ROI – advertisements.

None of the products or services becomes a commodity until and unless it is advertised properly and strategically positioned.

Strategically positing means projecting the product/services at the right time, right place and for the right set of People.

By right set of people I mean to say that the customer to be targeted should be predefined. The way there is a difference in approach and customer segmentation of low cost airlines and full service provider.

At the right time I mean to say that “It should be the need of the hour”. Long back in US getting a housing loan use to be tedious job and use to take a lot of time at that time CITIBANK entered the business offering home loan processing within one day. With this strategy they were able to capture a major of market share.

Advertisement modes have gone sea through changes within last decade, moving from conventional print and hoardings to electronic media like T.V, Mobiles and internet.

Determining the ROI of advertisement (i.e. how many eyeballs your advertisement has attracted) is always a difficult proposition. Well I said it is difficult not impossible it can be determined both for digital as well as print advertisement some of the modes and there tracking mechanism I have mentioned below

1) Digital Advertisement Eyeballs for digital advertisement can be determined using conventional sampling method or by using the technology of advertisement delivery itself.

a. T.V – With more and more viewers switching to setup boxes it becomes very easy to know as to what the viewer is viewing at a given point of time and for the user not on setup boxes the conventional sampling method can be put in use

b. Email/ Banner advertisement – The advertisement response in an Email campaign can be tracked by the number of mail opened by the recipients, it is also easy to determine the user trends based on the number of mails opened.

Note: It is not the read receipts that are requested from the recipients but it is email opened. Because for emails delivered to yahoo, hotmail and other service provider they do not allow read receipt.
2) Print media

Print media (News paper, magazine, pamphlets distribution, hoardings etc) is the most costly mode of advertisement but effective too. But determining the eyeballs an advertisement has received is being little more difficult than the electronic media. Well again I said more difficult not impossible.

The eyeballs can be determined again by using the conventional sampling methodology but apart from this there is one other way which I think can be put into picture. Well well well I’m not going to disclose it right now; If you want to know it then you need to wait for sometime till I get it patented, but getting a patent is not a easy job requires a lot of investment 10000$ approx so the wait can be longer too.

Happy advertising

Patent Process
http://www.lawfirms.com/documents/Overview%20Patent%20Process%20%20Costs.pdf

Credit Card a Big "Trap"

Plastic money is a revolution the way transactions are made by people now days. It’s now indispensible and is an integral part of our lifestyle.

Few years back there was no term called “On credit” and there were very few sellers (except grocery shop, pan walas) who use to make transactions on credit that too looking at the face value, past transaction history and buyers track records in the past.

Came 21st Century and the scenario has completely changed, now everything and anything is available on credit because customer has been empowered by Plastic money (Buy now pay later). Plastic money has increased the purchasing power of buyers tremendously; a person earning 10000 bucks can spend 10 times of his monthly earning without having any obligation against any individuals. The only obligation is between the bank and the buyer and that too is very confidential.

The benefit buyers have is that they need not carry cash every time, they can purchase anything and everything (Implicitly in there credit limit) based on there mood swings. Currency notes has been replaced by plastic money and the major reason for this shift is the reduce risk involved in currency movement in high-value transactions.

But “there is no free lunch” using the credit limit is bound to attract some charges and one needs to be aware and have a cautious approach.

Though the service provider claim to provide credit card free, but a careful observation of credit card bill reveals that annual fee and service tax on fee is charged to your account. Until and unless you call the customer care there is hardly any chances of fee reversal.

All the credit attract high Interest charges varying between 2-3% month amounting to 24-40% annually. Most of the users are not aware of the charges and the biggest temptation being to pay only a margin amount of the outstanding dues.

If a Cc user keeps on paying only 5% of the outstanding dues he will take at least 10 years to clear his entire outstanding.

There are certain benefit too that one gets by using credit card one gets free record keeping, free reward points, and many other features. Most of the credit cards offer some type of insurance if the purchase is stolen. Some of them offer extra life insurance policies for air travel booked on their cards, special periodic promotions, cash back schemes and balance transfer offers.

