Results for: content marketing

The Importance of Investing in Web Development for Your Business

Steven on April 22, 2021

Setting up a company in this day and age comes with all kinds of challenges and must-have processes that can make or break your success. Depending on your industry, some are more relevant than others, but considering the growth of all things digital, we can safely say that setting up a strong, prominent, and relevant online presence is one of the prerequisites of modern-day business success. Whether you have your own chain of restaurants, a fashion brand, or you have an interior design agency – having a solid website puts you on the map for the entire world to see.

To help make your business more competitive in the online world, this is not your “set it and forget it” type of deal that you can abandon as soon as your site is up and running. You need to keep your website improving, upload fresh content, make sure it’s secure, and above all else, retain communication with customers. To do that efficiently, you need to invest in web development on a continuous basis. Here’s why that matters so much.

Protecting your business reputation

For many companies, reputation management is something restricted to customer-facing communication teams, such as your support agents, social media managers, and the like. You can amplify your protective efforts by bringing your web developers onboard with these processes, and of course, by allowing them to advance in their skills through ongoing training and education.

They will be able to set up the latest security measures which you can then communicate on your site and reassure your visitors that they are in safe hands. Even more than that, your developers can spot potential user-facing glitches that could lead to less than satisfactory experiences, which then means you haven’t delivered on your promise. Developers play a vital role in preserving and growing your reputation in many different ways.

Evolve your presence with customer expectations

Customers are the primary driving force of market trends and changes. Mobile optimization has become a major trend because customers started using their smartphones increasingly to engage businesses, shop, browse, and educate themselves. Over time, voice search has become more popular with the rise of voice assistants like Alexa or Siri. These and many other trends shape web development as a whole, pushing companies to keep investing in the practice.

That often means that your developers need to obtain the latest web development certificate in order to apply the most advanced development practices and techniques for your business. This allows them to always be on the cutting edge of web development, recognize when your business needs to upgrade its digital presence, and ultimately exceed customer expectations.

Post and upgrade SEO-valued content

With a strong web development team, you can upgrade your site’s content on a regular basis, which will in turn help you rank higher and establish your authority in your field of work. In addition to regular web development training, your developers need to collaborate actively with your marketers, support team, as well as your sales experts to maximize the purpose of your site. However, their role is also essential in helping all those other departments in your organization deliver value for your digital presence.

With your developers mentoring your marketers on the latest SEO trends, you can help your creative teams produce quality content that is both customer-friendly, but also ideal for boosting your ranking in search engines. Setting up a collaborative environment for your employees, your web developers included means that you’ll maximize the value of their work.

Sustain customer interactions on your site

Is your website copy in line with what your customers prefer? Are you able to use chatbots to streamline customer support on your site? Have you enabled commenting and sharing for your content such as blogs and videos? Does your website inspire action whenever appropriate? These and other questions are core matters of web development and design.

Communication with customers happens across a variety of digital platforms, but it’s up to you and your design team to inspire that communication. Moreover, it’s up to your employees to make sure that your customers can safely engage with you directly on your site, and that you’re able to respond in a timely manner.

This is where your web developers need to keep up with the latest trends and advancements. When they’re educated and trained to implement them within your own digital presence, you can attract more customers, appeal to a wider demographic, and interact with them safely on a regular basis.

Cost-savings down the road

Big or small, your business is always on the lookout for smarter, more effective ways to cut costs at every turn. From managing your marketing campaigns with free opportunities, all the way to implementing cutting-edge tech, companies need to make cuts where necessary. Investing in proper, ongoing web development means that you’ll actually prevent a slew of expenses down the line.

You won’t have to deal with costly cybersecurity issues, data breaches, and not to mention website crashes when your visitors come rushing to your store. A functional and aesthetically pleasing website is a must, so ongoing web development, design, and maintenance help you sustain your budget for the long haul. By preventing major tech issues with your website, you’ll reduce potential expenses both from that development perspective, but also from that risk management and reputation maintenance perspective, too.

Web development is one of the most crucial elements of business growth and reputation management. In the upcoming months and years, more companies of all sizes will start investing more than ever in their web development departments, both by hiring more people and by ensuring that their knowledge and expertise keep growing. This is a strategy that will help set up your business for growing success and relevance in the digital playing field, which is precisely why you should consider your web development initiatives, too.

Digital Branding

Properly Rebranding Your Website, Social Media Accounts, and More

Steven on April 21, 2021

Changes often take place not only outside, but also in the depths of the company’s internal business processes. Modern successful organisations are constantly improving and strive to keep up with the times. This creates new products and services.

Processes often require both internal and external renewal of companies. Most often this is noticeable by external changes since they immediately attract attention. However, a huge layer of work is hidden in the internal aspects.

What is rebranding

Rebranding is a set of actions taken to change part of the internal business processes and external perception of the brand by the target audience.

There is a common misconception that rebranding refers exclusively to the external visual components of the brand, such as the logo and corporate identity. But this is nothing more than a redesign.

Re-branding is also often confused with repositioning, assortment changes and planned brand evolution. In fact, rebranding can include all the above elements and most often implies not only external changes but also significant internal transformation. It may relate to the ideology, mission, values, structure and quality of the company’s business processes.

Rebranding can affect such areas as brand positioning and its philosophy, changing visual components and their presentation, creating new services.

Why is the rebranding necessary?

First of all, this process is necessary for solving new strategic tasks. For instance:

Radically change the range of goods or services;

Go to other product categories;

Change or significantly expand the target audience;

Use a fundamentally different approach to pricing;

Enter new markets;

Improve your reputation.

Also, virtually any brand must naturally evolve and develop, otherwise, it will be doomed. Starbucks is a good example – just look at the dynamics of their logo change.

In some cases, one can observe protracted rebranding races. Competing companies are actively competing for the audience’s attention in the media and advertising space, points of contact with the audience. When one of the competitors is noticeably updated, then the others also need to correspond to the changes in the market.

