Is business card still beneficial for marketing

In an increasingly digital world, many wonder what the future of the business card is. Let me be the first to tell you that, love them or hate them, business cards are here to stay. In fact, you could argue that business cards have never been more relevant than they are right now. As businesses move to the digital arena, business cards may give you a unique advantage from a marketing standpoint. While everyone else is shouting from the rooftops about PPC, email, SEO and social media and drowning each other out, you can stand apart from the rest with a professional business card.

A nice-looking business card not only shows professionalism but can also build your level of legitimacy and credibility. Small and micro businesses rely on referrals more than any other business demographic, and business cards are an effective, inexpensive and long lasting channel for referrals and networking. As it has for many other products, the Internet has made business cards more accessible and less expensive than they were 10 years ago. They’re easier to design, purchase and hand out than ever.

Business card help form a customer’s first impression of you. Using business cards gives an image of professionalism and shows that you take pride in your work, both of which are vital qualities for the customers of many small businesses. And if you include your business card with every product that you sell or to invoice that you send out to customers in Canada or Toronto, you have an extremely powerful and long-lasting marketing and networking tool. Why? I can tell you in one word: longevity. Brochures and direct mail likely end up in the trash within a couple of weeks. (Even so, both methods still have a longer life than an email campaign whose average longevity is about a week before it’s deleted.) Promotional products can make a wonderful impression, but most of them will probably end up as a toy for someone’s kid. But the business card I give you today may stay with you for 10 years, and you will be reminded of that first impression every time you flip by it in your business card portfolio.

Business cards are also about image. I know many small ecommerce merchants who run their business out of their basements, yet they do phenomenal business due to the professionalism of the business cards that they distribute. A professional image builds credibility in the minds of the customer and can make all the difference in generating a sale or not.

Business people who carry and distribute a stack of cheap, do-it-yourself, print-at-home, business cards templates wherever they go are doing themselves and their business a great disservice. Those cards are not likely to ignite or even support a great first impression in any way. And because of the longevity of a business card, the evidence of that failed opportunity may stick in your prospect’s files for years to come. Don’t think it doesn’t matter or that people don’t notice. People judge you on appearances, and your marketing materials play as much a role as your attire and demeanor. There are many top-notch printing companies out there that can give you a completely customizable business card design. I recommend you do it right and let the professionals do it for you.

Also remember that no matter how much you spend on your business cards size and dimensions, they will probably still be the cheapest and most effective piece of marketing collateral that you will ever buy.

Business card marketing ideas can be an effective and long-living form of marketing that improves the legitimacy of your company and keeps it in the mind of the customer longer, especially if the card stands out. The design of the card quickly communicates what your company is about, and piques the interest of people who see it. Not only will they keep the card, which increases the likelihood of a future purchase and improves branding, but they are also likely to share it with others, which greatly extends your reach. Many businesses include two business cards in every package they send out strictly for this purpose. The customer gets to keep one and can distribute the other if necessary.

Contrary to popular belief, business cards are neither dead nor they are waste of money. Business cards have two very valuable uses which are:

1.    Old fashioned paper business cards are excellent for meetings of professional associations, fund raising roadshows and as a reminder of your 30 second commercial when you meet people face to face.

2.    Software programs such as Outlook allow users to create a contact card. This is the electronic version of a business card. Your contact information can then be included with every email.

All business cards (paper or electronic) should include your website, mobile number, email id, landline telephone number  and logo that potential customers can associate with your product or services.

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Indian Startups with Interesting Desi Names

While there are many established companies based in India who have adopted a foreign name to connect to the Indian mindset which aspires of foreign-label, there are a number of startups who believe “The name is built by customers, not by brands.”

Not only the mother tongue “Hindi” but quite a few startups have chosen regional languages to christen their company, right from the ancient Indian language Sanskrit to Telugu, a South Indian language.

Let us have a glimpse of these promising startups with desi names.

1. Kreeda Games

Kreeda Games is a game developer and publisher based in Mumbai. Its primary business is to design and build multiplayer Social games and game for SmartPhones. It was founded in November 2006 by three mavericks in a small garage with very big dreams. Kreeda’s particular expertise is in building games that get players to invite their friends.

Kreeda is a Sanskrit word which in English translates into “Game”.

