Leveraging Broadband

With the two public sector giants BSNL and MTNL offering their broadband
services, DataOne and Tri-Band, the broadband take-off in India seems to be
closer than ever. They hope to acquire a million subscribers by the end of 2005.
There are many powerful applications waiting for availability of fast Internet
access that can help you boost your marketing effort.

Broadband with promised speeds of 256 kbps and more will allow rich content
to be delivered in your marketing communications, like e-mailers, e-brochures
and e-newsletters. There are many ways in which one can leverage the
availability of broadband Internet services.

Both BSNL and MTNL have announced their broadband services to be ADSL2+
compliant. Though the ADSL2+ technology is a very advanced technology, users
will just need an ADSL2+ modem to switch from their dial-up connection to the
new Broadband connection as the service will still be available on the same
telephone line.

Even though private operators like Bharti, Reliance, Tata and Sify have been
successfully providing broadband services for some time, they could never expect
to reach the volumes that BSNL and MTNL can. Private operators do not have the
advantage of ready to use copper networks.

As the Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) connection is an always-on
connection, there will be more people online than offline. The biggest problem
with offline users is that they download their mail once in a while and then
read it offline - so web-based graphics become invisible and hyperlinks don't
work. This is all expected to change now.

SMOOTH SAILING WITH BROADBAND

Large corporate solutions providers have many resources at their disposal,
like organizing seminars in 5-star hotels, distributing glossy literature and
multimedia presentations on CDs to thousands of prospective customers and
putting up road-shows all across the country.

What
mid-size solutions providers have to rely on is much less than this. They can
route their marketing efforts to the Internet as the most effective delivery
channel for their content, as prospective customers slowly become used to larger
e-mail sizes and heavier web pages with fast Internet access. The advantage of
ADSL is that the downstream data speeds are very high, which good for browsing
the Internet and downloading mails and files. That is what is needed for
delivery of rich content.

As a marketer, you also need high upstream speeds, but you can always go for
higher bandwidth options. They are also available now at a reasonably low price.
The immediate advantage of broadband you can take is that your e-mailers and
e-newsletters can now be of larger sizes, say 100 to 150 KB.

In the earlier days, mails above 20KB in size used to be a reason for
frustration. An e-mailer with 150 KB size can hold a good amount of embedded
graphics, which is good for online as well as offline viewing. With the number
of online users expected to increase very fast, one can now provide web-based
graphics and many hyperlinks to web pages with more information and reduce the
clutter inside the e-mail body.

Another advantage of e-mailers being read online is the possibility of
obtaining accurate e-mail marketing metrics in the form of statistics about
open-rates and click-through rates. Inviting readers to click on the embedded
hyperlinks can generate very valuable data about the readers. There are many
professional software packages available now for mailing list management and
mail delivery, which can provide such reports. One must, of course, read these
reports and interpret them properly to derive value from them.

E-MAILERS AND E-NEWSLETTERS

Email marketing is the most immediate and cost-effective way to build and
strengthen customer relationships. Graphically rich, professional-looking
campaigns can now be affordable, effective, fast and measurable. An e-mailer or
an e-newsletter can now provide more value to readers by providing links to
online presentations, tutorials, FAQs and other links that reduce the strain on
human interaction and increase self-help for the customers.

Solution providers can even provide online user experience to demonstrate the
user interface and features of their applications. Multimedia presentations can
be hosted on the website and linked through e-mailers. It is also possible to
provide content on the website, which will be accessible only by invitation —
that is, only if one clicks through the e-mail and not otherwise. This allows
you also to keep track of the visitors who access that content.

For example, a provider of web-based HR management and information system
allows prospective customers to experience a pre-configured implementation of
the system on the web by invitation. The invitation remains valid for a limited
period of 24 hours to avoid misuse. Having a 'Live-Person-Help' available
simultaneously to answer any queries can further enhance this experience. A lot
of cost saving can be achieved this way by sharing the valuable resource like a
person who knows the system extensively.

REACH OUT WITH WEBCASTS AND WEBINARS

This brings us to another possibility of exploiting the broadband services
effectively. Mid-sized solutions providers can also use Webcasts and Webinars in
this way to leverage the broadband services. A Webcast uses the Internet to
broadcast live or delayed audio and/or video transmissions, much like
traditional television and radio broadcasts.

A Webinar is a Web-based seminar, a presentation, lecture or a workshop that
is transmitted over the Web. A key feature of a Webinar is its interactive
elements - the ability to give, receive and discuss information. In a Webcast,
data transmission is one way and does not allow interaction between the
presenter and the audience.

Web Conferencing software provide for instant messaging, video, audio and web
conferencing with security safeguards. Stand-alone software that reside on your
desktop as well as hosted applications can be used. Voice and Video over IP can
be used with the broadband services.

Digital brochures is another possibility now worth considering with faster
downloads of e-mail attachments. Digital authoring softwares can produce very
attractive digital brochures and catalogs with multiple pages in a compressed
file size. A typical e-brochure or a catalog with 16 pages can be around 400 to
500 KB in size. This can be easily sent as an attachment or downloaded from the
website via a link in an e-mail. It's time to get ready for the 'Internet
Revolution-II'. Coming soon on your Desktop!

Ashok Dongre is an independent
consultant