![]() Knowing how to market an app is essential if you want to attract new users. You might have the best app in the world, but if you don’t promote it properly, you won’t end up with any downloads. In today’s world, all kinds of businesses in all kinds of industries are developing their own mobile apps. This could apply to international or local businesses, and the app could be incredibly niche or appeal to a massive audience. Whatever the case, you need to have a clear mobile app marketing strategy in place if you want to attract enough customers. Simply putting it up on the app store isn’t good enough - you’ve got to market your app properly to get the downloads your product deserves. Follow these 30 strategies for how to market an app below - they are all proven to deliver awesome results.
1. Focus on App Store Optimization70% of App Store visitors use search to find their next app, and 65% of new app discoveries come from these searches. If your app is sitting at the top of the right search results, you’ll get loads more downloads. To achieve this, you’ll need to focus on App Store Optimization (ASO). Just like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), App Store Optimization is the process of getting your App Store page to rank higher in the search results. The higher you rank, the more visibility your app has. The more visibility your app has, the more downloads you get. When you set your page up for ASO, start with a main keyword. Find the most important keyword that relates to your app, and use this throughout your listing. Focus on a strong title for your listing that relates to the search intent of this keyword. Include high-quality screenshots of your app interface in the listing, and always feature the benefits that users will get out of the app (and not just its features). You can also localize your app to different languages and areas to make the app accessible and relevant to people in different areas. Otherwise, you might lose out on a huge audience who don’t speak your language but would still benefit from your app. 2. Create a Killer Landing PageYou need to have a great landing page to promote your app. Don’t overthink this, just use your landing page to highlight your app in the most simple way possible. Clearly introduce your app in a sentence or two, and offer great visuals of your platform. Think of your app’s landing page as your business card. You’ll have to include a clear call to action that leads to a download link for the app. Also include clear links to the App Store and Google Play. Some great things to include on your app landing page would be social proof from your users (like testimonials and positive reviews) and a demo video. Your landing page can also go live before your app is launched. This is a useful way to start building some excitement around your soon-to-be-released app. With a landing page builder like Wishpond, creating the perfect landing page for your app is easy. You can choose between various templates, and use the simple drag and drop editor to put together easy modern landing pages. 3. Do Enough Market Research to Understand Your CustomersOne of the biggest app marketing mistakes is not doing enough market research before the launch. Thorough market research should actually be done before development, and it’s an essential factor in mobile app marketing. You’ve got to understand who your target customers are, and what pain points they have. Your app needs to be a solution to these pain points, which need to be clear in your app marketing efforts. When learning how to market an app, it’s important that you create clear user personas. These should include everything about your ideal user’s demographics, interests, habits, challenges, and unique identifiers. With an in-depth understanding of your customers through detailed user personas, you will be able to market your mobile app far more effectively. Understanding your users will help you realize things like the pain points they identify most with, the online channels they use the most, and what types of content this audience engages with online. Above: an example of an app that caters to a very specific niche 4. Understand the Problem Your App Solves and Mention its BenefitsApps are designed to make our lives easier. When figuring out how to market an app, you’ve got to keep your users’ problems at the front of your mind. Knowing this will allow you to offer your audience value and not just a product. Whatever platform or channel you’re marketing your app on, don’t just list features. Instead, list benefits. This is far more valuable for your audience, and it will give your visitors much more reason to hit download. 5. Ask for App ReviewsOne of the most important factors that determine whether a user downloads your app or not is reviews. Gathering as many positive reviews as possible is crucial for successful app marketing. This adds valuable social proof, which will help new users decide whether to use your app or not. The problem is getting loads of 5-star reviews can be tricky for new apps. When you get started, personally reach out to every user and ask them for an honest review. This will help you get the ball rolling. You can also send out an automated email asking users to please leave a review. Once you’ve gathered a few positive reviews, make sure to use them. Post them on your mobile app landing page, share them on social media, and look for any areas that you can make these reviews visible. Once you’ve got a few great reviews, your user base will start to grow. 6. Create a Content Marketing StrategyContent marketing is a great way to build up authority in your niche. The best strategy is to start publishing relevant content around your niche months before you launch your mobile app. This will help you build up an audience, it might allow you to start seeing some SEO results, and it helps you develop a level of expertise and authority. To do this, start to write blog posts about the app you will be launching, as well as the problems your target audience faces. You could write an article introducing your app, an article introducing its benefits, talk about common problems your audience faces and how to solve them, etc. The aim of content marketing is to add value to the user. So think about the kind of information that your audience wants to find out about, and write about this. Don’t just try to sell your product, try to educate and inspire. And when you’ve created this content, you can promote it through your different marketing channels to grow your audience. Content marketing isn’t only about blogging and SEO. You can share this content on social media, make videos, create podcasts - get creative. 7. Promote Your App With Email MarketingEmail should form a major part of any business’s marketing strategy. As a business, you probably send out heaps of emails every week. Well, here’s a great opportunity to include in your app marketing strategy. Try to feature and promote your new app in your emails. This allows you to send information directly to your audience, so it’s an easy way to reach a big interested audience and generate a lot of buzz for your new mobile app. Include your app in your regular newsletter, send out updates about its launch, and promote the content you wrote about your app. With the right email marketing tool, you can also easily send out personalized content to specific customers and leads. This can help you send more relevant details about your app to different people, giving them more reason to download it. By the time you launch your app, you will have an audience of engaged email subscribers looking forward to your new product. And then, once you’ve launched the app, you can continue to keep users engaged with regular email communication. You can send out updates, helpful tips for using the app, promote your blog content, or ask them for their feedback. 8. Link to the App in Your Email SignatureSpeaking of email, your email signature offers a great piece of marketing real estate. You can add a link to your app in your email signature to promote it to everyone you come into contact with. This is a really passive app marketing strategy that requires basically no effort from your side. You can just go about your regular business day, except that now you can subtly market your app to everyone you communicate with via email. 9. Find Relevant Communities Online and Engage With ThemThe internet has given us many great things - one of them being easy to reach communities. Through platforms like Reddit, Quora, and LinkedIn, you can find communities of your exact target audience and reach them directly. Search for Subreddits, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, Quora threads, and anywhere else people are talking about specific topics. With everything that’s out there, there’s definitely a community where your niche audience is active. Join these communities and engage with them. Answer people’s questions, post interesting content and make sure that you subtly promote your new app through this. Don’t be too sales-focused though. Rather try to use your app to add value. Speak about the benefits you can offer, ask users about their thoughts on the product, and answer any questions or feedback. Doing this will help you reach a large community of people interested in your product while creating trust and authority around your new app. 10. Reach Out to Your Early Users and Build Relationships With ThemWhen you launch your app, the first people who use it are incredibly valuable to you. You need to be grateful for these users, and you can almost think of them as brand ambassadors. One of the best things to do is to create personalized relationships with these users. Reach out to them personally, thank them for using your product, and ask them if they’d be able to offer you some feedback or leave a review. This will help you generate your first reviews, and it will help you build strong relationships with your core customers. You should also ask your early users for feedback. They will appreciate it, and you will get some valuable information to help you optimize your app. The power of word-of-mouth marketing should never be underestimated - especially when you’re starting out. 11. Create a Promotional VideoVideo remains the most engaging form of content out there, and it’s an important addition to any app marketing strategy. There are all kinds of videos that you could create to help you market an app. You could create a demo video of the app, a fun promotional video highlighting the benefits of the app, a video testimonial from a happy user, and more. Once you’ve created this video, there are many ways you can use it for mobile app marketing. You could add a demo video to your mobile app landing page, post promotional videos on social media, use videos in ads, or even set up a YouTube channel where you post regular video content about your app. In today’s world, creating videos is easier than ever before. Whether you’re shooting a video presented by a person, or if you create an animated video, it will make a big impact on the way you promote your app. 12. Promote Your App With Paid AdsIf you want to know how to market an app to a large and relevant audience, using paid advertising is one of the best strategies. Of course, the downside to paid advertising is the ‘paid’ part. You have to pay for each click on your ad, which could require a significant ad budget. The upside is that you can create highly targeted ads that are shown to your exact target audience. This allows your app to get way more exposure than you can generate organically. And it’s not just widespread exposure, you can target your ads to an audience based on their interests and activity. There are loads of different platforms that you can run ads on. The platforms you choose should be chosen based on your audience and their online behavior. The most popular options for ads are Google and Facebook, but you can do ads on Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, Bing… Whatever platforms are most relevant to your target audience. 13. Pitch for a Feature in the App StoreEvery day, a new app is featured on Apple’s App Store. If your app is featured, you’ll be able to get a lot of new exposure. This can be a powerful app marketing tactic for any new mobile app. A feature in the App Store could give your app just the push it needs to gain serious popularity. In order to get featured, you will need to send in a convincing pitch to Apple’s App Store curators. They receive thousands of pitches for app features, so make sure that your pitch shows why your app is unique and what major benefits your app offers. 14. Ask Users for FeedbackWhen you’ve just released a new app, it’s important to always be looking for new ways to improve the app. This will make a difference to your app marketing strategy, as it will allow you to generate more positive reviews and offer a better product. Constantly improving your app also shows that you care about the quality of your platform and your users’ experiences, which is essential when learning how to market an app. A good app marketing tactic is to reach out to all of your early users and ask them for feedback. You could do this through individual outreach, or you could send an automated email to users asking them to provide feedback. Your app users will appreciate your interest in their experience, and you’ll be able to continually improve your product. 15. Offer a Referral BonusWe’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: word of mouth marketing is incredibly powerful when it comes to software. Customers will trust what their friends and colleagues say more than what they might hear from a company selling its app. If you really want to boost your app marketing strategy, then you should try to get your users to refer your app to their friends. This kind of social proof is incredibly powerful. Not only are referrals often more convincing, but they can also spread the range of awareness for your app in a big way. If one person refers your app to two friends, and those two friends each refer the app to two friends, your reach will grow exponentially. To do this, you will need to give your users a reason for referrals. A great way to do this is to run a referral giveaway. You could offer a free version of your app (or another relevant prize) in a giveaway, and award bonus entries to the giveaway for each successful referral. With a tool like Wishpond, you can easily generate referral campaigns to increase your app’s popularity. 16. Reach Out to InfluencersInfluencer marketing is one of the best ways to connect your product with a bigger audience. And if you use the right influencer, you can target the exact users who will be interested in your app. This is another form of social proof that will help to build customers’ trust. If a user sees an influencer that they respect promoting an app, then there’s a good chance they will be convinced to use it too. This is even more true if the influencer offers something special, like a discount promo code. You will need to offer the influencer something in return for their promotions. Typically, this will be a fee for each post. For smaller influencers, you could also offer a free product or some other kind of incentive. Just make sure that you work with influencers who have the right audience for your app. Ask the influencer to share their audience demographics and engagement rates to understand if they will be interested in downloading your app. Having higher engagement rates are often better than just having a lot of followers. 17. Leverage Your WebsiteIf your business already has a website, you should make the most of it to market your mobile app. Beyond just the landing page for your app, you can promote your app across your entire website. This can be done through popups advertising the app, mentioning your app on your homepage with a CTA, including videos about your app on your website, and so on. The more visibility you give your app on your website, the more traffic you’ll be able to send to the App Store. 18. Look into Alternative App StoresWe all know about the Apple App Store and Google Play app store. These are the most popular options, but they’re not the only app stores out there. If you can get your app onto more app stores, you’ll be able to generate more exposure for it. Getting listed on smaller app stores could also help you get better app store optimization results, as there is less competition. Some great app store alternatives include Amazon Appstore, 1Mobile Market, Samsun Galaxy apps, Mobile9, Opera Mobile Store, and Mobango to name a few. Explore what other options are out there - it could help you get a lot more downloads. 19. Apply for AwardsIf your app wins an award, you’ll be able to build a lot more trust and generate some great exposure. The good news is that winning an award for an app isn’t necessarily that difficult. There are loads of app awards out there that you can freely apply for. If you happen to win, it can give you some really powerful marketing content. An award-winning app will look way better in highly competitive marketplaces. You can also display the award as a trust badge on your website, which is an effective way toi build trust for your brand. Just do a Google search for mobile app awards that match your app’s niche. There could be all kinds of awards out there you qualify for. Any award, no matter how prestigious, is a good sign for your customers. 