2. Eka Software

Eka Software Solutions is a leader in technology for organizations that specialize in the buying and selling of physical commodities across world markets. Eka is derived from the word “EKAM”, which means ‘unified’ or ‘integrated’ in Sanskrit. It signifies the organizational intent to provide a single-platform solution for managing trade and risk across commodities, industry verticals and business segments.

3. Gharpay

Gharpay is a doorstep cash payment network. It collects cash from customers at their doorstep in 550 postal codes across 7 cities in India. It is practically the only organized player doing this in a  50000 crore e-commerce market that’s struggling to get people to pay online. Being an exclusive cash payment collection network, it has many advantages over courier companies providing this service.

Hindi word Gharpay translates into English as “At Home”. The second syllable “pay” is also an English word which defines the kind of service the company provides.

4. Sloka Telecom

Sloka is a Sanskrit word which means “Song”. Sloka Telecom is a Radio Access Network (RAN) solution provider. It is a pioneer in designing, developing and selling compact and cost-effective Base Stations and Consumer Premise Equipment (CPE) for new standards- WiMAX and WiFi.

5. Samvedana

Samvedana is a non-profit organization that supports social growth of the underprivileged in slums by providing educational opportunities and healthcare facilities. It achieves this by conducting welfare programmes, outdoor activities and workshops, actively in Ahmedabad. Samvedana is a Gujarati and Hindi word meaning “compassion.”

6. Pothi.com

Pothi.com is a Bangalore based start-up founded in February 2008. The company makes publishing accessible to everyone. It offers a print on demand publishing platform which can be used by individuals and organizations for publishing their books in print at very little or no absolutely zero investment. ‘Pothi’ means ‘a book’ in many North Indian languages including Hindi, Punjabi and Bengali.

7.  FoodKhoj

FoodKhoj is an online food delivery portal that allows you to place an order online, for the food of your choice from different restaurants that deliver to your area. FoodKhoj is a Hindi phrase which in English means “Search for Food”. It is a free service which aims to build up long term relationship between restaurants and customers. Customers who use the portal continuously get exclusive access to better deals, discounts and prices.

8. Makaan.com

It is the fastest growing property website in India which was established with the mission to connect relevant buyers and sellers of real estate. It helps in making wise and profitable decisions related to buying, selling, renting and leasing of properties in India.

The portal was named as such because “Makaan” is the most commonly used word among the Indian real-estate people. Most Indians also refer to their dream house as “Makaan”, which translates in English into “House”

9. SadakMap.com

SadakMap.com is a portal service that provides a different approach to finding information local to a place. It makes it convenient to use when looking for businesses, public places, etc in your locality. One unique feature about the site is the ability to post messages in your locality for everyone to see and respond to, thus creating a map-based discussion forum.

The word "Sadak" means "a road" in the Indian language "Hindi". Incidentally, it also happens to be the name of a Turkish village.

10. Chitika

Chitika is one of the largest search-targeted advertising networks, currently serving over 600 million search driven impressions per month, and growing. Founded in 2003, the founders sought a name that would suggest the speed with which its customers would be able to put up ads on their Web sites. Chitika, which means “snap of the fingers” in Telugu captured this sentiment and Chitika was born.

11. MeraEvents.com

MeraEvents which means “MyEvents” in English, is the first Indian web-based portal completely dedicated to all the Events, Conferences, Exhibitions, Seminars, and Trade fairs which offers many unique features. Its aim is to forever change the way events are organized.

12. Ayojak.com

Ayojak.com is a product innovation company which is an event solutions platform offering event discovery to users and event solutions to event organizers. It takes less than 3 minutes to publish an event page and power it with 360 degree event solution online registration apps, event solution and event marketing.

Ayojak in hindi means “organizer”, which is basically what the service is all about.

13. Mauj

Mauj, which in English means “Fun” is a company focused on building great customer destinations on Mobile Internet. Established in 2003, it was formed with a vision to empower consumers by providing entertainment and information via mobile phone and specifically on Mobile Internet platforms.

14. Saavn

Saavn was founded in 2006 by Vin Bhat, Neal Shenoy, and Paramdeep Singh in a partnership between New York based parent company 212 Media, Indian company Hungama, and Schramm Sports & Entertainment. Saavn is a digital distributor of Bollywood and Kollywood music, with rights to over 2 million music tracks. The name Saavn is an acronym for “South Asian Audio Visual Network” and in Hindi;Saavn is the season of Monsoon, which is often associated with music.

