PR 2.0 – PR + Hiring - naseba Hired LIVE on Radio Indigo jobs@naseba.com

I hear a lot about PR2.0 and how conversations are making things happen and then social media and blogs are driving the new sales and marketing strategies, here is something that I would like to call the PR2.0 LIVE Experience, a PR 2.0 strategy!

naseba, a French MNC, did a big PR campaign with Radio Indigo 91.9 FM where they initiated and accomplished a hiring campaign for the first time in India to hire their sales executives LIVE ON AIR.

I wrote earlier about the stress interview which Scott Ragsdale, CEO of naseba is going to take LIVE ON AIR and that’s exactly what happened this Friday, 30th May 2008 when the history was made by recruiting LIVE ON AIR on a radio channel first time in India.

This can turn out to be a successful PR strategy for any organization to enhance their presence and support their recruitment drives. naseba started a recruitment campaign with promoting a LIVE stress interview on Radio Indigo, where Scott Ragsdale the CEO of naseba hires live on air.

2 weeks of teaser and live campaigns on AIR just added the appropriate Indian spice in the whole recruitment drive and candidates resumes started flowing in and Global Chief Marketing and CRM Director of naseba, Liam Findlay introduced the company and culture to the listeners and finally the team short listed few candidates. Dhruva and Nagarjuna the final short listed candidates were interviewed LIVE on air and they went through the stress interview and both of them emerged as the winning candidates!

While companies and individuals worldwide are talking about what they are going to do, naseba is just making it happen!

Which blogs do Journalists read?

Found an interesting article on BNET regarding which blogs do Journalists read...

Wondering which blogs journalists themselves find most valuable? Brodeur Strategies and Marketwire did an online survey. “We did the study because we wanted to help clients better understand the interplay between online news activity and journalism. We know who the traditional reporters are that cover our clients’ industries and beats but we need to better understand where they’re getting their information online.” (Jerry Johnson, executive vice president, Brodeur Strategies)
Here are the results:
Lifestyle journalists:
TMZ
Perez Hilton
MSN Lifestyle
AOL Living
Political journalists:
Huffington Post
Real Clear Politics
Talking Points Memo
Daily Kos
Tech journalists:
Engadget
Gizmodo
Boing Boing
Arstechnica
GigaOm
Travel journalists:
Tripadvisor
Frommers
Forbes Traveler
Travel Channel
Yahoo! Travel
Healthcare journalists:
NIH
WebMD
Mayo Clinic
MSN Health

jobs@naseba.com naseba is hiring LIVE ON AIR on Radio Indigo 91.9 FM

Monaco based Multinational, naseba, is hiring LIVE ON AIR for the first time in the history of Indian Radio. Today morning Mr. Liam Findlay, Global Chief Marketing Director was in interview with Morning RJ Ayesha Dsouza and introduced naseba in Bangalore, LIVE ON AIR on Radio Indigo 91.9 FM and talked about the culture of the company and what naseba does. Also, he gave some tips on how to handle stress interviews and how Scott Ragsdale, CEO of naseba will fly down from Monaco to Bangalore to hire sales people LIVE on Radio Indigo in a stress interview.

To learn more about jobs at naseba visit http://www.naseba.com/index.html?pagecode=careers to get some tips on how to handle stress interview visit this previous entry of mine. To apply for jobs at naseba send your resumes to jobs@naseba.com.

What Does naseba do?
naseba is a business information company. naseba produces, promotes and hosts strategic business platforms using a conference, congress, expo or forum format - depending on the market - with the ultimate focus on knowledge expansion, networking but most importantly maximizing deal-making opportunities for all our executive clients.

naseba is listed on the Paris Stock Exchange.

naseba now has 10 streams of international products:
- CXO Strategies
- Healthcare
- Human Services
- Infrastructure
- Transport & Logistics
- Energy & Environment
- Travel & Tourism
- Investment
- FIS
- Telecoms & IT

Some more TIPS to handle the interview and what are we looking for:
-We are looking for Sharp people who are aggressive and have a “Make It Happen Attitude”
-They should dress sharply … here are some sharp business dressing tips on to what to do and how to dress in a professional atmosphere.
-They shouldn’t take NO as an answer.
-They should be very confident and should be able to talk to the CEO level audience over the phone.
-Should be quick thinkers on their feet and should be crisp, clear and to the point.

