Best Internet Marketing Strategies to Grow and Expand Your Training Business

Internet being a rage now, every person wants to catch in on the popularity of it making hay while the sun shines. In today’s world, you rarely come across any organization without an online base. In fact, virtual presence has taken priority over brick and mortar existence. Marketing being a quintessential component of any business is riding this internet wave to increase reach, product positioning, validating target segments and soliciting responses the art of marketing compounded with internet works in myriad of ways to achieve the objectives provided it is done right.
What makes trainer community different from teaching community (who is very fast gearing up and catching up?)
• They are performers – classroom is a stage for them
• Technologically Savvy – they are keen, updated and aligned with their audience always
• Use business tools – prospecting, sales, finance, administration, operations, after sales
Here are a few internet marketing tools that our trainers should seek benefit from:

1. Blogging:

If you have observed the pattern in recent times, then you can see that blogging has become one of the well known marketing strategies. It can serve as a perfect platform to present the quality of the trainer on a daily basis. With blogging, one can continue to market their skill sets without much of a problem.

"Blog" is an abbreviated version of "weblog," which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites, usually presented as a list of entries in reverse chronological order. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.
Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, home staging, sports, or mobile technology. Some are more eclectic, presenting links to all types of other sites. And others are more like personal journals, presenting the author's daily life and thoughts. ..From Wikipedia

Trainer should blog regularly on his domain of specialization, interact regularly with his audience and try to clear their doubts and engage him on healthy interaction. Trainer can blog their future vision and their understanding which will help them to have better visibility.

2. Press Releases:

Many people are of the notion that this press release has become redundant and obsolete. This belief is not exactly true. It is still seen as one of the best and evergreen marketing strategies. It helps in developing a good and repeat customer base, as well as helps in adding visibility to ones profile. Trainer should involve him in regular press releases, share his knowledge and present varied topics.

3. Classified:

This can be a remarkable and a great way to market your skill set. If you want to get some good and positive results, then it is better to stick to some popular classified directories. Regular free ads keep you visible and clients searching for specific trainers can get in touch easily and promptly.

4. Article Marketing:

This is another viable option, which helps in the marketing of trainers skill sets as well as the training domain. Trainer can use promotional articles and submit these articles for free. The articles should pertain to your training domain and your plans of developing and modernizing it in a big way. This also helps in creating trainer awareness among the wider sections of the market. Every individual would get a brief idea regarding the trainers skill set and his training domain.

5. Email Marketing:

This is definitely a tried and tested marketing strategy. People should not misinterpret this marketing with the spamming technique. This type of marketing helps in establishing professional contacts, as well as helps in maintaining effective communication with the people around. Trainer can also add his personal flavor and touch to the content. If you are planning to get involved in this kind of marketing then you have to be regular, Email marketing done once in a month is less effective than twice and thrice in a month. Frequency need to be decided and sealed by the trainer. Marketing content should be visually and content rich, which should also add value to the trainer’s profile.

6. Viral Marketing:

This helps in providing e-books and complimentary content to the potential clients. These clients in turn market your training with minimal cost. There are two advantages with viral marketing.
• You can minimize the cost
• You get a relatively good base for marketing your skill sets and domain.
If trainer is engaged with this kind of marketing then the content provided and distributed should be relevant, clients will market and grow your business only when they are clear with your strengths and know your capabilities.

7. RSS Marketing:

RSS basically means really simple syndication. It is a quite recent marketing strategy. It works by syndicating the content through the RSS feed. This strategy has found to be quite beneficial and a boon in the marketing field. Trainer should explore this marketing technique for wider visibility and for regular feedback.

RSS feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.
RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based. The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the reader the feed's URI or by clicking a feed icon in a web browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds. RSS allows users to avoid manually inspecting all of the websites they are interested in, and instead subscribe to websites such that all new content is pushed onto their browsers when it becomes available ..From Wikipedia

8. PPC Marketing:

PPC stands for pay per click. This is another one of the most recent and the most popular trend in internet marketing. Individuals are paid just for clicking and viewing the ads. This is the best way of luring the prospective customers just to have a glance at the trainers profile, this mode of marketing can be initiated with the help of Guruvantage.com portal.
To conclude, the importance of internet marketing could be very well realized by the fact that it covers a lot of spheres. Internet marketing would be the mantra of all web savvy entrepreneurs. The importance of internet marketing lies in the fact of its mass appeal. The internet marketing serves as a wonderful tool to those net savvy trainers who exploit the tool to maximize the profit. A small business would assume incredible levels if an internet marketer apply a carefully planned technique to promote the product or a service. The importance of internet marketing lies in the fact that it is not restricted to one particular aspect and covers a large area.

