, revenues and increase in sales forces while maintaining the highest standards of quality, sales ethics (protecting clients reputation at all times) and performance delivering on quotas set to not just meet but beat and exceed them constantly, day-on-day, month-on-month. XYZ extends your sales and marketing resources. From the onset they strategize with you, collaborate with you and customize your sales and marketing initiatives so that you can spend more time at what you do best.

They can help you communicate your vision to the marketplace, clearly articulate a value proposition for customers and partners, and cultivate third-party validation that makes the difference between successful sales and marketing campaigns and empty hype. Their help each client effectively communicate innovation, product & service quality, and corporate integrity, based on their proven methodology to help their clients achieve their business goals.

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XYZ s MISSION
To serve the needs of companies of all sizes and across key vertical markets through innovative marketing, creative excellence and superior customer service.

XYZ s Goal
To become your long-term trusted partner and serve as an extension of your team. We measure this by rigorously paying attention to business fundamentals and operational excellence and ensuring a positive impact on your business. Your success is our success.

XYZ s Adavantage
XYZ was created to provide a unique service and support delivery vehicle built on a global model that augments your sales and marketing reach and capabilities. Thanks to the Internet and the ever-expanding creation of a wide array of communications devices and platforms, enterprises can now leverage today's digital infrastructure to deliver exceptional quality of service and yet realize substantial cost-savings at the same time. The XYZ team has deep domain expertise in sales and marketing and as providers of exceptional customer service and support. We have a proven record of creating success for organizations of all types and sizes. We've done it before and we can do it for you.

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LEADERSHIP
Ajit Gupta Ajit Gupta is a seasoned entrepreneur who achieved notable success for the creation of a world-class Internet company, Speedera Networks in 1999. His vision was to create a better online experience for Web users while providing an outsourced, on-demand computing solution for companies doing business on the Internet. His new vision is to provide enterprises of all sizes an automated extension of their sales and marketing organizations for fast and positive revenue growth and successful go-to-market strategy deployments. Under his leadership, Speedera became one of the fastest growing private companies in Silicon Valley and in the North American technology industry in five short years, as ranked by both Deloitte & Touch and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The company's DNA originated from Speedera Networks, which was acquired in 2005 by Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM) for a stock transaction worth more than $500 million within a year.

XYZ s SERVICES
End to End Sales Account Management Opportunity Qualification Demand Generation 24/7 Sales Chat Target List Management

XYZ s Solutions
Collateral Management Web Management Market Research

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MAIN TEXT EXPERIMENTAL WORK DONE:A marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. A marketing strategy should be centred around the key concept that customer satisfaction is the main goal. The various Marketing Strategies for IT Services are as follows:(1)ONLINE MARKETING (a)Affiliate Marketing:Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. The Affiliate Marketing industry has four core players at its heart: the Merchant, the Network, the Publisher and the Consumer. The market has grown sufficiently in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including Affiliate Management Agencies, Super-Affiliates and Specialized Third Parties vendors. Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search 16

engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner. Affiliate marketing using one website to drive traffic to another is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers.[citation needed] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The ecommerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the Internet, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. According to one report, the total sales amount generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was 2.16 billion in the United Kingdom alone. The estimates were 1.35 billion in sales in 2005.MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned US$6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing, and forms of lead generation other than contextual advertising programs such as Google AdSense. Currently the most active sectors for affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling, and retail industries.The three sectors expected to 17

experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors. Soon after these sectors came the entertainment (particularly gaming) and Internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from business-to-business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix. (b)Cost per Action or CPA Marketing:CPA is an online advertising pricing model, where the advertiser pays for each specified action (a purchase, a form submission, and so on) linked to the advertisement. Direct response advertisers consider CPA the optimal way to buy online advertising, as an advertiser only pays for the ad when the desired action has occurred. An action can be a product being purchased, a form being filled, etc. (The desired action to be performed is determined by the advertiser.) Google incorporated this model into Google AdSense but shut down the offering in June 2008. eBay has recently announced a similar pricing called AdContext. The CPA can be determined by different factors, depending where the online advertising inventory is being purchased. CPA as "Cost Per Acquisition" CPA is sometimes referred to as "Cost Per Acquisition", which has to do with the fact that most CPA offers by advertisers are about acquiring something (typically new customers by making sales). Using the term 18

"Cost Per Acquisition" instead of "Cost Per Action" is not incorrect. It is actually more specific. "Cost Per Acquisition" is included in "Cost Per Action", but not all "Cost Per Action" offers can be referred to as "Cost Per Acquisition". The Difference between CPA and CPL Advertising In CPL campaigns, advertisers pay for an interested lead (hence, Cost Per Lead) - i.e. the contact information of a person interested in the advertiser's product or service. CPL campaigns are suitable for brand marketers and direct response marketers looking to engage consumers at multiple touchpoints - by building a newsletter list, community site, reward program or member acquisition program. In CPA campaigns, the advertiser typically pays for a completed sale involving a credit card transaction. CPA is all about 'now' -- it focuses on driving consumers to buy at that exact moment. If a visitor to the website doesn't buy anything, there's no easy way to remarket to them. There are other important differentiators: 1. CPL campaigns are advertiser-centric. The advertiser remains in control of their brand, selecting trusted and contextually relevant publishers to run their offers. On the other hand, CPA and affiliate marketing campaigns are publisher-centric. Advertisers cede control over where their brand will appear, as publishers browse offers and pick which to run on their websites. 19

Advertisers generally do not know where their offer is running. 2. CPL campaigns are usually high volume and light-weight. In CPL campaigns, consumers submit only basic contact information. The transaction can be as simple as an email address. On the other hand, CPA campaigns are usually low volume and complex. Typically, consumer has to submit credit card and other detailed information.

