Be Different or be dead

September 12, 2020

How chatbots can give you a competitive advantage

Chatbots have gained an inevitable role in digital marketing due to its multitude of benefits. Marketers have expressed that the advent of chatbots helps them in many ways as chatbots can be automated to perform specific tasks.

Social platforms have evolved into ‘sales points’ for most brands. Chatbots can be leveraged in multiple ways on these platforms to maximize the conversion rates.

Chatbots can be utilized in a variety of cool ways to take your business performance to a whole new level and to make it stand out in the crowd. 

The dynamic conversational tool

Today, brands are keener on conversational marketing. They are looking for ways to develop an interaction as it helps them have a better understanding of a prospect so that they could frame a more relevant marketing strategy to a particular individual.

Let us consider that a person has landed on your e-commerce website. And usually, a website will have many webpages, so it might take some time for the person to find what they were looking for.

But, you can facilitate this process through your chatbots, and assure a smooth experience for them.
The chatbot can be automated to welcome the prospect with the message like ‘Hi, Hope you are doing well? May I know what you are looking for?’
It also leads them through the various sections of your website. Later, based on their interest, it directly takes them to the page and shows them the exact product they have been looking for.

If the prospect is not happy with the product shown, it will display relevant suggestions stating that ‘Check our new arrivals, I hope it matches your interest’, and it drives them to check out the product.

The notable feature of chatbots here is that the conversation of chatbot sounds more human. Thus, a chatbot is equipped enough to drive a person to purchase your product.

The way a chatbot can be used to create a better customer experience

Today, people are expecting a quick response to their queries. A recent survey has noted that 55% of customers stop purchasing their usual brand if they feel that the response is getting delayed from the company end.

So, brands don’t want to lose this staggering number of customers. Hence, to sort this out, many companies have started employing chatbots. They are capable of offering a real-time response to the queries.

Moreover, they have the potential to handle any number of customers simultaneously. Marketers opine that chatbots could solve 60% of basic customer queries.

Make sure you know the basic queries people usually shout out and incorporate the replies into your chatbots, which helps it to deal with the customers efficiently. Trollishly is a renowned service provider known for generating quality leads for businesses. 

Craft personalised ads using chatbots

Today, personalization plays a crucial role in generating new customers and sustaining the current ones.
The brand that takes personalization seriously can achieve high sales.

Chatbots play an influential role in personalization. If a person lands at your Facebook page, for example, it will start a conversation with them, as noted above. Simultaneously, it also collects necessary information about the prospect.

The reply to the chatbot will help you to know about the prospects’ interest. Hence, in a very short period of time, you can create a personalized ad for them and drop it in their Messenger.
For instance, you can prepare a customized ad with framing sentences like ‘Hi Roy, glad you have landed on our page. Here are some of the leather jackets that are made exclusively for you.’

Make sure that you have added the name of the customer as it will give them a feeling that you have valued them among a ton of customers that you serve and that you have framed an ad exclusively for them.

Chatbots: ‘The data driver’

Usually, you derive a strategy for your prospect based on the data you collected about them. Hence, the more data you collect about a prospect,  the more you can have a better understanding of them.

Subsequently, this will help you frame a more relevant strategy facilitating the process of turning a prospect into a customer. The chatbots can be used to retrieve more information about a prospect such as their email and phone number by scanning various sources available on the internet.

It also delivers data about the customer’s purchasing pattern and their commonly visited sites, which will also help you make accurate predictions about them. So, chatbots are also regarded as ‘Data Drivers.’

Today, all the top brands have their very own chatbots to enhance their business and to generate leads. Their proactive nature and fast-paced action have caught the attention of people.
Hence, they are looking to take advantage of this technology to achieve their goals on social platforms. So, incorporate chatbots in your strategy without any second thought. 

Integrate chatbots with social messaging platforms

Many brands discard social messaging platforms without knowing its potential. Social messaging platforms like WeChat, Messenger, and Viber are witnessing a steady rise in their user base.

For instance, Facebook Messenger is home to 1.3 billion users, which is anticipated to reach 2.5 billion users by 2022. A recent survey has noted that 55% of people who interacted with the chatbot are pleased by its ‘conversational tone.’
Hence, integrating chatbots into Messaging platforms will also play its part in uplifting your sales.