I will be updating this section with more tips and points soon…keep posting your comments!

Radio Indigo 91.9 FM + naseba (French MNC) hiring LIVE on AIR – in a Stress Interview

First Time ever in history of Indian Radio, Radio Indigo 91.9 FM and naseba, a French MNC would be hiring its sales consultants LIVE On-Air. To accomplish this task, the CEO of the company Scott Ragsdale is flying down from Monaco to hire the person LIVE through a stress interview ON-AIR on Radio Indigo 91.9 FM, the colour of music.

My team member Subhashree, who initiated this idea, is making it happen. She comes from a diverse background of advertising and production in radio. This special recruitment drive will not just be a job opportunity for candidates but this is a brilliant opportunity for all the listeners of the channel to learn how to handle a stress interview and how to communicate with the CEO of a company in an interview.

In a stress interview generally the interviewers are trying to assess how quickly you can think of your feet? Can you handle situations which you didn’t expect can happen? They want to see your attitude and analytical skills even in a time of shock or stress. Here are TOP 5 tips on how to manage a stress interview.
1) Leave your fear @ home – People who are fearless are the most confident people. If you are confident, you can handle awkward situations as you would be able to take out quick 2 secs to think and then respond to the situation. If you are fearless, it doesn’t matter who is interviewing you, the hiring manager or the CEO. Know your basics well and you would sail well.

2) The interviewer wants to hire you – As much as it’s your prerogative to get the job, interviewer also wants to hire the best candidate. So your confidence, your ability to think creatively and your response would only help the interviewer to decide on hiring you or not. Keeping the calm in your head and answering questions to the best of knowledge would be helpful.

3) Aggression – Sometimes companies are looking for aggression through a stress interview as this might be for a sales position. You need to be aggressive though aggression shouldn’t let you loose your cool. As tomorrow, when you are at a customer’s office, you need to aggressively push your product/service but you can’t misbehave with them.

4) Ask counter questions – If you think you are being trapped in a “Situational case” or a “Ridiculous Puzzle”, ask questions. You can start analyzing the situation in your mind and at any roadblock ask questions. This was you will be very clear on what you have to answer also you will get time to think about the same.

5) Mannerism – Sometimes strange mannerisms are shown by the interviewer, its just to push you in a corner or distract you from thinking. You can simply ignore such mannerisms and continue to focus. Don’t get bogged down by loud voce, shouting or dirty stares etc. Remember the tip 1 – Leave your fear @ home, that’s it!

Post your experiences earlier with stress interviews or your ideas or comments on this innovative recruitment drive LIVE ON-AIR on Radio...

Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) Route Map and Guide

After all the drama and to and fro amongst the people, governement and BIAL authoritites, Bangalore International Airport BIAL will be operational from today onwards. yet there is no final decision on the HAL airport.
How to reach the new BIAL airport? What all facilities are available at the new bangalore airport? How far is the new airport from the city’s centre? Here is your guide to the BIAL airport.
Download the Passenger Information document here.
Download the Easy access guide here.
Download the shuttle schedule here.
Download the route map here.
Download the Bangalore International Airport Layout.
Let’s see how the things turn out now. Obviously you would notice that there are a lot of services added in the BIAL airport lounges etc, but how much is an average traveler willing to shell out, remains the question?

Scott Ragsdale's - Black Gucci Loafer - Selling the Benefits and Brand Power

I was reading Scott Ragsdale’s blog, CEO of naseba, the entry on Black Gucci Loafer, on how to sell people on the benefits and make them buy a service or product at a premium. I am very impressed by the way he gives his sales pitch to motivate the sales team to sell more. Here is a small story from my experience to re-enforce the fact on what Scott has written.

In my previous job at one of the largest India IT MNCs, I was the marketing manager and I was responsible for launching a new Software Product in the SME market in India. India is a very price sensitive market and people are not ready to pay big amounts. However, if sold well on the concept and brand, people do buy it.

