Results for: business website

Legal Branding Issues: Social Media Mistakes That Could Land You in Hot Water

Steven on June 19, 2020

From Facebook to Twitter, businesses brand themselves by using social media sites and digital marketing. While social media may seem like all fun and games and can be on a personal level, it can land you in hot water when you’re branding a business. Hot water that could land you in court with legal issues. If you’re having legal issues with branding, then turning to a firm like Cory Briggs small business attorney can help, and it’s best to have a lawyer on retainer before you run into trouble. In this blog, however, you’ll find a few of the top social media mistakes that can land you with a ton of legal issues you don’t want to deal with.

Not Understanding Copyright Laws

From photographs to articles, there are many copyright laws that are easily violated when branding a business. For example, who owns that photograph you’re using? Even more, who is the person in the photograph and will they sue you for using it without permission? You always need to have the proper licenses to a photograph you post on social media. The best way to do this is by only using photographs you take yourself. However, since that’s not always possible, a good attorney will help you determine what can and can’t be done in this department.

Improper Formatting of Sponsored Posts

You would think that sponsored posts would be easy to share, brand, and post. However, the FTC has buckled down on the improper formatting of sponsored posts, and doing it the wrong way could land you in court these days. If the posts contain numerous hashtags, links, or tags, then you must make sure to separate each legal disclosure. It can be quite confusing, so if you’re in doubt, contact your small business lawyer to ask for legal advice before you format any sponsored posts for your brand.

Putting Up Fake Testimonials

Customer testimonials can do wonders for your product, service, and branding, as long as those testimonials are true. There are regulators that watch out for fake testimonials on social media sites and you can land in a world of trouble if yours are proven to be fake. This is known as astroturfing and State Attorney Generals are cracking down and enforcing these laws, so you want everything you do to be above board. Just remember, influencer marketing can have serious legal ramifications, and cost you a ton if it’s done improperly. Make sure you do your research and consult with your attorney if in doubt as to whether a testimonial you put on social media could be seen as fake or not.

Not Reading a Social Media Site’s Terms of Service Carefully

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that all social media sites have the same rules. What’s okay for Facebook might not be okay for Instagram, and can get you in legal trouble for violating their terms of service. For example, some terms of service (TOS) state that you can only post images that you have the right to, while others are completely different. Read every site’s TOS before you start posting, just to be on the safe side and in accordance with their specific rules.

While this post isn’t meant to scare you away from using social media when branding your business, it’s important to note that it’s not all carefree posting and having fun. There are very real legal ramifications if you make the above mistakes when branding your business on social media. Just be aware of them and avoid them at all costs.

Digital Branding Personal Branding

Digital Marketing Essentials for the Medical Community

Steven on June 18, 2020

Technology has transformed different sectors of the economy including the medical sector. The internet has proved to be a critical tool in the marketing world.

Just like any other sector, the medical community has taken advantage of the internet to market their services. According to a study conducted by Google, search engines drive users to medical facility websites three tines compared to other sources. The study also revealed that 44% of patients who search for information via their mobile devices end up booking appointments.

If you are looking to increase your presence online and reach many patients, then consider the following digital marketing essentials:

1. A simple website

Your website is an important element in your digital marketing strategy. It serves as your virtual office. As such, you should ensure that it is designed in a way that makes it easy for users to navigate. This is because not all of your patients may be well versed in technology and the internet.

When people visit your website, they are looking for specific information. You should, therefore make it easy for them to navigate and find whatever information they are looking for – in the shortest time possible.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is one of the best digital marketing strategies. If you are serious about your online business, then you need to employ the SEO technique.

The search engine optimization strategy ensures that your website is ranked on the first page of popular search engines. Another advantage of search engine optimization is the ability to focus on a specific category of audience.

That means you are able to create certain keywords that target certain patients in your area. For example, SEO can help bring attention to hydrogen peroxide IV oxygen therapy for those who could benefit from its medicinal potential.

3. Email marketing

Email marketing is another great component of the digital marketing strategy of medical professionals. Despite the fact that social media marketing appears to overshadow the use of emails, the truth is that email marketing is still effective. However, its effectiveness depends on how the strategy is being implemented.

Ensure that you segment and personalize emails to reflect the needs and interests of your patients. You cannot send similar emails to your existing and potential clients. In other words, your emails should be tailored to the needs of every client.

4. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social media has taken the world by a storm. It is estimated that there are almost 3 billion active social media accounts today. That tells you how much social media is influential in the modern world.

One area that has significantly been boosted by social media is marketing. Most companies have invested in social media marketing – because of its effectiveness. As a medical practitioner, you are able to reach a larger audience within a short time compared to other sources.

5. Content marketing

Content marketing is all about creating content that’s relevant to your audience. It is a marketing strategy that’s almost similar to search engine optimization.

When using a content marketing strategy, you generate content that will attract and drive traffic back to your website. In other words, content marketing guides you in producing content that’s engaging and relevant to your niche.

