In any successful business, marketing is an essential step for growth. In our blog, we post about all the different modes of marketing, inbound marketing, outbound marketing, and linkbuilding.
Inbound marketing and outbounding marketing are arguably the most interesting division in the marketing world.
Outbound marketing entails traditional methods such as cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and advertising. These techniques have become less effective now that people are avoiding the outcalls with caller IDs.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is two-way. You can bring customers to you via the Internet instead of having to seek them out.
Inbound marketing is also known as ‘the new marketing’ because a large part of it is about providing content for informational purposes instead of trying to sell you something—which, in fact, is what we’re doing here on our blog.
Another very interesting marketing method is omnichannel. With the rapid growth of digital consumption, marketers are now faced with more choices than ever when considering how they want to reach the consumer.
With each choice comes a certain amount of risk as marketers choosing to put a heavy investment in one channel may miss the untapped potential of another. This leaves a smaller margin for error as highly informed consumers have become acutely aware of how to seek out information, poll their networks and complete transactions across a plethora of interactive channels.
Besides just being another marketing term or dare I say “Buzzword,” omni-channel is a reflection of the choice that consumers have in how they engage a brand, and therefore is best represented as how brands enable their clients and consumers to use these channels to engage with them.
Whether the purchase experience starts online or via a catalogue, the customer has a plethora of options as to how they may want to move through the buyer’s journey with the brand.
Does all this sound interesting? Read more of our information in our blogs below.
What You Need To Know About Digital Marketing Engagement
Digital marketing is a relatively newer field for most of the people. Yet a huge proportion of business owners and brands want to inculcate the principles of digital marketing to enhance the number of their customers and increase their reach in order to attract more people. Therefore they wish to hire the services of a digital marketing agency to help them in this regard. This article will cover the most fundamental principles that will be necessary to be known to achieve the most out of this approach.
Toll free numbers (freephone) do exactly what they say on the tin – they’re free for the dialing party to call. In the USA, they are commonly signified by an 800 number, and regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. In the UK, they begin with 0800, 0808, or 0500 (they’re usually British Telecom numbers). They may not be free from cellphones, but they are from landlines.
An e-commerce analyst is similar to a market analyst, except he or she looks specifically at transactions that occur on the Internet and researches ways to improve on existing sales goals.
A successful e-commerce analyst leverages data about the users he services to improve the conversion rate of the companies he works for.
Potential e-commerce analysts will need to know how to use analytics software and Excel, and the right communication skills to articulate the results of your data.
Step 1
Determine whether you have the right prerequisites for becoming an e-commerce analyst. A bachelor’s degree in market research, statistics or other related fields is usually required. Candidates should also have strong mathematical and analytical skills. Good communication is highly desired because the ability to interpret and communicate results are essential.
Step 2
Get certified through a reputable source as an e-commerce analyst, or someone familiar with analytics software. The Marketing Research Association offers a certification that must be reviewed every two years. For a small fee, the applicant is granted access to an exam that tests his knowledge of e-commerce with a certificate awarded upon successful completion.
Step 3
Fill out an application for the job you desire, and include a cover letter. The CV should include blurbs that highlight your experience interpreting large amounts of data. Your resume should include examples where you have used Excel or analytics programs such as Google Analytics to discover important facts about customer behavior. You should also list your familiarity with e-commerce engines like PayPal, Amazon and eBay on your resume.
Step 4
Negotiate your pay after you get a job offer and think about your future possibilities. Nationwide, the number of market research analysts is expected to grow as much as 41 percent by the year 2020. As more data becomes available, companies have an increasing demand for workers to interpret it into something useful. The top ten percent of market research analysts earned more than $100,000 per year, with the lowest ten percent earning just above $30,000. The median pay for a market research analyst working in the information sector is $70,000.
Have you ever heard of Vsnap? No? Well, Vsnap is a genius idea.
Vsnap works as a video messaging tool for eCommerce. It lets retailers and sales people connect with their buyers through sending quick video messages. It works similarly like Facetime and Vine to establish a human connection between retailers and customers.
How Does Vsnap Work?
You can follow these easy steps to increase your online sales using Vsnap.