Mobile operators are a good example. They are constantly introducing new concepts. If earlier this happened more at the level of external visual solutions, such as logo, corporate identity and interior design of communication salons, now the range of changes affects the most unexpected elements of activity.

Reasons for rebranding

The market and competition are constantly changing, the target audience is maturing, its values and needs are being transformed, and the next generation is growing up. All these factors must be taken into account in strategic marketing planning, otherwise, the success of the brand will be temporary.

It is necessary to constantly monitor changes in audience preferences and respond to them in a timely manner.

When is rebranding needed and how to know when it’s time to do it

The vision of business development has changed significantly;

The reputation of the company has deteriorated significantly;

You need to switch and focus on working with other segments of the audience;

There has been a change of owners or management team who want to change the direction of their activities;

A merger or acquisition transaction has taken place;

The brand is morally outdated and does not correspond to modern market realities;

The company does not systematically fulfil the assigned tasks and does not achieve; necessary goals;

The target audience or its key consumer segments have changed;

Very serious competitors appeared on the market and the brand became non-competitive;

When starting a business, the wrong target audience was chosen, the main direction of the company’s activity was incorrectly determined, or the brand was initially built incorrectly;

Consumers have lost interest in a product or want a variety of choices;

From the very beginning, the company’s products were not in great demand in the market.

Types of rebranding

Depending on the tasks set, rebranding can be complex or partial.

Complex rebranding is a total change in a company or project. Often, rebranding goes so far that the new organisation is unrecognisable compared to the previous version. In this case, a ubiquitous transformation takes place: a new design, logo, style, rejection of low-margin products and services, an improvement in the assortment, and new corporate ethics. But usually, the main line of business of the company does not change, as its client audience.

For example, the management of a law firm changed the name, design, logo, redesigned the website and focused on civil matters, but did not give up legal activity. This is a complex rebranding.

Partial rebranding is a change in a separate part of the company. For example, updating the logo if it is associated with unpleasant emotions, incidents, images, or even resembles another large corporation. Or a redesign of a product’s packaging in order to increase its awareness and make it more noticeable, which means increase sales. In this case, a specific task or problem is solved.

Rebranding stages

Marketing audit

Includes an analysis of the current state of affairs in the company. Find and evaluate strengths and weaknesses against the background of competitors. Be sure to study the current customer base: loyalty and trust of consumers, the motives for choosing a company, their demographic characteristics.

They also assess the company’s slogans, logo, design – what associations they cause and how this affects the level of customer confidence.

In addition, the audit program includes an analysis of the company’s resources: industry size, industry trends and prospects, sales channels, department functioning, leadership style, market positioning and finance.

Only in this way, it will become clear what to work on. With the help of an audit, you can find out whether a comprehensive rebranding is necessary or it is enough to limit yourself to point changes.

Brand repositioning

At this stage, a “road map” for rebranding is being developed, namely its terms, budgets, stages of changes. The concept of rebranding is also being formed – the main message and renewal tools. And, of course, this is tested, and only then implemented.

Rebranding of the corporate style

Change of style and all kinds of attributes (logos, packaging design and trademark) based on the road map and developed layouts. The look of the company is changing – a new strategy of communication with customers comes into force.

Interaction of the new brand with the audience

Social media rebranding

Clients get acquainted with the updated brand, evaluate the first results of the rebranding.

Social media rebranding tasks:

Increasing product awareness.

Forming an active and loyal social media community around the brand.

Solution

Development of an SMM strategy for the development of brand communities in all necessary networks. In the new design concept, use images that grab the attention of users and generate brand interest and useful content for users.

Website rebranding

The redesign work goes through six stages.

1. Analysis of resource indicators

Study of typical users and their needs. To understand the atmosphere and general style of the company, visits to the client’s store or office are possible.

2. Drawing up a concept

Generation of ideas for the website redesign. What will it look like? How does it differ from competitors? How to achieve maximum usability?

3. Text optimisation

Creation of high-quality, selling text on the home page of the site, which is optimised for search engines.

4. Design layout (site drawing)

5. Layout of the resource

6. Programming

7. Transferring the design to the site and embedding it in the CMS.

When adjusting the appearance, web designers from Sydney advise you to take into account the “convenience” of the resource:

Readability of the text

Visual perception (does the site look good)

Usability or ease of use (simplicity of the site structure, loading speed, etc.).

Rebranding mistakes

For rebranding to be effective, you need to be aware of the typical mistakes of its implementation:

Incorrect change of the name of the company: if you treat the renaming superficially, then the organisation can either be forgotten, or it will be a step backward. You cannot cross out what the brand’s activity indicates. Imagine what it would be like if Burger King was renamed into the just King;

Lack of testing often leads to the fact that reality does not coincide with expectations, and returning everything back is expensive and time-consuming;

The unsystematic nature of rebranding: current and potential customers will be confused, and such uncertainty can only be scary;

Unconstructive management: violation of the term for the development of layouts, incorrect delegation of authority on the issue of rebranding, there are no clear goals and distribution of responsibility, to this we can add ignoring the opinion of employees;

Unreasonable changes in the company’s brand in the form of “wishes” of the management or people responsible for the rebranding.

Conclusion

To successfully change the idea of a brand on the market, you need to carry out a set of measures that affect changes in ideology, positioning, appearance and communication style – in this case, the audience will believe you. Follow these tips, and we wish you a successful rebranding!

Legal Branding

Building your Brands Foundation

Steven on April 19, 2021

Branding has always been vital for businesses of all sizes and scales. Even as marketing budgets have taken a hit during the pandemic year, branding continues to be a significant investment for new and existing companies. After all, you have to make sure that the audience can see your brand, listen to its voice, and set it apart from the others in the industry. To make the initiative a success, you need a strategy that works today and only gets better in the future. Here are some ways you can build your brand’s foundation.