Basically it’s a double edged sword so it has to be used prudently

Make money work for you

Every individual salaried or business class is striving to boost his/her financial resources to a level where his all the expenses are less than his earning. Everyone wants to make a lot of money and enjoy all the lavish products right from perfumes to cars, home products to dressing.

The point to ponder here is that maximum of the expenses made by individuals are on housing, food and clothing (Roti, Kapda aur Makan in Indian context). Rich or poor everyone incurs above expenses implicitly. For rich spending on lavish housing, clothing and food can be for sake of change, but for middle class people it is mandatory spending.

So how can a person become rich?

Well there are thousands of books and article written on this, anyone who wants to grow rich is bound to purchase this books. I don’t know the fate of those people but one thing is sure that the publisher must have minted money like anything.

My views on becoming rich are rather different. I will consider a hypothetical case of Mr. X (age 32) who is earning 40,000 INR; he is a sole bread earner in his family (He himself, spouse and two kids) and no financial backing. My agenda would be to make him millionaire, help him in sourcing one flat, a car and with enough money in his kitty post retirement along with good education for his kids and there marriages.

There are three principals which Mr. X needs to follow

1) Sacrifice: To become rich at time you need to sacrifice because penny saved is penny earned. Mr. X can’t spend on lavish things and still Dream of having a golden retirement. An air cooler instead of A.C will server the propose of beating summer

2) Discipline/ commitment: To achieve long term goal Mr. X need to be very disciplined and committed towards goal.

3) Patience: Since Mr. X doesn’t have a financial backing or support he cannot immediately fulfill all his dream, he has to patience wait to strike the cord at the right time

To view the calculations please Click Here

Now, withdraw from any ATM, free!

Have you asked me? I’m a bank.!!!!

I’m a bank with substantial amount of ATM Kiosks and I consider this as a wrong decision, Because there is a cost involved in serving the customer through ATM'S. There is cost of maintenance, cost of replenishing the cash, cost of operation, rental and lot more. Now my fixed cost/ TOTAL customer (Mine other bank customers) will be reduced but the fixed cost/ my customer remains the same or may increase as my customer will withdraw money from other bank ATM’S.

My Operating cost will increase due to frequent customer walking in and outs of the ATM’S causing electricity bills to shoot up and I’ll have to incur additional maintenance cost of the machines. Variable cost i.e. cost of replenishing the cash will increase exorbitantly as people will find it easy to withdraw cash from the nearest ATM which could be my bank ATM.


Later I’ll discover that my cash refueling has to be done more frequently and many times my own customer will be deprived from there fundamental right of cash withdrawal because of the ATM’S running short of cash.

There can be a counter argument that my customer can use other bank’s ATM, but what about my privileged customer getting denial of services from my ATM and cursing the moment when he opted for my services. Three times it happens and I’m bound to loose my existing customer and even the prospective customer who is using my ATM for cash withdrawal.Moreover It will be also impossible for me to predict the demand.

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Inflation falls, nearing deflation

Inflation has been falling steeply since the agenda of Lok Sabha election took a momentum. It seems to be all election gimmick to satisfy/ justify (God knows whom) and to spread a feel good factor across the country and capitalize on the sentiments.

Prediction of Inflation (magical figure indicating a fall of inflation) become easier and it became so easy that every common man was in a position to predict the figures for the upcoming Thursday without having any knowledge of pricing and economics. Thanks for the knowledge wave created among the Indians now every Indian seems to be aware of the Term.

The biggest loop hole in calculating inflation in India is that it is calculated on the price of commodities based on whole sale price and there are lot of commodities that are not in purchase kitty of a common man still are included in deriving Inflation. This is an orthodox methodology and should be abandoned.

Except us none of the developing countries use WPIInflation should be determined by the retail price index and only regular commodities like vegetables, soap, detergents, toothpaste/powder, cotton etc etc should be included. With retail pricing moving towards north, common man struggling for Roti aur kapda (Forget makan) where are we heading.

We need to think of it……

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