Firstly, you record a short video message on the web or on Apple’s mobile operating system IOS. IOS is mainly found on IPhones. These video messages should last about 60 seconds or less. Then, you share your video message via twitter or private email to the recipient. You can customize your email by adding the company logo, changing the font and editing in general. Customers can view these video messages no matter what type of device they possess. They do not even have to download anything to see your messages. This is a huge advantage because it is extremely easy for customers to view your video messages. It also makes Vsnap universal. Salespeople can also activate real-time alerts. A real time alert sends you a notification of when your customer has seen your Vsnap. It also lets you see if they act upon the attached documents or links that you have sent them.
What are the advantages of using Vsnap?
Vsnap creates a sense of individual connection between salespeople and buyers. This knocks down the cold cooperate wall, to establish a sense of human connection. Hence, Vsnap makes customers feel special and ensures them that your business cares about them. You do not receive a human connection via email or letter. Therefore, Vsnap is a much more personalized form of communication.
It is the perfect tool for people who have Face Blindness. Sufferers of Face Blindness cannot recognize faces – even the faces of their dearest family members. Vsnap helps these people put an image – a distorted image, nonetheless – to a name which they could not place via the written word of email or letter. To find out more about Face Blindness, go to: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/face-blindness-when-everyone-is-a-stranger-20-03-2012/
The increase of sales can be huge for online businesses. An established human connection promotes a sense of friendliness and encourages your customers to trust you. Vsnap is a really useful tool to have. Many businesses have had a great experience using Vsnap. They have seen a great increase in online sales and have developed friendlier relationships with their customers.Vsnap users include online career school Penn Foster and Boston-based, women’s fashion line Zoora. Penn Foster wants to be successful in online schooling; therefore, the personalization of video messaging is crucial. Vsnap is useful for smaller businesses like Zoora as it creates a personal touch between retailer and customer. It also helps them stand-out from their competitors who do not communicate with their customers through video messaging. If your business does not use Vsnap already, you should definitely consider it.
Vsnap loves to meet new customers and help you email like a person, not a robot. You can buy Vsnap for $33 a month. This fee gets you unlimited Vsnaps and allows you to customize emails. Hara Partners had the pleasure of hosting CEO of Vsnap, Dave McLaughlin at our November eCommerce meet-up: http://www.meetup.com/New-York-eCommerce-Meetup/events/215279532/ He gave us great examples of how short videos increase customer satisfaction and sales. Vsnap really is the perfect video messaging tool for eCommerce as it can increase close rates by as much as 34%. If you would like more information about how to get Vsnap, contact us at: http://www.harapartners.com/contact-us/
The popularity of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram grows by the day. On average, Facebook has 600 million active users every month. If you do the math, it gains roughly 600,000 new users every day. The figures are so huge, it is almost unimaginable. No wonder marketers want to attract their customer base utilizing Facebook! It has a massive user-base.
So, how do you attract your customer base via social media?
For starters, sign up to create a page. It will ask for your company’s name, and ask you to provide a brief description containing what kind of service you provide, and work you do. It is best to keep this concise. Because social media users have short attention spans, and prefer to flick through short posts, pictures or tweets. So, the chances are that anything too long will not even attract them to read it in the first place. Secondly, you need users to “like” your page. The more likes you get, the more attention is drawn to your site. Ultimately, you have a greater chance of gaining customers, and your business being successful.
The Don’ts
You do not want your site to be too clinical and visually unfriendly. A plain site will not attract any attention in the chaotic popularity of social media sites. And social media users do not go on these sites with the intention of reading boring business pages. So your profile really has to stand-out. If it does not, social media will swallow your business up and reduce your chances of gaining new custom.
The Do’s
Create company logos. Users relate to creativity, and symbols are eye-catching. Especially on Instagram with its reliance of users’ obsession with images, and photographs. Customize your page with creative tools, such as logos to show customers that you are engaging with the community of shoppers. It is an easy way to add a personalized touch, and show that you are not some unreachable authority. You rely on their custom. Therefore, connection with your loyal buyers is essential in order to gain the trust of your new customers. Also, short posts about new products, and special offers will pique customers’ attention. But, make sure to include pictures to make your posts more visually enticing. Utilizing social media allows you to target a wider variety of customers, and will really boost the popularity of your business.
Many businesses have created social media pages and have generated greater revenue. For example, fashion brands such as Burberry excel on social media sites like Instagram. Burberry does not solely post photographs of their clothes, but backstage photographs of their catwalk shows. Similarly, restaurants can promote the quality of their food by posting pictures. If you can make your products look good online, customers are more likely to be attracted to your business.