Local Branding

How To Find and Sell American Ginseng

Steven on June 17, 2020

Ginseng, also known as (Panax quinquefolium) is a small plant that comes with fleshy roots that look like the shape of a human body. This herb has several medicinal advantages that are being reaped by the traditional Chinese and the Native American Indian nations for more than 5000 years now.

The word about is now out, which is why there’s an increase in the demand for American Ginseng products. With each passing day, more and more people are buying Ginseng due to the fact that it’s known as a “Cure to all”. Ginseng is also called “Panax” which has a literal meaning of “a cure to all”. This is a tried and tested fact because this herb alone does provide numerous health benefits that no other medications and no other herb does.

Think about it? Don’t you want to invest your money in a herb that is a solution to all your health issues? Don’t you want to get rid of the medicine box that you have besides your table, with each medicine labeled for a different medical condition? It’s high time to refer to the traditional ways that were used earlier by people when there was no such thing as a “medicine”.

Finding And Selling American Ginseng

As much as it’s beneficial for your health, you need to know that selling Ginseng is also one of the most profitable businesses at the moment. A pound of the roots of this plant can bring you hundreds of dollars. In other words, if you are thinking about starting a Ginseng business, you are about to take a great step as it will bring you the profit you are expecting.

But before you jump to the sweet dreams of earning thousands with Ginseng, you need to know that finding it is one tough task. The American Ginseng is allowed only in 19 states, and this can be an issue for you.

What makes things more complicated is that in order to harvest Ginseng, you need to take a permit first because if you don’t have any official permission from the state, you can’t harvest it in any forest or any state.

If you think it won’t be much of a problem to harvest Ginseng without permission from the state, then know that you need to change your mind right now. It’s officially illegal, and you can face some serious charges, which is why first take a permit and then think further.

Once you’ve got the permission and once you have enough stock to start selling, you need to get a license to start this business too. Getting the license isn’t the hard part. It’s easy, especially if you are selling quality Ginseng.

Meanwhile, you should prepare a website or social media accounts to promote the American Ginseng you have. It will take time for you to grow as a business, but once you are famous and once people are sure that you are selling high-quality Ginseng, you will see how money starts pouring in.

Overall Verdict

Selling Ginseng can bring you money, and we’ve told you this before, but the process isn’t as easy as it sounds. One of the biggest challenges is to find Ginseng and then wait for the plant to get mature. Hunting immature Ginseng and selling it won’t bring you any benefit, especially if people know that the roots aren’t mature. You need to wait for the plant to become mature and then hunt it down to sell it. Furthermore, if you know it, it’s your duty too to educate people about the benefits of this herb, this will be good for business!

Author Bio: Qurban Shah is a freelance writer who offers guest blogging, copywriting, and blogger outreach services. Currently, he is writing a product review and buying guide on MetalDetectorsGuide.

Digital Branding

How to Get Media Coverage and Good PR for Your Startup

Steven on June 12, 2020

When you are first starting out, one of the biggest issues that you may have is getting media attention. It is difficult to build credibility, awareness, and exposure if you aren’t able to gain media coverage.

It is important to find the right methods of getting media exposure because some may not work when you are first starting out. So, you may need to be a bit creative when thinking about how to get press. This guide can provide you with the tools that you would need to win the media coverage that you need. We will look at:

What is media coverage?
Earned media vs. Owned Media vs. Paid media
Steps to get media coverage for your startup

What is media coverage?

Before you can start applying media coverage tips to your business, you need to know what it is. However many ways you look at it, media coverage basically means publicity and in the world of PR, it can also be called “earned media”.

Your goal is to win earned media, which is a way of building your company’s reputation by using press coverage through third-party media publications. You will also be applying owned media, which would be any content that you are publishing on your own channels.

Earned media vs. Owned Media vs. Paid Media

There are many media and marketing tactics that can grow your company and they may all seem confusing together, but let me break it down for you.

Earned media can include Social media shares, viral content, customer success stories, recommendations, guest articles, product review pages, and media mentions. This is media that you have basically “earned” it comes from the things that you are posting and feedback from your target audience.

What are the benefits of earned media?

Builds awareness: it allows you to reach more of your targeted audience. It opens you up to new customers across different media outlets. It gets more eyes on your product/service.
Heightens your credibility: Producing great articles for publication can demonstrate your industry knowledge and build credibility in your field. It shows that you are informed about the market that you are trying to break through.
Boosts your SEO, Increases your leads and sales, and ultimately increases trust.

Owned media can include Blogs, websites, mobile apps, whitepapers, case studies, social media accounts, and media kits. This type of media is what you create on your own, things that you have put up that are trying to reach an audience.

Paid media can include PPC ads, sponsored content, display/banner ads, and retargeting. It is basically advertising that is directly paid for. This would include using social media influencers to promote your product/service. It can be very effective in driving traffic to your business, but you would need to gain and receive sufficient trust within your target market, which is where the influencers come in.

STEPS TO GET MEDIA COVERAGE FOR YOUR STARTUP

STEP 1: Build your narrative using owned media

You need to make sure that your internal message, branding, and in-house content is in great condition so that when you pitch to media outlets, it seems like you know exactly what you’re doing. If the things that you are writing and posting are lacking in detail and looks like it has been done by an amateur, you are less likely to even care about giving you media coverage.