15. PaGaLGuY

PaGaLGuY is India’s biggest and most trusted MBA preparatory resources website, used by over 700,000 MBA applicants every month. It was started in 2002 and it follows an online community approach to create smart and useful products to make the lives of MBA applicants easier.

Pagalguy is one of the funniest names for a web portal which means “A mad boy” which refers to those people who are crazy about MBA preparations.

16. Sarkariexam.com

SarkariExam is the first dedicated government job portal in India with an objective of satisfying the demand of every educated individual to get a job position in Indian Government sector. It provides all the vital information that, too with most accurate and precise format so that the information is easily available and grasped by the user.

17. Avashya.com

India has seen a tremendous growth in Web 2.0 technologies. India is a unique market for interesting technological challenges, social networking and mobile devices. Together these factors have created an unseen buzz and flurry of funding into Web 2.0 initiatives. Avashya which means “Necessary” in English is a central destination for news, insights and analysis about India's contributions to Web 2.0 and beyond.

18. merinews.com

Merinews is India’s largest citizen journalism portal. It is an open platform for every citizen who wishes to share news, views, analysis, pictures etc with people around the world.

The name of the company means “My News”.

17. Apalya Technologies

Apalya, which means `mobility' in Sanskrit, is said to control the biggest share of the Indian mobile TV market, with over 4 million subscribers; the company claims it has a 99% marketshare. It was formed in 2005 to take advantage of the growing demand for Live Television, events and video on demand in the mobile space.

18. NaapTol

Launched in January 2008, Naaptol has grown to become one of India's largest comparison based social shopping portal. It is one-stop destination for shoppers, merchants and market enthusiasts which binds buyers and sellers in a profitable network. Naaptol helps people connect better making the whole experience of buying easier.

Naaptol is a Hindi word which means “To measure”.

19. Vyome Biosciences

Vyome, which means ‘Sky’ or ‘Heaven’, is a biopharmaceutical company leveraging next-generation functional genomics platforms, medicinal and polymer chemistry and nanotechnology to inspire the design and engineering of highly effective best-in-class therapeutics for dermatological indications.

22. Vaakya Technologies

Vaakya Technologies is a Bangalore based technology firm focused on fundamental research and development of innovative software infrastructure products.  for development and deployment of distributed software applications.

23. GupShup

GupShup is a social messaging service that enables users to share their short messages, privately with friends, or publicly with all. The service works on every mobile device and can be accessed via SMS, web, wap or mobile apps. It has over 60 million users in India, and expanding internationally.

“GupShup” is a Punjabi term meaning something like the English “chit chat.”

24. Yebhi.com

It is the fastest growing company in lifestyle category in India. It had started with the sale of multi brand Footwear online through its website. Enormous success in footwear category inspired the company to expand in other categories like Apparels, Accessories, Bags, Jewellery and Mobiles.

Yebhi is a Hindi phrase which in English means “This Also”.

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Social Media Tools You Should Be Using NOW

Social media is everywhere. It's in our homes, places of worship, schools and, of course, our businesses. Everywhere you look, people are using social media and are talking about it. And it seems that every week a new type of social site pops up.

And as the number of social networking sites grows, so does the number of services that are created to measure, track and monitor those services. What's a marketing professional to do?

To help you cut through the clutter, here are the 10 must-use social media tools that can not only help you make sense of your social media efforts but make them more effective.

1. EditFlow
EditFlow is a plugin from open source content management system WordPress that allows you to manage your editorial team seamlessly.

With it, you can get a snapshot of your month-to-month content with the calendar feature. It also offers improvedcontent status beyond WordPress' default draft and pending review. And user groups can help you keep your team of writers organized by department or function.

Who should use it and why: Any business owner who manages a multi-author website should give EditFlow a look. This tool can keep all of the things that are important to a multi-author blog in one spot so management is easy, clean and documented.

2. TweetReach
This tool allows you to see how far your tweets travel. For example, with TweetReach I can search my blog and come up with these results. It breaks down how many people your messages reach and how many tweets it took to reach them. For instance, TweetReach can tell you how many times your tweets have been shared by retweets, replies and other standard tweets.

Who should use it and why: From a social media manager to a small-business owner, basically anybody who is interested in finding out how effective his or her tweets are based upon the number of people they touch should consider using TweetReach. It can also useful from a metric standpoint in terms of justifying the results of your social media campaigns with senior management or partners.