Community College – A Need to Service the need

The Need of Community college in India
In the current context of education where quota systems and commercialization are becoming the norm, the fundamental right to education is a dream for many. The need of the hour is an empowering education system that is not bound by social or economic barriers. It is with this vision that community colleges were born in India. They were founded solely with a vision to empower the underprivileged and the disadvantaged in society with cost-effective and skill-oriented education. India has among the lowest proportion of trained youth in the world. The quantitative dimension of India's skill development challenge is that 80 percent of new entrants to the workforces have no opportunity for skill training. Against 12.8 million per annum new entrants to the workforce, the existing training capacity is only 3.1 million per annum.The Prime Minister's National Council on Skill Development has endorsed a Vision to create 500 million skilled people by 2022, whereas, at present, only about 2 percent of the workforce has skill training.

Concept of community college
Institutions which are run `of the community, by the community, and for the community` offering opportunities to all sections of society particularly the marginalized and disadvantaged is the rationale for the establishment of a Community College. It encourages students who may want to attend a three year degree but are not academically; personally or economically ready to begin study in the formal system. In a Community College students can choose to work towards an Associate Degree (two-year) in hundreds of academic and technical fields which will enable them to transfer to a regular college or university for completion of a degree. Alternatively, students may exit with either a Certificate or a Diploma by completing the required number of credits.

A Need (Community College) bridging the Gap
Today, approximately 90, 000 students are being trained in community colleges across the country annually. The current scenario shows that only five per cent of the Indian labor force in the age group of 20-24 years has obtained vocational skills through formal education. Industrialized countries, in comparison, have 60-96 per cent. Community colleges work towards bridging this gap. In terms of content, community colleges offer educational programmes at post-secondary school level in over 50 occupational and technical fields ranging from computer hardware servicing, nursing, electrician, plumbing to health assistantship and pre-school teaching. “Community education differs from formal education in a number of aspects while making students industry-ready. Programmes offered by these colleges ensure that a student is ready for life.”

The Hitches
The fact that most colleges are run privately, either by NGOs, churches or universities; the need for financial and managerial assistance by the government. “India has currently 90, 000 skilled workforce; the demand is 500 million. To fulfill this, India should establish over 1, 000 community colleges. And that, believe me, is not possible without government intervention.”
There is definitely an urgent need to develop a structured framework for community colleges in the country.

BELL THE CAT

CAT score will now be accepted for admissions to management programmes at the IITs, IISc and FMS among others.
The new move to accept CAT (Common Admission Test) scores for admission to MBA programmes at IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology),IISc (Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore) and FMS ( Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi) has been met with mixed reactions. While CAT scores are considered for admissions to over 140 business schools in the country including the prestigious IIMs IITs,IISc and FMS had, until last year, conducted their own tests (in addition to considering CAT scores) for admission to their respective MBA programmes.
Now, however, the IITs have unanimously decided to scrap JMET and accept CAT scores to select students for their MBA programmes. While this move was made in a bid to reduce the number of examinations, students and MBA aspirants feel that this has put them under more pressure. On the brighter side, the pattern has changed for the better with the number of sections reduced from three to two, with a time limit of 70 minutes per section."
Now the students are under more pressure because they do not have a choice but to perform well in CAT to make it to the top-rung B-schools. Guruvantage says: MBA is now becoming and can be considered as a base education criteria for seeking better job, A grade B Schools are trying to make it simple for student by keeping one entrance exam as a standard, but every coin has two faces, this simplicity has created immense pressure for the students, now they have to do better and bell the CAT to be tagged as a professional in this dynamic market. Good luck for all CAT aspirants.

Education USA hotline launched

The United States – India Educational Foundation (USIEF) launched the EducationUSA hotline in Hindi and English for Indian students.
United States – India Educational Foundation (USIEF) announced the launch of its toll-free Education USA hotline in English and Hindi for Indian students. The hotline will enable students to talk with an Education USA adviser and receive free information and guidance on US higher education.
“This is a vital step towards increasing our outreach activities in India. It represents USIEF’s commitment to helping Indian students find accredited US universities that are the best fit for their academic and professional needs. We welcome Indian students to obtain genuine and relevant advice from us,” said Adam J Grotsky, executive director, USIEF.
The official source on US higher education in India, USIEF's EducationUSA advising staff will now be available via telephone, Monday through Friday, between 2-5 pm.
Guruvantage Says: Education market is a big market and now countries like USA also accepting this fact that India is a big education market for them. They are not letting any slips at their end, to maximise their reach and making sure they tap Indian market at maximum, they have introduced assistance for Indian students in Hindi, and this is for sure very positive approach from USIEF for education abroad aspirants.