Make sure that you convey who you are, what you do, and what your values are.

STEP 2: Identify the most relevant journalists

The media coverage that you are trying to get should and need to be relevant to your business. Which is why it is important that you research where and how you want to win your earned media.

Make a list of all the publications that you read and that you are aware is related to your industry.
Use tools to find publications that your competition has put up and have gained media coverage in
Select a few keywords that are related to your business or industry

STEP 3: Setup media monitoring

This is relatively related to the last step, it is important once you have posted or been posted that you listen to what your target audience is saying about your brand, your competitors and anything that is related to your business.

STEP 4: PR Tactics for winning press coverage:

Guest articles
Press releases
Podcast appearances
Product Reviews Page
Newsjacking
Interviews

STEP 5: Goal setting

It is important that you set reasonable goals for yourself. Basically state things that you know you can achieve, because if you aim too high and you are not able to achieve them, it would seem that you are unreliable to your audience.

STEP 6: Start building relationships with the press

Make friends with the press, you need them on your team if you want to emerge into the market. You can start building relationships through social media, connecting with them locally, and using programs like HARO to find the relevant journalists and media outlets for you.

STEP 7: Pitching to media outlets

Once you have developed a relationship with them, you can start pitching to them. However, do not do it in a way that seems pushy. Find a way to connect with them on their level first and then go from there. At the end of the day, they are getting so many messages daily about people that want media coverage, so find a way to stand out and they are more likely to read through your pitch.

Provide a good hook for them to be attracted to by

Providing a fresh perspective
Offering new insight
Challenging the norm
Breaking new ground

Media coverage is a very important part of PR, so figure out a way to be personal and different from the competition. Make sure that what you are doing is relevant to them, don’t waste your time pitching to an outlet that doesn’t accept guest posts, don’t pitch to more than one person at the same publication at the same time, and when you are trying to follow-up, don’t seem too needy or pushy.

You want them to like you. You want them to be interested in what you are trying to get media coverage for. You want to be different.

To get professional help from our PR professional to create your customized email pitches, press releases, press kits, etc. Check out our website and our packages for more information.

Digital Branding

How To Promote Brand Using An Online Community

Steven on June 7, 2020

Building an online brand nowadays goes beyond creating marketing messages. A business requires to form genuine connections with its customers to excel online. Your business acquires more attention and develops as a brand when people can link to it and believe it is dependable.

That’s the reason a brand community can fortify and extend the reach of your brand online.

It’s probable that your business already possesses an active community on forums, social media, or your website. You can build community engagement to promote your brand’s growth. You can even leverage community-designed content to develop your brand.

#Present A Brand Value For Your Community

Customers will spend in your brand as your community signifies the values your brand is all about, permitting you to break your dependence on advertising and promotions.

# Explore Emotions To Grow Customer Retention

View brand communities for a few of the most luxurious brands in the world, such as Porsche cars, Rolex watches, or Montblanc pens. All of us know someone (perhaps yourself) who is an ardent fan and would never think about buying from a rival – whether you possess the money to buy one or not.

When your community members are joined to your brand and the community surrounding it, it builds a switching barrier. Due to their loyalty and investment in the community, they won’t be so price sensitive and will be less probable to shop about.

You don’t require to be a luxury brand such as Rolex for this to function for your brand also. Moroccanoil is a premium body and hair care brand that has built a community, Beauty Circle, around the worth and advantages of utilizing their products.

By exploring the emotions connected to looking and feeling your best, they’ve created a big online brand community, without needing to think about reducing their prices to be the cheapest beauty oils on the market.

Make emotional attachments the bedrock of your community. Irrespective of what you sell, your one-time shoppers will become committed repeat purchasers as loyal members of your brand community.

# Build Valuable Brand Advocates

Your community can’t prosper if nobody is familiar with it. Fortunately, when you motivate your community members, you can alter them from being customers into brand advocates. Advocates like your brand and constitute a precious marketing channel, serving as a community megaphone to aid bring others into your brand experience. Besides, while they’re evangelizing for your business, they even spend double as much as an average shopper.

Energy gum makers Run Gum took complete advantage of community and brand advocates through their referral program. Numerous people don’t know what energy gum is, so their advocates were entrusted to educate outsiders and garner them into the Run Gum community. Run Gum’s investment worked, leading to a 200% growth in repeat purchase rate all due to their brand advocates.

The growth of your community only implies positive things for your business. By motivating brand advocates, they can distribute the value of your brand to help rope in new excited customers, and build a more engaging community experience.

# Understand What Prods Your Customers

The sole way to improve your customer experience is by knowing what your customers are experiencing.

Building an online brand community permits you to know what eggs on your customers, along with what they do and don’t appreciate the customer experience. Laced with all the product reviews, social engagements, and feedback forms, there are plenty of ways to discover everything you can do to make all interactions with your brand delightful.