If you do not have a social media page already – what are you waiting for? Boost your customer base now!
If you want more information about how to create a social media page, here is a link to the Twitter help site: https://business.twitter.com/basics/create-a-profile-for-your-business?location=na&lang=en
And here is a link to the Facebook business help page: https://www.facebook.com/business
How hard is it to write compelling content? It can be pretty difficult if you don’t have the right tools.
Below we’ve outlined several great tools—all of them available for free—which can help you write, edit, and produce content more easily.
Evernote
Evernote is a tool which allows you to generate content, from inspiration to completion. Write, collect information, find what you need, and present your ideas. Communicate and collaborate in real-time without leaving Evernote. Present your work as it evolves with just one click, transforming notes into screen-friendly images.
Price: Basic is free. Premium plans start at $24.99 per year.
Google Docs
Google Docs lets you access, create, and edit documents wherever you go, from your phone, tablet, or computer. It’s an ideal tool for collaboration. You can see real-time edits from others, watching their cursor as they make changes or highlight text. Chat with others inside any document, or add a comment with an email address to notify someone. Google Docs even allows you to research topics in a sidebar as you write.
Price: Free.
Hemingway App
Hemingway App is an online tool to make your writing bold and clear. Hemingway highlights long, complex sentences and common errors. If you see a yellow highlight, shorten the sentence or split it. If you see a red highlight, your sentence is so dense that readers will get lost trying to follow it. Passive phrases are in green, long words are in purple, unnecessary adverbs are in blue.
Price: Free.
SavePublishing
Saveplushing is a bookmarklet that looks at your text and decides which statements are tweetable. If you want to share content, but your sentences seem too long, SavePublishing can help you find the right lengths to share.
Price: Free.
InboundWriter
InboundWriter is a tool to remove the guesswork from content creation. Get insights on how your content will perform before you write it. Discover which topics will work and which won’t. Follow content optimization best practices through an easy-to-use tool and tips for word choices, content structure, and other criteria. Get real-time analytical data on the effectiveness of your content.
There is one main obstacle to growing your business that has evolved in recent years. Your potential buyers are being over-saturated with information due to the increase in availability of this information.
In fact, Sirius Decisions reported the average sales cycle has increased 22% over the past five years due to more decision makers being involved in the buying process. So it has become your job as a business owner to make sure that this information is coming to them at the right time, in the right format, on the right platforms.
Here are some of the most helpful tips to help grow your business with inbound marketing.
1) Define Your Business
What are the key performance indicators you want to measure?
What are your revenue goals?
What does growing your business mean to you? (Amount of leads coming in, revenue generated, customers acquired, numbers of retainers, etc.)
What is your sales process like? (Length, content used to educate prospects, number of people prospects might talk to, etc.)
2) Study Up on Your Industry
You might think you know your industry inside and out but there will always be changes, updates, and new innovations around the corner.
In order to get a better grasp of what’s going on and to stay ahead of the curve, industry research is a must.
What are your competitors doing in regard to content on their website?
What current events and news are going on?
Is there a business to business marketplace you can participate in?
What are the current industry statistics to your goals?
3) Understand Your Customer
To understand your customer better, talking to the sales team always helps. They are the ones in direct contact with your potential customers which means they hold a lot of insight into what your customers want. Here are some questions to ask:
What 5 questions does your sales team answer the most?
What are the biggest pain points for customers when they come to you?
What are your customer demographics?
What messaging do they respond to most?
4) Publish the Right Content
Write content around the questions, issues, and challenges your potential customers want the answers to. This will help your potential customers not only find valuable information, but also help introduce them to your brand.
5) Publish Content Consistently
This depends on time and budget. If you’re outsourcing blog writing then you can blog numerous times a week, if you have one in-house person responsible for blogging maybe you can only do it once or twice. Just make sure it’s consistent!
6) Determine the Right Angle
Your competitors are probably already blogging so take some tips from what their strategy looks like. If they have a niche in the industry that they blog about a lot then maybe find your business’ niche and blog on what you know best in order to stand out.
7) Use a Calls-to-Action
Placing a CTA at the end of your blog urging visitors to download premium content will definitely help grow your leads and sales.
8) Determine the Right Content
Premium content is more in depth than blogging and should include more middle of the funnel information that your website visitors will fill out a form to learn about.