Consolidate on your mission

Building the foundation of your brand requires focus on the core mission and values of your company. You may want to prioritize revenue generation instead of staying true to the objective that got you started. But consolidating your mission should be your top priority, and you need to stay a step ahead of the customer expectations while defining your mission. Your aim should be to serve the customers, even if your brand has to move away from the money-making mindset in the short term.

Step into the customers’ shoes

The best way to keep your brand visible is by stepping into the customers’ shoes and understanding their needs. Pick their pain points and find ways to address them with your offerings. Center your marketing around the audience rather than on your business. Once you show people they matter to your business, you will not need to do much in the name of branding.

Communicate critical information

A brand must stay in touch with the audience at all times and communicate critical information. Customers love brands that go the extra mile with transparency. It is vital to showcase the information on your website so that consumers know what to expect. You can collaborate with a brand design agency to work constantly on your marketing messages and customer communication. Staying in touch brings transparency in interactions, which is the mainstay of branding foundation.

Show empathy and compassion

People look for compassion and empathy even as they set out to buy products and services. Brands can do their bit by showing they care during tumultuous times like these. Offering empathetic content is a good start as it makes your business more human and relatable. You can go the extra mile by providing value-added services such as free goods and no-cost delivery. They will stick to your brand even when things turn better.

Build consumer and employee trust

Trust is perhaps the most significant element of a brand’s relationship with customers and employees. Making safety the top priority in consumer-facing operations will fortify their trust in your brand. Employees will also see your brand as a credible employer if you show that their well-being matters. If you want a solid foundation, take a holistic approach that covers both customers and employees

Branding creates the big picture of your business, which makes it a critical investment. Just a little fine-tuning can go a long way in strengthening its foundation, so pick these measures and get started.

Digital Branding

5 Startups Trends To Look Out In 2021

Steven on April 15, 2021

The pandemic-struck 2020 has put all of humanity on a rough patch but for the tech industry. Start-up firms embracing new technology innovations like AI and Robotics are gearing themselves from the setback. The transition from office to work from home format is making cybersecurity and cloud storage thrive like never. Some business sectors are finding it challenging to stay afloat. However, this year shows some potential sectors that will rule the future.

Innovation and inclusion are bringing up rapid changes in the start-up ecosystem. Technology is not the only disruptor; remote working is pushing new strides in personalizing interaction and communication. Let us look at five promising start-up trends that will change the business complexion.

1. Artificial Intelligence

Whether it is marketing tools, digital ads, and analytics, AI is powering a considerable chunk of business initiatives and service platforms. 63% of people are active users of Artificial Intelligence unknowingly. AI is not a robotic device, as it may sound. It creates human-like intelligence in machines and assists you in your decision-making, creative assignments, and pattern recognition. AI works as background support to help you make faster decisions and efficient system processes.

Ecommerce personalization, yield prediction, cannabis industry are some areas showing the exponential power of AI. That’s why you can buy weed in bulk online and predict stock markets of marijuana by leveraging AI.

2. Remote Working

According to a research study, 36.2 million Americans will work remotely by 2025. Remote working is not an experiment anymore but an alternative way to work across multiple domains long-term. Technology advancements like broadband and internet and office tasks’ digitization are doing away with daily commuting. Many start-ups worldwide are switching to remote working to bring down the fixed monthly office rents, equipment cost, and space wastage.

Remote working helps a firm build a larger talent pool and is a viable opportunity to save money and use funds in the best possible way. It also helps remote workers stay happy and more productive.

3. Industry 4.0

Hailed as the ‘Internet of Things (IoT),’ Industry 4.0 is the Next Industrial Revolution for start-ups. It is a well-coordinated system of machines, computers, objects, and people engaged in transferring data over a network. The Industrial IoT (IIoT) market predicted to reach $123B in 2021 will power Smart Cities, Connected Car IoT projects, and other limitless applications for the industrial world.

4. Hyper-Personalization

Seen as the next step to personalized marketing,Hyper-Personalization uses real-time data and AI to furnish user-relevant service and content. Marketers use personalization and push notifications in email marketing campaigns to gauge purchase behavior trends, transactional history, and other data. Companies in automotive and real estate use personalization in official mails to greet email recipients and start a dialogue. It helps a marketer know user engagement and get suitable conversions.

5. Voice Recognition

Also called speech recognition, voice recognition is a hardware device that helps decode the human voice. It performs commands without the help of a mouse, keyboard, or any other buttons. Automatic Speech Recognition software programs recognize the voice converting the speech to text. ASR programs are finding their way in several industries such as telecommunications, healthcare, and hands-free computing. To enable voice recognition, you must have a sound card and a headset or a microphone and voice recognition support software.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit most business sectors, but the tech industry is witnessing plenty of new start-up trends to enhance customer experience and delight. Now is the time to think of self-driven cars, virtual reality eye examinations, and much more. With such technological advancements on the near horizon, 2021 will be an exciting year for world citizens.

Digital Branding

How to Successfully Showcase Your Company’s Past Work on Your Website

Steven on April 5, 2021

In advertising, past work is one of your company’s most valuable assets. It shows that the copy on your site isn’t just fluff — you’re really committed to the values you claim to stand for, like top-notch customer service or high-quality products and services.

Showing off past work, however, can be tricky. Not only do you have to sort through all the work your business has done, you’ll also have to figure out how to present it. For B2C businesses, this challenge can be even more daunting.

There are a wide variety of techniques out there that you can use to show off your business’s past work. These are four of the best options available.

1. Case Studies

For B2B and B2M businesses, one of the most popular ways to show off past work are through case studies — in-depth descriptions of past projects that use visuals, numbers and writing to break down the product or service you provided a client, and how you overcame challenges while trying to provide that service.

For example, see this case study from The Anstadt Company, which specializes in print marketing materials.

The page breaks down a particular job that the company had worked on in the past, including info on how the design team approached a problem their client was having and how the client felt about the finished products.

