Binary Marketing

It was yet another session on online advertising but different in nature as it taught us how we, as individuals, can use online tools (which are completely free of cost) to the best of our use.

Our lecturer for these online marketing sessions was someone who hails from one of the biggest and the best online websites. He started the session with just four people in class and luckily, I was one of them. The rest of the students missed out on the classes on account of coming late for it and hence also missed out on the initial introduction session. In the second session, we informed him what we have already learnt in the subject in our previous semesters and what do we understand by online marketing/ advertising.

By the end of the first day's sessions, we learnt a few more ideas about online advertising and how cheap and targeted the ads in the online space have become these days. He showed us how SEO and SEM works in Google and why one person gets different ads from the other even though they visit the same website. We ended the day with Pizzas, Coke and lots of Samosas to make it a perfect ending. Sir promised us leave for the next two hours of class as India England match was about to get underway.

The second day started with the class buzzing with students and everyone was ready with the laptops on in front of them. The sessions concentrated mainly on subjects like "Ad Words", "Google Analytics", "Google Insights", etc. We learnt how, with the help of Google Ad Words, we as individuals can start advertising about anything that we want. It looked a bit complex in the beginning with you deciding your budget and how to lower your spending per ad, but in the end it turned out to be a complete fun activity. We were divided in groups of two and we had to make ads of either a Laptop or a Mobile Phone and decided everything from key words to the image that we want to upload for the ad. The rest of the day we spent learning how we can track the performance of our website and also of our competitors by using Google Analytics and Google Insights. A lot of brand and competitive tracking can be done by using these two tools which are provided by Google completely free of cost to everyone. You can do a lot of concrete research by knowing how to use these tools and the best part about them is that they provide you with concrete true data which you can use to support your claim in future.

We also learnt how social media advertising has changed the face of advertising and how marketers are using this to the best of their knowledge. Today, no brand can survive long without using the online space for advertising as more and more people are spending time online. We also came to know that if we as marketing managers in future can keep our advertising as targeted as possible then it would be for our good only. In India, ads are still not targeted cleverly and hence we waste a lot of money. But, we do our homework and try and find out ways of making the ads more targeted, its only going to work for us more.

YouTube, another website owned by Google is a website which works completely by uploads from people themselves. Every minute, 35 hours of videos are uploaded on this website and millions of people use it. It is one of the best websites for viral marketing if you want to upload your ad and other videos relating to your brand.

All in all, the classes were very informative and light in nature. Our lecturer made sure that we understand the subject well and kept the sessions plain and simple for us. Although, he did not answer a lot of my questions as they were directed towards his company in particular ;-). Thanks a lot sir for us more tech savvy than what we already were.

Travel to Pushkar, Rajasthan

I would suggest places to visit through my blogs even though I personally would not be able to visit them. My busy schedule does not permit me to travel much, but if I come across an interesting article or a review or hear about a good place, I would keep you guys posted through my blogs. This time I am suggesting Pushkar to you all. I came very close to going to Pushkar this time around but I missed it by a whisker.

If you ever get time in the month of November, plan a travel to Pushkar, Rajasthan. Anytime between the last week of October-First week of November, every year Pushkar holds a mega cattle fair, known as Pushkar Mela, where people gather to sell deal in camels. Years back, when this fair started, there only used to be selling and buying of camels but now you find everything from a needle to a sword. Apparently, there are more number of camels than people in this fair. It becomes a melting pot of colors, cultures and people. Pushkar also boasts of having the only temple in India dedicated to Bhagwan Bramha(the creator of the universe according to Hindu Mythology).

Ajmer is only 15kms from Pushkar and an ideal place to stay as it becomes very difficult to find a place to stay in Pushkar. The rates of the hotels in Ajmer as well as Pushkar becomes ten times higher than the normal charges. Hence, it is advisable to book hotels and other places of stay much before. Ajmer has the Ajmer Sharief Darga, a holy place for all the Muslims, and Muslims from across the border too come down.

If you have time, you can also visit Jaipur which is only two hours drive from Pushkar. Jaipur is one of the most developed cities of Rajasthan and is visited by thousands of tourists every year.

Hope you have a nice time when you visit Rajasthan, although it will make sense to visit Pushkar only next year now as the mela is about to get over by 2nd November. There was also a Litreray Festival in Pushkar this time around where authors from all over India come and it is a prefect occasion for all the book lovers.