How AI Can Improve Customer Experience

16 Nov 2020 Web design

Artificial Intelligence is described as a task performed by software, application, program, or by a machine in the same way as a human being would accomplish the task. It is the development of machines and computers to perform tasks that require human intelligence. These tasks can involve planning, decision making, execution. AI has had a significant impact on many sectors and how businesses function and improve their operations and strategies.

AI and customer experience are both crucial to the success of any business today and AI has contributed in a big way to the improvements in customer experience.

We will explore how AI-based web design can improve the customer experience.

Web design is more than just a visual element. It is very important to provide practical, interactive, and intuitive elements when designing a website. AI in web design has been there for a while and has changed the way how things work. Some consider it a positive step towards creating machine learning consciousness while others feel that the human element is more important when it comes to design. For web design, AI can help create templates without any kind of human intervention. The software can scan design trends and market data to come up with the most popular trends that can be integrated with web design. Mentioned below are some of the techniques used to improve customer experience.

  • Faster design and demand fulfillment – improving and enhancing customer experience involves fulfilling consumer demands. Be it a demand for better navigation of a dark interface, these demands need to be catered to enhance the experience. Hence, machine learning is used to identify the requirements of the client and match them with the existing market trends to create the design faster. It is for the designer to ensure to keep in mind the needs of the clients, market requirements, and customer demand while designing to create a synergy between all three elements at a faster rate.
  • Optimum utilization of data – with the vast volume of data that is generated, AI comes to the rescue. This data can be very useful in creating web designs that bring real value to any business. In today’s date, it is very important to ensure people get what they are looking for and that is when a careful analysis of data needs to be done. This is where AI plays a crucial role. AI can help in sorting the data based on demographics. It can help put together core insights and help generate a design that can help businesses create a website that is all about its users thereby improving the customer experience.
  • Improvement in UX – it is an important element of customer experience strategy. Having a functional website is not enough, it needs to look good and cater to the individual needs of its customers. There are four essential elements of a customer experience model- value, desirability, usability, and adaptability. While templates are made using AI, all these elements are factored in to create an interface that not only looks good but also adds value to the customer experience as well as business operations.
  • Personalization – content personalization is a great way of improving and establishing any business as a customer experience leader. Machine learning can help e-commerce and other websites in providing personalized suggestions to its users. With the data that is collected, Ai can be used to identify the online behavioral pattern of a specific demographic and personalize the content to cater to the specific needs and requirements. This not only helps a business connect with its audience but also creates a lasting relationship with them.
  • Incorporating new tech in design – with new technologies emerging every day, the relevant must be integrated within the website design to enhance the customer experience. Integrating technologies like voice search, chatbots, and subtitle generation for videos have shown that such technologies within the web design will enhance and improve websites.
  • Effective marketing – with machine learning and data, a business can have innumerable opportunities, especially for e-commerce. It can help in effective branding and marketing based on customer behavior by evaluating different parameters like the type of product that the customer needs, its price, the pace the customer likes to buy, and lots more.

Whether combining web design and artificial intelligence is healthy or not is an ongoing argument. Keeping in mind the current trends integration of AI in design has shown great potential in improving customer experience. The future will witness the use of AI across all industries to grow their business.

Consumer Data Drives Growth

12 Nov 2020 Digital Marketing

Data is now an integral part of every sector and function in the global economy and much of the modern economic activity simply cannot take place without it. The large pools of data when collected and analysed can help identify patterns and help in making better decisions which form the basis for competition and growth for organizations. To determine the competitive advantage that an organization can gain with customer data-enabled learning, there are some important questions that they should answer.

  • How much value addition is made with customer data?

The higher the value-added the higher the chance of creating a lasting competitive edge.

  • How quickly does the marginal value of data-enabled learning drop off?

What this means is that how soon does an organization reach a point where additional customer data no longer enhances the value of the offering? When the marginal value of learning from customer data remains high even after having a large customer database, the organization still will have a lot of competitive advantages.

  • How fast does the relevance of the data depreciate?

If the data become obsolete quickly, then the organization stands to lose its competitive advantage over others in the same industry.

Having looked at how data can help organizations, it is now time to consider the role of data for marketing agencies and how it is driving growth. The role of a marketing agency has been evolving due to the ever-evolving digital landscape. New sources of consumer insights clubbed with new technological advancements have transformed the way brands connect with their consumers. Agencies are now tasked with delivering unique actionable audience insights to provide the base for persona development, analytics, and more by