So after launching the product and doing marketing activities, I launched a special offer of 50% off on the initial price. Obviously, the price was marked up according to competitor’s price and there was an actual profit margin kept. In the first 2 weeks none of the sales guys sold it. They all thought it’s an expensive product and won’t sell.

I got pissed off and I asked my manager, that I am going to prove them wrong and sell it at a higher margin + I am going to get an annual maintenance contract (25% of the actual cost of product) also signed in a month’s time.

Within 1 week of scanning the market I found 2 potential opportunities and I went and pitched and showed the product demo and closed the deal much higher than the actual price and also sold the AMC for 25% of the product cost.

My simple pitch was that it is exclusive as the service provided is unmatchable and the convenience that the hospital (buying it) is much higher than any of the cheap competitor’s product. The brand name and the over all packaging along with the smooth sales pitch highlighting the benefits made me sell and I won the “Operation Market Storm – BDM of the Month”.

This is the power of branding, sales and individual’s ability all put together to build a strong sales organization.

Google's Hogwash: How auctions set ad prices

Google's recent blog entry on how Google sets the ad prices for their Ad-words program is a sheer hogwash.

Hal Varian, their chief economist, explains the entire bidding process and how the highest bid price and quality score determines the final prices of the bids that the advertisers have to pay.

I respect google's ad-words program creator and conceptualizer for bringing the Online Ads to reality and making it a Star performer for Google with over a Billion dollar in revenue. However, now it's just become a clear machine for google to hogwash advertisers by their complex statistical algorithms gimmick.

For Eg: If I have set-up a budget for lets say $10/day the cost of the adwords is low. However, if I increase my daily budget to $100 the cost of the same keyword will go high even when there is no other bidder for the same keyword. I have tested this multiple times.

Also, lets say the quality score determined by google is low. However, I might have a strategic benefit behind choosing a certain keyword for a limited time period. The automated process can not identify that and Google changes the cost of the keyword exorbitantly just as a "curbing tactic".

Also interestingly google's content network gets a very high clickthru rate than the search network. So, isin't it obvious that Google should somehow provide that information on the campaign report that who are the people clicking in the content network.

When google complains about click frauds...it makes me wonder...what if its a 2 way fraud?
Why does google has to increase the bid price even when no one else is bidding?

Also, I am just wondering why the people who were chief architects and key contributors in a lot of google's products have left google ? Here are they now and how facebook is stealing people from google.

Digital Rape of Democracy in India

Digital Rape of Democracy in India

The recent elections in Karnataka, Bangalore proved to be another election where the Election Commision’s guidelines were not followed. This time around our political leaders got innovative with the digital media. They used Mobile Marketing or marketing through sending SMS to the prospective voters.

According to Election Commision’s guidelines the promotions should stop 2 days before the election dates. Till the last day of the elections there were SMSes floating on the purchased databases from Telecom providers. They kept promoting the candidatures till the last moment.

Isn’t it the “Digital Rape of Democracy”?

CIO Strategies India : Whitepaper on Data-Leakage and Security

CIO Strategies for Emails and Electronically Stored data Do Data-Leakage and Security concern you as the IT Decision maker of your organization? 80% of key IT decision makers have this specific concern. naseba brings you an exclusive 35 page research report by Enterprise Strategy Group on Data-Leakage Prevention.
Key questions addressed in the report:
• How much confidential data do organizations have today? Where is it located? Do organizations classify and track the movement of this data?
• Have organizations experienced data breaches? If so, were these breaches the result of internal or external attacks? Were they malicious in nature?
• What were the business ramifications of these breaches? Did they have any direct financial impact such as a loss of revenue or employee productivity?
• How do organizations detect these breaches? Can they detect malicious activities that may be early warning signs of an impending breach?
Also you can register for CIO Strategies Forum India online here and you can also download the nomination form for CIO India Awards 2008 here.