Renowned brands like H&M and Domino’s Pizza have integrated their chatbots with Facebook Messenger. These chatbots help people place the order within it without switching to the browser or any application.

Bottom line

Chatbots possess all the features that are essential for modern-day marketing ranging from spotting quality leads to interacting with them and driving them to take action.

Since researches are still underway to equip chatbots, it will gain a more prominent marketing role in the coming years.

If you want to start your career as a digital marketer, check here.

— Claire Divas is a US-based freelance content writer and longtime reader about new trends in Digital Marketing. She loves to work in WordPress and focuses on her writing skills. She also experienced in content marketing to make a qualified SEO. You can follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Posted 9.12.20 at 04:19 am by Roy Osing
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August 8, 2020

6 brand-building strategies startups can use to compete with big brands

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6 brand-building strategies startups can use to compete with big brands.

For every successful startup, there are at least a dozen that don’t see the light of the day. Many startups fail, not because of their intentions or the quality of their product, but because they couldn’t build a brand and set themselves apart from the competition.

Brand building is an integral part of business development and growth. Establishing a brand is challenging, even when you have ample resources at your disposal. It is more challenging for startups since they are new players in the market and often face budget and time constraints.

Being at a growing phase, startups struggle to compete with the business giants that have already established themselves as a brand. In such scenarios, you should be familiar with the right branding tactics to maximize your popularity among customers as a startup.

In this blog, we’ll explore essential brand-building strategies that will not only help you get started but also compete with the big brands in your niche. But before we dive into the nitty-gritty of branding, let’s define what we mean by brand building.

What is brand building?

Brand building is the process of promoting products or services of a business to consumers. The goal is to create a positive, unique, and lasting image of your business in the marketplace.

Creating a memorable impression and maintaining it over time can be a demanding task. However, a positive image is something that startups can’t afford to overlook because it provides a basis for all your communications, marketing, and promotional campaigns.

To help you start on the right foot, here are a few brand-building strategies that you can adopt to grow your startup in a saturated marketplace.

Brand building begins with a good name

Brand name plays a key role in what customers will think of the business. Unfortunately, many people rush to give their business a title and end up with terrible brand names. Take your time and choose a name that is easy to pronounce and makes sense.

It is said that you have 7 seconds to make a good first impression. If the consumers spend that seven-second window only to pronounce and understand your name correctly, then you are not on the right track. Therefore, choose an easy name that is relevant to your brand and clearly conveys the brand’s message.

Differentiate yourself

You may have a brilliant business idea and product concept; there is a good chance that someone else already has a similar product in the market. You need to research the marketplace and identify how your brand will stand out from your competitors.

Offer a unique value proposition and position yourself in a way that the users can see the advantage that your brands have over your competitors.
For startups, it can be the only way to survive and compete with established brands. Look for ways to be different no matter small or insignificant the difference might seem.

Create a visual identity

A startup’s visual identity goes a long way in the branding process. There are many factors that go into a visual identity, including the brand’s logo, the images posted on the web pages, fonts, textures, and the color scheme used across the media. Come up with a professional logo design and create photos that clearly and accurately represent your brand.

Since you will be working on a range of different platforms to build a visual identity, make sure that the communication remains consistent across all the touchpoints where potential customers will encounter the brand. This will ensure that you convey the right values and be perceived the way you want and not the other way around. A good way to achieve consistency in branding is by creating a written document that will govern your branding and style guidelines.

Build your social media presence

The importance of social media presence cannot be emphasized enough for brand building. Social media can be a powerful tool to gain exposure and reach your relevant audience. Think of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to create a voice for your brand.

Research your target market and identify the platforms that your target audience actively uses. Once you identify the best platforms, it is time to create a company profile and utilize the power of the platform. Make sure that the pictures and cover photos you use match the brand’s visual identity.

To keep things simple, use the same logo and images you use on your website. Additionally, be consistent in communication and use language that accurately conveys the brand’s message in every post.

Utilize the power personalization

Tailoring your brand to your customers’ individual needs can have a massive impact on your brand building campaign. Personalization will, however, require extensive research of the market so that you can identify user’s interests and what makes them more likely to purchase a product.

Encourage users to interact with your brand and tailor the experience based on their interaction with the brand. Top brands always try to improve personalization and build products that meet customers’ needs and preferences.

