Most foreign companies use email marketing more effectively,  they at least  include some description of the product or service they are offering in their email message.

Very few local companies spend any amount of time doing market research, they expend their energy and money spying and sabotaging any other company who they think will grow.Unlike coding where you learn a new language every few years, one of the better aspects of making money online is that experience matters.  Till 2 years ago, most of the money I made from my websites was from a single source.  Today, it is very diversified. My only regret is that I did not try the other methods earlier.

You may have an MBA from a top school,  have  hundreds of employees,  passed all the necessary certifications or read all the blogs of the all the “internet marketing gurus”,  it does not matter for online success.  A large number of employees can be a problem when times are bad (the previous post on Infosys layoffs has been very popular)

Unless you have hands on experience in making money online from your own websites or online,  you are unlikely to be able to formulate  a viable monetization strategy or run a profitable online business.

When I was using Adsense on my websites , I always felt that the code was used to track the websites  I owned , how I marketed them, how I gathered content for my website and to collect a lot of other information.  It may not be their official policy yet, but they definitely do not have good systems in place to prevent malpractices.

For many, marketing is this.  But at the most, the tech community may consist of a few million users in India, and most of them have very little time after their regular job, to use or spend money on a new tech product. If you are targeting users world wide , your product should be as per world standards in both technology, user interface and documentation.

Some products are also not realistic. Why will I store all my important documents online? If there is a problem with my internet connection or I am traveling to a place where the internet connection is unreliable, I would rather store the information on a hard disk. When you are young, “friends” and their life history may be important, but after a certain age, you are too busy with your work to be bothered.

The best marketing is always subtle, the buyer or user does not realise that you are selling a product or service. It involves fulfilling a need, and the buyer or user is happy to pay for the service. This requires a lot of market research, try to understand the mind of the user.  If your marketing is too “in the face” or blatant, the user or buyer will be put off. The average internet user, especially for tech products , is more intelligent than most people and can easily detect a lie.

If you are working with customers around the world, it is also important to have high standards of transparency. Instead of blinding aping externals like Western clothes and lifestyles, (and denigrating people  who don’t ), they should try to adopt their culture of innovation , independent thinking and meritocracy . Networking and having contacts may help for a short time, but finally your product quality and business practices matter. In the long run, even in India, people like to do business with companies they trust, companies that treat their customers with respect.