  1. Crafting new client pitches – customer data can be crucial in forming new client pitches as they offer insights and opportunities to grow a business. This data helps in formulating a plan that will translate into client deliverables. Since the customer data will not be available for a comprehensive analysis, the agency can leverage what they know about the brand’s target audience concerning demographics, psychographic, and other data. In doing this, they can clearly show
    • A strong and distinct understanding of the target audience and audience segments.
    • Help in enhancing the brand’s existing customer files, campaigns, and analytics
    • Gather insights about the competitors and show prospects and untapped opportunities.
    • Help in planning of product roadmap based on untapped consumer wants and needs
    • Enhance and improvise on the customer experience based on consumer personas.
  1. Formulate data-driven personas – data can be very useful not only in formulating new client pitches but also to develop personas for organizations. Personas focus on creating characters to represent user types for a brand, site, or product. These personas have contributed in a big way by helping a brand get a better understanding of their customers to personalize projects for better ROI. Strong personas can help brands
    • Improvise the customer experience by ensuring that brands are talking to the right people, delivering the right message through the right channel.
    • Invest in the right channel- personas help brand prioritize what channels to use to have the maximum return.
    • Craft relevant messaging-personas have known to help brands tailor communication by ensuring that the audience is receiving messages as per their preferences. With the right data, brands can pinpoint the key motivators and help determine what makes the audience different and tick.
  2. Improving campaign performance– developing personas in the stepping stone to elevating the marketing efforts of a brand. Consumer data is a vital resource for agencies who are looking to meet and exceed the performance goals. By combining various kinds of data, efforts can be made to build sophisticated audience models that can be consciously used for the execution of the campaign through all the stages of a customer’s journey from acquisition to retention. This has often led to a better campaign performance from awareness to engagement to conversion.
  3. Enhancing analytics and insights– analytics and insights based on consumer data are essential to optimizing efforts made for the future. Enhanced analytics is a key area of focus for brands. To capitalize on this, the agencies must have on-demand access to unique data sets and tools that can be used to the needs of the brands they serve. It is a well-known fact that third-party data when used with campaign analytics can help brands discover new audience insights that lead to new opportunities.
  4. Provide data processing and consulting service– in today’s date, the agencies should not only be equipped with deep data expertise that helps in persona development, campaign performance, and enhanced analytics and insights but also serve as always-on advisors for data management and evaluations. According to a recent study by Forrester Consulting, companies are dedicating 21% or more of their marketing budgets to data and analytics. Having said that many organizations have hurt their campaigns due to inaccurate, outdated, and inconsistent data, thereby presenting an opportunity for marketing agencies to offer value by using data and analytics to their advantage.

For brands to get the most out of the marketing efforts, there needs to be a shared understanding between the brand and the marketing agency of the goals and the target audience. By offering high-quality consumer data and leveraging across the marketing funnel, from persona development to campaign execution and analytics and insights, new doors can be opened for a collaboration between the brands and the marketing agencies.

How Gen Z Is Transforming Digital Marketing?

10 Nov 2020 Digital Marketing

The generation we are born in defines who we are. Be it Millennial, Generation X, or any other generation, they are likely to respond to advertising in a way that aligns with others from the same generation. With Generation Z which mainly comprises of individuals born between 1995 and 2015 now entering the workforce, they are poised to upend the digital marketing industry.

How is Gen Z disrupting digital marketing?

  • This generation is unique as they have always had technology as a part of their lives and they have never known life without social media and smartphones. This shift has led to the way we communicate, connect, and market to one of the fastest-growing consumer bases. They are also a generation that has transformed multitasking into an art form. Having said that, Gen Z stands to contradict themselves as they are comfortable with analog forms of communication instead of the digital channels.
  • For Gen Z, a workplace is a primary place where they feel the most comfortable and prefer face-to-face communication. With more and more of this generation joining the workforce, it becomes essential for any digital marketer to gain a basic understanding of what makes them tick and their preferred channels of communication.
  • Gen Z has values that include determination, independence, and a strong work ethic and they love to learn new things. They create anything and everything and use social media channels to promote it. It is in their era that influencer culture has picked up and become a unique marketing avenue. Influencers set the precedent for trends by promoting clothing lines, beauty products, social causes on their blogs, social media channels, or by creating videos. Influencer culture provides a unique opportunity for marketers to think outside the box and convert Gen Z followers into leads. Getting an understanding of influencers or channels that make them stand out will help in reaching a wider audience.
  • Social causes are a major selling point for Gen Z. a large population of them believe and advocate for the environment. They are a contribution to promoting the sustainable product revolution. The cause coupled with digital interaction provides a perfect avenue for marketers to connect with Gen Z potential consumers who are willing to pay more for sustainable products. Gen Z is searching for sustainable fashion products video content to engage with providing a platform for marketers to reach them.
  • Gen Z is accelerating the change in the communication industry. Marketers must focus on understanding the rules behind social media functionality. E.g. hashtag best practices- when these are used to grow the audience base, the focus should be on not only appealing to the target audience but also on the causes they support. Another important aspect of communication is the ability to adapt. Gen Z shows lightning-speed dexterity as they navigate their smart devices, switching between apps skillfully and easily. This generation is equipped to multitask and also are looking for a change. The digital marketing campaign should be designed to keep these principles In mind and prepare for the unexpected.
  • Disruption is a part of the digital marketing world, making change a constant for digital marketers who need to navigate this change for achieving success. Staying on top of social media trends is not enough. The focus needs to be on technological advancements that will help expand the reach.