These case studies both show off the benefits of working with your company — like the new design and improvement in attendance — as well as the thought process behind your work.

This can make customers more confident in work. Case studies like these show off how you can solve problems as they emerge and work closely with a client to create a product or service that really meets their needs.

2. User-Generated Feedback

When shopping online, consumers often start with research. One of the most popular research methods is to search for user-generated feedback, typically in the form of online reviews.

You’ve probably done this yourself. You may have quickly checked the reviews on a big platform like Amazon or Google before committing to a particular product or business.

Consumers put a lot of faith into these reviews — according to one recent survey, 84% of people trust online reviews just as much as recommendations from friends.

Hosting online reviews on your site or storefront is a great way to show off positive feedback from your customers.

For example, an online candle-and-candle-accessory business like Yankee Candle may provide customers with the option to review products they’ve purchased, giving them form fields to highlight both the value and the quality of a product.

Users can also rate reviews, marking them as helpful or unhelpful, providing another layer of user-generated feedback for visitors.

These online reviews will provide prospective customers with feedback from real customers who have experience with your products. Even if these reviews aren’t fully positive, they can make a significant difference in encouraging a customer to try one of your products.

This tactic may be less effective for B2B businesses who have fewer clients, or for businesses that primarily offer customized products or services. However, for most businesses, these reviews can be a valuable tool in presenting feedback on your past work.

3. Design Galleries

You can also let your work speak entirely for itself. Design galleries and similar online portfolios allow you to show off dozens of images of work that you’ve done in the past.

The homepage for RoAndCo, a New York-based design studio, shows off how effective design galleries can be.

The entire front page is basically one big design gallery. Clicking on the left and right side of the screen allows users to scroll back or forth between the studio’s previous design work.

This strategy is ambitious — there’s no context for any of the images, meaning that visitors will miss out on any explanation for images that could have helped to explain how the studio approaches to design.

It is, however, a very visually exciting approach. A similar design gallery could be a great strategy for businesses or professionals that produce lots of visual content — like graphic designers or animators.

4. Customer Testimonials

You can also directly ask your clients for feedback to put on your site. Soliciting customer and client testimonials can give you a valuable, real-world example of the work you’ve done and how you’ve lived up to your brand values in the past.

These testimonials can be an extremely valuable marketing tool that you can use to make your brand seem much more trustworthy. This is especially true if consumers know the clients providing the testimonials.

This page from Booker, the development of online booking software, shows how you can use unique presentations of customer testimonials to highlight past work.

Clicking on the “Watch Testimonial” button opens an embedded YouTube video with a brief, two-minute-long testimonial from one of Booker’s clients. In the testimonial, the client describes the troubles they’ve had with booking in the past and how Booker’s services were able to help them keep their business running.

These testimonials can give customers someone to relate to in your marketing and help you show off the real-world problems that your products have solved in the past.

Showing Off Past Work on a Company Website

If you have company work that you’re proud of, there is a wide range of methods you can use to show it off on your site.

Case studies, testimonials, design galleries and even user reviews can help you show potential customers how you’ve succeeded in the past.

Author:

Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine. She was the creative director at a digital marketing agency before becoming a full-time freelance designer. Eleanor lives in Philly with her husband and pup, Bear.

Legal Branding

5 Smart Ways to Improve Sales Performance

Steven on March 26, 2021

A B2B company’s profitability and revenue growth are critical to its survival. Both depend on sales. It’s imperative to constantly improve sales performance if your team is to do its part in ensuring a future for your company.

Sales performance is the measurement of sales activity and corresponding results against the goals and expectations outlined in a sales plan. Sales performance measures the ability of your sales team to be effective at selling.

5 Keys to Delivering Strong Sales Performance

Let’s take a look at several proven strategies to drive sales performance.

1. Create sales content that compels prospects to become customers

There are two types of sales content: external and internal. You’re probably aware of internal sales content that educates and equips sales teams with knowledge, strategies, and tools to close more deals or improve sales success.

External sales content is the product or brand-specific content that compels prospects to buy from you. Unlike marketing content that draws prospects in, sales content should help you close the deal. Support your external sales content with hard evidence, statistics, and testimonies to convince prospects that your brand suits their business interests.

Your external sales content should provide prospects with the information they need to commit themselves to purchase. Use simple graphics that include facts and figures about your brand or product, personal testimonials, case studies, or product comparisons as part of your external sales content strategy.

Be sure to effectively distribute your external sales content to ensure it reaches the right audience and secures you a strong ROI. Use a customer-centric content distribution model to touch a wide range of B2B prospects in your target industries. This accelerates your sales pipeline as your content reaches more unique visitors each month. With content distribution services, you get convenient tools to easily measure and track your ROI on content distribution for lead generation and other sales activities.

2. Improve communication for your sales reps as well as customers

Effective communication is a critical link that keeps your sales team intact. Asynchronous communication is a great way to maintain strong communication within a sales team and with prospects or customers.

Remote sales teams use asynchronous communication to effectively communicate with team members working in different locations and time zones. Besides enabling your sales team to communicate with high efficiency and agility, asynchronous communication helps build a resource pool and increases thoughtful communication.

Asynchronous communication adds great value to customer service. It lets the customer decide the pace of the conversation and keeps the conversation transparent and open-ended. Moreover, it doesn’t force the customer to have conversations with you in a specific way. Instead, it allows them to communicate with your brand through different channels and at their leisure.

3. Contact prospects early to increase your chances of closing the deal

The earlier you reach prospects, the better positioned you’ll be to convert them into paying customers. Reaching prospects after they’ve been contacted by your competitor reduces your odds of converting them. It’s difficult to draw prospects in once they’ve committed to your competitor’s brand or product.

With B2B contact data, you can reach the right prospects faster and create an opportunity to close deals first. You can also use other forms of B2B data like intent, firmographic, demographic, and technographic data to gain a deeper understanding of your target audience. Then, you can connect with them at an early stage of their buyer’s journey.