Blogging brings people to your site but premium content will convert these people to leads for your sales team if you’re offering content that they might want to know more about.
Several months ago, Google announced a new sitelinks search box. Almost immediately, it became one of the fastest growing Schema implementations on the web.
Accoring to SimilarTech the SearchAction markup now dominates all other Schema types on the top one million sites that they monitor.
Understanding Sitelinks
Sitelinks are a listing format in the SERPs that show a website’s main page as well as several targeted internal links indented below the main entry, and organized into two columnbs.
In the diagram below, (1) indicates the main page listing, and (2) indicates the internal site links:
Sitelinks only display for branded or navigational queries. For example, if users search for “magento,” they are probably going to get to Magento’s official website, www.magento.com. Because Google algorithmically intuits this, they deliver not only Magento.com as the main result, but also additional options that point users to internal pages.
Big Brands
Strangely enough, some of the world’s largest brand search queries don’t have sitelinks. For instance, you take the brand “coca cola”…
The absence of sitelinks is probably due to the fact that most queries for “coca cola” aren’t necessarily looking for the company, but instead for news, locations or brand information regarding Coke. The search, then, is notnavigational. The knowledge graph results—maps, images, news, etc.—are focused on delivering the relevant results.
Why Google Sitelinks Are Important
Google explains why sitelinks are important. “They are meant to help users navigare your site… to save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they’re looking for.”
In other words, sitelinks gives users the best results in the shortest amount of time.
As Google explains, “We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant to the user’s query, we won’t show them.”
Sitelinks will undoubtedly improve your traffic, reputation, and CTRs. Getting sitelinks isn’t a result of luck, but of website and SEO best practices. Have patience, read up about Sitelinks on blogs like ours, and you’ll start seeing sitelinks soon enough.
Email marketing can be a very integral facet in running an ecommerce business. Most business owners can underestimate its importance, which is why we’re here to offer you several steps, and hopefully with these in mind you’ll be able to engage your customers in ways that you never thought were possible.
1. Re-examine your preference strategy
Most marketers don’t take the time to get to know their customers. You might want to build a preference page who ask them about their channel preferences, where you can also inform them about your social media outlets.
2. Track your reports
In addition to looking at each marketing campaign’s preference, you should also be tracking consumer interaction with your messages over a period of time. One good way to do this is by tracking consumers over three to five campaigns and roll up their numbers. That way, a conversion after a series of campaigns can be much more relevant than a click for just one.
3. Synchronize and correct your data
Many business have multiple sources of consumer data; make sure that your data is updated, and easily accessible to all channels. A simpler way to audit is to check if your ‘other sources’ of data match up with the master source of data.
4. Optimizing for mobile
It’s not enough to just transfer your laptop messages into a smartphone. Make sure the messages are properly optimized on your device, and use responsive design so that you render cleanly.
5. Integrate social media
Any good marketer these days should know the importance of social media. If you’re sending out emails, you should post all of your email campaigns on your social media sites. You should also post user-generated content within your email campaigns. Speaking of which…
6. Create compelling content
In this new age of marketing, content is king. If your content is interesting, then your customers will have a reason to keep coming back. So keep that content fresh…
7. Plan your segmentation strategy
A multi-channel cataloger has created a very laudable segmentation strategy. In addition to buyers and non-buyers, they have taken it further to apply product interests, device interaction, and even house-holding information. Their micro-segments deliver four times better results than normal.
8. Grow your list, grow your engagement
Brands needs to check their email list size on a regular basis. If you can track your three metrics — net growth of your email list, net growth of email IDs for your direct mail file, and a steady increase in opens and as clicks, then you’re good.
9. Check your communication triggers
Some brands have created automated drip campaigns that are triggered by consumer action. Check the messaging to ensure that it is relevant. If you have not set up automated campaigns, take a look at doing it for some events.
10. Are you making it into the inbox?
Sadly, many email service providers (ESPs) are no longer vouching for your deliverability. You need to make sure you are “authenticated,” your emails are getting through, and your spam complaints are being addressed. An engaged list is going to go a long way to help you with your deliverability.
No one knows what the future has in store for us. Several news sources in the past have predicted that all jobs will be redundant by 2025. The rise of technology, while making all of our lives more convenient, could see significant reductions in the labor force. Thankfully, we still need humans for one very important thing, and that’s customer service. In the field of customer service, there is a tool known as the Self-Service Portal.