Gen Z is defined by its relationship with technology, its commitment to social causes, and transparency. The use of technology helps in documenting every aspect of their lives from leisure to work. This combination poses a challenge for digital marketers who are struggling to keep up with Gen Z.

ONLY Webinars to host ‘Attracting & Retaining Talent in the #newnormal’ Webinar

2 Nov 2020 News

Dubai, UAE – 2 November 2020: ONLY webinars will be hosting a webinar titled, ‘Attracting & Retaining Talent in the #newnormal’ on Tuesday, 3 November 2020 at 11 am UAE Time. The webinar will be presented by Headhunting & Recruitment Consultants, Line Hjorth, and Christina Hansson, and moderated by Sharad Agarwal, Founder of ONLY webinars.

In this dynamic 60-minute free-to-attend webinar, Line Hjorth and Christina Hansson will share their valued tips and insights on how to attract and maintain the very best talent post-Covid-19.

Employees are the greatest assets of any company. A strong and talented workforce enables an organisation to innovate, compete, and succeed. In response to the global pandemic, talent acquisition is more important than ever and is being shaped and changed to the #newnormal.

Talent is crucial for any company’s performance and for overcoming the challenges we are all facing right now:

  • Do you know that 75% of all employers struggle to find the right candidates?
  • Do you know that hiring the wrong candidate can cost you more than 30% of that individual’s annual earnings?
  • How do you rebuild and restart your employees post Covid-19?
  • How do you build trust during remote interviews with new candidates?

In the wake of coronavirus, recruiting leaders and their teams are grappling with a host of new issues. In the short term, talent acquisition teams are figuring out ways to make what has historically been a very high-touch human process – a virtual one. They are trying to find out how to effectively work from home, conduct video interviews, make successful offers, and remotely onboard new hires.

Professional headhunters can help business owners and entrepreneurs to grow their business by finding the right talent in quick time and in a cost effective way.

Sharad Agarwal, Founder of ONLY webinars, opined “COVID-19 has changed the way we live, work – and hire. In today’s post COVID economy, organisations must hire the right talent for the right position. There is zero margin for error. Budgets, goals, and headcount are all getting serious reconsideration. Whether your business is booming or grinding to a halt, maintaining a strong employee experience during this time will impact your brand long after the pandemic passes. Clearly, the companies prioritizing employee experience today will be in the best position to attract candidates when it’s time to hire en masse again.”

Those interested in attending this webinar can register online at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jH1H5_BQS52lfQ4RbGf7NA

About ONLY webinars

ONLY webinars is a venture launched by Cyber Gear to assist organisations in the region to design, host, and promote webinars online.

Webinars are ideal for boosting brand awareness and legitimacy, turning prospects into customers, and increasing revenue. Most businesses have turned to online platforms to communicate effectively with their stakeholders. All touchpoints of communication are becoming contactless and webinars offer a great way to promote products and services online.

For more information, contact:
Sharad Agarwal
Founder
ONLY webinars
04 3312627
0506449103
info@onlywebinars.com
https://www.onlywebinars.com

Top 10 Social Media Trends For 2021

28 Oct 2020 Social Media

Covid 19 has worked as a catalyst for accelerating initiatives and ideas that were still in the wings and may have not have happened so soon if it was not for the pandemic. The future of social media may not look anything like what we have witnessed till now. Here is the forecast for social media trends for 2021.

1. Impact of a socially conscious audience – We know-how in 2020 the socially conscious audience impacted the brands, politics, and society. The focus for companies will now have to move to areas such as social justice, mental health, and inclusivity as the highly charged Generations Z and Alpha are well aware of these issues and they use social media to bring attention to them. The companies will have to go beyond words and take action on demonstrating their commitment to creating an honest social impact. They will have to reposition themselves in 2021 by using more cause-driven messaging which will drive higher engagement with the younger generation.

2. Rise of digital disinformation – The year 2020 has been very difficult for one and all and it has brought forth the issue of disinformation. The focus in 2021 for brands and social media channels will be on putting forward the truth to put an end to all the false stories. Brands will have to be transparent with the information so that there are no information gaps, thereby excluding the chance of any misinformation being passed on to the audience. They will also need to invest in ensuring that all communication channels, be it social media, email, etc. are secure and verified to avoid hackers from giving out any false information. Brand monitoring will have to be scaled up and brands will have to be careful with the information they put out to avoid any kind of controversy with the authenticity of the information.

3. The new normal for social media giants – The social media giants will stay as relevant in 2021 as they have been in the past with some new features and changes according to the current trends. There have been many negative stories that have surrounded some of the social media platforms, but they have still shown growth in the user numbers and their reach. For brands, they should focus on being on a few social media channels rather than hopping on to any and every niche platform that comes up. They should keep innovating with the new features that are offered by the selected channels and monitor closely these channels. Analytics tools will help gain consumer insight which can guide content planning and ideation. Lastly, monitor all investments made in paid social closely to optimize the campaigns.