Partner with a B2B data company that pays close attention to their data accuracy and hygiene standards. For example, SalesIntel maintains 95% B2B data accuracy. They ensure that their company and contact data are reverified every 90 days. Furthermore, they offer human-verified B2B data apart from machine-processed data to stay on top of their data reliability game and allow their customers to get the best of both worlds.

4. Equip your sales team with tools that give them the upper hand

Sales tools give your reps and SDRs the advantage of knowing prospects beforehand, streamlining their workflow, and gathering sales intelligence. Sales intelligence plays a vital role in improving sales performance by helping sales teams to see beyond what prospects show or signal during their buyer’s journey. Sales results improve when you gain significant insights into the interests, preferences, buying patterns, or online behavior of prospects.

For example, website visitor intelligence tools, like VisitorIntel, let you know who visits your business website and which company they work for. This analytics-driven tool not only tracks website visitors but also allows you to connect with potential buyers before they fully define their needs. It helps you create targeted sales campaigns and identify net new look-alike prospects, so you know the type of companies visiting your business website.

Sales prospecting tools are also frequently used by sales teams to enhance their performance by reducing prospecting time and quickly finding the right accounts to target. RevDriver, a free Chrome extension, is a sales prospecting tool that enables sales teams to directly contact decision-makers, the C-suite, and other accounts in their target audience. RevDriver users can collect accurate, verified contact, and company data for prospects by visiting their LinkedIn profile or company website.

5. Overcome sales call reluctance with proper training and advice

Sales call reluctance is a serious problem that negatively impacts sales performance. 40% of all veteran sales professionals readily admit to one or more call reluctance episodes severe enough to threaten their continuation in sales. Each month, the average call reluctant salesperson misses out on 15.25 pieces of new business opportunities. Whether or not you come across sales call reluctance in your team, it’s always recommended to train and advise your sales reps and SDRs on tackling the problem.

Help your sales team explore more about your brand and product and how they benefit customers beyond financial or other obvious factors. This will help them effectively deal with rejection. Moreover, they’ll be able to dig deeper into reasons for the rejection so that they could work out a foolproof strategy to win next time. That’s how great salespeople do what average salespeople only think about.

Professional sales coaching, willingness to learn and accept feedback, and seeking timely guidance from sales managers are great ways to overcome sales call reluctance. Additionally, you can ask your sales team to track their progress after each call, remove distractions, avoid negative self-talk, pre-qualify prospects, and affirm their role as a salesperson to cope with call reluctance.

Also, working to guarantee that reps are calling prospects that fit your target demographics and have accurate phone numbers helps reps feel that everything is being done to enable their success. No one wants to fight an uphill battle.

The Wrap

The five strategies discussed in this blog are a few of the right moves you need to boost your sales performance.

As a bonus tip, we suggest seeking support from your marketing team to push your sales growth further. There are ways in which you can actually get more sales out of marketing. Sales and marketing alignment is a classic example of how marketing can significantly contribute to sales performance. Statistics show that it helps achieve 38% higher win rates, retain 36% more customers, and generate 32% higher revenue.

Digital Branding

5 Best Digital Ideas To Increase Your Brand Presence

Steven on March 11, 2021

Businesses need to be conspicuous for them to grow and thrive. This means that they must invest in brand awareness and recognition. As such, one needs to initiate necessary steps to achieve such a goal. Fortunately, some simple tricks and tips can help any business grow to a level where they increase their brand awareness with ease.

Consider the five suggestions below as a great starting point.

Consider Website Optimization

A primary reason you should prioritize hiring one of the best salesforce consulting companies is to help you with web management. It is not enough to have a company website. Any company working online should have a well-optimized website. Invest in the right SEO strategies such as keyword use, lead creation, and link building. Note that most people today begin their search for products and services online.

All you need to do is start. Ensure that the process is simple and not fancy. Your website should simply show your work in the most straightforward way possible. Ensure it is easy to load and navigate. These can be easily achieved by optimization. Make the website visually appealing and useful for those searching online. If funds allow, consider making a mobile app, especially if your services match the mobile platform use.

Start a Business Blog

Focus on getting people to know more about your business. Ensuring that there is enough credible information about the business out there can easily achieve this. Starting a blog is one of the safest and surest ways to inform your potential and repeat clients about your products and services. You can document all your progress in your blogs as long as your post’s content is useful to the reader.

Having a dedicated blog that addresses most, if not all, the issues customers may have, helps businesses attract new customers and maintain the earlier ones. However, before posting any content on the blog, it must be perfectly-written without numerous errors.

You also need to update the content on your website regularly, more so if things change. Whenever readers realize that you post outdated content, they are likely to trust you less. Let people know when to expect your new content. This will help you achieve excellent traffic and boost your SEO ranking. In case your goal is the growth and expansion of your brand’s presence, you must positively use your blog.

Focus on Social Media Presence

While social media is great for business growth and brand awareness, you need to be careful when choosing the right channels. Your excellent research skills should be used at this point. Find out the best social media channels that will help your media presence.

Do not ignore social media because this is an opportunity to grow your brand and bring in more potential customers. It is easier for more people to find out about you on your social media pages than they will on your website. Once you decide which social media channel is excellent for you, create useful content for the page. Keep it busy and continue to engage your viewers.

Most importantly, ensure that you are relevant. Everything you post, from the videos, pictures, and blog posts, should match your brand’s identity. Besides that, have your employees join in this journey. Please encourage them to continually share the content on their personal social media spaces to expand the brand’s reach. Focus on extending your reach and building trust, as this goes a long way in bringing the right people your way.

Have a Few Guest Posts and Invest in Email Marketing

One of the fastest and easiest ways to build brand awareness is having a strong email presence. Email marketing works most of the time and is even more effective than social media because you deal and interact with people directly. When using email marketing as a strategy, make sure your approach is segmented to be more effective.