3. ArgyleSocial
This Durham, N.C.-based startup is a social media platform that aims to help marketers connect the business dots with the social media dots. ArgyleSocial offers a single dashboard to monitor Facebook and Twitter that allows you to delegate tasks to your team. It also offers easy reporting on the ROI of your social media efforts.

If you'd like to be an affiliate, you can use ArgyleSocial's white label brand and resell the social media platform to your clients. All of your accounts can be wrapped up into one bill and sent to you to distribute or absorb as an included service.

Who should use it and why: From the social media manager to the one-person business that needs to prove to management, clients or themselves that their social media campaign is paying off.

4. HootSuite for iPad
HootSuite users should be happy with this iPad application. It includes a stationary column in the sidebar that keeps track of all streams being tracked.

Among the other things HootSuite says you can do with this iPad app include checking in using a Foursquare account, scheduling messages to send at a later time, examine click-through statistics, add geo-location coordinates to messages and shorten URLs with a built-in Ow.ly tool.

Who should use it and why: HootSuite for iPad is for heavy iPad users who want to manage their social media content and engagement.

5. TweetLevel
You might be thinking you don't need another Tweet metric tool, but TweetLevel, allows you to specifically search for hashtags, which can lead you to insights on who to follow based upon conversation versus person.

Once you've found someone you'd like to follow, you can use TweetLevel to help measure his or her social influence. You can also evaluate the buzz around a certain topic to determine if it's a trend worth paying attention to. Then take a peek at related phrases around your topic to gauge the true scope of the trending idea.

Who should use it and why: Public relations managers and social media marketing professionals who want to analyze a campaign should give TweetLevel a try. This tool can help you identify the Twitter conversation, where it's going wrong and how to correct that mistake.

6. ReFollow
When it comes to Twitter, numbers might not be as important as the people you follow and who follows you.ReFollow is an application that allows you to lock in those followers that you've connected with and make sure they continue to follow you.

Other features include filtering a search on Twitter to uncover insights, such as what you have in common with certain followers. This can lead you to connecting with someone who maybe you're Twitter conversation has been close to zero, but with a simple direct message to that person you can make a connection and build a business relationship.

Who should use it and why: This can be the perfect tool for the person who wants to grow a list of highly-qualified, like-minded people. Consider using ReFollow if your concern is quality over quantity, which it should be.

7. TwitterSearch
You've probably heard of TwitterSearch but, more than likely, you aren't using it correctly.

New media expert Thomas Baekdal offers a number of little-known tips for using TwitterSearch. For instance, to see what people are saying about your competitors, search with to:competitor or from:competitor. Replace "Competitor" with that company's Twitter handle.

To uncover top trending topics search that topic plus –rt filter:links. For example, "digital marketing-rt filter:links". That code will remove all of the retweets from the search.

Who should use it and why: Anyone who wants to use and search Twitter more effectively should brush up on his or her TwitterSearch skills. And knowing what's trending on Twitter can be a useful way to generate ideas for your business blog. When you see trending topics, you can create a blog post with content relevant to that discussion.

8. Traackr
One simple way to find and follow people who are influential in your space is to use Traackr. It allows you to identify the "authorities" in your industry who can mean the most to your business or your client's.

What's also useful about Traackr is that you can watch how social media leaders are responding and contributing to content you are sharing. An ad agency, for example, can see who it should target to help social media campaigns get off the ground, build its engagement strategies based upon Traackr's unique intelligence and then see results of those campaigns.

Who should use it and why: Traackr can be a useful tool for either advertising agencies or brands that want to build social media campaigns that improve over time and show how they pay off in the end.

9. SocMetrics
The Topical Influencer platform by SocMetrics is a web-based tool that allows you to identify influencers, understand who these people are, interact with them and then monitor your campaign.

The "Competitive Influence" feature allows you to specify brands and drill down for detailed influencers. What's slick about this tool is that you can narrow your search to a long-tail keyword, seeing who is truly influential.

Who should use it and why: Any marketing professional who wants to build an effective social media campaign based upon influencers in a specific industry should give this a look. SocMetrics can help you harness the power of thought leaders, which in turn can help you build your brand and sell more.

10. Social Scope
For BlackBerry users who've longed for an app that combines Twitter and Facebook on one screen, such as TweetDeck for your desktop, consider trying Social Scope.

And on that same screen you'll see a thumbnail image if someone shares something from TwitPic. It also has a built in retweeting feature, hash tag search and will also let you see the entire URL to know where a truncated URL is pointing.