20. Reach Out for FeaturesAnother great way to spread the word for your mobile app is through features and roundup posts. There are loads of blogs and tech sites out there that run features on certain types of apps. Getting featured in these blog posts is a great way to attract a larger audience, and build some trust around your app. You could just Google roundup blog posts that match your app, such as “best music streaming apps”. Gather up a list of these posts, and reach out to the author suggesting to add your app. Include the app’s benefits and what makes it unique, and you might end up with a free feature. Also, look for tech websites that run regular features on new apps and software solutions. Send them an email introducing your app, its advantages, what makes it unique, and why it would be an interesting feature for their audience. The more coverage like this your app gets, the more popular it will become. 21. Don’t Forget About Social Media MarketingOf course, you can’t ask how to promote an app without looking at social media. Social media marketing is essential for any online product. Social media isn’t just there for creating posts about your app, you can also use it to create a community around your app. Post regularly about your app across relevant channels, post about the benefits of your app, and highlight the pain points that it solves. On top of this, you need to engage with your community and build relationships with your followers. Respond to any comments and questions, open up room for feedback and discussion, and ask your audience what kind of improvements they might want from your app. A great social media marketing strategy should offer a variety of content that always adds value. This means you should post videos, infographics, use cases, share informative blog articles, and anything else that your users can gain value from. If you want to reach a bigger audience, then you can always try paid advertising on your social media channels. For a more in-depth guide on social media marketing, read this helpful article. 22. Get Featured on App Review SitesJust like you can get featured in roundup posts about apps, you should also look towards dedicated app review sites. There are plenty of sites out there that are always looking for new apps to review. This could help you get the word out and bring in more exposure. Just like you did with the features, round up these sites and send them an email about the release of your app. Explain what makes the app unique, what its features are, and offer the reviewer a demo. Getting 3rd party reviews for your app is always helpful for building trust, and increasing brand awareness. 23. Promote Your App In-StoreIf you’re a local business with a physical location, then you can use this space to promote your app. Print out some QR codes for your customers to scan and position these around your store. Something as simple as a poster saying “try our new app” with a code to scan can vastly increase your downloads. You can get creative with any physical space that your business might use. This could include a QR code on receipts inviting users to download your new app or even QR codes on your menus or product packaging. 24. Join Relevant LinkedIn and Facebook GroupsThe right social media groups can be ideal places to connect with your future users. Spend some time looking through LinkedIn and Facebook groups that match your niche. By finding groups based on specific interests, you could find places where your exact target audience is gathered. Join these groups, and offer helpful content and insights to the members. Of course, you should subtly promote your app through this. Don’t spam the groups or be overly promotional. Instead, add value and help answer their questions. You can answer questions and respond to posts, or create your own posts establishing the audience’s pain points and showing how your app can solve this. If you’re genuinely helpful and engage well with this audience, then you will be able to build up some trust and authority within your niche. This is important for building up a great brand around your mobile app. 25. Run a GiveawayA giveaway is an amazing way to reach loads of new people and get your app going viral. By offering an appealing prize and promoting the giveaway properly, you can get hundreds of people to discover your app and download it. To do this, you will need to come up with a type of giveaway, and what people will need to do to enter. This could include filling out a simple form, uploading valuable user-generated content, referring your app, and more. With a social promotions tool like Wishpond, there are many different types of contests that you can run. Even though you will have to give away a prize, you’ll be able to attract plenty of interested users in return. If you gather all of their content details, you can reach out to them after the giveaway with marketing content and a promotional code for your app. This is an easy way to boost your downloads. 26. Respond to all of Your ReviewsWhen you market your app, you need to make sure that you build up strong connections with your users. These are the people who have control over your app, and their experience can have a dramatic effect on your marketing efforts. Whenever someone reviews your app, always respond to it. This is a small gesture, but it can make a big difference to the way your audience perceives you. Simply thank positive reviews, and tell negative reviewers how you value their feedback. You need to show your audience that you care. Remember, most users will look for reviews before they choose your app. And if they see that you’ve taken the time to listen to each review and consider their feedback, then new users will gain some trust in your brand. 27. Integrate Social Shares into the AppYou want to find as many ways that you can to get people sharing and talking about your app. Of course, this includes social media. Shares on social media are valuable because people put a lot of trust into what their friends share and value. An easy way to encourage social shares is to include share buttons somewhere on your app. If your app offers results (such as a game) then you could include an option for users to share their results to social media. This is just one example of how you can utilize social sharing in your app. Once those buttons are there, it won’t require any effort from your side. And the results could be plenty of valuable social shares, which result in valuable downloads and exposure. 28. Host a WebinarAnother great way to show off the value of your app is through a webinar. Live webinars are incredibly engaging, and they can go a long way in building up trust amongst your audience. A good strategy is to host regular live webinars on topics that relate to your app and using these events to show the value of your app. Just make sure that your webinars aren’t too focused on selling and promoting your app. Their main goal should be to offer valuable content and insights to your audience. Use the webinar to talk about topics within your niche and show how your app can solve these problems. Try to include special guests in your webinars too. This is also a great place to put a human face behind your app and answer your audience’s questions. And not only will a webinar help you promote your app, but it will also help you generate new leads that you can market towards. You can gather the email address and name of each registrant, and add this to your mailing list. These people are already interested in your app because they signed up for your webinar, so now you can send them relevant marketing content or even discount codes. 29. Try Guerilla MarketingGuerilla marketing is all about making a big impact without necessarily spending a lot of money. This can be a form of disruptive marketing, and when done properly, it can make a lot of noise for the benefit of your app. There is no set formula for guerilla marketing, instead, it requires you to think outside of the box. You could take to the streets with a piece of chalk, put up well-positioned stickers with your QR code, or set up some kind of clever marketing installment. This is all about creativity and reaching new users in an unexpected manner. 30. Cross-Promote With Another AppApps can also team up with each other to create a bigger marketing impact. Another good strategy when learning how to market an app is to find another app that compliments yours but isn’t a direct competitor, and run a promotion together. Doing this allows each app to access each other’s audiences. This means you get to reach a whole new audience of potential users without having to spend any marketing budget. You could run a giveaway for both apps, or just mention each other on social media. The aim is to create a win-win situation where both apps benefit from each other’s exposure. ConclusionIf you’ve got a great new app, then you need to make sure you market it properly to get the results you’re after. If you don’t know how to market an app properly, then it might never reach its full potential. Having a great product is only the first step, getting the app out into the world is the other essential part. By following the 30 strategies listed above, you’ll be able to achieve far more popularity for your app. Whether you focus on one or all of these strategies, they should offer good results. And when it comes to marketing an app, it’s all about trying out new things, measuring their results, and then trying something different. With enough practice, you’ll soon find the marketing strategy that works best for your platform. Have a cool app you think we should know about? Feel free to share it in the comments below! Related Content
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![]() The holidays are a fruitful time for businesses. There are so many eager buyers for a multitude of different products and services - which means you’ve probably been pretty busy lately. These social media hacks for the holidays will save you some time. This article will help businesses of all sorts reach new fans and followers, engage current fanbases and help convert them to customers more efficiently. 1. Use less popular hashtags on TwitterI know this sounds weird, but it works. Now I’m not saying you should ditch the trending hashtags, but sometimes you want to hit a niche market with some less commonly used hashtags. Most of the time I’ll get a lot more click-throughs on tweets with less commonly used hashtags than I do with the overused ones. For example, the Christmas hashtag can get over 70,000 tweets in a week. That’s a lot! And sure, a lot of people are probably searching for that hashtag, but it makes your chance of being seen also a lot lower because there are so many other tweets. So I like to use a mixture of most popular hashtags and less popular hashtags. Whereas if you search something more specific, like #xmasgifts, the tweets per week are much lower - at around 300 per week. "#xmasgifts" would be a good hashtag for retailers or eCommerce shops to use over the holidays. You don’t want the hashtags you use to be completely deserted, you just want them to have a niche following. To search for the popularity of a hashtag you can use a tool like Talkerwalker.com. Try to find some hashtags related to your business and the holidays that have a maximum of somewhere between 100-1000 tweets per week. 2. Re-schedule your top tweets with BufferThis is one of my favorite features on Buffer - and it’s super easy to do. I scroll through my top tweets and find the most clicked. You can also search for the most retweeted, most liked, etc. Here at Wishpond we recently ran a holiday promotion to get $50 off of our Basic Plan (it’s $69 per month on a month-to-month plan). 59 clicks on a tweet is actually really high for us - so this tweet would be a perfect candidate to re-buffer. I actually find that sometimes my re-buffered tweets will get more than the original tweet - especially if I re-buffer them for a different time of day (7am Pacific Time is ideal for our tweets). It’s super easy to figure out which of your tweets have been the most popular on Buffer - the thing is, the analytics are only shown for the tweets that you specifically used buffer to schedule. All you have to do is click the Analytics tab at the top of the dashboard where you’ll automatically be directed to your posts. Then below your Twitter profile image, you’ll see “Most Popular” to the right of “Recent. Just hover over it and choose whichever option you find fitting. 3. Get a little silly with your Facebook postsSo, I’ve been crafting social media posts for a variety of businesses over the past few years. When the holidays come around that’s when I get excited - I know that this is the time to let loose and have some Facebook Page fun. So what can you do to spruce up your holiday marketing on Facebook? There is a lot of different content you can use to jazz up your Facebook page. Here’s a brief list of some types of content you can post:
For example, take a look at one of Charmin’s Facebook posts: They usually find endearing or hilarious ways to post about their product. This Facebook post is great because it shows the necessity of their product, but also incorporates the holidays in an adorable way. Next, take a look at this post by Skittles. They can have pretty obscure posts, but they always relate to their product. Although this Facebook post may not be as effective for drawing customers into the store, these playful types of posts will help boost the reach of your content. So, how can you add some hilarity to your own Facebook page? The easiest way is with images. Thankfully your posts will already be based around a holiday so your posts will already have an extra advantage by being relevant to your fans. I would start by taking a look at popular sites such as Pinterest or Buzzfeed to get your ideas for funny holiday photos rolling... Facebook post tip: A lot of successful Christmas posts I’ve used in the past included animals or children… and possibly dad jokes.
4. Change the appearance of a Facebook post and post it againRe-featuring a post on Facebook is perfect for when you are spreading the word about a certain product, service or promotion around the holidays. Facebook allows you to customize a lot of how your Facebook posts appear - such as the share image, the headline and subheader and also the description. This means that you can link to the same offer over and over (but I wouldn’t overdo it). In this post below, you can see the four different parts of the post you can change:
Make sure you’re not posting the same offer multiple times a day, and make sure that you are providing some different information than the previous post. You don’t want to make your Facebook timeline appear spammy. Here’s an example of how Sears used this tactic below:
5. Run a holiday promotion to get more Instagram followersAccording to Forrester, the top brands on Instagram generate engagement rates 58 times higher than their Facebook posts and 120 times higher than their Twitter posts. Instagram is the place for brands to be. If your Instagram is in need of more followers, now’s the time to act. And contests are a great way to generate more followers. One great thing about Instagram is that it allows you to “follow-gate” your contests, which means you can ask people to follow your brand on Instagram as a condition of entering your contest. For example, tea supplier Mighty Leaf... Below you can see that they’ve included it in their conditions: Note: In Instagram contests like Wishpond’s, there’s an option you can select in the campaign editor so that your Instagram contest only includes entries that follow you.
6. Use Shops to convert Instagram followers to customersIf you already have an engaged following on Instagram, Instagram’s Shops feature is definitely worth a look - especially around the holidays. Before Shops, Instagram users had no way to shop for the products found on Instagram without specialized tools such as Like2buy. So how does it work? Your followers can visit your shop from your Instagram profile or through the feed and Stories. Once they're at the shop, they can browse products, explore collections, and purchase products. This happens seamlessly through Instagram’s in-app browser and without leaving the app from shops with checkout. 7. Schedule all of your holiday posts early so you can relax
That’s why social media management tools are so important to your social routine. This may seem like an obvious hack, but it’s one of the most important for the holiday season. We all need a bit of down time now and then, regardless of if you’re taking a tropical getaway or just spending time with family and friends. So make sure to schedule your posts (whether that’s with buffer, hootsuite, latergramme, etc.) to take the fuss out of posting during the holidays.