4. Old school marketing methods for a new market – 2021 will see a rise in old-school marketing as brands switch to simpler ways of engaging with their audience. Podcasts and newsletters have gained importance once again during COVID times. Voice is likely to become big in the future with the use of voice search, voice notes, and now voice tweets as well. Companies need to focus their efforts on providing information that the consumers are looking for quickly which can be done through podcasts and newsletters which take lesser time to put together over video content. The creative segmentation of the consumer database has further led to ensuring that companies can deliver highly personalized messaging to get the information they are looking for. Omni channels influencers should be explored as they have multiple connection points with their audience, ensuring higher engagement and impact of the content they share.

5. Social gaming = gaming social – Video games served as a form of distraction during the lockdown imposed due to COVID 19. One can find many forums and groups around games which have created communities dedicated to fanbases. 2021 will see brands becoming more focused on these gaming communities grow stronger. Brands should focus on looking for communities with the right demographics to increase their customer base. They should try and understand the people who belong to these communities and what is it that makes them tick to create content designed especially for them.

6. AI marketing – Marketing today is all about connections and conversations to grow the brand, build relationships, and create sales. With the pandemic, companies have realized that it is not all about sales for the customers. It now involves information, engagement, and social issues that are driving consumers and their future retention. Brands should look at Chatbots, social media channels, and SMS as ways to provide an opportunity to its consumers to start a conversation with them. They should explore AI-based opportunities to make their prospects as connections. Humanizing the brands goes a long way in making a brand more approachable. Integrating customer service data from all channels such as chats, emails, and calls into the analytics platform will provide insight into all aspects of the customer journey from identifying key messages that engage consumers, listing down the pain points obstructing the sales process and post-sales complaints that can have a direct impact on the brand.

7. Nostalgia marketing – Positive emotions connected with ‘good old days’ help people disconnect from their current struggles. Brands should focus on connecting that positive emotion with themselves. This will help build an emotional relationship with the consumer as you made them feel good and hence, they associate your brand as a good brand. To achieve success in this, the focus of any brand should be on knowing your audience in different demographic sets. Then the next big step would be to dig deep into the historical data to target these demographic sets. Some old products can be considered for re-release to target the existing audience and entice the younger generation to buy the product. Engaging with influencers who have focussed on building communities based on nostalgia element. They can help connect with the audience that is already connected with the past.

8. Memetic media – Memes are the way forward into 2021. They are the new way to communicate and a fun way to engage communities on the internet. Memes can be both positive and negative. Since they have been gaining popularity, they have been used for malicious reasons as well. Hence in 2021, brands will need to protect themselves from memes. As memes appear across social media channels, there will be more monitoring for brands to minimize the propaganda potential of it. Brands will have to use image recognition to see if their logo features in any of the memes. Memes can work in favour of the brands. They can connect their content to popular memes which can lead to higher engagement and more virality for the brand. User-generated memes can be shared on the most effective channels giving credit to the creator to build a strong brand connection while encouraging others to create branded content too. With memetic media set to grow, there will be possible regulations that will be put in place. Ensure that as a brand you are aware of them and do not break any rules.

9. The four Cs of COVID 19 content – Even when the pandemic is over, the repercussions of it will be felt for years making it hard for the consumers to simply forget. Brands will need to adapt their communications keeping this in mind. The 4 Cs of COVID 19 content will set the tone for 2021. The 4 Cs are Community, Contactless, Cleanliness, and Compassion. The brand will have to focus on monitoring the pandemic and how they can help customers through it which will impact the communication strategy. Promoting key messaging with the focus on content that covers the needs and concerns of the consumers will help in engaging and building stronger connections with the community. Address the issue of cleanliness and have a more compassionate campaign. Be on the lookout for how the audience is responding to the brand messaging with ever-changing issues in the current scenario. Prepare a crisis plan to prepare you for the unexpected.

10. Remixing is the new user-generated content – The way user-generated content is being created and shared is new. Remixing is on the rise through apps like Instagram Reels, TikTok, and Koji. Remixing involves using the existing formats, templates, or ideas and recreating them to express the user’s personality. 2021 is all set to bring more opportunities for remixing, with brands engaging with a new audience and creating content that stands out. Giving out logos or branded templates will help users create remix effectively and encourage creativity. This will provide an opportunity for brands to engage and encourage them to create more. Consider channels that you may not be included in your strategy. TikTok helps brands in connecting with the younger, more creative audience. Remember to be vigilant of the user-generated content as all of it is not positive.

2021 promises success for those who put their consumer at the centre of their marketing strategy.  The brands who fully understand their consumers- their needs, motivations, conversation, and take action based on these insights, will survive what lies ahead. It is now the time to listen to what the customer has to say to achieve brand success in 2021.

How To Build A Robust Backlinking Strategy?

27 Oct 2020 Digital Marketing, SEO

Backlinks are the second most important ranking factor as stated by Google. These rankings play a vital role in driving traffic to your website, grow readership, and increase the audience base. An important element in building your website authority to improve ranking in search engine results pages is through strategic networking and links to your websites from other well-known sites.

What is Link Building?

Link Building is an SEO strategy that involves getting links from other websites that can be included in the content of your website. The main goal of link building is to increase the search visibility of your website on search engines. These links work to boosts the SEO as they send signals to search engines about the helpful information being a part of the content on your website and the site is high quality.