Who should use it and why: Anyone who owns a BlackBerry and has a Facebook and Twitter account is a prime target for this app. It's probably the closest you can get to a desktop-type app on a BlackBerry.

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Speak Asia Online Website Working Back - 8 November 2011

I congrats all Speak Asians for logging in speak asia website again . On this All India Speakasia Panelist Association was also reacted as “This is a wonderful surprise, because for the last five months we have not been able to log into our website and see our RP’s. "

But According to our information SpeakAsia Login Error 21 August 2011 in month of august 2011 their was strong protest by speak asia panelist to get back Speak Asia Company. If We Calculate from 21 August 2011 till today 8 November 2011 it’s less then 4 Months when website is in the hand of EOW Mumbai.

Speak Asia Online Website by Which Speak Asia Member Login to Do Survey and Other Works. Its Start Showing the Error of Database is full. This Type of Problems are faced when a database website have reached its limit of database this error can be corrected by allocating more space for the database area.

May Be Every Body remembers the black Friday Speak Asia Tarak Bajpai Arrested 29 July 2011
When Tarak Bajpai was arrested at that time website was working.. Website goes in the hand of EOW Mumbai.. Still the Peoples can login in website.

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People 1 View

Dear SpeakAsian,

As promised, the surveys are back today. However, as you know, our bank accounts continue to be inoperative
as per directives from the authorities and we are unable to process any cash request or payouts. Therefore
the Reward Points generated from Surveys will be credited to the Shopping ewallet which can be used for
shopping. This arrangement is till such time the situation improves and cash requests are allowed
to be processed.

We regret for any inconvenience caused to you.

Team SpeakAsia

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People 2 View

Dear All,

Server Access is still not in our hands.

To Know The Exact Status, Please Wait Till Tomorrow Evening.

Regards.

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People 3 View

Dear Speak Asian

This  is  quite disappointing that  till now  the company  has  not  received  website...I talked  to authorities of Speak Asia  ...they  told me that  till now we have not received The Website.....Crime Branch EOW  is  investigating the matter ..and for some time they  cleared the cache  memory  of  Website  and  now  it is operating  for  some  time...as EOW completes  his  final  verifications  it  will be  closed  soon..So no need to celebrate  ...we will  win  but  it  will take  time.
thanks
anand

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Concluded View

If every thing was coming to back from EOW Mumbai they will soon give any press release on this topic and as we all know their reports 2 copy will be submitted 1 will be submitted in court and other will be submitted to the Government of India.
In the Speak Asia Case we have to open ears for all the direction may be today any channel will publish news on this issue.
So we suggest "" Let us not over celebrate, let us be calm and wait patiently, for the inevitable to happen. ""Website is Only a Part of Speak Asia Online Company until the control gets in the Hand of Company webmasters nothing can be happened and according to last news all are in custody.

Major Point: Legal System of India is not stopping website and people to login in the website Government concerns only on the cases which are against speak asia company such as Andhra Pradesh high court case and Supreme court case .

People have different views on all the news. Many time some of the speak asians try to publish their views as by saying the latest news on speak asia . We All have to understand a very simple thing no body from us is a government agency or court. If we don't understand the legal matter we must contact to some lawyer so that reader can get a clear picture on that.

Please go through the following link on the website of the honorable Supreme Court of India to know that the next date of hearing for Speak Asia case is on 14th Nov, 2011.

http://courtnic.nic.in/supremecourt/casestatus_new/caseno_new_alt.asp

You may also very well track down the history as well as complete detail of the case on this link. 

On the left of the web page click on "case number" - > In the first box Case Type select "Writ Petition (Civil)" and in Case Number type "383"; you'll get all the information required.

I wish to caution all the Speak Asians that there are many people out there who are spreading many rumors both positive as well as negative. We are writing this article just to make sure that each and every Speak Asian must know as to where to look for authentic information related to this case.

I  also advice our readers to go through from the last judgment comes on 17th October 2011 http://courtnic.nic.in/supremecourt/temp/3832011317102011p.txt and also make it read from any legal advisors so the no body rumors can effect from the exact information on the supreme court case. Their are no way from which you can get out of rumors until any known legal advisor will give you the exact information on the case in court.

I will also try broadcast the video of 14th November 2011 from the Supreme Court so that speak asians confusion will come to an end and hope a clear picture will take a good news for all the speak asians and their family. Let’s Hope for The Best.

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