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ConclusionI hope these social media hacks have helped give you some ideas on how to promote your business throughout the holiday season. What are your most crucial social media strategies for the holidays? via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/2Y5XPD7 ![]() Collaboration fosters a positive work culture where the employees are encouraged to communicate and work together as a team. According to PGI, 15% of innovation can be increased due to workplace collaboration. Fortunately, many companies have eradicated the conventional ways of running an organization that allows their employees to sit in isolated cubicles. Instead, they use different tactics to promote employee collaboration to increase productivity, creativity, and efficiency. Moreover, the best way to facilitate collaboration in an organization is by letting the team members actively participate in the group dynamic. In this article, we will discuss seven ways a company can promote collaboration among team members. Here are seven different ways for successful collaboration you can use in your organization. 1. Schedule Brainstorming SessionsBrainstorming sessions with groups of employees can play an essential part in facilitating collaboration in an organization. It allows them to actively participate in the sessions by sharing different ideas and concepts on various topics. Moreover, many companies now use tools for brainstorming online to let their employers generate innovative suggestions without any hindrance. Even if your employees are working remotely, you can encourage them to pitch their ideas through several great brainstorming tools that offer them a more engaging experience. Moreover, if you employ a concept map maker tool, you can come up with clear solutions to some of the problems faced by your organization or employees after a successful brainstorming session. 2. Define RolesDefine the duties and responsibilities of each team member while working on a project to avoid competition and promote collaboration. Moreover, they will work more efficiently when they have a clear understanding of their position. Furthermore, each team member will learn what it is like to share duties for outcomes in a collaborative environment. With such commitment, a goal turns out to be a crusade—the sense of accomplishment shifts from individual achievement to a group success that builds cohesiveness and confidence. 3. Adopt Open-Door PolicyCommunication is the key to collaboration. If you keep yourself caged in your office, sitting away from your employees, it will be impossible for you to ensure a collaborative environment in the organization. Adopt an open-door policy to let your team members communicate with you freely. As a result, they will feel more comfortable coming to the office and work more efficiently. Remember, collaboration is not limited to only a few people; it should be adopted by every person working there. Moreover, visibility plays a vital role in promoting collaboration in the workplace. When employees witness their managers and directors collaborating effectively, they will be motivated to follow this behavior, increasing efficiency. 4. Define Team GoalsAssign specific goals to each team quarterly to understand how they achieve their objectives and how you will evaluate their performance. Moreover, every team member will know what they have to achieve before the deadline. These achievements will enhance their working capabilities as individuals and team members. Furthermore, discuss the quarterly results with the team openly to celebrate their success while analyzing their weaknesses. This method helps in multiple ways; for example, there will be no confusion among the team members, no one could blame anyone. Moreover, all the team members will collaborate more in the next project. 5. Appreciate Each Team Member’s StrengthsIt is baseless to pinpoint team members’ weaknesses; instead, motivate them by appreciating their strengths. It will help them to work more efficiently than ever before. Try taking a personality test of each team member to know their strengths and share the results in a group meeting. Moreover, this way, the employees and other team members will learn more about them. On the other hand, you will know which task to assign to team members according to their strengths. For example, if they work harder in an environment that fosters collaboration, they can be given tasks that highlight this strength. 6. Reward Successful CollaborationGive rewards to all those employees who have worked well with other team members and completed their goals successfully as a team. Giving prizes for such behavior highlights the company's priority and will motivate employees to work efficiently with others. You can:
Moreover, this technique will also encourage others to collaborate with others to get rewards and company-wide acknowledgment. 7. Ask For FeedbackTo better understand your employees and build meaningful relationships with them, you need to request feedback. You can initially ask for feedback during one-on-one meetings and then request employee feedback during group meetings. The perfect time to ask for their feedback is during their performance reviews or when you are presented with the perfect opportunity for the potential growth of an employee. This feedback culture will encourage your employees to share their ideas and opinions, enhancing collaboration and paving the way for more healthy company culture. Some of the most important questions that you can ask your employees include:
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ConclusionCreating a collaborative environment is only the first step towards a more successful enterprise. It must be constant and deliberate to succeed. You can have several notable achievements in your organization. However, by following the various measures outlined here, scheduling brainstorm sessions, defining work roles, adopting an open door policy, defining team goals, respecting team member strengths, tangibly rewarding successful collaboration efforts, and asking for feedback, you can massively boost productivity by getting your employees to work as a collaborative team. When team members know they have been wholeheartedly accepted as a part of something special, they become more enthusiastic to work together to achieve their goals. Moreover, team leads and managers are now more interactive with their employees than ever before. They put their heart and soul into bringing out the best from the team members and encourage them to come forward with creative ideas to realize their worth for the organization. ![]() Written by our guest writer Jay T. Ripton Jay T. Ripton is a freelance business and technology writer out of Scottsdale. He loves to write to inform, educate and provoke minds. Follow him on Twitter @JTRipton via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/31eXn6T ![]() Did you know there are more than 100 social media platforms as of now? It is bustling with new users each day. Having more than 4 billion active users, businesses are making dramatic social entrances. But there's one misconception, shrouding us in darkness — that you need to make a startling presence on every social media platform at your disposal! Breathe a sigh of relief because you don't have to. Instead, you can be selective and choose a befitting permutation for your business. You can still succeed without pushing yourself over the edge. Before we dig in to find the exact platform, let's have a look at the major benefits behind this obligatory presence on social media. Then we shall audit the current social media landscape to check which one is best suited for your brand promotion. Let's begin! Why is social media important for business?This question is a no-brainer. We would be living our ancestral lives without social media. It has evolved everything on the face of the earth with its dominating impact on our preferences and lifestyle choices. It is now a crucial marketing avenue because of the following reasons:
Tip: Use social media scheduler for efficient management of multiple platforms. But managing multiple social media accounts with different content guidelines needs an incredible amount of planning and timely execution. It also demands a dedicated team. And at times, the payback isn't instantaneous either. That's why handpicking a platform makes this entire process manageable and effective. Let's start the auditing process to zero in the top networks. Top 8 social media platforms for business in 2021Choosing the right social media platform largely depends on your niche and the target audience. So here, we’ll discuss which social media is best for what industry and for the most active demographics it offers, as per the latest statistics from multiple sources. 1. FacebookPopular industries on Facebook are as follows: Marketing and advertising, Retail, FMCG, Real Estate, IT Services, Software, Healthcare, Financial Venture, Edtechs Age range: 25-65+ Facebook boasts roughly 2.9 billion active users, the most extensive user base for any social media. Facebook lets you have a business page for your business proceedings by offering tons of features and insightful analytics. Another reason why this is the most favorite platform for marketers is because of its powerful ads. As per Hubspot, Facebook ads provide the highest ROI of all paid mediums. The Facebook group also compels business presence here for private or public discussions with customers and prospects. Facebook is suitable for all business types with multiple solutions at your disposal. Tip: Get your hands on Facebook Pixel for better marketing prospects. WPP is a renowned marketing and advertising firm having 70K followers and 67K people liking its official Facebook page. The page has an abundance of helpful blog posts and video content to amplify traction. 2. InstagramPopular industries on Instagram are as follows: Traveling, Beauty, Fashion, Fitness, Music, Business, Lifestyle, Photography, Food, Parenting Age range: 13-24 The recent blind scrolling sensation, Instagram, is a heavenly abode for people whose focus lies on visual content. Be it photography or videos of any length, Instagram is your go-to platform. Instagram continuously boosts its creators with features like Reels, badges, stories, IGTV, shops, and more to keep using the platform maximum. Instagram has over 1.3 billion users, and it's only ever increasing with time. Instagram also gives several ad formats for promotion. Along with that, you can find tons of influencers using the platform to make money online. They can help you with your branding campaigns. Instagram's shoppable feed is the new favorite of merchants these days, where they can tag their products and list their prices. Various tools can help you grow on Instagram faster too. Tip: Add important links and account handles in your Instagram bio to get more traffic and followers on multiple networks. Here’s how Urban Outfitters is making the most out of Instagram. They have used all the features to boost their sales and branding. And the result is rewarding! Their official Instagram handle has 9.2m followers. 3. TwitterPopular industries on Twitter are as follows: Technology, Games, Celebrity, World News, Airlines, Non-Profit Organizations, Food and beverages, Educational Management, Computer Software, Finance Age range: 30-49 If your brand strongly aspires to be a thought leader, Twitter is the platform that will lead you to the hall of fame. Twitter has over 200 million active users relying on this platform for news, trends, and entertainment. This can be your official announcement-making channel. Also, when using Twitter, invest some time in hashtag strategy. With its imposed character limit, Twitter wants you to be direct with your message for getting across maximum information in the shortest time. Twitter is also a dispensable medium for serving your customers on priority with fast replies and mentions to queries. Tip: Pin your best tweet to your profile, so visitors can see it the first time without much scrolling. PlayStation is one of the most popular Twitter handles, with 22.2 million followers. They use it efficiently to announce the latest updates regarding their products, features, and events. They have a dedicated account called @AskPlayStation for customer queries too. 4. LinkedInPopular industries on LinkedIn are as follows: IT Services, Automotive, Retail, Construction, Educational Management, Analytics, Accounting, Computer Software, Financial Services, Healthcare Age range: 21-45 If your brand deals with solutions for other businesses and not customers directly, LinkedIn is the channel for maximizing leads. How? Because affluent decision-makers dominate LinkedIn's majority user base. Just like Facebook, LinkedIn allows businesses to manage a LinkedIn page. It doesn’t pose any character limits whatsoever, yet it is advisable to keep your posts crisp and professional. You can engage in specific groups too. It has indeed evolved from a job posting site to a branding platform with 774+ million global users. So hop in and mellow down the corporate stiffness with an apt LinkedIn presence. Tip: Post at least thrice a week to get the maximum exposure on LinkedIn. Google has a thriving LinkedIn account with 21 million followers. They use the platform for screening deserving candidates and the general daily announcements for the audience at large. 5. PinterestPopular industries on Pinterest are as follows: Home Decor, Art, Photography DIY and Crafts, Gardening, Hair and beauty, Accessories, Wedding, Jewelry, Fashion Age range: 30-64 Inspire people with Pinterest branding. The platform is the visual search engine for more than 450 million users monthly. These visitors are likely to convert better as they see a practical usage of your products for their immediate needs. But unlike other platforms, Pinterest is quite different in the way it works. It has boards for specific niche pins. You can create one for yourself or contribute to the existing ones. This will help in better target segregation. Pinterest ads are also cheap for their higher conversion rates. Tip: Go for rich pins that sync real-time information from your website. Oh Joy is a top Pinterest profile with 15 million followers. The design and branding company has astounding boards for inspiring people, right from choosing great colors, patterns to home decors and clothing. 6. YoutubePopular industries on Youtube are as follows: Entertainment, Arts, Travel, Marketing, Real Estate, Lifestyle, Restaurant and Dining, Ecommerce, Cooking, Education Age range: 30-49 Having a Youtube account is a default option for top businesses. The platform has 2 billion+ monthly visitors for learning and entertainment purposes. This video-sharing channel has managed to retain the attention of viewers for hours at a stretch! Along with high-quality videos, use concise descriptions for a quick brief. Also, enhance them by adding captions. The best part of it is the playlist. You can segregate big videos into segments and post them as a playlist to get an increased number of views or optimize the size of YouTube thumbnail to get more clicks on your videos and how do you keep a tab on metrics? Youtube Analytics! If you are confused about handling the Creator Studio and the world of video analytics, take up free Youtube courses to get started. Tip: Use Youtube shorts when releasing new videos. Skillshare has an amazing Youtube profile with a beautiful cover image. Notice how they embedded their website link and social media buttons to magnify reach. They provide tutorials on multiple disciplines for their 344K subscribers and more. 7. QuoraPopular industries on Quora are as follows: Video Conferencing, Food Delivery, E-Learning, Technology, Finance, Marketing, Travel, Hospitality, Food and Beverages, SAAS Age range: 18-24 Quora is a Q&A platform that, like Twitter, helps you build brand authority. 40K+ subjects with 300 million monthly users, you can answer questions of the masses and mold their decision-making capabilities in your favor. Quora can also give you a quick peek at the overall sentiment your brand is creating in a candid form. You get to see what people are talking about your products or services, if they are not pleased, what their feedback is, and which competitor they are resorting to, to bear with your shortcomings. This is a great channel to improve your brand image in totality with direct communication for mass help. Tip: Be polite whenever taking part in flared-up discussions. Hubspot space is available on Quora, which is followed by 35.4K users to access insightful CRM-related product discussions. Strive for relevant spaces to get people talking about your business too. 8. TikTokPopular industries on Twitter are as follows: Beauty, Dancing, Fashion, Jewelry, Art, Home Interior, Toys, Dental, Accessories, Food Age range: 20-29 TikTok has proved its supremacy in the limited time frame itself with 2 billion downloads. Add the essential fun element to your business by anticipating TikTok trends, and your business might be an overnight success. There are filters and catchy tunes to guarantee your posts rent out space in your followers' minds. Just like Instagram, influencer marketing is in full swing on TikTok. Collab with relevant businesses can also help you massively boost your presence here. Also, make sure to use hashtags and user-generated content for a promotional strategy to widen your reach. Tip: Create brand-specific TikTok challenges for ad campaigns. Chipotle has a brilliant TikTok presence with 1.6 million followers and 29.6 million likes. Taking an active part in trends and posting casual, funny videos about the brand is the secret behind such massive popularity. How do I choose a good social media platform for my business?Now that you have seen the top social media channels for business with examples let’s move on to the final decision-making process:
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One last thingSocial media further intensified with the pandemic. They introduced new features to support the business community at large. But here's the truth bomb! A streamlined effort on just a couple of social media platforms shows better results at times. If you plan to use all of them, it’s advisable to span out to others only after mastering one platform. Scaling that way becomes much easier. Are you planning to add some more channels to your arsenal? Comment them down to get our help in making better decisions. ![]() Written by our guest writer Sweta Panigrahi, Content Writer at SocialPilot Her strongest pursuit is to capture social media happenings in her well-researched blogs. From codes to meme posts, her search history is a confounding mess. When not typing out blogs, you can find her in a sunny corner scribbling poems. via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/3Eoxobw ![]() If you want to make an alternative stream of income online, then affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to do it. Affiliate marketing is easy to get into, and it can set you up with a really solid source of passive income. With the right strategies, anyone can start to make money as a marketing affiliate. If you want to start making money while you sleep, then it’s time to join an affiliate network. Follow this guide for everything you need to know about getting started with affiliate marketing and taking full advantage of this easy source of revenue. What is Affiliate Marketing?Affiliate marketing is when you earn a commission by selling a product or service that someone else offers. As an affiliate partner, you are rewarded with a commission for each sale that you generate for the business. You can also get affiliate programs that reward you for things like leads, clicks to a website, app downloads, or free-trial users, but generally, an affiliate is rewarded for sales. Affiliate marketers are people who promote other brands and products for a living. Pretty much anyone can become an affiliate marketer, and it’s a great way to make an extra income through an effortless side hustle. Although, you can absolutely build up a solid 6-figure business from home through affiliate marketing. Check out the webinar above for some expert insights on using affiliate marketing to create a 6 figure business from home. Why Make Money With Affiliate Marketing?Making money with affiliate marketing is pretty simple to do. Affiliate programs are generally free to join, and (usually) anyone can join them. This makes it easy to get started with an affiliate program. Once you get started, one of the major benefits of affiliate marketing is that it can result in a steady stream of passive revenue. Let’s say you have an affiliate link on a web page somewhere. As long as you keep that page up to date, this affiliate link will continue to bring you an income for years to come. The more affiliate programs you have running, the more income you can make. Yes, affiliate marketing will require you to promote your affiliate programs - there is some work involved. However, once this is out there you can start making money through affiliates in your sleep. There are a couple of reasons why affiliate marketing has become such a steadily growing industry. These include:
Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?Affiliate Marketing is absolutely one of the best ways to make a passive income. Not only is it relatively easy to make money with affiliate marketing, but the whole industry is steadily growing. In fact, the affiliate marketing industry is expected to reach $8.2 billion by 2022. Affiliate marketing is also a really easy way to make a profit because it’s such a low to no-cost venture. How Much Do Affiliate Marketers Make?When it comes to affiliate marketing, the sky’s the limit. Affiliates generally earn a commission rate between 5% to 30% of each sale. Low-level affiliates can earn up to $300 a day, while some “super affiliates” can earn over $10,000 a day. Of course, this is all relative to how popular your affiliate marketing business is and what kind of affiliate program you’re part of. How to Get Started With Affiliate MarketingIn the most basic sense, you make money with affiliate marketing in three steps:
Pretty simple right? It is, but there is more to successful affiliate marketing than this. First, you need to have two things in place to make money through affiliate programs. These are:
Without this, affiliate marketing just isn’t possible. Once you have these two things secured, there are no limits as to how you make money as an affiliate marketer. If you want to become an affiliate marketer, here are the first steps to take. 1. Choose a NicheThe first thing you need to do is pick a niche. It’s important to understand that some niches are more profitable than others. For example, finance is more profitable than food. Above: example of different affiliate commission rates based on product niches Having a clear niche is necessary for being able to attract and build up an audience. Your niche shouldn’t be too broad, and it should allow you to target very specific people. Successful affiliate marketers don’t necessarily need a big niche, instead, they just need to have a very engaged niche that they understand and can tap into completely. It’s always a good idea to choose a niche that you’re genuinely interested in. This will allow you to promote affiliate links more authentically. It will also keep you interested in what you’re doing. Great affiliate marketers aren’t shady salespeople - they’re honest and genuinely believe in what they’re promoting. 2. Create a Platform to Gather Your AudienceNow you will need a platform that allows you to build up your audience. The most typical affiliate marketing approach is through a website or blog, although you could also use YouTube, social media, courses, and events, or any other online channel to promote your affiliate links. A blog or a YouTube channel are generally the best places to focus because they allow you to publish affiliate links that will stay evergreen and attract continual traffic. You can always promote your affiliate links on social media too, but these will soon get lost underneath new social media content. Using a combination of platforms is the best approach. 3. Choose Affiliate Products to PromoteNow that you’ve got your website set up, it’s time to start promoting your affiliate products. Once you’ve got your niche in place, choosing your affiliate products should be pretty easy. The easiest way to find affiliate products is to join an affiliate network. These are networks that connect affiliate marketers with brands that run affiliate programs. Both brands and affiliate marketers make more money out of this, so it’s a win-win relationship. Here are some of the most popular affiliate marketing networks you can join: Alternatively, you could sign up with brands directly. Think of a product you use and Google it alongside “affiliate program”. In many cases, you’ll find that a lot of your favorite brands have their own affiliate programs. And if they don’t have one, the product is probably available as an Amazon affiliate. As you will see, there are many brands and products that you can choose from as an affiliate marketer. Get creative, and choose products that match your audience’s interests. What You Need for Affiliate MarketingOnce you’ve got your website set up and you have your affiliate links, it’s time to get those affiliate links out there to start making money! While there are many different ways that you can do this, there are two essential things you will need for promoting your affiliate links. These are:
As long as you have these two things, you can start to make money as an affiliate marketer. This is because you can get your affiliate links seen by people who visit your website, social media pages, YouTube channel, etc. Or, you can send out your affiliate links via email marketing. In order to do this, you will need to focus on the following strategies. SEOSEO is the most valuable tool for any affiliate marketer. Let’s say you have a blog post that ranks at the top of Google search results. You will be able to get loads of traffic continually landing on that blog post, and clicking on your affiliate links. And if you keep that blog post up to date, it can stay at the top spot for many years. This won’t cost you anything, and it will allow your affiliate links to continually make money. Besides just getting lots of traffic, you also get high-quality traffic with SEO. For example, if your affiliate link is selling a vacuum cleaner, you can optimize your post for a phrase like “best vacuum cleaner”. Whoever searches for this is looking for the best vacuum cleaner to buy, so if they land on your page, you can direct them to your affiliate link vacuum cleaner. Basically, if you optimize your website properly and get your SEO tactics down, you’ll be able to win at affiliate marketing. The only problem is there is A LOT of competition out there, so ranking for the right keywords can be tricky. And there are a lot of different factors that go into SEO. These include:
Here are a couple of helpful tips to improve your blog for SEO. However, if you really want to get great SEO results, the best solution is to work with an SEO expert. At Wishpond, we offer complete SEO services to help you rank for the best keywords. Book a demo to find out more. Paid AdvertisingYou can’t always get your blog posts to the top. If this is the case, you can use paid ads to bring you traffic. Paid advertising will allow you to get your affiliate links in front of the right people for more traffic and more sales. The only problem is that paid ads can be expensive, so you need to make sure your ad spend doesn’t overpower your affiliate income. By using a platform like Brax, you can run affordable native ads that help you get the best possible ROI for each campaign. Building an Email ListBuilding up a mailing list is something that all businesses need to do. As an affiliate marketer, your mailing list is one of your most valuable assets. Once you capture an email address, you have that email forever. You can then target these emails with strategic content that markets your affiliate products or services. Here are a couple of tactics that you can use to generate new leads and build up your mailing list:
These are just a few strategies that you can use to gather more email subscribers. With a tool like Wishpond, you can build landing pages, create popups, set up online forms, run social giveaways, contests, and way more. How to Make Money With Affiliate MarketingNow that you’ve got all your essentials set up, it’s time to start making money with affiliate marketing. Here’s what you need to do. Create Content that Generates Affiliate RevenueThe role of an affiliate marketer is to get users to discover the right products for their needs through high-quality traffic. You can’t just write up a bunch of content and randomly insert affiliate links. Instead, you have to carefully plan your content to make sure it reaches your target audience and adds value to them. To do this, you will have to really understand your audience and create content that matches their intent. Above: example of blog content that you could use to promote affiliate products (in this case the products would be glue) If you’re using affiliate links in blog posts, then understand that your target audience is looking for a certain product, but they don’t know which specific product is right for them. To get these people onto your blog, you will need to use investigational intent keywords. These are things like “what is the best vacuum cleaner?”. Then, when the user finds your content, make sure you offer enough helpful information and guidance in order for them to want to buy your affiliate product. If you’re promoting affiliate links through social media or YouTube videos, then make sure the affiliate products match your audience’s interests. If you are a social media or YouTube influencer, then you will have a very specific niche. The products you promote will need to fit right into this. For example, foodie YouTubers should promote food products. Strategically Promote Your Affiliate Links in the ContentThe next step is to include your affiliate links in the content. This needs to be done carefully. You don’t want to come across as being too pushy or too sales-focused. Instead, you should focus on adding value through your affiliate links. What people like about affiliate marketing is that it’s a lot less in-your-face than traditional forms of advertising. Don’t try to squeeze as many affiliate links into one blog post as you can. Only ever advertise affiliate links that make sense and add actual value to the user. Your goal should be to offer affiliate links that are genuinely helpful and valuable to the user. Always try to include your affiliate links early in any blog post, and only add them in when necessary. Too many affiliate links will impact the user experience. Optimize Your Traffic for Better Affiliate MarketingThere’s an idea in marketing called the 80/20 rule, where 80% of your profits come from 20% of your content. This isn’t an exact science, but the idea is generally true. You will probably find that the bulk of your affiliate revenue comes from only a few places. Take a look at your source of affiliate revenue and where you’re getting the most traffic. These pages should be optimized as much as possible to increase your affiliate revenue even more. Add popups to these pages, ensure your affiliate links are clearly visible and optimize your content to get as many clicks as possible. Distribute Your Affiliate ProductsPromoting your affiliate blog posts, videos, courses, or whatever other platform you’re using is important for making an affiliate income. Yes, you can just set it and forget it if you rely on SEO to bring you traffic. If you want to expand the reach of your affiliate products or services and make more affiliate sales, then you’ll need to take promotion seriously. Email marketing is by far the best way to do this. You can send emails directly to your audience’s inboxes, and target them with personalized content. If you consistently send the right content to the right people, with enticing affiliate offers, then you will soon start to see a rise in your affiliate commissions. Of course, don’t forget about your social media channels to promote your affiliate links. Top Tip: Creating special affiliate offers is one of the best ways to get people clicking on your links and making sales. Some affiliate programs allow you to promote offers like “use my affiliate code for a 10% discount off your first order”. Tips to Increase Affiliate SalesIn order to make more affiliate commissions with each affiliate program, there are a couple of best practices that should be considered. Keep the following tactics in mind if you want to increase your conversion rates.
Become a Professional Affiliate Marketer TodayAlthough affiliate marketing is pretty simple, there’s a lot that goes into becoming a successful affiliate marketer. If you want to make a serious income from affiliate marketing then you’ll want guidance from an industry expert. Martha Krejci offers a Professional Affiliate course that teaches you exactly how to grow multiple affiliate income streams on 5-10 hours a week (or less). Check it out here, and use the code “wishpond” for 50% off. ConclusionEarning an income from affiliate marketing is incredibly rewarding. It’s a great way to supplement your existing income, and you can even do it professionally. It only takes a couple of hours up front, and then you can enjoy years of affiliate income streams ahead. Follow the strategies above, and you will be able to build a successful affiliate marketing business that can make some serious money. Related Content
via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/3bao1PV ![]() The Stripe startup launched in 2011 as a payment processing software for e-commerce. Since its launch, Stripe has grown into a $94.4 billion company that operates around the world. With just 7 lines of code and a great idea, two brothers from rural Ireland totally revolutionized online payments. How did they go from a small-scale startup to a dominating force in the financial industry? Let’s break down Stripe’s story to find out.