Volkswagen starts apprenticeship programme in India

Sixteen students across India, including four girls, have been selected for a three-year mechatronics apprenticeship programme launched by automobile major, Volkswagen India.
The programme, based on the German dual system of vocational education and training, was launched at the company’s plant in Chakan on Thursday.
Students who had secured 60% marks in HSC examination with physics, mathematics and chemistry are eligible for the course. About 500 students applied for the course and 16 were finally selected. The company will provide each student a stipend of Rs3,000 in the first, Rs4,000 in second and Rs5,000 in the final year. There is no course fee for the programme for students who have been selected.
“Automobile industry in India has seen a very strong growth in the past few years. The need of the hour is to have industry ready people to take care of the challenges raised by this steady growth. This programme is a step in this direction by developing mechanical, electronic and informatics skills of the workforce in the ever growing automobile industry.”
The mechatronics programme will develop well-rounded specialists who are able to handle the complexity of high quality production. They would play a very important role in the competitive world of highly automated industries. In addition, this course will also bridge the gap between need and requirement from the industry.

Guruvantage says: After recession automobile industry is back on track with a big bang, they need skilled and industry ready resources, to achieve the same Volkswagen has initiated apprenticeship program, this will certainly help them bridge the skill and requirement gap. We wish other MNC should follow the suite and make Indian economy more strong.

App helps you speak all languages

Communicating with local people in a foreign country can pose difficulties, whether it is asking for direction or making a special request at a restaurant.
But Vocre, a new iPhone app released by translation company myLanguage, aims to ease those problems by enabling users to translate their spoken voice into foreign languages. It leverages crowd-sourcing to continually improve the accuracy of its translations to allow people to express themselves in the same way as native speakers.
"It might not be something that's expected by a dictionary - but it is the right way to say it when you go to that specific part of the world. It has the colloquialisms or slang of the area."
The app uses the iPhones accelerometer as a source of input so that users don't need to tap the screen. They simply hold the phone in one direction to record their voice, and then flip it in the other direction to make it talk in the translated language. The translation engine trains itself based on user-contributed corrections, queries made by other users in their native languages, as well as their own linguists, to determine the most common way a native speaker would say a particular phrase.
The app, available on the Apple App Store, currently supports nine languages - three dialects of English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Chinese and Japanese. Support for ten more languages is planned.

Guruvantage says: This is an incredible example of technology leveraged training intervention. As more and more people start using it the day will not be far when a live translation can be done by the system. Certain modifications in the device shall also do away with the need of flipping the phone from one direction to another direction. Kudos to the myLanguage team. Way to go!

Guruvantage signs off a landmark understanding with Cicom Brains Inc in Japan for Skill Development

Tokyo 06th September, Guruvantage (a unit of A2V Infosolutions Pvt Ltd), the Academic Partner of the India-Japan Global Partnership Summit (IJGPS) 2011, today signed off a landmark understanding with Cicom Brains Inc in Tokyo, Japan to undertake large-scale Skill Development initiatives between India and Japan. This understanding between both organisations assumes importance, given the backdrop of growing economic ties between the two nations. The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) a mega infrastructure project of USD 90 billion with the financial & technical aids from Japan lays testimony to this mutual alignment. DMIC in itself is expected to impact nearly 16% of India’s population. Further, with India looking at a grave skill shortage of nearly 500Mn skilled people by 2022, the need for enhancing the skill sets of the populace through Vocational training makes a strong case.

India, is a fast developing nation, and is all set to become the world’s Third largest economy in 2011 by overtaking Japan (in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) measured according to the domestic purchasing power of the rupee, otherwise called purchasing power parity). This poses a very unique scenario for Japanese business establishments to understand and ally alongside India in order to ensure a mutually beneficial growth path for both nations. It comes as no surprise therefore, that most of the major Japanese industries have already or are currently in the process of shifting base to Indian shores. With this metamorphosis underway, it becomes critical for the futuristic Japanese organisations to train their young leaders on the playing grounds of tomorrow, aka, India. With, Japan being a technical superpower and India being a Human Resource powerhouse of potential, the symmetries are more than an inconspicuous writing on the wall.

Addressing a gathering of about 4,000 delegates from both countries, including over 2,000 businessmen, at the recently concluded IJGPS 2011, Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, described India as a promising investment destination.

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“More than 700 Japanese companies have already been doing business in India and even more companies look to India as a promising investment destination,” he said. He added further by mentioning that Japan would like to contribute to future development of India, which is already showing an incredible rise.

Guruvantage and Cicom signed off the understanding document for skill development under the aegis of Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Haryana. Both, Guruvantage and Cicom are working closely on the working framework of "Indo-Japan 2020 Knowledge Hub" whereby 500,000 young vibrant, skilled Indians and Japanese will be ready by 2020 to cater to the need of India-Japan skilled Human Resource requirement. With the Haryana State Government and Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) pledging their support to skill development initiatives in the region, the road ahead seems to be laden with opportunities for both conglomerates.