When Altenew refurbished their website, they wished to discover how much they had improved the online experience. Believing their community would present honest evaluations, they emailed their members to receive some warm feedback. This aided the website project at hand, besides giving insight into what members value. Bolstered with that information, Altenew could better the entire customer experience for their shoppers.

Community members have invested effort, time, or money in your brand. That renders them perfect to offer feedback, aiding your understanding of what your customers truly value concerning your brand.

# Raise Brand Awareness

Word-of-mouth is still the most successful way to increase awareness and develop a business. In reality, people are 84% more probable to trust a recommendation or referral if it emanates from a friend, implying the value of community at an all-time high.

One of the leading ways to increase awareness is through brand ambassadors. The founders of theSkimm, a reputed daily newsletter, ascribe nearly 20% of general company growth to the ambassador program. “Skimm’bassadors” distribute the newsletter with friends and get swat and perks for striking specific referral milestones.

Bumble, the networking and dating app, designed the Queen Bee ambassador program. Queen Bees aid market the app within their networks and localities. They don Bumble-branded swag and hold in-person mingling events with thought leaders and influencers in their cities. These grassroots community efforts have aided 26 million users to form connections in only 3 years.

# Let Customers Discover

Communities not just promote growth, but they can be the most precious and truthful source of feedback for businesses. Conventional product marketing research, like focus groups and surveys, aren’t as trustworthy as once believed.

A series of experiments discovered that, when associating in conventional research, people get the Hawthorne Effect. People know that they’re being examined, so they alter their behavior as a consequence. This same effect doesn’t happen, however, when people exchange on social media and other online spaces.

Online communities, not just aid offer brands a profound understanding of customer requirements and desires, but user-produced content, like comments and reviews, are regarded as more genuine. Regarding 97% of online buyers read reviews prior to making a purchase, it is vital that communities are actively engaging and generating content around a company’s product.

Glossier, a skincare and beauty products brand, has mastered the art of making customers do this. They have built a huge, dedicated community that communicates through Slack, Instagram, and in-person events. Before Glossier inaugurates a new product, its editorial arm – Into the Gloss – will post an “open thread” soliciting advice on what its readers desire.

# Encourage Customer Success

The concept of the lone genius who achieves success single-handed is a fallacy. The most successful people form part of inventive and supportive communities.

Effective communities insert value when they back members, offer a sense of camaraderie, form strategic connections, and constitute a source of advice that members can implement upon their own lives. Community members frequently exchange a passion for individual improvement and continuous learning.

The most successful learning strategies involve communities and promote discussion, instead of having individuals read a book or view an educational video alone.

In reality, Flatiron School, the outcomes-targeted coding school, discovered that the most successful learning method for students is to join them with different learners and industry leaders through online communities and in-person events.

# Push Brand Loyalty To Acquire Followers

Maintaining current customers involved is just as vital (if not more) than acquiring new first-time users. Accenture discovered that two-thirds of customers will “invest more on brands to which they are loyal.” Glossier, for example, holds that 90% of its revenue is by way of returning customers.

The greater time or effort that a person invests in a service or product, the more they’ll finish valuing it. Researchers from Harvard Business School term this the IKEA Effect. IKEA’s business model makes the consumer spend time assembling the products, so they incline to overvalue the brand and products.

Whether it’s by way of in-person events or online forums, communities are core to awareness, brand loyalty, and general success. A powerful and engaged community will produce improved products, learning, and innovation, together with company growth. Nevertheless, to be effective, brands require to create communities that go beyond selling a product and offer value and support for members.

Enhance SEO To Boost Your Product Promotion

As SEO trends are continuously changing, online brand communities are a certain way to ensure genuine and quality User Generated Content (UGC).

Creating a community of people who like your brand permits you to conveniently activate consumers to generate fresh and specific UGC, yielding an ongoing portal of content – this is useful for both getting new eyes on your products.

48% of consumers tell UGC is an excellent way to locate new products, and 25% of search results for the world’s 20 biggest brands are links to user-created content. This is awesome news for marketers.

# Creating Online Community Through BuddyPress

BuddyPress is the social networking plugin for WordPress that allows you to compose your own Facebook. Whether you want to build a social space for your family and friends, build a collaborative environment for your co-workers and partners, or somewhere in-between, the free and versatile BuddyPress plugin is for you.

By selecting a BuddyPress theme with a nice assortment of BuddyPress page templates, your visitors will be offered a consistent user experience as they navigate through your website. This includes the login and registration pages, member profiles, activity feeds, private messaging tools, besides more.

BuddyPress and its add-ons present a plethora of social networking features that when combined with WordPress and the proper theme, present unlimited possibilities.

Conclusion

Creating an online brand community is an investment worth performing. Current top brands know that it is hard, if not, impossible to compete on selection, price, or advertising muscle like it was previously. They know that another brand will always exist ready to lose more on the sale or spend more on that impression. That’s why they highlight on developing an online brand community that cannot be imitated by the competition.

Developing a brand community will not occur overnight, but those who are ready to make the investment will reap the rewards above.