Stripe Background: How Stripe Was StartedStripe was founded 11 years ago by John and Patrick Collison, aged 19 and 21 at the time. Hailing from Dromineer, a small town on the shores of Lough Derg in County Tipperary, Ireland, both the brothers were academically gifted and showed a special interest in math and physics from a very young age. While the internet wasn’t easily accessible in their remote village, they had nine computers at home by their early teens and were paying €100 a month for a satellite broadband link. When they were 18 and 16, John and Patrick launched their first-ever business called Auctomatic, which helped eBay store owners track their inventory. Ten months later a Canadian company bought it for $5 million - a testimony to the brothers’ talent. While studying at Harvard and MIT in 2009 and continuing to develop apps, the idea for Stripe was born out of their own experiences with running an internet business, where, according to John, “the hardest part was finding ways of accepting customers money.” Having stumbled upon a problem that no one else seemed to have solved, they soon realized this wasn’t for lack of trying. It was just because developing this kind of secure and reliable payment system was a tough job. All the online payment methods that existed back then included several steps, required many fees, and took weeks to set up - which isn’t something that the Collison brothers wanted to do. They took a leap of faith and wrote seven simple lines of code that businesses could plug into websites and apps to instantly connect with a credit card and banking systems and receive payments, streamlining the process considerably. In 2010, both the brothers dropped out of college to try and get their business idea off the ground. And so, Stripe, although then called /Dev/Payments, was born as an online payment processing platform. The company aimed to cater to web-based ventures of all sizes, preventing fraud and offering easy-to-use payment solutions. What Made Stripe So Special?Still confused as to what made Stripe stand out? It’s because the platform’s software made it possible for online businesses to accept digital payments without having to obtain licenses or strike deals with banks or credit card operators to receive money. This model is what gave Stripe its edge and motivated businesses to start using the platform’s services. In 2010 they received an estimated $20k-$30k of seed funds through startup accelerator Y Combinator, which had previously funded Auctomatic, helping the Collison brothers start their operations. John and Patrick did all they could to try and kick off their idea. They approached people like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel to ask them to invest in Stripe. “It’s a little impetuous to go to PayPal founders and say payments on the internet are totally broken,” said John in an interview, adding that “you can WhatsApp anyone around the world, and it’s free. It’s a remarkable act of coordination between the telcos and ISPs and the people who own the fiber underneath the sea to create this global communications network. Then, if you look at the economic infrastructure, we haven’t even started.” Above: The Collison Brothers (source) Stripe Funding and ValuationThe brothers’ confidence paid off when Thiel led a $2 million seed round with Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz in 2011. In 2012, Sequoia Capital led the Series A round alongside PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, Elad Gil, and Max Levchin, bringing Stripe’s valuation to $100 million. Its valuation crossed the billion-dollar threshold after 2014’s Series C round, led once again by Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Allen & Company brought in $80 million and raised its valuation to $1.8 billion. In total, Stripe has held ten equity funding rounds, from its pre-seed Y-Combinator round to its most recent, $600 million Series H round that valued the company at a whopping $95 billion. Stripe has raised $2.2 billion from 39 investors, more money than the company needs, making it highly capital efficient. This has also helped the Collison brothers’ net worth go up to $11 billion each. Stripe has become the third most valuable venture-backed private company in the world, and the most valuable in the US earlier this year, when it was valued at $95 billion. Stripe RevenueStripe processes hundreds of billions of dollars every year at a charge of only 2.9 percent of the total transaction value and 30 cents for every transaction. This business model has helped the company generate $7.4 billion in revenue last year—up 70 percent year-over-year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Stripe’s current client roster includes big names such as Google, Slack, Zoom, Shopify, Lyft, Amazon, and more, meaning that more than half of the world’s users might be making their purchases through a Stripe-powered business without them even knowing! As they say, good design is invisible - a motto that Stripe has taken pretty seriously. And because so many tech giants in the world use Stripe for their financial transactions, it’s been fairly easy for the company to approach investors and venture capitalists the way it does. How Does Stripe Make Money?As of now, Stripe has 50 corporate clients that each process more than $1 billion annually. Stripe makes money through transaction fees. These include fees for online transactions, subscription billing, invoicing, connecting clients that pay through third-party sellers, and in-person point of sale payments. Stripe also makes revenue through its Stripe Capital Service business loans, its Radar product, and custom finance and data analysis reports. The company also has 2,500 employees at its 14 worldwide offices, showing how far this small company has managed to go just a decade into its operations. Over time, Stripe has become the default choice for businesses worldwide, which is reason enough to believe that this platform will always be relevant in this age of the internet. Stripe Investments and AcquisitionsStripe has also participated in funding other companies. Since 2017, Stripe has disclosed a funding amount of $2 billion across 40 deals. $1.1 billion of this came from 14 investments during 2021 alone. Some of these companies include Step Mobile, Wave, TrueLayer, Balance, Fast, Safepay, Check, Pilot, Codat, and more. Stripe has also acquired a total of 11 companies since 2011. The latest of these was Seachange (June 2021). Some of Stripe’s other acquisitions include Bouncer, Tax jar, Paystack, Touchtech Payments, Index Systems, Payable, Indie Hackers, and more. Is Stripe the World’s Leading Payment Platform?Currently, Stripe’s primary competitors are platforms like Paypal, WePay, and Silicon Valley’s very own, Square - valued at $112 billion. However, in order to become the leading online payments platform, Stripe will need to continue to expand beyond the US. This is a strategy they have been pursuing through investments and acquisitions of payments companies and neobanks based in places such as the UK, US, Mexico, Philippines, Israel, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Stripe is especially committed to European expansion and plans to add 1,000 jobs in Ireland alone over the next five years, with John Collison saying that "the growth opportunity for the European digital economy is immense." It’s pretty safe to assume that the internet will be the primary source for monetary transactions very soon. The Collison brothers themselves have frequently said that their goal is to “increase the GDP of the internet” and that we’re still in the early stages of an internet economy. Stripe is ready to deal with this huge shift in terms of how we handle our finances. Currently, Stripe is available for businesses in 42 countries and can accept payments from anywhere in the world. As John Collison sees it, moving commerce online will be a “global equalizer.”, which means that businesses aren’t limited to geography now because of how easy the payment system is. The company’s recent funding will be used, in part, to fuel global expansion, which shows that Stripe is ready to go big once the digital financial revolution comes. Stripe IPOSo, with this kind of success, is Stripe going public soon? The company itself hasn’t announced anything, but having filed its intentions to IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission in July 2021, expectations are that it will go public in the last quarter of 2021 or the first quarter of 2022. The valuation of Stripe could be around $100 billion or more after listing. Stripe and the Crypto MarketStripe recently announced that it’s building up a new crypto team to help develop the future of Web3 payments. Stripe was initially an early payment processor that adopted Bitcoin. However, in 2018, the company announced that it was ending its support for Bitcoin payments - stating that Bitcoin has “become less useful for payments”. It seems like Stripe’s philosophy on Bitcoin has changed, as the company is now reentering the crypto space. They’re being pretty quiet about how this will play out, but it will certainly be an exciting move from the payment processor. Watch this space! ConclusionStripe is one of the most exciting companies in the world right now. The company started with a simple idea to improve e-commerce payments, and they’ve grown into a massive, multi-billion dollar business. The fact that so many investors have shown so much interest in Stripe is a sign that the company still has a huge future ahead. What do you think of the company’s journey through the years? Let us know in the comments below. Stripe FAQsHow many websites accept payments through Stripe?Approximately 3,124,751 live websites accept payments using Stripe. The Stripe Checkout solution is used on 784,256 live websites. This gives Stripe a 15.49% market share in payment processing. Where is Stripe available?Stripe is available in 46 countries, which includes 5 countries that have limited access. How many payment methods does Stripe support?Stripe supports 32 different payment methods. These payment methods are spread across categories that include cards, wallets, bank debits, bank redirects, cash-based vouchers, and buy-now-pay-later. How much does Stripe process in payment volume?It’s estimated that Stripe processed a total of $350 billion in payments in 2020 (a 133% increase compared to 2019). Over the past 5 years, Stripe has seen a minimum growth rate of 50% each year on its payment processing volume. Related Content
via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/2XJdZ5j ![]() It doesn’t matter how great your webinar is if there’s no one there to experience it. Webinar promotion is one of the most important parts of running an online event and it’s something you have to get right if you want your webinar to be a success. From our experience running webinars on all kinds of subjects, we’ve figured out the most effective ways to promote your webinar and draw in a guaranteed audience. Follow our complete guide to webinar promotion for a successful event that helps your business achieve its goals. What Makes a Good Webinar?Before starting to promote your webinar, you need to make sure you’ve got a great webinar to begin with. So, what exactly is a webinar, or webcast? A webinar is a type of live seminar delivered online. It involves a host and guests, and the webinar is broadcast live. A webinar needs to have a clear topic or theme, that is presented to a live audience of attendees. When you plan and deliver your webinar, here are some of the most important best practices to remember. Offer ValueYour webinar has to provide value to your attendees. The event should offer some kinds of actionable takeaways, that attendees can apply to their own situations. Yes, webinars are a sales and marketing tactic designed to promote your business in some way. However, nobody wants to join a webinar that’s just one long sales pitch. Your webinar content has to be valuable to the viewer in some way. Attendees need to leave your webinar with fresh knowledge and insights that they can use. Educate Your AudienceAll webinars have to be educational in some way. They need to teach your audience something they never knew, leaving them with more knowledge than what they had before the event. This could be on a new product, a business strategy, how to use a tool, how a service works, some kind of expert insights, and so on. Make it EntertainingIt doesn’t matter how much valuable content your webinar offers - if it’s boring, nobody will be interested. Your webinar shouldn’t just be educational, it should also be fun. Make sure that the host is knowledgeable, but that they also have a good personality. A webinar is a great way to engage your audience and to add some personality to your brand. If the webinar is just a long, boring information session, you’ll soon lose your audience. Make it Easy to UnderstandYou need to communicate your webinar clearly. If you want to offer value to a large audience, then the webinar needs to be easy to understand. Use a visually appealing presentation that conveys the information clearly. Use simple language, and pay attention to the way you present your ideas verbally. Plan the Webinar ProperlyFinally, the best webinar is one that is well-planned. You never know what could go wrong during a live event so always try to have your bases covered. An important part of this is preparing for any possible technical difficulties. Use a trusted platform to stream the webinar, and know how to use it. Do a dry run of the webinar in advance, and make sure that you have a clear understanding of the flow of the event, speaking times, and any technical tasks you may need to perform. Of course, a strong internet connection is essential. How to Promote Your Webinar: 22 Proven Strategies and ExamplesPreparing a great webinar is only the first step, the second half of the work comes down to your promotions. Without strong promotional efforts, you could be presenting your well-planned webinar to no attendees. From our experience, here are the most effective strategies and tips for webinar promotion that works. 1. Choose a Topic That Appeals to a Broad Audience and Offers Clear ValueThe first thing that’s going to get people to attend your webinar is your topic. If the webinar topic is bad, then nobody’s going to show any interest in your promotions. We’ve already covered how important it is to offer actionable advice and value to your webinar attendees. So, make sure that this value is clearly communicated in the title and topic of your webinar. Your audience needs to know what they’re going to get out of the webinar before they attend it. When you choose a topic for your webinar, try to come up with a topic that appeals to a large audience, but is still focused enough to offer clear actionable value that your attendees can apply. 2. Set an Attendance GoalYou need to have a clear goal for attendance when you start to promote your webinar. Otherwise, you won’t know what you’re trying to achieve. Having a goal in place helps you measure the success of your promotions, and it helps you to know which tactics will work best for your next upcoming webinar. Setting a clear attendance goal is the first step to achieving a good webinar registration. 3. Understand Your Registrant vs Attendees Ratio and Set a Registration GoalOnce you’ve set your attendee goal, you need to understand that webinar registration doesn’t equal attendance. Generally, only 44% of registrants actually attend the webinar they sign up for. Use this figure to understand how many registrants you will need in order to achieve your desired attendance level. Once you’ve got your registration figure in place, keep a constant eye on your registration progress to see whether you need to adjust your promotional efforts or not. Of course, you also want to make sure that you get as many attendees as possible from your registrants. To do this, you’ll need to keep your webinar front of mind. Keep following up with registrants, reminding them about the upcoming webinar and the value they will get from it. 4. Offer Something Special to AttendeesEveryone wants to be part of something special. When you promote and run your webinars, try to find a way to offer something special to your attendees. This could be a giveaway during the event, a special offer for all attendees, or a social contest leading up to the webinar. This gets people excited to register for your event, it gives registrants more reason to attend your webinars, and it will help to add even more value to your existing program. The more you can offer to your attendees, the more positive brand awareness you’ll be able to create. This will make a big difference to your sales and marketing. An example of this would be running a live draw at the end of your webinar based on a question you ask in the live chat. You could run a giveaway based on a hashtag that you ask attendants to post on social media or give away coupons and discount codes during your event. Another excellent strategy is to follow up with all attendees after the webinar and send them each a discount code for your product or service. This isn’t necessarily a promotional tactic, but it’s an effective way to boost your sales after the event. This is because your attendees are clearly interested in your brand, and if you can show just how valuable your product is during the event, then a discount code could be just the nudge they need to make a purchase. 