(c) Contextual Advertising A contextual advertising system scans the text of a website for keywords and returns advertisements to the webpage based on what the user is viewing.[1] The advertisements may be displayed on the webpage or as pop-up ads. For example, if the user is viewing a website pertaining to sports and that website uses contextual advertising, the user may see advertisements for sports-related companies, such as memorabilia dealers or ticket sellers. Contextual advertising is also used by search engines to display advertisements on their search results pages based on the keywords in the user's query.

(d)Blog Marketing :Blog marketing is the term used to describe internet marketing via web blogs. These blogs differ from corporate websites because they feature daily or weekly posts, often around a single topic. Typically, corporations use blogs to create a dialog with customers and explain features of their products and services. 20

Many organizations use blogs with their user community. This allows them to share and preview product features, functions, and benefits before the products are released. Blogs are an excellent way to gather feedback and to make sure products meet the needs of users. Blogs have become the next generation marketing tool to corporate websites which merely post collateral and do not provide any interactive feedback. Blogs are also supplimentary to a User Group. User Groups happen annually for example while blogs provide users constant daily and weekly feedback. Blogs are Basic websites which are updated Regularly. They act as a Private news interface for any Company / Website. With regular updates being handled by the company executive team, product marketing, and product strategy teams. The need for fresh content on the web makes the Blogs a preferred destination for Resources. Blogs have been focused as a primary platform for Marketing since the early 2006.

(2)CLIENT SURVEYS Client surveys are slowly being recognized as a viable marketing tool by law firms, but the profession still lags far behind the rest of the business world. "Client feedback is a normal part of an intelligent marketing program," said James W. Jones, director of Hildebrandt International, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

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(3)TELEMARKETING Telemarketing (known as telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches programmed to be played over the phone via automatic dialing. Telemarketing has come under fire in recent years, being viewed as an annoyance by many. Categories The two major categories of telemarketing are Business-to-business and Business-to-consumer. Subcategories Lead Generation, the gathering of information Sales, using persuasion to sell a product or service Outbound, proactive marketing in which prospective and preexisting customers are contacted directly Inbound, reactive reception of incoming orders and requests for information. Demand is generally created by advertising, publicity, or the efforts of outside salespeople.

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(4)TESTIMONIAL MARKETING It's been said before that one unsatisfied customer will go out and tell 10-20 of their friends and family about their unsatisfactory experience, but the opposite doesn't seem to occur. Your customers, vendors, suppliers and associates might think you walk on water, but they won't seem to tell everyone else how great you are unless you show them how and give them an actual reason to do it. There are many ways to get testimonials from your customers. You can actually hold contests for best testimonials. Request letters of endorsements from your customers, vendors, suppliers, and any associates you have. Use those to promote your products and services. When you use testimonials to add credibility to what you do, you're letting your customers do the marketing for your business.

(5)NEWSLETTER MARKETING E-newsletters are a great vehicle for small direct marketers. More so than virtually any other online communications, they can level the economic playing field. Costing only a few thousand dollars, digital imaging and other computer-based graphics techniques lets small businesses create e-newsletter retention and informational campaigns that have high production values You can use e-mail newsletters and discussions groups to draw new customers to your business, strengthen your bond with existing clients and make customers voluntarily share tips and solve one another's problems. All of this can be done for a fraction of the cost of sending out a piece of regular mail 23

(6) PUBLIC RELATIONS MARKETING Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics.Public relations gains an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. While it is clear to that public relations (PR) is a form of propaganda (information representing the views of a group of people), which is just another way to spell marketing, much of the business world seems unwilling to accept the premise. For starters, Public Relations is almost always placed within its own department or within the Communications Department. And those who work the media from their corporate cubicles often seat themselves on a throne adorned with script of a higher calling then the prose emitted from their brothers and sisters in Marketing. In fact, it is safe to say that those in PR hold marketers in relatively low esteem. I ask myself why. At the same time, those in PR that the media sees us very much the same as they see those in marketing--tools to spread corporate news and information. (7)OPTIMIZED PRESS RELEASES-AN EFFECTIVE MARKETING STRATEGY Marketing is expensive. Press releases add to your marketing efforts in an economical and effective way. An optimized press release combined with press release distribution service will put out the welcome mat for the search engine web crawlers. A well written optimized press release 24

also acts as a silent salesman on your website, giving your potential customer one more good reason to buy from you.

(8) SURVEYS-EFFECTIVE MARKETING STRATEGY The survey contains a number of techniques that can be used to promote a product (or service) to a potential customer and also establish and maintain an active dialogue.