There are many ways to devise a robust backlinking strategy. Let us understand these in detail.

  1. Resource Link Building – One of the most effective ways to build links is through resource link building. This requires identifying where the business can add value to the audience by creating a good resource page. To use this method, a thorough analysis of your competitors needs to be done to see who links to their website and not yours. This will help in devising a content strategy that will attract the attention of the businesses that link to your competitors and make them shift to your website to link with. Some of the examples include universities, travel, and tourism boards, etc.
  2. Turn Your Mentions Into Backlinks – This is one of the easier ways to gain new backlinks as someone has already written about your brand. This may be on a website, on social media, or any other channel. To get the backlinks, these mentions need to be converted to links that require getting in touch with the publisher of the content who usually has no issues doing the same.
  3. Broken Link Building – It is about finding informative webpages in your industry or niche with external links to dead pages. You can offer an alternative piece of content for the broken link to the webmaster and build new links. This is a lengthy and time-consuming method and requires special tools to find broken links.
  4. Benefits Of Guest Blogging – It is an effective way to reach a new audience and gain more exposure. The process requires publishing blog articles on other popular websites. This not only helps in gaining backlinks but works in your favour in building your online reputation.
  5. Supplier Links – If you are in the business of selling products of others, then it presents an excellent opportunity to earn some very authoritative links to your website.
  6. Business Association Links – Very similar to supplier links, here you need to compile a list of all associations that you are a member of and their websites. Look for a member page on something similar on their website and if not listed, get yourself listed. Another way to gain links is by approaching organizations in your industry that offer links to its members as a part of their membership. Getting membership in such organizations can benefit you in gaining more links.
  7. Writing Testimonials – Offering to write testimonials for brands that you have worked with is an excellent way to earn high-quality backlinks. Get in touch with brands that you work with and offer to write a review about your experience which they can post on their website. Brands are happy to receive positive feedback that they can share with others and link back to your website.
  8. Consider The Authority Of The Website Or Linking Page – A link acts as a vote of confidence in the website it is being linked to. A backlink from an authoritative website sends a signal to the search engines that your website is a credible source for the content it is being linked to. The higher the authority of the referring domain linking to the website, the more value you will gain from that backlink.
  9. Analyze Competing Sites – It is important to analyse the backlink profiles of competing sites to get an insight into their link building strategies and explore ways to replicate their links. The main focus here is to understand the reasons behind your competitors gaining those links and determine if the same can be done by you. Some easy links that can be replicated are user-generated, guest post links, and links from resource pages.
  10. Digital PR – A good way to build quality backlinks to your website is by using the power of Digital PR. It can help build relevant links on topics from well-known publications in your industry. These links help in positioning you as an industry expert which can majorly contribute to driving referral traffic. To obtain these kinds of backlinks you will need to provide linkable assets and promote them to journalists using PR tactics.
  11. The Skyscraper Method – It is a link building technique which involves
  • Finding content that has many links
  • Create better content
  • Promote your content to those who have links with the original piece.

This method works well as you build upon content that is already proved to be successful. It will help you build links that contribute to generating organic traffic and help to rank the website for competitive search terms and keywords. Do keep in mind that this method is all about creating the best piece of content available on the web for the chosen topic.

  1. Roundup Posts – It is a great way to build links to the content that is being created as a part of the content marketing strategy. Many people publish a roundup post regularly and are looking for content that they can include. All you need to do is get in touch with them and let them know about your content.

Many different ways can be used to get backlinks to your website. Which method works for you will depend on how you carried out link building in the past, the industry that you are in, and what the competitors are doing.

The AIDA model for content marketing

26 Oct 2020 Content

Content marketing is used by many businesses as a means to promote products and services, building a brand image, and reaching out to a new audience. Content marketing can be very effective when the focus is on creating original content that appeals to the target audience. AIDA can help grab the attention of the people and guide them through the content to the extent that they take action on what they read.

The AIDA model is a tested marketing methodology that has been used by various organizations. It can be effectively used to improve the content marketing strategy of any business and drive sales.

What Is AIDA?

A = Attention

I =  Interest

D = Desire

A = Action

AIDA, when carefully followed in a piece of content can help consumers along the experience funnel. It starts with getting the attention of the target audience, engaging them, getting them curious and excited with the content for them to continue reading. The next step focuses on building their interest in the offering to the point that they relate to the product/service/ information being offered. By this time, as a business, you build on their desire to purchase the product, service, or experience and finally nudge them to the point that they take the action.

Let us dive deeper into understanding the AIDA model for Content Marketing. We will explore the different concepts and how they can be applied to different pieces of content.