Author Bio

Rohini Oberoi is a passionate blogger at brndle.com . She is an experienced blogger and has written many articles and blog posts on topics related to WordPress, web design, web development, and online marketing.

Digital Branding

How Does SEO help to improve your Brand Awareness?

Steven on May 20, 2020

Just making a website is not enough. You need to show it in search engine results in order to have visitors and sales. A website without search engine optimization is like a shop in a far plunged area where nobody bothers to visit. They say if you want to hide something from the world, keep it on the second page of Google search results. The first organic search result receives a 32.5% traffic, the 2nd sees 17.6% and the 7^th only gets 3.5%. This shows if you are on the 2^nd page, you get less than 1% of the overall traffic and you are dead if you don’t appear even on the 2^nd page.

SEO helps improve everything, traffic, sales, and brand awareness. For example, if you are a tyre brand in Dubai or an SEO firm in Jeddah and appear on top for the keywords “Tyres in Dubai” or “SEO Jeddah” which have the most monthly search volume, you are going to have maximum organic traffic, higher chances of maximum conversions and high brand awareness. High visibility imprints a brand name into customer’s minds. It tempts customers to believe that you are the best in the field and hence can be trusted. This is the reason brand awareness has become synonymous with SEO.

Ways SEO can Help Boost Brand Awareness

A well-thought-out SEO campaign will go a long way in boosting brand awareness. The following techniques which are all part of SEO can make your brand known globally.

1. Link Building

Link building is an integral part of SEO and a proven way to further brand awareness. Quality backlinks contribute to search engine rankings which increases the brand visibility. They also market your brand to the audience of the back linking sites. For example, gaining a link from Reddit or Entrepreneurs through a guest post will not only high rocket your rankings but also advertise your brand to the thousands of daily users of these websites.

2. Adopt Referrals

Customer referral is a good way to acquire new leads. Customers share about the things that they buy or the newest places they visit. Use the few people who have tried your product to spread the awareness message. You can award them for bringing business to you in the form of discount coupons. This reduces your marketing cost too. Big companies like PayPal, Dropbox, and Uber use this strategy which highlights its importance.

3. Create Guest Content

There is no denying the fact that content plays a key role in SEO. Creating extremely useful content and sharing it on other relevant blogs with a mention of your brand will expose your brand to new audiences. This is great for targeting online readers. If the content educates, consumers will recognize your brand.

4. Use Infographics

Some online searchers prefer images and graphics over blogs. Infographics are colorful displays that you can use to grab the attention of customers. The advantage is that infographics are shareable online. If your infographic has interesting credible statistics and nice looking images, it will go viral in no time bringing in a whole lot of new links.

5. Invest in PPC

Pay per click is a great advertising model you can use to get leads online. Even if the customers don’t click on the ads they will see your brand name in the search results. Reminding your customers of your brand again and again on different platforms is the way to get it known. All big brands invest in PPC.

6. Run Social Media Contests

Being on social media along is not enough. You have to be active and one way to do this is to run contests. Ask your followers to share specific links about your brand and offer a prize to people with the most likes, comments or shares.

7. Seek Local Partners

To get to the top, start from where you are. Form partnerships with local entrepreneurs (this is particularly useful for local businesses) and sponsor seminars, festivals and charity events. This is the key to establishing local dominance.

8. Publish on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a platform that you can use to establish your brand online fast. You can’t ignore this platform if you are in the business-to-business space. Build a blog with active followers. Post useful content regularly with unique headlines and use profile banners.

9. Hire Influencer Marketers

Influencers are people who are well known and can help significantly in promoting your brand. Since they already have huge followings and their words are trusted, getting them to recommend your brand will do wonders overnight. You can even form partnerships with them if they complement your business. LinkedIn is an outstanding platform where you can easily search for influencers and evaluate their profiles so that you can decide if they are the right fit for your business. Once you have found the right individual or group of influencers, you can easily reach out to them via LinkedIn’s messaging system or send them a direct email. This is where an email finder tool comes in handy; with such a tool you can quickly search for any professional’s email address on the web (through social media profiles, websites, etc.) and easily import it directly into your CRM.

Bottom Line

SEO is crucial for brand awareness. There are so many ways directly or indirectly related to SEO that you can use to enhance your brand awareness. The above-mentioned ways are not only sneaky but easy to implement – exactly what you need to take your brand to the next level.

Digital Branding

Sale Countdown Timer Extension for Magento

Steven on May 14, 2020

Magento merchants have always been enjoying a competitive edge over their competitors when it comes to sales and profits. Thebiggest achievementslie in its well-equipped capabilities of diverse and powerful extensions enabling most of the fulfillment of the sales on products displayed on the storefronts.

The Sale Countdown Extension is a superior add-on for Magento development which takes care of how you can handle your sales aspectsduring holidays or when some exciting offers are doing rounds to increase customer engagement as well as intrigue them to purchase.

It sounds quite interesting.As you implement that on your web store, your customers can see that countdown timer bar set against the product.