Create customized messages and send emails at the right time. You have to analyze data and know what works for you regularly. On the other hand, guest blogging also works in branding because of the targeted exposure, which helps your brand earn credibility. When done right, this can be a magnet that attracts customers to your website.

Once people love your content on the guest blogs, they are likely to go to the main website and read through your other content. This helps you build traffic and can contribute to the conversion rates and business increase.

Use Visuals to Engage Customers

A visual brand is immediately noticeable. Customers want compelling content that makes them love your brand. Take time to build content that attracts your customers. Use imagery and other visual aids that put your brand out there.

The aim is to tap into the consciousness of the reader or potential customer. Once they are hooked, they will search for your content on official channels and possibly convert into loyal customers. The bottom line is to ensure that the content you create is appealing and exciting for them to continue searching for you.

Final Thoughts

Brand awareness is easy. However, it needs one to use available resources. Choose wisely and follow a path that works for your business. Different strategies may work for other businesses, while some may need a combination of several strategies. So, choose wisely.

Digital Branding

How Does your Food Delivery Business benefit by Embracing Digital Solutions

Steven on February 26, 2021

The latest trend of digitalization is changing the entire world in the form of the digital revolution. The world is witnessing everlasting solutions like digitization, which will benefit, benefit, and only benefit the upcoming generation. It is the solution that has completely changed the dynamics of the market. The internet is such a field that has created magic, and in recent times it has empowered the world. People got immensely fond of the internet world that these days they always take the internet’s opinion. The digital revolution has happened only because of the popularity of the internet and advancement in the networks and internet. More importantly, it also happened because people realized the importance of such solutions in their day-to-day lives.

Infographic created by Clover Network, a restaurant POS provider

The digital transformation in the business sector is nothing new these days, and small businesses like restaurants and food eateries have taken advantage of it successfully. The food business will always be trending because people are fond of eating delicious food. The critical point here is that the food industry is snowballing, and the market conditions are hectic because of the heavy competition. On the other hand, people have got a lot of options that they get confused with when choosing their cuisine. The restaurant business can quickly adopt digital solutions to embrace themselves in the competitive market.

The restaurant business’s digital solutions will give them a chance for betterment in the service and healthily beat the competitions. It is the solution that will enhance the business model and improves the ease of doing business for your restaurant. It also smoothens the business operations and gives service providers flexibility to handle their business functions efficiently. There are many benefits and verticals that digital solutions offer to the business people in the restaurant sector.

Digital Solutions For Getting Food Orders

The digital solutions in restaurants will allow the restaurant owners to get food orders online from customers searching for the food online. They can have their ordering and delivery system for restaurant to get online orders to deliver them at the customer’s doorstep. The restaurant owners can relax as they can get their orders online, and they don’t have to handle the customers at their restaurant. They just need to prepare the food and notify the delivery rider to collect the order and deliver it to the customer’s destination. The order handling and receiving and further processing are quite quickly done with the digital solutions. Also, real-time data is available to keep watch on the entire food ordering and delivering process.

Improve Business Efficiency

Implementing digital solutions in the restaurant business will help them to improve business efficiency. With the digital tools, the ordering details are accurately received, and there won’t be any chance of miscommunication while preparing and receiving the order. Restaurants working offline have these issues of miscommunication, and they serve the wrong item, which will frustrate customers, which is not a good thing for your restaurant business. The communication will be accurate with the digital solutions that will increase the efficiency of the restaurant business. The restaurant business will have its standards with digital solutions, which helps run the business efficiently. Thus, these are the technologies that enhance work productivity.

Offering Better Customer Service

The digital solutions will allow the food delivery service to automate the ordering and processing tasks. Online ordering will enable customers to order their food requirements sitting at their place, which is a convenient option. They can have access to the restaurant’s entire menu with each detail on their hands using the online platform. With everything at their fingertips, it is very hassle-free for them to order food online, and they will get its quick delivery at their doorstep. Customers will enjoy digital ordering as it gives them flexibility and conveniences, which the traditional form of restaurant business won’t be able to provide. Thus, it allows the restaurant business to offer better customer service by ordering and delivering these solutions.

Increased In Restaurant Revenue Generation

The restaurant business’s digital solutions will allow them to target wider audiences from the internet world as we all know that the digital population is expanding, and the internet user-base has increased and reached 4.66 Billion, which is almost 60% of the total world population. The online users will use the restaurant’s online services effectively, and these are the target audiences for your business. The order generation will increase with the online ordering facility provided by restaurants. With the increase in order quantity, there will be an increase in the revenues generated, and thus, that is what your restaurant business needs these days. The restaurant business will be thriving with the digital solution.

Getting Quick Payments With Digital Solutions

The digital solutions will allow your food business to accept online payment facilities, which is a very flexible option. The digital payments are swift, easy, and reliable, and the owners can easily secure the money for the food. Customers can also have the flexible option of paying online, which is very convenient as they do not need to arrange cash when they receive the food order at their doorstep. The payment facilities have solved many problems for the business people in running their business model smoothly. Managing money is the biggest hurdle for any business, and with digital solutions, it can be done easily.

Excellent Delivery Service

The digital solutions will allow the food delivery business to run their delivery service smoothly and efficiently. The delivery service will be improved with digital solutions, and with the latest technologies, the optimum delivery can be done. There are various features for efficient delivery operations that help the rider get an optimized route for delivery. The entire delivery operations can be monitored these days with real-time data. That will ensure smooth delivery operations, and the restaurant owner can relax and focus on their business.

Concluding Note

The restaurant and food business sector has been evolving a lot in recent times with digital solutions availability. The business people have found these solutions very useful in enhancing their business model and creating excellent opportunities to establish their virtual space business. With the virtual audiences, they can increase their orders, which will eventually lead to an increase in revenue generation. The digital solution has a lot to offer to the business model, and it is said that a digital solution will have an excellent future. People have also found this solution very helpful, and thus, it gives a perfect opportunity to the food business sector to achieve their targets and desired success.