(9)SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION MARKETING Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion In 2006, North American advertisers spent US$9.4 billion on search engine marketing, a 62% increase over the prior year and a 750% increase over the 2002 year. The largest SEM vendors are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. As of 2006, SEM was growing much faster than traditional advertising and even other channels of online marketing. Because of the complex technology, a secondary "search marketing agency" market has evolved. Many marketers have difficulty understanding search engine marketing and they rely on third party agencies to manage their search marketing. 25

(10)SOCIAL-NETWORK MARKETING A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services. Social networking has encouraged new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people. While it could be said that email and websites have most of the essential elements of social network services, the idea of proprietary encapsulated services has gained popular uptake recently. The main types of social networking services are those which contain category divisions (such as former school-year or classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages) and a recommendation system linked to trust. Popular methods now combine many of these, with Facebook widely used worldwide; MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn being the most widely used in North America; Nexopia (mostly in Canada);Bebo, Hi5, MySpace, dol2day (mostly in Germany), Tagged, XING; and Skyrock in parts of Europe; Orkut and Hi5 in South America and Central America; and Friendster, Multiply, Orkut, Xiaonei and Cyworld in Asia and the Pacific Islands.

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Figure 1-2 gives the growth of social networking and blogging in 2008 in terms of reach within the total online population and percentage of time spent on this activity as part of total internet time. (11)WEBINAR MARKETING A webinar is a neologism to describe a specific type of web conference. It is typically one-way, from the speaker to the audience with limited audience interaction, such as in a webcast. A webinar can be collaborative and include polling and question & answer sessions to allow full participation between the audience and the presenter. In some cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, pointing out information being presented on screen and the audience can respond over their own telephones, preferably a speaker phone. There are web conferencing technologies on the market that have 27

incorporated the use of VoIP audio technology, to allow for a truly webbased communication. Webinars may (depending upon the provider) provide hidden or anonymous participant functionality, enabling participants to be unaware of other participants in the same meeting.

(12) WHITEPAPER MARKETING When done right, nothing pulls in qualified sales leads like a welltargeted offer for a juicy white paper. Offers for white papers and Webinars make up the bulk of ads in Web Digest For Marketers and the solo emails sent once a week to subscribers. I see what pops, and what lays an egg.

(13)E-BOMBING (E-MAIL CAMPAIGN) Ideally, your email campaign will keep your audience engaged with you - regardless of whether they're ready to buy at the moment you email dings into their inboxes. Because people don't buy when you're ready to sell. People buy when they're ready to buy. And the simple trick to success is this: By implementing consistent, "Dignity Marketing" based communications, you're bound to be there when the buying time comes.

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FINDINGS
(a) INDUSTRY RESEARCH 1.The Management information about a company could be researched through LinkedIn 99times out of 100 times which also means that LinkedIn is the most authentic tool when search regarding the MANAGEMENT/LEADERSHIP about the company has to be done. 2. The contact information of the company can be found out from the website 100%. Then, the contact information can be found out through LinkedIn. 3. The revenue can be researched through HOOVERS 98times out of 100 times. After HOOVERS, Revenue can be found out through Bizjournals. So, for finding out the Revenue, HOOVERS is the most authentic research tool. 4. E-mail ids could be researched through Google. E-mail ids could be researched through Jigsaw as well with the help of paid account. And 40% of the times, email id can be searched through other sites.

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(b) MARKETING CAMPAIGN

1.Most of the companies have their prime sales challenges as MONETARY CONSTRAINTS and DEMAND GNERATION. 2.Major sales challenges for the companies categorized REVENUE WISE is as follows:$(0-10)m - Money and Demand generation $(10-50)m - Talent $50m plus -Customer Base and Opportunity Qualification 3.Less than 50% of the companies have done outsourcing but more than 50% of them have a good outsourcing experience 4.Most of them don t want to outsource because of:-Want to exercise more control -Less of Conviction -Monetary Constraints 5. Very small and very big companies don t want to outsource. Reasons being very small companies don t have the budget to do so and big companies have bad outsourcing experience. So, they have decided not to go for outsourcing as a RISK-MITIGATION strategy.

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CONCLUSION
With the help of Advanced Research, Research process can be purified more which would also result in saving time. The only need is to switch over to more advanced RESEARCH TOOLS. While pitching for the services, the outsourcing vendor has to make the prospects understand that they work as a part of their own sales team while addressing to their sales challenges at the same time. Moreover, emphasis has to be given on PRICING or PARTICULAR SALES CHALLENEGE of the company concerned as the need may be.

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ANNEXURE
y What are your top two Sales Challenges? y What is your Target Geography? y Are you managing your sales activities In-house? y Have you tried outsourcing? y How was your Outsourcing Experience? y Are you considering outsourcing in near future? y Have you already started the evaluation process? y Who are the Players that you are considering? y Any specific reason for not considering outsourcing? y What is your Annual Revenue? y What is the No. of employees in your organisation?

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REFERENCES
WEBSITES
y y y y

www.google.com www.zoominfo.com www.linkedin.com www.XYZ.com

BOOKS
y

Marketing Management Philip Kotler

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