Overview: Sale Countdown Timer Extension for Magento

Sales Countdown Timer powered by Bytes Technolab is a significant tool for your Magento store that helps you add a quick and fast real-time count down bar for each product intended to generate curiosity, a sense of urgency and fear of missing out inprospective customers. So, the extension tool rightly pays heed to increase your conversion and sales simultaneously.

As deals come with a specific time period, it must show limitations. Here, our sale countdown sale can be of great help to reinvent new scopes with sales during holiday or festive seasons and drive more sales.

Sale Countdown Timer Module description

The sale count down timer module is designed as a bardivided into four blocks showing counters for days, hours, minutes, and seconds. The countdown runs in reverse order to zero and keep customers hooked to grab the special deals before its ends. You can use this tool forproduct promotion and other purposes like approaching your customer to register for the webinar before the time ends. Place it on the website home page or display it on a particular product page to allow your customers to know about the availability of the product or webinar.

With this, when you design an attractive sale countdown timer extension and implement it on your store, it is quick to unleash an impact upon your customers and readily creates a response. It is easy to install and flexible to configure. Do as you like to this module and schedule its launching on any page while doing customization to the block view. You can also set a particular timer for each product line.

Shopping Cart Price Rules and Catalog Price Rules are two major platforms that work in compliance with the Countdown extension for Magento. Theytell your customers about sales countdown.

Features of Countdown Extension:

An automated countdown block works in compliance with a created rule
CMS, layout or widgets updates help insert block
Countdown block is designed for any page and product
A specified countdown for different customer group
Enable/disable sale product link in Header & Footer section
Enable/disable sale updates in Cart Item & Order Detail sections
Enable/disable sale countdownin Product View Page
Quick configuration of change/update sale message
Easy customization of countdown blocks such as the prioritization of countdown setup, defining start and end date, adding URL to countdown block, describing HTML code, and edits of timer view
Countdown timer scheduling ability
Dynamic changes of values
Multi-store support
CSS-friendly

Compatibility:

Magento Open Source (Community Edition): 2.1.x, 2.2.x, 2.3.x

Installation Guide:

You need to follow the path bytestechnolab/module-sale-countdown.

Now, use the following commands in Magento 2 root folder.

php bin/magentosetup:upgrade>php bin/magentosetup:di:compile>php bin/magentosetup:static-content:deploy

After that, you need to run the following commands in Magento 2 Root folder

Admin must update bytestechnolab/module-sale-countdown.

php bin/magentosetup:upgrade>php bin/magentosetup:di:compile>

php bin/magentosetup:static-content:deploy

Steps to implementing Sale Countdown Timer Extension

Admin must follow the following commands to open the configuration page,

From the dropdown menu of Sale Countdown in the Magento Dashboard, you can access to this.

Sale Countdown > Configuration > List of options

Figure 1 Sale Countdown Configuration Page

Now, from the list of menus, you can configure all the settings to make it functional.

List of configuration you can do,

Module Enable/Disable
Configure customer group
List page Enable/Disable
Product view page Enable/Disable
Background color configuration and more

Figure 2 Configuration Lists

Product Setup as Sale Product

In the catalog section, click Add Attribute and add necessary sale product updates for the countdown.

Here, you can update or customize different attributes in Sell Countdown option by start time, sale end date, and discount type.

Figure 1 Sale Product Page

Product List Page

Configure your product list page with sale countdown timer block.

Figure 2 Product List Page

Product View Page

Set Sale Counter Timer in Product view page.

Figure 3Product view page

Cart Page

Display the sale countdown timer in the cart page too.

Figure 4Shopping cart page

Sale Product Link

Insert Sale Countdown timer in the sale product page.

Figure 5 Sale product link

Summing up

This easy and flexible sale countdown timer extension has been designed by Bytes Technolab, a certified Magento development company with robust power at the core of its foundation to transform your online business. Irrespective of a particular extension need or diverse shopping development needs, we can assure you ofhigh performance and fully-functional Magento web store development for your business. Connect with us today.

Digital Branding

How To Grow As an Ethical Brand During COVID-19

Steven on May 7, 2020

With COVID-19 spreading throughout the world, there’s absolutely no doubt that we all are experiencing a crisis situation. The whole world is terrified, and people are suffering from a huge loss in businesses due to lockdowns. However, with all the current insane situations, we need to keep one thing in mind that all of this will soon be over. There will come a time soon when we’ll find a vaccine for this virus, and then we’ll be able to continue with our happy and healthy lives.

Speaking of the pandemic, businesses are suffering, and as a result, the economy isn’t great either. Everything seems like falling apart, but the bright light shining at the end of the tunnel is that businesses can use the break to prepare for the future. It’s time for us to buckle up, get some motivation, and get back on our feet to bring our businesses back on the success track.

Today we are going to mention some of the most useful tips that you can use to ethically grow your brand during COVID-19. You’ve got plenty of time to do some research, and you’ve got plenty of time to work on your business.

Here are the tips that you should be using nowadays!