Tell a story

When you look at the successful brands today, they all have a cult following based on their stories. For years, parents, teachers, and politicians have understood the power of stories, and you can utilize the same power in your brand-building efforts.

Share where your company comes from, and what inspired you to create the product that you currently offer. The deeper you dig into your brand’s background, the more you will understand your motivation, values, and purpose.

Wrapping up

Brand-building plays a vital role in a startup’s success. It will stand you apart from the competitors and help you build a lasting image in the marketplace. The above strategies will not only help startups with the process of brand building but also pave their way for long-term success. You only need to be clear about them and the way you will implement them.

— Alma Causey is a mother, wife, logophile and a professional blogger by choice. She has completed her masters in English literature from the University of Groningen. With her unique approach towards content marketing, she brings worth a second read blogs to life. Oh, Alma is incomplete without cats. Find her on Twitter: @Almacausey. And you can check out some of her past work at Muckrack.

• Posted 8.8.20 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
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August 1, 2020

Advertising during COVID-19: what you should and shouldn’t do

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Advertising during COVID-19: what you should and shouldn’t do.

Half of 2020 has gone by, and for many parts of the world, there’s still no sign of COVID-19 going away. It has left people no choice but to adapt to the “new normal.”

Today, businesses have three choices - to pause and wait until this all passes, shut down for good, or take the challenge in stride. Some brands have had no choice but to go for either of the first two. Of course, there are still those who are fighting to keep their businesses afloat.
If you belong to the latter, whether you’re the owner of a small or big business or a marketing professional, you know that one of the areas that you need to focus on is your advertising.

Advertising or marketing a brand during the COVID-19 pandemic is tricky. It is unprecedented, so there’s no rule book that you can refer to that can tell you exactly what to do and how things will turn out. That said, here are some helpful advertising “dos and don’ts” that you can apply during the pandemic to get you started on the right track.

Advertising DOs you should follow

◾️ Stay true to your brand values — If you want to create and maintain a real connection with your customers, you have to be authentic. And this has to be reflected in your messaging. If you want your brand to stay relevant during the present crisis, you have to let your audience see what you stand for and how you respond to the challenges.

For instance, BEHR, a paint company that stands for the importance of making people feel great in their homes has acknowledged the sudden shift of a lot of workers to a work from home setting. And they also understood that many people have homes that aren’t as camera-ready.

Their move of coming up with BEHR Your Background, which is a library of styled home backgrounds available for free, says a lot about what their brand values are and what they really are all about.

◾️ Revisit your creative juices regularly — Circumstances change rapidly even amidst the pandemic, this includes market trends and consumer behavior. For this reason, it’s wise to consistently reassess your creatives as well as your messaging to make sure that you stay relevant.

Ford has received positive attention when they swapped their existing ads for ones that feature the brand’s revised car payment relief program during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with subtle reminders of how the car company has stood by their customers in past disasters.

According to Kantar’s research, people are beginning to get tired of adverts with generic messaging that look and sound the same as many others. While there’s nothing wrong about doing your part in reminding people of the importance of staying home and observing safety precautions, you have to think of ways to be memorable, too.

Heinz’s “12 million breakfasts” campaign is an example of an outstanding creative and messaging that is effective in showing people that their brand is actually doing something and looking out for others during difficult times.

◾️ Examine your web analytics and segmentation and adapt your strategy — When the landscape is as unstable as it is currently, it is imperative that you don’t just listen to your audience but that you be attuned to them. You may have to segment your audience to make sure that people get the message that would resonate with them.

One way to do this is by monitoring your web analytics to see how customer behavior is changing and then segmenting your audience based on those shifts. Some of the things that you should pay attention to are changes in streaming behaviors, psychographics, and significant lifestyle changes, among others.

◾️ Find out what media channels your audience spends time on — As mentioned above, customer behavior has changed since the pandemic. It’s evident in a number of ways, including how people consume media. Aside from the increase in mobile video and gaming category, there has also been an increase in consumption of CTV during daytime on weekends that resulted in an auction volume rise for slots between 12 noon to 4 pm and 6 pm to 9 pm. Desktop video auction volume has also risen during the pandemic.