5. Promote Your Webinar at the Right Time and On the Right DayTiming plays a major role in your webinar promotion. Certain times of the day result in better registration rates. Something as simple as the time and day that you send out your promotional email could have a major effect on your attendance levels. Promotions launched on Tuesdays drive the best results, and promotions launched on Fridays are the least effective. Early morning promotions are also the best. You want your email to be at the top of your readers’ inboxes when they check their mail in the morning. Try to send out important promotions between 8 am - 10 am. The closer you get to the date of your webinar, the more registrations you’ll get. This means you should also increase the frequency of your promotions closer to the date of the event. A promotional period of 3 to 4 weeks is best, as you’ll be able to get a steady stream of registrations throughout this period. 6. Create a High-Quality Webinar Landing PageYour webinar landing page will decide whether people will register for your webinar or not. All of the efforts you put into promoting your webinar will drive interested people to your webinar landing page. If this registration page is properly set up, visitors will quickly and easily register. If not, you could lose out on a good portion of your attendees. Firstly, make sure that all of the correct information is displayed on your registration page. This should include who will be hosting the webinar, what the webinar is about, when the event will take place, and how registrants can access the event. Of course, highlight the value and benefits that your webinar offers, not just what it’s about. All of this information should be presented in a simple, succinct way so that visitors can quickly get all of the information they need. Your signup form should also have as few entry requirements as possible. The easier it is to register, the more registrations you will get. You could even offer one-click registrations from your promotional emails. If you use an email marketing tool like Wishpond, you can filter all of the people who clicked on your registration link (which sends them straight to your landing page) and register their emails for your webinar. This is the easiest way to get people to sign up because they don’t have to fill out any forms or offer any details. By using Wishpond’s landing page tool, you can build incredibly easy, beautiful landing pages with the drag and drop editor. This is the most effective way to set your webinar up for success. 7. Develop a Clear Email Marketing StrategyHands down, the best channel for promoting your webinar is email. You can use email marketing to reach a large audience and send your registration link directly to all of their inboxes. To do this, you will need a good email marketing tool. The best email platforms allow you to segment your mailing list based on various factors. Doing this allows you to send customized, personalized content to your different customers and leads. This will improve your open rates in a big way. For example, you can frame your email to existing customers or previous webinar attendees differently from emails sent to new leads. When promoting your upcoming webinar, set up a series of emails to be scheduled for different times. Ideally, you will want to send out an automated email workflow, where your subscribers receive different emails based on their actions. Sound complicated? It’s not. Let’s say you send out an initial email promoting your event. Those who registered can automatically get sent a thank you email, followed by a few reminder emails over the promotional period. The people who did not click on your first email can get sent further promotional emails later on. Creating an automated workflow like this saves you the trouble of following up with different contacts and registrants while making sure that everyone receives the right content at the right time. With a tool like Wishpond, setting this up is easy. Not sure how to write and put together your emails? Follow this guide to help you create effective marketing emails. 8. Send a Registration ConfirmationAs soon as people register for your webinar, automatically send them a thank you email. This is just a simple way of thanking them for registering (which is good manners) while providing a reminder for the upcoming webinar. These emails are also important for letting your registrants know that their sign-up was a success. You can easily set these emails up with an automation tool. All you need to do is thank the person for registering, remind them of the value that your webinar is going to offer, and include the time, date, and webinar link. Above is an example of a landing page that registrants get ent to from one-click registrations. 9. Send Out Reminder EmailsYour follow-up email is necessary, but this isn’t always enough to keep your webinar at the front of your registrants’ minds. Sending out a series of reminder emails before the webinar will help to get registrants excited about the event, and it will encourage them to keep a space in their calendar open. You’ve got to be careful here because sending too many emails will be annoying, while not sending enough emails could make registrants forget about the webinar. Sending one email a week to registrants is a good idea, with a final reminder the day before the webinar. You can also use these emails to promote any other relevant content you have (like eBooks, videos, or blog posts) that relate to the webinar topic. These emails should get your registrants excited, so use them to talk about the value they will get from the webinar. Introduce the speakers, list the talking points that will be covered, and reveal what they will walk away from the webinar with. Your goal should be to build up momentum and engagement around the event. 10. Promote Your Webinar on Social MediaYou’ve got to use all of your marketing channels to promote your webinar. Of course, this includes your social networks. Post about your webinar regularly across your social networks, tag the guests who will be on the webinar, and engage with any questions about the event. Social media is a great place to start building up some real buzz around the webinar. Short-form social media videos, like Instagram Reels, Stories, and TikTok videos, are also a great way to get the word out. You can post short snippets from the webinar guests covering what they’ll be talking about or introducing themselves. You could also post short animated videos highlighting the webinar topic. Remember that social media is about building a community, so get your audience involved. Ask them questions, such as what they want you to talk about in the next webinar, and engage with your audience to build excitement. 11. Get Your Guests to Promote the Webinar to Their AudiencesIf your webinar has guests (which it probably does), you should also use them to promote the webinar too. When you get guests to agree to join the webinar, make it a clear term that they also need to post about the event. This allows you to get your webinar out to an entirely new audience, which can help your registration numbers in a big way. Just make sure that the guests promote the correct link to the registration landing page. 12. Promote Your Webinar On Your BlogYour blog is another great place for webinar promotion. During the buildup to the webinar, post a blog article about the event and what will be covered. Content marketing like this is the perfect opportunity to go a bit more in detail about the things you will be talking about and who your speakers are. Then you can promote your blog post across social media and email, to add a new form of promotional content to keep your audience engaged and excited. Of course, make sure that you include a clear call to action (CTA) leading to the registration form in your blog post. 13. Leverage Your Employees NetworksWhen you spread the word for your webinar, don’t forget about your employees. Employees can be valuable assets for social media promotion, as they allow you to expand your reach and audience in a big way. If each of your employees posts the webinar on LinkedIn and invites their contacts, your registrations could skyrocket. This only really works if your employee’s audiences are the same as your target audience. Just send out social media assets and the correct registration link to all of your employees, and they could start generating some valuable traction for your event. 14. Consider Paid MediaIf you want to reach a wider audience, then consider utilizing paid media. Running ads for your webinar can help you reach way more people. You just need to make sure that the cost of your ads is worth what you get out of the webinar. If you do want to promote your webinar using paid ads, then social media is your best bet. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram collect loads of data from their users, which allows you to target a very specific audience. This means you’ll be able to get your webinar out to your exact target audience, which will mean better results for the campaign. 15. Send Personalized Invites to Key AccountsThis won’t necessarily raise your attendance a great deal, but it can help you to get the most important people watching your webinars. If you have a few really important clients or leads that would benefit from the webinar, reach out to them personally and extend an invite. Send them a personalized email that is clearly not automated, and explain the type of value that they will get out of the webinar. This can help you build stronger relationships with key accounts, and it can boost the authority and trust of your brand. Sending personalized invites out to hot leads is also a great way to fill them with confidence in your business to close a deal. 16. Turn Your Webinar into a Regular SeriesA once-off webinar will get you some attendance, but a regular series of webinars will allow you to build up a bigger, more engaged audience. If you’re using webinars to grow your business, then hosting a regular webinar series is definitely the best approach. With each webinar, your audience will grow a little bit bigger. Regular events also make it easier for registrants to remember the webinar, and attend each time. To do this, create a name and general theme for your webinar series. Maybe you could run a webinar once a month, or once a week. Set a recurring date, and make this a regular thing to promote. Doing this will help you build momentum, and gain your webinar series more popularity. Example of a weekly webinar series titled “Accelerating Value”. 17. Promote Your Next Webinar On Your Current WebinarYour webinar promotion should start as soon as the previous webinar ends. In fact, it should start before the webinar ends. At the end of your webinar, take a moment to tell your audience about your next webinar, what the topic is, and when it will take place. This lets you directly promote the webinar to an audience of already interested people. If they liked the webinar they’re on, there’s a good chance they will join the next one. You can also make an email list of all attendees, and send them a personalized invite to the next webinar. Chances are, these people will be more likely to join a webinar because they already trust your business and are excited to see more of what you can offer. 18. Utilize Popups and CTAs on Your WebsiteIf you’re going to make the most of your marketing real estate, you should be using your website to promote your webinar. Publishing popups and CTAs across your website will help you turn your site visitors into registrants. This is a great way to build interest in your business while attracting more attendees to your event. Just a simple description of the webinar with a clear call to action (leading to the registration form) is all you need. With a tool like Wishpond, you can create easy popups and forms to publish anywhere on your website. 19. Promote Your Webinar on Live Social Media StreamsWe’ve already mentioned the importance of marketing your webinar on social media platforms, and live streams are one of the best strategies you can implement. Schedule a live stream before the webinar where you’ll introduce yourself (the host), cover the topic of the webinar, and accept any questions and comments from your audience. This will help you get people excited about the webinar, and it will allow you to start getting your personality out there before the event. Live streams add a more human, personal element to marketing, and they’re a great way to build up your webinar. Make sure to include a CTA during your stream to get viewers signed up. 20. Create a Promotional VideoVideo marketing is incredibly powerful. Video is one of the most exciting and engaging forms of online content. This means a promotional video for your webinar is an effective way to drive lots of interest in your event. All you need is a fun and simple video highlighting the topic, introducing the guests, and telling viewers how to register. This could be an animated video or just a simple selfie video. You can post this on social media, share it in your stories, and even use it in ads. 21. Use the Best Video Conferencing Tools for Your WebinarThis isn’t necessarily a webinar promotion tactic, buts it’s a really important thing for offering a good webinar experience. In order for your webinar to be a success, you need to host it on a great video conferencing tool. This needs to be a platform that you and your audience are comfortable with. A great platform means no technical difficulties, which results in a better quality webinar. A great approach is to use a video conferencing tool that allows you to stream the webinar across different platforms. You could do a single webinar across Zoom, YouTube Live, and Facebook Live at the same time - allowing you to tap into different audiences on each of these platforms. This also means your audience will have more options to choose a streaming site that they are more comfortable with - which should boost your attendance levels. 22. Use Wishpond to Promote Your WebinarEffective webinar promotions require the right digital marketing tools. By using Wishpond, you can access all of the promotion tools you need from one easy platform. This includes email marketing, creating landing pages, popups, online forms, marketing automation, and more. Instead of subscribing to numerous promotion tools, you can get them all in one place. On top of this, Wishpond offers a team of marketing experts who can create and manage your campaigns for you. Get your own designers, video editors, ads specialists, and more. Book a demo today if you’re keen to get started. SummaryThese 22 best practices for promoting your webinars will make a major difference to your webinar attendance levels. Follow these strategies, put some effort into your promotions, and you’ll increase the number of attendees in a big way. Webinars are awesome tactics for lead generation, promoting products, and boosting the popularity of your business. If you get your webinar right, it could have an amazing impact on your business. Have you got any experience promoting webinars, or have an upcoming webinar you’d like to discuss? Reach out in the comments below. Related Content
via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/3GgSV7A ![]() With over 1.3 billion users, Instagram is an essential social media platform for marketing. While there are massive opportunities to reach a big audience, there is also a lot of competition. This is why you need the right Instagram marketing tools if you’re going to succeed. These Instagram marketing tools will help you make the most of your Instagram efforts - whether it’s creating captivating posts, monitoring your analytics, cracking the Instagram algorithm, or converting your Instagram followers to customers. Here are the top 30 Instagram marketing tools you need to create a fool-proof Instagram marketing plan: 1. CanvaCanva is one of the best Instagram marketing tools to help you make images that stand out. You can use Canva to enhance your Stories or your feed posts. Canva offers loads of design features in a really easy-to-use format, allowing anyone to become a champion designer. One of the best things about using Canva as an Instagram tool is that you can access plenty of templates, fonts, and design elements. This allows you to make your brand really stand out, and create a clear and consistent identity to help users recognize your content. What are some ways you can use Canva for Instagram marketing?
Price: Free, or $12.95/month for Canva Pro to access more features 2. Wishpond Instagram Hashtag Contest AppRunning an Instagram contest is one of the best ways to increase engagement, get more followers, spread brand awareness, and promote your business. With the right Instagram marketing tools, you can make sure your contest or giveaway does more for your business. Wishpond’s Instagram Contest App collects Instagram photos and showcases them in a voting gallery on your Facebook Page or website. Fans submit their photos from Instagram and vote on their favorites. Running contests is a great way to engage your current followers and collect email leads. They’re a win-win for both you and your Instagram followers. What are some other ways businesses can use Wishpond’s Instagram Contest?