A = Attention

This is the toughest stage in the AIDA model where it is all about getting the attention of the reader. To capture the attention, the focus needs to be on a relevant concept for the target audience. When planning the content be it an article, a post, or a landing page, you need to think about the target audience and how the content is going to make them take the necessary action. Focus on asking a question like

  • Who is going to be reading the content? Develop a persona to describe them to get a better understanding of the target audience.
  • What is the pressing problem that you wish to address through your content?
  • What kind of solution will your content provider to the target audience? Will the content introduce them to an idea that can make a shift in the way they address the problem, or buy a product or service? To what extent can it help solve the problem?
  • How does the audience address their problem? What is the most effective way to get the message across?

One of the best ways to capture the attention of your prospects is by creating a catchy headline and having a highly engaging lead paragraph. Think out of the box and adopt a tone that resonates with the audience. Many different writing styles can be used, but you should focus on using the language and terminology that is well understood by the target audience. If you feel that the content strategy is not working as per plan, audit the headline and the lead paragraph.

I = Interest

Once the reader is hooked, the next challenge is to maintain their interest. It is time to help them see how well you understand their problem and engage them deeper. Use the information you have and try and hold the reader’s attention. By crafting content that informs, educates, and makes the reader feel that the content was written for them on their pressing issues, you will be able to generate an emotional reaction. Use research statistics, expert views and analysis, and case studies to support the claims you make. Sometimes sharing personal experiences can reassure the reader and make them feel more connected.

D = Desire

For people creating content, it can get difficult to distinguish between interest and desire. Having your audience interested is key to reaching the next stage where the reader starts to think about desiring the product or service being offered. In other words, reading about something and then thinking that the product or service being offered by the business is great, to deciding that it is something that you as a reader need to address your issue. To understand this better, let us look at an example of a business providing social media solutions in a B2B setup. Here the audience that you are trying to target is the social media managers for big companies whose main concern is to quantify the impact of social media campaigns and its impact on sales. There are many tools available but none as the product you offer which can get the results with a few clicks. As a content marketer, it is your job to capture the interest of the audience by pitching a catchy headline that appeals to the audience. Then through your content which is based on scenarios faced by the targeted audience, you can explain how best your product will help them achieve their objective of tracking and quantifying every interaction. This will hold their interest and help you tap into the emotion that the social media manager feels- mainly the desire to control the outcome or the fear of being caught in a situation where they are not able to achieve their objective-thereby creating a desire to have access to your offering.

A = Action

Once the desire is stirred up amongst your prospects, the next stage involves taking action. The main focus here is to have a call to action which makes the intentions clear and points the reader in the right direction. Call to actions should be simple statements that let the readers know what to do next like signing up for a newsletter, buy a product, watch a video, etc. Remember that every content should have a call to action. Carefully plan and design the call to action- the layout, button structure amongst other things. There may be concerns about privacy related to sign-ups and parting with payment details. Ensure that the privacy policy is clear and offer a guarantee. Address all issues that may stop the target audience from taking action.

A good content strategy is one of the most effective ways to grow your business. Focus on getting your content read by more people, keep them hooked, and direct them towards taking action. Use the AIDA model effectively for your content marketing.

 

Digital Marketing for SMEs

20 Oct 2020 Digital Marketing

The way to succeed in today’s competitive market is by reaching your prospective customers quickly. The majority of the buyers are looking for products online. This presents a huge opportunity for SMEs’ to focus their marketing efforts towards investing in a wide range of digital methods that they can adapt to suit their objective, budget, and industry. Whether they’re trying to grow a construction business or restaurant, digital marketing is necessary. Digital marketing has transformed the way SMEs connect and engage with their customers. SMEs can use digital marketing to effectively put their brand in front of the target audience at the right place and at the right time.

What is Digital Marketing and why is it important?

  • Digital marketing is the form of marketing that relies on electronic media to spread the message across. This mainly includes websites, emails, search engines, social media platforms as well as TV and radio commercials. Investing in digital marketing is crucial for SMEs as both the consumers and the competitors are online. If the prospective consumer is not able to find you online, they are most likely to switch to other brands for fulfilling their needs. The consumer expectation has changed in the digital world of today. They search for products and services online, and if you do not have social media presence or a website, you can’t compete.
  • It helps in measuring the effectiveness and performance of the campaigns- it is possible to monitor the performance of the campaigns in real-time. There is timely data available through various tools like Google Analytics to review the effectiveness and performance of the current strategies and make changes accordingly to refine them to focus on the customers’ requirements. Metrics like engagement and conversions help in measuring the success of the campaign.
  • Drives new inquiries to grow any business, the customer base needs to grow for higher revenue and profit. Customers can be reached through social media channels, websites as well as video marketing. Mobile customers are a rapidly growing market and the above efforts help in attracting these users to ensure you can generate more traffic and capitalize on it.
  • Websites serve as a 24/7 sales representative- For SMEs, having a strong online presence can help in boosting and generating sales and reach the audience more efficiently. A well planned and designed website works round the clock for you to attract potential customers by providing information related to the products and services.
  • It is cost-effective- SMEs sometimes do not have the budget to focus on traditional marketing such as print ads, TV, etc. This can be a disadvantage for them. Digital marketing is far more cost-effective. A well-crafted digital marketing strategy can help reach prospective customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods. Attention should be paid to understanding the results of the data generated by digital marketing tools to increase revenue without spending a lot of money.
  • Maximize ROI- high ROI is the ultimate goal of any business investing money in the marketing campaigns. With digital marketing being far more cost-effective than traditional marketing, it has been more successful in generating higher ROI. Analytics tools help in understanding what is working and what is not to make necessary adjustments ensuring effective utilization of marketing budget.
  • Helps build brand awareness- digital marketing has revamped the way businesses engage with potential as well as current customers. It has served as an effective tool for building trust and fostering long-term relationships. Social media has helped businesses reach the target audience and connect with them. Content created to target the prospective customers can ensure brand visibility and develop trust by addressing the interest and their pain points.

