Marketing and reaching out to people through social channels is still something the coders and engineers keep on the sidelines considering it a kind of hocus that can be played on weekends once deadlines are met. Take a reality bite, dive deep and you’ll realize that majority of startups fails not because their product wasn’t great, they crashed because they were unable to reach out to consumers with effect.
Marketing takes in depth hard work of measuring, analyzing and then acting accordingly. To make a product a true success, product designers and architects need to walk along side marketeers.
[pullquote]Providing significant values to entrepreneurs, startups and NGO professionals through every pertinent social network and connection is what led to the initiation of OasisM[/pullquote]OasisM, a zesty young startup with brains from IIM A and IIM C and creative minds from Pearl Fashion Academy and Apeejay Institute of Mass Communication, aim to deliver the best outreach to brands of every startup and entrepreneur they take up in assignment.
They have proved themselves and stood out tall by achieving 12+ clients within just 49 days of launch. Their client retention strategy has enabled them to renew 60% of their clients and earned them new servicing opportunities with the retained clients. They are also the online reputation managers for Internationally Acclaimed ICT Awards Of 2013 ManthanAward.
We had an opportunity to get in conversation with Himanshu Singh, from OasisM and learn more about the service, strategies and the team behind.
Social Media Management is a competitive niche; there are some widely popular tools and platforms providing premium services. How would you describe your USP?
It is very difficult for companies to spend time on researching for tools that would best help them in promoting their Social Media. We build strategies for companies depending on their budget, time requirements, etc. and work with them to help them achieve their Business Objectives.
As we have designers, developers and marketing oriented people working in our organization, we work and research with a variety of tools and platforms to provide a blend of creativity and technology at a cost effective rate.
Since you have a dedicated team for marketing and brand management, tell us about your crew, the people running the show?
Oasis M is divided into three divisions which come together to provide our clients with Effective Social Media Solutions. He has an experience of working with 5 start ups before this, both in India and abroad. He has also worked in companies like PwC and SAIL before deciding to run his own company.
Our Design Team consists of People from Pearl Academy of Fashion, Apeejay Institute of Mass Communication to provide us with a good creative talent pool. This also helps us to design marketing strategies on a holistic level as we are also skilled in doing Company Branding and Print Related Works. The Development team consists of people who have previous Work Experience with big IT Companies that helps us to create Facebook Applications, Microsites and if required Mobile and Web Based Applications.
Marketing can be really tough for startups who enter competitive spaces, how would you help them spread the word out about their product and get a wider outreach?
Harry Naik, CEO OasisM
We provide three kinds of Social Media Services:
Social Media Management, Social Media Training and Online Reputation Management.
Social Media Management: We manage the clients’ social media account based on their business objectives to ensure great results. We not only enhance brand visibility and reach, but our unique practices and tools help them to use their social media to its full potential. We also make sure that their business gets a positive image in the industry with the help of our management. By gathering data from all of our client’s social media and then examining trends and patterns by discrete social media experiments, we identify the metrics that are most valuable to our clients and therefore have the most potential for suggesting likely outcomes. We help them to understand “Where the rubber meets the road”.
Social Media Training: We conduct various social media workshops and trainings, tailor-made to our client’s needs, on how they can use social media to promote their image and business. We also conduct special Social Media Training for Youth leaders and Young entrepreneurs in rural areas for them to have a greater understanding of Social Media including latest developments and how to use Social Media to enhance visibility of their Microenterprise and promote issues of Social relevance.
Online Reputation Management: We manage social media accounts of celebrities, leaders and important personalities to enhance their image and fan following.
Startups and even many small businesses are always on a tight budget, how do you plan to market and also help them build reputation on a restricted budget?
Social Media is a very powerful tool if used in a proper way. Since Start Ups have a low budget, it becomes very difficult for them to invest on other traditional forms of Marketing such as T.V and Print Medium. Hence we try to provide Social Media Marketing as a starting point for Start Ups to promote themselves. This provides a much cost effective way to better understand what or what is not working for the Start Up through proper analysis of Social Media’s ROI using Social Media Metrics and Analysis tools. This helps us to give the Start Up a realistic road map for future plans.
Tell us about your Social Media Training services? Is it an online service? And how are the fees decided?
No, currently it’s not an online service. We provide both onsite and offsite services and the fee is applicable according to that only. However, we plan to launch videos tutorials and case studies of clients shortly.
What insight led you to the idea of starting OasisM? And why the name OasisM?
[pullquote]OasisM stands for Options and Solutions in Social Media. The name is meant to directly convey what we do and what is the nature of our service.[/pullquote] The word Oasis was chosen because we wanted to stand apart from the Digital Marketing Agencies with our unique services much like an Oasis in a desert, which everyone is searching for.
What are your future plans for OasisM?
For Small Businesses, we want to work as a support system as we believe that if our client is growing, we are growing too. Also, we are very much open to associating ourselves with Bigger Brands as it helps the company also to showcase its expertise. We want to build our reputation as a trustworthy company in the market so that we can help our clients to effectively reach out to their customers and establish their competitive presence in the market.
TTP’s take on OasisM
It is indeed a good achievement that OasisM team have managed to get clients in a very short time of launch. However, we do see mushrooming of social media management offering companies. OasisM will have to continue the momentum to keep up in the SMM battlefield. We wish OasisM all the best of luck and may catch them again, to learn more about their entrepreneur journey.