Work at home during COVID-19

Growing Your Business as an Ethical Brand

1. Lean on your assets

Are your files and social media accounts filled with contacts you thought were useless? It’s time for you to check them out – the emails, the social media profile links, the online groups. You need these people, and you need them to drive your sales now that everyone’s locked up in his house. Take the opportunity to ramp up your communication and build your network from scratch. Right now, you can lean on those assets of your business and use them to grow ethically and financially.

2. Work on your online presence

First of all, an ethical brand always has a strong online presence. If you don’t have one, it’s time to get it developed because, without it, your survival isn’t possible. Especially during this situation, all you can do is that you can rely on your website, your social media profiles, etc. This is how you can communicate with your customers and be there for them. In case you already have social media accounts and a website, then put some effort into improving them and fixing the issues that you’ve always wanted to but couldn’t find the time for it.

Launchn ew prouducts

3. Launch new products

Be there for your customers and be active. You’ve always worked behind your desktops in an office before, but now you have to do your work from your house. Even though you are in a different setting, you can still launch new products. People want things like hand sanitizers and masks, etc. at affordable prices. During this situation, meeting the demands of hour, such as introducing face masks at a reasonable price will be enough to grow your brand’s presence.

4. Interact with your people

You don’t want your customers to forget you, right? If yes, then this is the time to ramp your interaction skills too! Just talk to your people, engage with them, and let them know that you are there for them all the time. Even if you just discuss the current COVID-19 situation with your customers and how they can cope with it, it will be enough for them to remember you!

Help supply others during COVID-19

5. Help others you build your ethical brand

We are talking about growing a business ethically here, which means that you need to help other people who are fighting this virus and the current situation of the world. If you can’t donate something on your own, the least you can do is to do some marketing for those who are working for a good cause and supporting people financially.

Conclusion

These are some important things you should be doing right now for your business. Believe it or not, it will help you grow ethically, and once all of this is over, these efforts will bring you great results.

Digital Branding

Top 5 Tips To Create The Best Instagram Bio

Steven on April 30, 2020

If you are here today looking for ways to improve your Instagram bio, it’s obvious that you want to promote your brand and increase your followers. You are definitely making the right move because where your content and your images matter, the bio matters too!

We’ve seen a lot of people overlooking the importance of their account’s bio.

This is where they are wrong! Your Instagram account’s bio matters a lot, and it does affect your followers, which is one thing that’s established by now.

Even with the little space you have, you can add several different valuable things to your bio section. For example, you can use LinkInBio to add multiple links of your social media platforms and your websites, etc, in your Instagram bio. This is one great way to drive traffic to all those platforms and to present yourself as a credible brand in front of your audience.

Photo by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

How to Create The Best Instagram Bio

If you still are confused and if you want more tips to create the best Instagram bio, then read on. We are now going to offer some of the most impressive tips in front of you that will make a difference.

1- Use keywords

Yes, you read that, right! It’s not just your content that requires the support of keywords, in fact, your bio needs it too. Confused about where to insert the keywords in your bio? Well, you just have to do that in the name field area. The name field basically covers the first 30 characters of your bio, and these characters are quite important for your Instagram’s SEO. So consider that part and do add the keywords that will bring you more traffic.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

2- Add Links

Just what we said earlier, the second most important thing is to add links to your different other social media platforms. This way, you appear more credible and trustworthy to your followers. In order to be able to add more than one link in your bio, you can use LinkInBio.xyz. It’s a reputable website that will help you add multiple links to your account.

3- Use Spacing

We know it’s tough to put down so much information in such little space, but you have to do it but in an organized way. Speaking of which, you need to use proper space between the lines so that your followers can go through your bio easily. In other words, your bio is supposed to be easy on the eyes. Don’t make it difficult for your followers to read it because if you do so, you might end up losing them.

4- Call To Action

Whether it’s a website, a social media account, or some blog, your CTAs matter a lot, and there’s no doubt in this fact. Especially your Instagram bio is just the right place for you to add a Call To Action button. This button is what will guide your audience about the thing that they have to do next. It’s important, and you shouldn’t overlook its importance in any case.

5- Use Hashtags

When it comes to Instagram, hashtags are your golden ticket to success. We know it’s tough to find the right hashtags to use, but believe it or not, they do play an important role in increasing your followers. Just try finding the hashtags that you know your followers will be looking for.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Conclusion

These are some of the best tips to use when it comes to creating the best Instagram bio. We can bet on the fact that with these tips, you will witness a visible difference in your follower’s list.

Legal Branding Personal Branding

4 Strategies to Grow Your D2C Brand

Steven on April 21, 2020

It’s estimated that direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand sales will reach $17.75 billion in 2020 — an increase of almost 25% from last year.

The COVID-19 crisis might have something to do with that. But even though the virus has caused an overall upswing in online shopping, this isn’t necessarily the case across all product types. Most people today are buying must-have items, rather than nice-to-have products and services.

Brands that sell directly to consumers, and especially those that fall under the nonessential category, face a difficult future. For instance, health and safety products, as well as digital streaming services, have seen increased demand — but fashion and apparel sellers are experiencing significant losses.

Some D2C companies will undoubtedly fail. But many will survive. For those that do weather the storm, survival will depend heavily on using the right marketing tactics.