After getting an understanding of what digital marketing is and why it is so essential in today’s day and age, let us look at some digital marketing strategies that SMEs should implement.

  1. Optimization – It is one of the most important steps that any SME should take before going ahead with spending on online advertising. If the customers visit your website and they do not like what they see, chances are that they will never return. There are many aspects to website optimization, with SEO playing an important role in the ranking of the website on search engines. Optimizing helps in online visibility which can be attributed to website design, accessibility, user experience, content, and speed. Minimal designs are known to capture the attention of the audience. With the use of colours and visual content, you can establish your brand and its image. Websites should be designed keeping in mind the functionality to guide users to take action and look for products and services. It should be easy for a user to fill out forms, use drop-down menus, etc. With more and more traffic being generated from smartphones, the websites should be optimized for all different devices. Research has shown that when a website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, the bounce rate goes up thereby losing half the potential customers. Optimizing the size of files, photos, and graphic content will ensure faster loading time. Last but not the least, the content of the website needs to be good in quality and should be informative to encourage a visitor to stay and come back for more. It should relevant to the target audience. Using keywords in the text content, image tags, links, etc will help when people search for your content online as search engines will index the website.

 

  1. Social Media Marketing – Social media is a great tool for online marketing. It is the best way to reach people who are active on social media channels. Marketing on social media helps in many ways for SMEs to get noticed. Ads and posts can be created keeping in mind the target audience to reach the users who are likely to buy the product and services. Social media offers great ways to engage with the target audience and build strong relationships. Emphasis should be on interacting regularly on social media through posts. This not only helps increase the reach but Google also ranks organically as the brand is seen to be popular and worthy of organic ranking.

 

  1. Backlinks – Linking websites on high ranking websites and online directories are referred to as backlinks. Sites with quality backlinks are ranked higher by Google. Backlinks should be added naturally over time. This helps Google in perceiving that the website is gaining popularity and is worthy of indexing for its quality content.

 

  1. Google My Business – SMEs should get their business listed on Google. The profile should carry pictures and up to date information and encourage customers to review and rate the small business on Google. These ratings greatly impact in attracting customers to increase sales and grow the business.

 

To make digital marketing work for your business, you need to have a strategy in place to optimize and utilize all the resources available. An efficient digital marketing strategy means using all digital channels and creating a wholesome campaign. Integrating all the platforms goes a long way in achieving the objectives.

Google Adds AI To Algorithm

18 Oct 2020 News

Each time Google updates its algorithm, it is moving a step forward in making the search experience easy and more relevant to the users. It is imperative to stay up-to-date with the latest features and updates by Google.

As a part of the Search On 2020 event, Google made several announcements related to its search engine which provide varying levels of functionality. These new features aim at explaining how AI is now increasingly influencing the algorithms of its search engine and helping people find the information they need.

• Spelling recommendation improvements -The BERT algorithm being used currently, processes almost all the request in English. With the new algorithm, it will understand the misspelled queries using 680 million parameters which will help in terms of the quality of the search. In other words, Google has improved its spelling predictions to help find better matches for users.

• Identifying passages of the text – The second new feature is the ability of the algorithm to better understand a passage within a page by indexing individual passages of text within web pages in order to find relevant information hidden in the page relative to a user’s query. This helps with very specific and precise requests. This feature will arrive in November and will improve 7% of search results in all languages from the start.

• Key moments in videos -The videos also fall under the new innovations with a better understanding of the content to bring the visitor to the search engine directly to that part in the video where the answer to the question can be found. Using the AI approach Google has been able to align with YouTube chapters where creators are able to add descriptions relative to each segment of the video via timestamps, which can help Google by providing more context as to the content in each part.

• Hum to search – Something on the lines of Shazam, Google with its audio algorithms is now able to identify popular songs based on humming or whistling to the search app. It is very simple, hum a tune using google assistant and the algorithm will work to identify the potential song matches.

• Subtopics in search queries – Google is adding subtopics to its search queries. It means Google will show the users subtopics as options within the search results which will deliver greater diversity of content when something broad is searched. For example, if you search for home exercise equipment, Google will now be able to give results based on relevant subtopics like budget, small space ideas and show a wider range of content on the search results page.

• PinPoint for Journalist – Google has announced PinPoint which aims to help the journalists. It will be a free tool that will be available in 7 languages allowing them to search for information related to entities like names of people, places, companies, etc.