Author Bio

Brijesh Vadukiya

I am Brijesh, a tech activist and avid blogger. My major concern is to educate people who are interested in technology. I am passionate about helping people in all aspects of SaaS solutions, online delivery business, digital marketing and other related topics that make tomorrow’s world better. I am fond of writing useful and informative content that helps brands to grow business.

Digital Branding

Top 8 Instagram Tools to Help you Promote your Brand

Steven on February 22, 2021

Many people spend more than 2 hours on social media platforms every day. Considering Instagram, there are 1 billion monthly active users on the platform. These social media statistics and numbers are quite thought-provoking when it comes to the promotion of your brand on social media platforms, especially Instagram. To make the promotion of your brand on Instagram more successful, you can use the available top Instagram tools to facilitate all your tasks.

There are many Instagram tools that you can use. Choosing the right tool can influence your Instagram marketing strategies and the efficiency of your time and efforts. As many Instagram tools are either free or have a reasonable price, it is their functionality that makes the difference.

Why Is Using Instagram Marketing Tools Important?

Instagram is a photo-centered social platform that can drive business growth to a large extent. So, it is not like the past when people only wanted to see their friends’ moments, some delicious food pictures, beautiful natural landscapes, etc. on their feed. Nowadays, more than 200 million users visit one business profile each day. Therefore, it is important that you use Instagram to promote your brand image and products or services.

To better manage your business Instagram account, Instagram marketing tools can be a great contribution. They can schedule your posts for a later time to be posted, suggest hashtags, or give you the analytics of your performance on Instagram. They can also help you increase your follower base and better engage your audience. Taken as a whole, you can automate your Instagram tasks and get the most of your Instagram account just by using Instagram marketing tools. Not to mention that using Instagram marketing tools is a great way to save time.

What Are the Top Instagram Tools to Promote Your Brand?

Now that we have known the importance of using Instagram marketing tools, it is time to learn about the best Instagram tools.

1. DMpro

Direct Messages or DMs on Instagram are great for generating more leads and customers. Using DMpro as an automated DM tool, you can both facilitate and accelerate your DM marketing on Instagram. The tool automates all your DM-related tasks. In addition, you can send bulk DMs or get notified whenever you receive a DM by Email.

Here are the features of DMpro:

Automating outbound DMs
Sending automated DM responses
Sending bulk DMs to your contacts
Sending and receiving DMs via Email

2. Realtormate

If you have a realtor business, using Realtormate as your Instagram marketing tool is the smartest move. You can get a lot of relevant content designs with this Instagram tool for realtors which is great for accelerating your content creation. Moreover, you can create a content plan for your Instagram posting. Furthermore, you can use Realtormate as a growth manager to generate 400-500 new, AI-targeted followers and leads each month.

Here are the features of Realtormate:

Posting designs for Instagram real estate agencies
Creating a content plan
Growing your followers and leads

3. AiSchedul

AiSchedul is an Instagram marketing tool that used to have Instagram post scheduling as its main goal. You can create your post on the platform and set a time and date for it to be shared at that particular time.

Then, it evolved through time and added more services in addition to being an Instagram scheduler. For instance, you can add multiple hashtags by entering the main keyword of your post. You can also repost the best content related to your niche. Moreover, there is a calendar with international events that you can see the best trending posts and get an idea for your own content for that event. Furthermore, you can monitor your mentions too.

Here are the features of AiSchedul:

Scheduling your Instagram post for a later time
Choosing multiple hashtags
Reposting trending content
Creating ideas for international events through the calendar
Monitoring mentions

4. AiGrow

Perhaps the most attractive tools for Instagram are the ones for the growth of your Instagram account. Increasing your Instagram followers can add a lot to the credit of your business. However, many tools stopped functioning as Instagram banned all bot activities on its platform.

New tools like AiGrow can grow your follower base organically. It means that thanks to this Instagram growth service, you will increase the number of your followers with real users. There are packages that you can choose based on your budget and needs.

Here are the features of AiGrow:

Increasing your follower base organically

5. Later

First and foremost, Later started its service as an Instagram post scheduling tool. It has updated itself to more services through time and is now an effective Instagram marketing tool. Using Later, you can create your Instagram posts and schedule them for later. There is also a calendar that helps you keep track of important international events.

Here are the features of Later:

Easy scheduling of Instagram posts
Budget-friendly plans
Unlimited data download

6. Hootsuite

You can post on Instagram easier than before using Hootsuite as a scheduling tool. You can post any type of content directly from the platform of Hootsuite. However, Hootsuite does not just help you with posting and scheduling. It also helps you to answer the comments of your posts or check your post from the platform itself.

Here are the features of Hootsuite:

Creating content for your posts and stories
Scheduling of your posts
Monitoring Instagram activities
Searching for trending hashtags
Analysis of your Instagram performance

7. Iconosquare

Iconosquare is another Instagram marketing tool that you can choose for managing your Instagram account. What it actually does is to do with the analysis of your Instagram performance. The data that is driven from this tool can help you plan a better Instagram marketing strategy to create more engagement and better results. In addition, you can schedule your posts for a time and date to be posted. You can also monitor your Instagram activities from mentions to comments.

Here are the features of Iconosquare:

Analyzing your Instagram performance
Hashtag tracking
Instagram influential profile spotting

8. Buffer

Buffer is perhaps one of the oldest Instagram marketing tools for post scheduling. You can schedule your Instagram posts in advance and queue your content for a particular date and time.

Here are the features of Buffer:

Scheduling your Instagram posts
Scheduling and posting your content based on a calendar

Conclusion

Instagram is a popular social media platform with many features that have made it an easy-to-use platform for almost any generation. To get your business high up on Instagram and expect more customers, you should outsource some of your Instagram tasks to the best available Instagram tools that we have just introduced above. Wish you the best of luck!