A Self-Service Portal is a tool which enables online customers to discover answers to their problems and questions instantaneously, without having to request help from a customer service center or representative. It is an interactive and automated knowledge base that allows its customers to independently resolve problems.
What Are the Benefits of a Self-Service Portal?
1) Your Customers Will Want One
A recent survey conducted by Nuance Enterprise revealed that 75% of respondents thought that self-service was a convenient way to address customer service issues. 91% of consumers also claimed that they would use an online support center if it was available and tailored to their needs.
2) It’s Cost-Efficient
What’s cheaper, having customers help themselves or having someone else do it for them? A Forrester study showed that the approximate cost to operate a call center technical support per customer is $12 and higher while the approximate cost for web self-service is $0.10 or less.
3) The Self-Service Portal Improves Online Customer Experience
One thing that customers want the most is quick and efficient service. A self-service portal is exactly that: a fast and reliable source for solutions and relevant information.
4) It Engages Customers and Creates a Community
A self-service portal has built-in community forums where customers can offer their opinions and thoughts on your products and services.
With the help of these forums, customers can provide each other with support, and establish customer engagement with your brand.
5) It Provides Valuable Data and Information
A self-service portal will tell you exactly what your customers want and need. With that information, you can paint a better picture and understand your customer’s journey. You can use that information to personalize your service and provide extra value to your website, product, and customer experience.
6) It Increases Agent Efficiency
A self-service portal immediately reduces loads on other customer service channels, therefore enabling your agent to pay full attention to every inquiry that arrives.
What You’ll Need for a Self Service Portal
So you know what a self-service portal service is. You know how useful it is. Now the next question is, how can you make full use of this technology?
1) Self-Learning Knowledgebase
Your knowledgebase is the essence of your self-service portal. The content in your knowledgebase will be divided into two sections:
50% of your knowledgebase is the content you get started with. To get the best content for your site’s knowledgebase, use resources such as customer reviews and FAQ.
Ask your salespeople what problems they notice the most.
You can also send out surveys to your customers asking them what difficulties and inquiries they’re encountering, what they were missing when browsing your site, and what would improve the experience.
B. The other 50% is the content you keep updating. Your knowledgebase will be useless unless you keep it relevant and useful for your customer needs.
2) Offer Your Customers Various Ways to Use the Knowledgebase and Portal
Aside from a search bar and a FAQ section, you can offer channels such as community forum, chat, phone, and email.
3) Powerful Semantic Search Engine
Semantic search seeks to improve search accuracy by understanding searcher intent and the contextual meaning of terms as they appear in the searchable dataspace, whether on the Web or within a closed system.
4) Make Your Search Bar Easy to Find and Visible
63% of customers are frustrated with the search bar within a support center. You can definitely improve on the customer experience by improving the visibility of the search bar.
5) Make Your Portal Easy to Use
Provide easy navigation and make sure your content is clear, readable and to the point. As you probably know, people don’t actually read most of the content on a website. They just scan. So you should probably make it easier for your customers to find the relevant content.
6) Empower Your Customers
Make your portal engaging for customers. Don’t hide it with a different design—set it apart from your general design and website. That way you will make your customers feel more comfortable and secure.
7) Content Rating
Let your customers help you by giving them an option to rate the importance of the content.
8) Ask For Feedback
Optimize your knowledgebase according to the information your customers and salespeople provide.
Conclusion
Advanced as they may be, machines and technology lack two things: creativity and empathy.
When facing a problem that cannot be solved by the self-service portal, customers need to talk to someone that can understand them and their frustrations.
As advanced as machines may be, they can’t think creatively, and can only do what they’re told. And sometimes warm emotion — a smile and a thank you — can be all that a customer needs to feel better.
Live support provides your customers with immediate human help. With live support, agents can help customers solve problems that the web interface cannot, and also walk them through their last minute hesitations.
There’s no knowing what’s going to happen in the next fifteen years, but we can certainly use the research today to make the most of what we have for whatever will happen in the future. While machines can do all of the grunt work, you can save all of the customer service and pre sale to humans.
Yoel Feldman is the co-founder and COO of Proonto, a global marketplace that connects eCommerce websites with expert shop assistants to engage visitors with live representative video chat, enabling merchants to sell and service their customers in a more promptly manner.