Additional features that Google will unveil in the coming weeks will be new visual search possibilities in Google Lens, the Knowledge Graph, Google shopping, Google Maps, and Google View. Keep a lookout for more updates from Google to stay ahead and informed.

Four Reasons why Appointment Scheduling is Essential for Every Business

14 Oct 2020 Uncategorized

Your office schedules hundreds of appointments each week. For a good clinical workflow, arranging activities such as negotiating follow-ups, sending reminders, and making new appointments are all key. That said they will suck up a lot of the time of your workers too, which is always at a premium. This is where a good appointment scheduling software comes into the picture.

Software systems for online scheduling reduce unnecessary time and improve medical office performance. Here are the top 4 reasons for considering this the best appointment scheduling software:

Save Time

Without the best appointment scheduling software, you would waste many hours a day on the phone or email simply trying to manage the new appointments, the reschedules and the cancellations. In order to make more out of your time, you would need a free online appointment scheduling software that would help you focus on rendering service, rather than being on the phone.

Stay Motivated

Telephone scheduling calls keep the workers most of the day unfocused and frustrated. Your front office has many tasks to perform during the day, including customer service, welcoming patients, answering questions and clerical errors. Distractions also lead to expensive mistakes and errors. Constant scheduling of appointments also interrupts these significant duties. Streamlining the scheduling process frees workers to complete the work they need. Therefore, a free online appointment scheduling software is a necessity to keep the team motivated so that they can conduct their core tasks.

Save Money

You’re wasting money if you’re not listening to your patients. A large number of patients agree that the opportunity to self-schedule their appointments is a priority. As an example, one can look at the medical industry where hundreds and thousands of appointments are made, adjusted and cancelled every single day. What does this mean for the business and more importantly, what does this mean for the patients? Patients benefit from the convenience of the best online appointment scheduling software. You can cut back on the needless expense of a human appointment scheduler with new innovations and the low cost of scheduling technology. Expand the patient potential of your practice while allowing your current employees to concentrate on more significant tasks. For more productive and effective work, online scheduling also enhances coordination between employees.

Additional Features

Beyond appointment scheduling, an online appointment scheduling software provides many features. With a secure online scheduling system for appointments, your practice can:  Eliminate the need for employees via phone or in-person to plan, shift, or cancel an appointment. Online scheduling of meetings frees workers to concentrate on important issues. Manage all this through the machine – right down to finding open appointments that suit the needs of the patient. Easily mimic patients. Many applications give patients auto reminders, days and even hours before their appointment (via email, mobile, text, or even mail). “I forgot,” is no longer a legitimate excuse. Without an appointment, answer simple questions. Most software provides HIPAA Compliant screening procedures that remove simpler medical conditions and issues. Solve easy diagnoses without having an appointment schedule. Many appointment scheduling software also allow pre-appointment forms to be uploaded by the office. Instead of wasting appointment time, the patient should fill these forms out ahead of time. The majority of patients prefer making their own online appointments. Not alone are you. Most health care providers fail to refine their plan for scheduling. 26 percent of scheduled online appointments are on the calendar for the same day or the next day, filling up vacant spots. Practices can now deliver real-time patient scheduling at any time and from anywhere – even at 3 a.m. with Internet connectivity.

If your company depends on appointments from clients and consumers, you need to make sure they are readily available with the best appointment scheduling software. A perfect way to do that is to use a free online appointment scheduling software. This way, your clients will be able to see exactly which appointments are available and book them immediately.

Unfortunately, in the e-commerce process, appointments are frequently ignored, with businesses tending to concentrate on marketing and outreach. That would be a shame because of an inaccessible (or confusing) framework for appointments.

Moving your appointment scheduler online also ensures that your customers are more open to you. Customers just don’t have time to schedule appointments during working hours in today’s linked and busy world: data reveals that 35% of customers prefer making appointments during non-business hours, and 40 percent of online bookings actually happen after hours. There are substantial amounts. At a much cheaper cost, an appointment scheduler will give your customers 24/7 access to your appointments system.

It is definitely inconvenient for customers to miss appointments, but the implications go far beyond this. And if 5% of your clients don’t attend their appointments, you’re missing out on 5% of your profits. In fact, possibly more than 5%, since high-value customers are typically the busiest, and thus the most likely to miss an appointment with your team. Through submitting appointment reminders automatically and integrating with your customers, the best appointment scheduling software will significantly minimise no-shows.

Converting visitors and engagement into appointments is one of the major challenges faced by online companies. You would miss out on a lot of business without a strong and quick CTA (call-to-action) in any of your marketing materials. A good CTA will increase software sales conversions by 32 percent . Neglecting to verify the CTA is another cardinal sin as well. An appointment scheduling system helps consumers to directly see your accessibility and facilities from your materials for outreach. Of course, you can go much further. Using AI assistants as an alternative to their appointment booking systems, some businesses have had great success. Not only will these assistants allow your clients to see which services and appointments are right for them, but they can also address fundamental questions and even perform customer service duties. An appointment scheduling software is something that can revolutionize the way a business works.

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