Bio

I am Parichehr Parsi, a born writer, and a freelance copywriter in the fields of travel, fashion, and Instagram marketing. I currently write for SocialPros and online magazines in Italy and I love reading, writing, and researching. Find me on LinkedIn!

Digital Branding Personal Branding

Top Strategies for Growing Your Retail Business’s Brand in 2021

Steven on February 8, 2021

Many retailers understandably want to turn the page on the tough year that was 2020 and look forward to a 2021 full of growth and other successes. Having actionable strategies for meeting those goals will help put them in reach. Here are some reliable ways to grow your retail brand this year.

Train Your Staff

Your employees are extensions of your brand. If customers walk into your store, engage with workers and typically get bored, misinformed or uncertain replies, they won’t likely have positive impressions of your overall brand.

Explore ways to invest in training so your employees collectively provide excellent experiences. For example, you might require workers to engage with all visitors to a physical store within two minutes of their arrival. That approach ensures people don’t feel unseen or make incorrect assumptions about products or services.

Ensure workers never say, “Sorry, I’m not sure,” and go back to their tasks when customers ask for information they don’t have. Instead, they could be proactive and say, “Sorry, I’m not sure, but let me get a colleague who can answer that for you.” Additionally, teach employees to engage in gentle upselling efforts or suggest alternatives when the products people want are out of stock. Doing that should raise your overall sales.

Offer Branded Items

Anyone who’s been to the Big Apple has almost certainly seen shoppers carrying Bloomingdale’s brown shopping bags — the containers are instantly noticeable with their thin, rounded letters. Each one has the size printed on the front, such as “Big Brown Bag,” with the store name on the side. The simple design is so iconic that the department store sells reusable vinyl zippered totes featuring it.

This example proves that branded items keep companies in customers’ minds. They’re also appropriate for organizations that are much smaller than Bloomingdale’s, too. You can give the items out as freebies if your retail brand has a community event presence. Alternatively, keep the goodies near the cash register and give one to each person who buys something.

Consider which items people will most likely use and enjoy. For example, pens and notepads are handy things recipients will need often. Also, products such as keychains and magnets are practical items that keep your company’s name in frequent view.

Provide Accurate Stock Information If Possible

Most people can’t help but feel disappointed if they arrive at stores and find the products they want are not available. Investigate whether your inventory management system could enable launching a feature that lets people instantly check stock levels on a website or app before arriving at a store.

When shoppers want items you don’t have, give them immediate options. For example, you might give them real-time updates about shipments on the way. Alternatively, if you operate more than one store in a consumer’s area, let them check stock at a different location. You can also give employees easy ways to special-order the products customers request. Then, shoppers will realize workers are doing everything they can to assist.

Maintaining reliable on-shelf availability (OSA) poses challenges for many retailers. If it’s a persistent problem for you, get to the bottom of what’s happening and fix it. For example, does the issue occur because you wait too long to place orders that replenish the shelves? Perhaps stock levels are too low because of incorrect forecasting that failed to anticipate demand.

Help Consumers Save Time

Price is not necessarily the top priority when people choose where to shop. A recent survey found 53% of people intend to shop in ways that save time, even if they don’t provide the lowest prices. Another finding that supports the time-saving trend was that 56% of people would keep shopping in convenient, easy stores.

You can strengthen and grow your retail brand this year by highlighting how your store facilitates efficiency. Maybe that means letting people reserve products online and pick them up at the retail outlet. That’s an appealing option for individuals who know what they want and don’t need to browse. If people learn your retail brand lets them make the most of their precious time, they’ll want to keep supporting it.

Helping people save time could also mean changing how and where you stock items. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some grocery retailers created dedicated aisles of the products people wanted most — from soap and hand sanitizer to shelf-stable foods. That was a smart and effective strategy that let frazzled shoppers go to one place and find many of the items on their lists.

Cater to Shoppers’ Omnichannel Preferences

Despite the ongoing rise of e-commerce, many people still buy what they need in physical stores. Retail analysts point out that the lines between physical and online retail are increasingly blurred. This transition has led to a rise in omnichannel marketing, whereby people expect to shop on numerous channels and get an integrated, smooth experience each time.

For example, even when consumers visit physical stores, they often use their phones while inside, relying on those devices to steer their purchasing decisions. Other shoppers let specific product needs influence whether they shop in a store or online. Someone might prefer to buy a new pair of jeans in a store but go to the same retailer’s website within a month to buy a scarf.

The main takeaway is to avoid focusing too much on a single retail channel. People often switch between several, and they appreciate high-quality, customer-centric experiences regardless of which ones they choose. Providing those for them will grow your brand and give people more opportunities to interact with it.

Consider Investing in Augmented Reality

Experts remain unsure to what extent COVID-19 will continue affecting retail in 2021. That’s why it makes good business sense to evaluate how you can help people feel safe, no matter what the future holds. One way to do that is with augmented reality (AR) tools that help people shop for things with safer processes.

For example, Ulta Beauty’s GLAMlab allows people to virtually try different hair colors, brow shapes and makeup as they shop in the stores. The brand does not offer tester products during the pandemic. However, the technology provides a safe substitute and drives sales by removing the uncertainty of buying beauty products blindly.

Laura Kohl, the company’s senior vice president of applications, data and integrations, explained, “What’s fun about going into an Ulta store is actually trying on some things or smelling the products or feeling the product, that just can’t happen right now. So at least with this virtual try-on, it quickly shifted into that … It complements the store experience.” Also, AR is increasingly accessible to small businesses. Shopify has an AR tool specifically geared toward smaller companies.

Succeed With Brand Building in 2021

Building your brand should be a methodical process. Following the tips here and abiding by other best practices does not bring overnight results, but you should see gradual improvements. If possible, use metrics to track how well different approaches work after using them for at least a few months. Then, it’ll be easier to justify investing more time and money into those approaches for the future.

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