Price: Book a demo 3. Like2buyWe all know it’s a best practice to include a link to your website or blog in your bio, but Like2buy takes this a step further. They provide a simplistic gallery of products that are instantly available for purchase. Like2buy provides a link that brands put in their bio. Once a user clicks on the link, it will take them to a page of the brand’s featured products. It only takes a few clicks to get from a brand’s Instagram to their Like2Buy product page. Using this social commerce tool can help you create the ultimate user journey and turn any social channel into a shoppable storefront. Tip: Use Instagram captions to say “shop link in bio” to remind users that they can shop for the products conveniently. Price: Request a demo for details. 4. LayoutLayout is Instagram’s collage app, and it’s by far the easiest app of its kind. It allows you to combine 2-9 of your photos into one image. There are three options from where you can select your photos: camera roll, recent photos, and an interesting “faces” option where Layout compiles the photos you have of people‘s faces. There are also a lot of creative features included: such as mirroring, flipping, resizing, and rearranging with just a few taps. Bonus: It has a photo booth feature that includes a countdown where you can snap up to 4 photos in a row. How can businesses use Layout for Instagram marketing?
Price: Free 5. InstasizeInstasize allows you to edit, filter, and resize photos and videos. The app is seriously easy to use, and it allows you to totally transform your Instagram marketing. Simply access your camera roll and upload the file you want. Then edit your photo or video and use the red icon in the top right-hand corner of the app to export it by opening it on Instagram, saving it in high-resolution to your camera roll, or sharing it on another social network. Instasize has a lot more features than just image resizing. Check out their unique overlays, borders, collage frames, and stickers. You have the option to download more borders and stickers easily and for free through the app. This is one of the best Instagram marketing tools for both still images and video. Price: Free 6. PixlrThere are so many image editing tools you can use for your photos, but Pixlr is my favorite. It’s really easy to use and also gives you a bunch of options. You can use Pixlr for Instagram marketing to apply filters and effects, remove the background, make collages, and you can access many design templates. Some features allow you to:
Despite all of the options, this Instagram marketing tool is surprisingly easy to navigate. Price: Free 7. Sked SocialScheduGram is one of a kind - it’s a web-based tool that enables you to publish your Instagram photos and videos now or later. When it comes to Instagram marketing, having a good scheduling tool is a must. You can also manage multiple Instagram accounts and collaborate with other users - which is particularly useful because you don’t have to log in and out to switch accounts. ScheduGram has basic photo-editing features such as cropping, adding filters, text, and rotating images. ScheduGram lets you schedule multiple posts at a time. This is an effective time-saver and frees you from worrying about the last time you posted on Instagram. Price: ScheduGram offers three different plans at $25/month, $75/month, and $135/month (free trial available) 8. RepostInstagram users feel honored when a brand mentions them. And when brands share users’ content, they generate some valuable social proof. Repost is an easy way to make your followers feel appreciated. Repost makes sharing other people’s photos or videos simple: browse your feed or search for a specific user or hashtag, click on the photo, and tap, “repost.” It’s that simple. This app is a great way for brands to show their user-generated content (UGC) and give praise to their customers. Tip: Create a hashtag unique to your brand. It will make it easier for you to find UGC photos for your brand to use and a great way for Instagram users to browse your photos. Price: Free 9. IconosquareIconosquare is the go-to Instagram analytics tool for marketers: it allows Instagram users to monitor and analyze comments, likes, followers, messages, and more. This tool sorts out the analytics of your account and puts all the information in one dashboard. It’s one of the most in-depth Instagram marketing tools, allowing you to make easy data-backed decisions. Here are a few handy Iconosquare functions:
Price: Three options are available at $49/month, $79/month, and $139/month (free trial available) 10. GoDaddy StudioThis sleek app was designed for mobile-creative types and Instagram users that are serious about making visually appealing graphics. GoDaddy Studio (previously Over) is an awesome Instagram marketing tool to easily elevate your social posts. With GoDaddy Studio, you can add text & artwork to your photos. They feature both standard and custom-made fonts as well as original graphics. You can access 1000s of customizable templates that work on all your social media platforms. GoDaddy Studio makes it easy to make beautiful graphics for Instagram while you’re on the go. If you’re into designing your own fonts, you can upload them to this Instagram marketing tool to use on your photos. Price: Two options are available at $5.99/month and $14.99/month (free trial available) 11. SproutSocialSproutSocial, like other great social media platforms like Hootsuite and Buffer, allows you to compile your entire social media efforts into one dashboard:
If you want to schedule posts, access advanced analytics, stay up to date with your community, and more, then this Instagram marketing tool is a great choice. Price: Three options are available at* *$89 per user/month, $149/month, and $249/month (free trial available) 12. VSCOVSCO adds on to Instagram's stock filters with their own "presets." The VSCO app allows you to easily imitate film effects as well as edit your images subtly. This Instagram marketing tool is one of the best options for making your phone photography look really special. Price: Free app download, or monthly subscription available for VSCOMembership 13. PrismaThe Prisma app enables you to turn your photos and videos into "works of art" using chosen styles from classic and famous artists such as Picasso, Van Gogh, and others. This Instagram marketing tool lets you easily enhance your photos to make your feed really stand out. Price: Free 14. SnapseedSnapseed is Google's own photo-editing application. It enables users to edit and select different effects/enhancements. Alternatively, Snapseed can automatically adjust the color and contrast of your images. A cool thing with Snapseed is the "save filter" function which enables users to find the filter combination they like most and save it to use again. This Instagram marketing tool also has a cool “Stacks” feature that lets you save groups of filters as a template to be applied to future photos. Price: Free 15. Vimeo CreateVideo is by far the most engaging form of content on social media. Vimeo Create is an excellent Instagram marketing tool that can automatically turn your product images and text into perfectly polished videos. This is the easiest way to put together great video content for your social media without having any video creation experience. Price: Free, with the option to upgrade to more advanced video editing tools 16. BoomerangBoomerang is Instagram's proprietary "stitching" tool. Click a button within the app and it'll take a bunch of photos and stitch them together into a mini-video/gif. This is a fun Instagram marketing tool to make your stories really stand out. Price: Free 17. LaterLater is another Instagram tool to help you schedule posts. It’s a seriously popular Instagram marketing tool to help you plan, publish, and analyze your Instagram posts. The free social media tool has the multiple-profile and bulk image upload option of the paid platforms, but it is more simple to use. Price: Free, unless you want the Plus Plan at $9/month 18. BufferBuffer is a well-known social media scheduling tool, and it works really well for Instagram. When it comes to Instagram tools for scheduling your content, Buffer is one of the easiest to use. You can easily line up your Instagram posts for publishing, preparing them from mobile or desktop, and Buffer will publish them directly for you. The Premium plan also allows you to create and schedule Stories, add a shoppable Instagram grid to your website, and access detailed analytics on your Instagram account. Price: Three plans are available, including a free plan, a Pro plan at $15/month, and a Premium plan at $65/month 19. HootsuiteIf you’re looking for a social media management platform to schedule posts and grow your business, then Hootsuite is one of the most popular. Hootsuite lets you line up posts for your Instagram account in advance, and it will either send you a notification to post them, or it will post them for you if you have an Instagram Business account. This is one of the most popular tools for Instagram thanks to its many social media management possibilities, its great analytics insights, and easy scheduling. You’ll be able to make your marketing strategy a lot easier with Hootsuite. Price: From $29/month for the Professional plan 20. CrowdFireCrowdfire is a desktop and mobile app that connects your social media accounts, identifies avenues of growth and then recommends content and posts which it believes will drive success for your Instagram profile. If you want to find related content to your Instagram account, schedule your content, and easily manage all of your social accounts from one place then Crowdfire is a great option. Price: Four options are available: free, $7.48/month, $37.48/month, $74.98/month \ 21. AutoHashAutoHash offers an easy solution to find relevant hashtags for your Instagram content. The tool uses AI to recognize your photos and automatically find relevant hashtags based on this. It makes sure you don’t go over the hashtag limit. If you’re scheduling your Instagram posts, AutoHash will save your favorite hashtags in the app, or it will just copy them to your clipboard so that you can set up your posts easily. Price: Free 22. Adobe LightroomAdobe Lightroom is a professional photo editing app to make sure your content looks amazing. If Instagram’s filters just aren’t enough, then Lightroom will let you get the exact look you’re after. When it comes to tools for Instagram editing, Lightroom is one of the best. Price: $9.99/month 23. AfterlightAfterlight is the ultimate Instagram image-prettifying tool out there, giving users:
Price: Free 24. PrequelPrequel will keep all Instagram accounts up to date and on-trend with its excellent filters and special effects. Prequel’s filters are truly special and can be applied to both still images and video. Price: Weekly and yearly subscriptions are available 25. ShowcaseShowcase, like Like2Buy and others, automatically creates an optimized gallery of your Instagram images (and the merchandise inside them) to enable Instagram users to quickly and easily navigate from your profile to the buying stage. Price: Free Basic account 26. Display PurposesThis is a simple social media tool that gives you details on Instagram hashtags. You just type in the hashtag, and can access related tags, top posts, and demographics related to that hashtag. Price: Free 27. SoldsieSoldsie is another platform which enables Instagrammers to drive and track referral traffic from Instagram to their products. A link in your bio sends Followers and Instagram users to a page of your website which enables them to buy the thing they saw on your Profile. Price: Three plans are available at $49/month, $99/month, and $199/month 28. KeyholeKeyhole offers an analytics portfolio, including a useful hashtag tracker for Instagram. You can calculate the ROI of your branded hashtag, measure the impact of your influencer campaign hashtags, and more. This is a great hashtag analytics tool to help grow your business and improve your marketing efforts. Price: Book a demo 29. MilkshakeMilkshake allows small businesses and solopreneurs to utilize the bio link even if they don’t have a website. You can create a super simple mobile landing page with tappable cards through the platform. This can be updated with blog posts, videos, storefronts, and more. Price: Free 30. OmnilinkOmnilink is similar to Milkshake in the way that it brings your links together and builds a mini website in the process. However, you get more optimization and analytics capabilities with Omnilink. This option can also be connected to multiple accounts. Price: Free ConclusionI hope you’ve discovered a new tool or app to further your Instagram marketing. Whether you want to access better Instagram analytics, schedule your content, enhance your images and videos, or more, these tools will make a big difference to your marketing strategy. What are the Instagram tools you love using? Let me know in the comments section below. Related Content:
P.S. Wishpond's Facebook Contest Apps make it easy to create sweepstakes, photo contests, Instagram hashtag contests & more. via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/3B4dobV ![]() If you want to keep your audience engaged, it’s important to stay active on Instagram. Regular posting ensures that your profile appears in the feed of your followers, keeping it top of mind. It also increases your chances of discovery by new users. While you can use the Instagram app to publish your posts, it lacks the ability to schedule content, which means that if you want to post content at times when you might not be able to use the Instagram app, you’re out of luck. There are of course a number of third-party solutions available to help you manage your Instagram profile, but while they may offer the features you require, they’re usually paid. With the introduction of Creator Studio, Facebook has created a free tool that allows you to easily manage your Instagram profile, allowing you to schedule content and more. Let’s look at what Instagram Creator Studios is, how you can use it, and why it’s a good alternative to third-party solutions in a bit more detail below. What is the Instagram Creator Studio?Creator Studio is a set of tools that allow you to post, schedule, manage, monetize, and analyze content on your Facebook pages or Instagram accounts. Although it was first introduced in 2017 as a tool specifically for Facebook, its functionality was limited and was tricky to use. Relaunched in 2020 with support for Instagram, Creator Studio now has become a lot more popular, in part due to Facebook starting to phase out its Publishing Tools for Pages, and also because unlike many third-party scheduling solutions, Creator Studio is free and a native solution. With Instagram Creator Studio you can:
Before You Get Started with Instagram Creator StudioBefore you can start using Instagram Creator Studio, you need to ensure that your Instagram account is set up correctly. You’ll need:
How to connect Instagram to Facebook Creator StudioConnecting your Instagram profile to Creator Studio is a simple process once you’ve ensured that your Instagram account is set up correctly. You’ll need to:
How to use Creator Studio for InstagramInstagram Creator Studio allows you to post and schedule content, get insights into your account, and monetize it. Let’s look at each of these in a bit more detail below. When you first log in to Instagram Creator Studio, you’ll be presented with your Content Library which gives you an overview of all the content you’ve posted on your Instagram profile. This includes video, photo, carousel, stories, and IGTV content. You can also view the content types individually by selecting the appropriate tab. Using the menu on the left-hand side of Creator Studio allows you to navigate through the various sections of the tool, including Content Libary, Calendar, Insights, Monetization, and Instagram Accounts. The Calendar tab takes you to a calendar overview of all your scheduled content, Insights take you to the analytics and Monetization allows you to manage your brand collaborations. If you’ve connected more than one Instagram account to Creator Studio, you can manage which ones are displayed from the Instagram Accounts tab. As the name suggests, the green Create Post button allows you to create a post, which we’ll look at in more detail below. How to Post on Instagram from Creator StudioWith Instagram Creator Studio you have the ability to create two types of posts: Feed posts and IGTV. To post on Instagram from Creator Studio you need to do the following:
To create an IGTV post from Instagram Creator Studio do the following:
How to Schedule Instagram Posts with Facebook Creator StudioWhat’s great about Instagram Creator Studio is that it allows you to schedule posts ahead of time, making it easy for you to stay active and post at the right time without having to spend tons of time each day doing so manually. To schedule posts with Instagram Create Studio, follow the same steps as you would for creating a regular post, as listed above, and then doing the following:
Now that you’ve shared your posts, you’ll want to take a look at their performance. You can do this via Insights, which we’ll look at in more detail below. Insights in Instagram Creator StudioIf you’re looking to find out more about your audience and how your posts performed, you can do so under the Insights tab in Instagram Creator Studio. There are two areas that Insights covers. These are:
To view your Insights you need to:
If you choose “Activity” you’ll be presented with an overview of the actions taken on your account and the reach of your account. This includes the number of website visits, profile visits, calls, texts, emails, and people that got directions, as well as the total number of impressions. If you select “Audience”, you’ll get an age and gender breakdown of your followers, information about when they are on Instagram, and a list of the top countries and cities that your followers are from. How to use Monetization in Creator StudioIf you have more than 10,000 followers, you can monetize your content and collaborate with brands. Creator Studio allows you to manage and monitor the status of your monetized content and brand collabs. To apply for brand collaborations, manage your content, and see which other monetization deals you qualify for, click on the “Monetization” tab in the menu. You will be presented with the Brand Collabs Manager that gives you an overview of your sponsored content. Using More Than One Instagram AccountIf you need to manage more than one Instagram account, Creator Studio lets you easily add more than one and also lets you choose which accounts to display during a session. Navigate to the “Instagram Accounts” menu item and you’ll be presented with a list of connected accounts. To add another account, click the “Add Instagram Account” button in the top-left corner and follow the instructions to log in with the account you want to use. Once you’ve added the account, you can click on the down arrow next to your account name in order to select which profiles you want to view. Related Content
Wrapping UpAs you can see from the above, it’s easy to use Creator Studio for Instagram. Using Creator Studio, you can get an overview of all your content, post to Instagram, schedule posts, view your scheduled posts, view insights about your audience and posts, as well as monetize your content and manage brand collaborations. All this and you can do it for multiple accounts. Not bad for a free tool! Do you use Creator Studio? What do you find the most useful feature? Are there any features you think are missing? Let me know in the comments below. via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/3vwpg5g ![]() The eCommerce industry is constantly evolving. New trends and technologies are popping up all the time that can help boost your store’s success. One of these emerging trends is data analysis. Data is the new oil, and eCommerce websites are sitting on a goldmine. You can use data to improve different areas within your business, from customer experience, and conversion rates, to better personalization. Correctly collecting and analyzing big data has been proven to increase a company's revenue by 25%. It’s a major component in driving success online. In this article, we'll explore five ways that data can benefit your eCommerce store. You'll discover how data can help you create better content and target customers more effectively. Plus, measure ROI with ease, and increase customer loyalty over time. What is big data, and why does it impact eCommerce?Firstly it’s important to understand the buzzword that has become synonymous with data collection: Big Data. Big data involves sorting through large quantities of data to reach a scientific and statistically backed solution to a problem. Because of its significant insight, it has the potential to transform eCommerce. Big data analytics has an impact across many different facets of eCommerce. For example, data can allow you to:
However, big data can sometimes come with one big downside, and that’s data silos. The Elephant in the Room - Data SilosUnfortunately, the process of using big data to power substantial business benefits isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds. Before eCommerce companies can analyze, evaluate and action their data, they have to face a very common occurrence: data silos. A data silo is when a database does not integrate or coordinate with other databases because it was never intended to do so. Data silos happen naturally but can cause problems when you try and combine the different sets of data into one cohesive system. The problem is particularly common among eCommerce companies. Especially those that use a variety of tools within their MarTech stack that do not integrate together. They may try and find workarounds, but the problem always persists. Ultimately though, data is siloed off, which is a huge missed opportunity. Common eCommerce data silo examples include:
Thankfully, there are ways to unlock and overcome data silo challenges for eCommerce companies - they just need to integrate them. Integration can take place by using specialized software, like a customer intelligence platform. These platforms enable companies to identify and gain comprehensive views of their customers. They also help to ensure that recent data is automatically updated across teams. This unifies the data throughout departments and breaks down data silos. Other methods include using a Customer Relationship Management Software (CRM) with integration capabilities. Or even the slightly more time-consuming and manual option of undertaking a company-wide data audit. Of course, when it comes to collecting and using data, you need to get user consent and ensure you are compliant with conditions such as GDPR. Building a single customer view and breaking down data silos has to be done with caution. With all the data available to eCommerce websites, the key is making the most of it. So here are five lucrative ways to do just that. 1. Forecast Trends and DemandBig data has revolutionized how people can predict what will be next season's best-selling product. By introducing trend forecasting algorithms, businesses can eliminate any guesswork when predicting trends. Knowing with certainty what products they should invest their money into for maximum profit potential. Likewise, with forecasting demand. All businesses will forecast demand to some degree, whether it's an eCommerce shirt seller estimating that a new design will prove particularly popular or an ice-cream seller forecasting that their ice cream will sell quicker in the summer months than the spring. Many business owners will base these decisions on gut feel or what seems like the best guess at any given moment. This can lead to overstocking and wasted inventory if you're not careful. By basing forecasts on historical and reliable data, you're in a much stronger position. There shouldn't be any decisions just based on intuition anymore. 1.2 Analyse Dynamic PricingProvided there is enough data, customers can be evaluated by their spending patterns and on-site behavior. Once a user is on the site, you can immediately collect data and "classify" the type of user they are. Are they showing a high propensity to buy? Are they brand new to the website? All this data can be used to tailor their experience to achieve your desired outcome. For example, if a user is looking to book an appointment online at a dentist or a car service prices could vary. Looking into the data, if Saturday at 10 am is a popular time with high demand, you could charge a premium. We can see this implemented below by UK garage chain Kwik-fit. They vary the price for the same service depending on what time you wish to book. Other examples include:Uber – Uber will calculate its ride fees depending on demand. Users can see these prices and be alerted to higher prices due to higher demand within the app before committing to a booking. Easyjet, Ryanair – Flight prices are constantly being reviewed and altered depending on demand and how early or late the booking is. 2. Provide Highly Personalised User ExperiencesBy using data, eCommerce sites can create personalized experiences for their customers. They can learn what items are popular among a customer's buying history, and then they show them more of that item on the site. Or offer discounts based on how much time the user spends browsing various products within an online store. For example, data could identify someone who buys large appliances but never buys clothes. The website could then recommend deals or upgrades relating to their available large appliances. 2.2. Action Behavioural Segmentation and TargetingBehavioral targeting, also known as behavioral marketing, is the process of targeting potential customers by matching their interests and behaviors with products that may appeal to them. This new form of online engagement uses Big Data to help understand your customers better. The websites they like, what kind of product pages they spend more time on, etc By using behavioral analysis, you can then plan your marketing campaigns around this. For example, sending personalized emails with discount coupons at certain times each year. If you capture customer's birthdays you can send a unique discount code as a "happy birthday" treat. Not only will this likely convert, but it’s also a great way to provide a more connected and personalized experience with customers. 3. Deliver Better Optimized Marketing CampaignsYou'll never send a generic campaign again once you integrate big data into your marketing campaigns. Big data is the key to big optimization, and it's only getting bigger every day! Marketers who understand and value the importance of relevance and timeliness will love big data. The opportunities it presents allow for more creative and impactful campaigns. Campaigns can be shaped around customers’ preferences and identified needs in real-time. This allows retailers to deliver more personalized experiences, which 67% of customers want. For example, personalized email messages containing relevant content should always prioritize impersonal emails with irrelevant materials - even if they're less expensive. That’s because what matters most to customers is how much they enjoy using the product/service being marketed at them. Take a look at the below example from budget airline EasyJet. For their 20th anniversary, easyJet wanted to do something special for each customer. They emailed customers a personalized story highlighting everywhere they had traveled in the past two decades. They finish off the email with a subtle CTA of "where's next"? The email also highlights where nearby airports served by easyJet may be located that would allow them more places around the world at an affordable price point. The email also highlights where nearby airports served by easyJet are located. The extra touch is EasyJet highlighting the extra places these alternative airports serve. Allowing customers to find new places to travel at an affordable price. Another elephant in the room for most marketers is that of the “cookieless future,” which is now likely to come into place in 2023. At the moment, there isn’t a single solution to this. Google also looks like they themselves may need more time to address this change. One thing is for sure, however, and that’s the importance of first-party data. It’s now more important than ever to ensure you’re collecting it safely, accurately and are in a position to use it to your benefit. 4. Improve Customer ServiceBig data can revolutionize customer service from monitoring emails and social media campaigns to observing online self-service tools. Big data can support your CS team. Collected information can be quickly analyzed to identify possible drawbacks in customer service. You may not even know some of them exist. From incorrect orders to refunds, to complaints your customer service team deals with it all. Multiply this by email, text, live chat, social profiles, and the job becomes a lot bigger to manage. This is where big data can help. A connected data ecosystem will allow customer services teams to have access to all the data they need. Very quickly. For example, if a user queries a specific order number, your CS team will be able to find out everything they need to in seconds. When they ordered it, the delivery status, maybe even a delivery ETA. The above example shows this in practice. A user with an issue tagged the wrong profile, but Nike Support still jumped in and attempted to resolve the issue. 5. Provide a 360-Degree Customer ViewA 360-degree customer view is the most comprehensive way to measure a company's customers. With it, you'll be able to see all interactions a customer makes with your business, from past and present purchases to customer service queries and complaints. Big data fuels the creation of a 360 view. Tracking and storing different customer interactions, touchpoints, and preferences in one location. Once you have that 360 customer view, you're really in business. You can share this with different departments, marketing, sales, and customer services, for example. This allows each department to create a tailored experience for that customer. Providing that personalized customer experience cultivates trust and builds strong fulfilling customer relationships. Which will ultimately boost revenue, reduce churn and amass brand loyalty. As we mentioned earlier, this needs to be done with explicit customer consent, and in a compliant way. There are a couple of ways you can achieve a 360 customer view. 1. Conduct a data auditYou’ll need to understand all the points at which you collect customer data, how it’s collected, and what format it’s in. You’ll need to determine if your data is being collected in a consistent format which can be used/linked throughout the business. If not, how you can address this and agree on a "standard" format and begin to enforce this. 2. Use a CDPAs the term “360” suggests, you’ll need a way of consistently monitoring as many touchpoints as possible. You’ll also need to get a handle on 1st, 2nd and 3rd party data. This isn’t easy or even possible if you don’t have the right software. This is where a Customer Data Platform (CDP) comes in. CDPs aggregate and organise customer data from multiple touchpoints, consolidate it into individualised customer profiles, and then allow that data to be used by other pieces of software, systems and MarTech stacks. Related Content
ConclusioneCommerce companies can gain a competitive advantage and revolutionise their businesses just by making the most of their data. In summary, the five ways eCommerce websites can make the most of their data is to:
Ensuring big data can be used seamlessly across the business, without data silos is a must. The possibilities this will present your business are almost endless. You'll find new ways to grow revenue. Your customer service team will be able to provide better and quicker responses. You'll be able to provide a better customer experience. ![]() Written by our guest writer Hannah Stewart, head of Marketing and Business Development at Zeotap, the home of the next-generation Customer Data Platform. Zeotap empowers brands to unify, enhance and activate customer data in a cookieless future, all while putting consumer privacy and compliance front-and-centre. Recognized by Gartner as a "Cool Vendor", it works with over 80 of the world's top 100 brands, including P&G, Nestlé and Virgin Media. It is also the founding member of ID+, a universal marketing ID initiative. Prior to joining Zeotap, Hannah led the Marketing and SDR functions at Yieldify, a martech company selling CRO solutions to e-commerce businesses in the US, UK and Australia. She started her career (after a detour teaching English in Japan) at Weber Shandwick and Nelson Bostock, working with companies including Samsung, Canon and HTC on global communications strategies before jumping ship to startups with a product marketing role at Monitise, a mobile banking business since acquired by Fiserv. via RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801 https://ift.tt/2Z33yK3 |
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