Here are four tried-and-tested strategies to help you secure and grow your D2C brand, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

1. Social Media Marketing

For a majority of D2C brands, social media is the most effective channel for online customer acquisition. Considering that more than half of all social media users use social media to research products, that kind of makes sense.

But as a brand, being active on social media isn’t enough to attract and retain customers. You also need to have a clear strategy — preferably one that doesn’t rely solely on promotional posts and ads.

Almost 80% of customers won’t hesitate to unfollow a brand that bombards them with sales pitches. And over 50% of consumers will unfollow a brand that shares irrelevant content.

So, what do customers want to see from brands they follow on social media?

Engaging, informative, micro-focused content that’s also timely, says Matt Seltzer, a market research and strategy consultant at S2 Research. Seltzer recommends looking at Wendy’s and Arby’s, two successful fast food D2C brands, for inspiration on how to stay top-of-mind with consumers via social media.

One of their keys to success? Creating and sharing social media video content to capture customer attention. If you’re not sure why video is such a powerful medium for D2C brands and social media marketing, consider that over 70% of customers prefer to learn about a product or service through video.

2. Personalized Shopping Experience

The average American customer is exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 ads per day (up from about 500 ads per day in the 1970s). To protect their sanity, most people have learned to ignore the vast majority of ads and focus only on the stimuli most relevant to them.

That might seem like bad news for marketers. In reality, however, reaching your customers isn’t any more difficult than it was 50 years ago — as long as you invest in personalization.

Consumers crave customized experiences. As many as 80% of customers are more likely to buy from brands that provide personalized shopping experiences. And 71% feel frustrated when a shopping experience isn’t personalized.

A further 70% of customers say they’d even let retailers track their shopping behavior if it resulted in an improved shopping experience.

Regardless of whether you’re creating website content, placing a social media ad, or sending an email campaign, make sure that your message speaks to each of your customers on an individual level (tip: omnichannel analytics might help).

3. Influencer Partnerships

If you’re not yet working with social media influencers (individuals with a considerable following in a specific niche), you’re not only missing out, but you’re also a minority.

More than 9 out of 10 marketers today use influencer marketing — and for good reason. For every $1 that brands invest in influencer marketing, they generate an average return of $18 in publicity value.

How is that possible? People really do follow influencer suggestions and behavior. Nearly 50% of consumers say they rely on influencer recommendations to help them make purchasing decisions. Moreover, 8 out of 10 customers have bought a product or a service after seeing it recommended by an influencer.

Yes, influencer marketing is undoubtedly powerful; but it needs to be handled thoughtfully. As more brands rush to secure deals with influencers, there’s a risk of oversaturating social platforms with sponsored content and reviews — which could actually reduce consumer trust in influencers.

The trick is to find the right influencers for your brand, rather than partnering with anyone and everyone with an audience. Your ideal influencers are those who speak to the same audience as your brand. Their followers are most likely to have a genuine interest in your product or service.

Finding influencers who are the right fit for your marketing campaigns isn’t easy. But it’s worth it, especially for D2C brands. D2C shoppers are almost three times more likely than traditional shoppers to admit that influencers and celebrities sway their perception of a brand.

4. User-Generated Content

Like influencer marketing, user-generated content (UGC) can also be a powerful tool in your digital marketing arsenal.

In fact, UGC is actually almost 10 times as impactful as influencer marketing. Unlike influencer content, which is usually paid for by a brand, UGC is a genuine expression of customer appreciation — and is, therefore, more trustworthy.

One D2C brand that has nailed user-generated marketing is Chewy, a pet supply store.

“Chewy’s branding on their boxes and the concept of your pets getting food and treats in the mail every month translates perfectly into excited pet photos and videos on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram,” says Boone Clemmons, Chief Strategy Officer at Brandwagon LLC. “There are also a large number of posts where pets excitedly open their Chewy box, as well as many posts of tired cats and dogs using their Chewy boxes as beds.”

So, how can you follow Chewy’s lead and get customers to post UGC about your brand? Oftentimes, it’s just a matter of asking! For example, over 60% of consumers say they would post about good health or beauty product experience on social media.

By encouraging consumers to share the photos and videos they create, you can inspire them to engage with your brand and produce authentic content that will lead to a larger audience and pool of customers.

Final Thoughts

With most retail stores closed and consumers under lockdown at home, e-commerce sales are booming. According to ACI Worldwide, many online retail sectors experienced a 74% increase in sales in March 2019 compared to March 2018. Also, nearly 10% of U.S.-based consumers purchased something online for the first time that same month due to social distancing.

The takeaway? It’s quite likely that the COVID-19 pandemic will change consumer shopping habits long term. So, what are you waiting for? Get on board with these strategies now to establish your brand as a leader in D2C marketing.

About the author

Laura Martisiute is a freelance writer with Plytix, a headless product information management system designed for fast-growing product brands. She’s a content marketing specialist with years of experience diving deep into the latest research on technology, business, and marketing.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/plytix-com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/plytix