CIO Strategies for Emails and Electronically Stored data

Here is a special whitepaper download from ZDNET on CIO Strategies for retention of Emails and Electronically stored data.
Over the past two years, major changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the increase in state and federal compliance regulations have created new challenges for companies as they struggle to manage email retention and deletion policies. To successfully maintain compliance and protect business in the event of litigation, companies must understand these changes. Implementing new strategies for email will enable organizations to effectively set and manage email retention and deletion policies, as well as provide robust search and e-discovery capabilities to respond rapidly to litigation. Check out this TechRepublic Webcast, now available on demand, to learn about critical changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and what those changes mean "in plain English" for your business. You'll learn CIO strategies for:
-Determining appropriate retention and discovery requirements for email and electronically stored information.
-Involving stakeholders across your organization to respond to this challenge.
-Ensuring that email is always available and data is never lost. Providing search, discovery and recovery of electronic information.
-Avoiding pitfalls in managing a records retention and data discovery effort.

Email Marketing: Top 10 List of Reasons Why Your Last Email Campaign Stunk

A direct rip from Email Labs article by Loren McDonald, this is hillarious: Top 10 List of Reasons Why Your Last Email Campaign Stunk. Drum roll please...
10. Addressed Each Recipient as "Dear Sucker"
Personalization is a must. Recipients expect it and the more you personalize an email the more successful it is in generating a response.

9. Earl in Shipping Wrote the CopyPeople do read email copy.
A common mistake emarketers make is in not using a professional direct response copywriter. Secondly, they assume the less copy the better, but end up with weak copy that also does not provide enough information to motivate a response.

8. Hired Neighbor's Son, Who Is Taking An HTML Course at the Local JC, to Design the Email. While almost anyone can learn to program HTML, email design is a very unique skill. In fact in our experience, many otherwise strong designers often struggle to create great emails.

7. Your Subject Line Was - "We Have What You Want...Really!"Good subject lines are critical to high open rates - which in turn drives your click-through and conversion rates. Always test a few subject lines before mailing in bulk.

6. Used "Joey Buttafuco" as the From Line
From lines can have a huge affect on open rates. Whether to house or rented lists, don't overlook the importance of from lines, and always test first if possible.

5. Landing Page Sign-Up Form Asked For GPA From Grammar School
A common mistake companies make is to ask people for too much information, too early in the "relationship." If you've mailed to a targeted list, recipients should already be "pre-qualified." Don't scare them away by trying to obtain your demographics wish list.

4. Thought "Live People Who Own Computers" Was a Targeted List
While the perfect list (or lists) rarely exists, conducting thorough list research and analysis will reap huge dividends. Segment your house list as appropriate and choose as many selects as are available when renting opt-in lists.

3. Your Offer Was - "FREE Copy of Our New Brochure"
Email offers must be compelling. Whether it is value proposition oriented or an incentive, an offer must be personally relevant and strong enough to motivate recipients to take action.

2. Thought "Testing" Was Only for Students and Olympic Athletes
Testing is integral to the success of email campaigns. Test the most important variables in your email, and apply the learning to your bulk campaign.
and the number one reason....

1. Rented List From "Bob's Email List Discount Warehouse"
Perhaps one of the most common and biggest mistakes companies make is in renting inexpensive lists. While poor creative can produce weak campaign results, great creative will rarely generate a good response from a cheap list. For some reason, many emarketers believe that old adage "you get what you pay for" doesn't apply to email lists.

Propable 10 mistakes you would not want to repeat in email marketing!

Mobile Marketing: India Crosses US in telephony subscribers

According to latest release by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory authority of India), the total wireless subscribers base stood at 261.09 million at the end of March 2008, compared to 255 million subscribers in U.S. A total of 10.16 million wireless subscribers have been added in the month of March2008 as against 8.53 million wireless subscribers added in the month of February 2008.
Another landmark that march saw was reaching a total telephone connections to 300 million (wireline+wireless). The overall tele-density is pegged at 26.22% at the end of March 2008 as against 25.31% in February 2008.

Total of 96 million subscribers were added since March last year.

Comparatively, broadband connections have performed dismally with addition of only 1.56 million broadband subscribers since March 2007. The total broadband subscriber base stands at 3.90 million, far from 10 million subscribers that government had predicted by end of 2008.

Some time back I blogged about Why Mobile marketing will work in India. Here are more reasons now why Mobile Marketing will work in India. However, the sad part is the slow broadband growth. I think prices and lack of education are primary reasons for the same. Do share your opinion regarding the same.