◾️ Go for the premium options — Given the uncertainty of the world’s situation right now, consumers are more careful and are very particular with credibility. According to Adobe and YouGov’s recent survey, consumers are more likely to support services and buy products with ads that are found on premium or paid content channels.

While there is nothing wrong with using user-generated content, the survey found that adverts found on premium channels were deemed 20% to 50% more credible compared to the former. This is something that you really want to think about, especially if you are considering using only user-generated content during this crisis.

Advertising DON’Ts you should remember



◾️ DON’T assume people’s content consumption hasn’t changed — You can’t and shouldn’t assume that there haven’t been any shifts in the way your audience is consuming content, especially because so many things have changed in their lives. For one, the movie and television industry has taken an indefinite pause. Most live sports have either been canceled or postponed. And the “new normal” set up of working from home has changed the way people spend their time with their screens at home, too.

Track these changes and refocus your advertising efforts based on the results you get. If you continue to assume that your audience’s content consumption is unchanging, you are at risk of losing a substantial portion of your audience.

◾️ DON’T hastily restrict placement of your ads on COVID content — As this crisis of epic proportions continues, there are brands that have been quick to pull out their regular pre-pandemic conceptualized ads. Perhaps it’s all about sensitivity and they’re thinking about what people would say if they have ads placed within pandemic-related content. You might want to think it through before following suit, though.

Know that with the incredible amount of coverage the pandemic has been getting, blocking your ads means you’ll lose the opportunity to connect with potential customers. If you are worried about what advertising on such content would do to your brand image, you’ll be relieved to know that Integral Ad Science’s recent report shows that 78 percent of people stated that their perception and sentiment towards general ads appearing near COVID-related content would likely stay unchanged.

◾️ DON’T carelessly share insensitive or panic-inducing ads — It’s a very sensitive time and people’s emotions are triggered easily by the littlest things. Make sure that your ads are evoking positive feelings and that they don’t come across as insensitive or fear-mongering.
This is especially important if your products or services are considered non-essentials. For instance, an ad for a fast food restaurant that features people eating-out together won’t be appropriate at a time when everybody is encouraged to stay home.

When revisiting your creatives, ask yourself if there’s an element in your ad that could possibly induce panic, misinform your audience, or appear insensitive? It’s a good idea to get the opinion of your customers and your team before you launch an ad campaign to know for sure that you’re not missing anything.

Coors Light, for example, made a good decision of pulling the plug on their March Madness ad that was supposed to feature their brew as “the Official Beer of Working Remotely.” While the message is not malicious at all, it could still appear to some as if the brand was making light of the situation that many of the workers and companies are facing now.
Hershey’s has made the same decision, too, regarding their ads that focused on human interaction that would seem inappropriate during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Final words

Everybody is in a state of worry today, wondering how they can improve conversion rates and keep their brands relevant in the time of COVID-19.

Hopefully, the “DOs and DON’Ts” can give you some insight on how your advertising strategy should look like during the pandemic and help you come up with campaigns that would resonate with your audience.

— Vincent Sevilla is a professional web designer and inbound strategist for HostingFacts. His goal? To innovate ideas, create good art, and to travel to all the best places in the Philippines. You can follow him on Twitter @easyvince

• Posted 8.1.20 at 06:47 am by Roy Osing
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June 29, 2020

8 proven ways to quickly and easily grow your business

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8 proven ways to quickly and easily grow your business.

Sources of growth the fast-and-easy way.

As a small business you are generally limited in terms of resources; cash reserves can get depleted, customers can dwindle in numbers and growth in your business is difficult to achieve — in fact in the COVID world, survival is your prime objective.

Here’s a quick way you can get your business back on the growth path.

Set the context for growth by a quick review of your business strategy — Survival and growth should be a function of what overall direction you want to follow based on your basic business.

Take a moment to review the business plan that has worked for you in the past; decide if you want to stay your course or if deviating from it is necessary given the new circumstances you face. It’s ok to make a change; your survival is at stake. And you just may find a new opportunity for your business in the post-pandemic era.

Dumb it down — Keep your approach simple; quick and easy sales is your objective with as little risk and investment as possible. Figure it out on the back of an envelope; it doesn’t have to be fancy just fast.
What demand seems to be there at this moment and how can you morph your basic business to take advantage of it? What assets for you have that can be used for a different purpose?

Some organizations with unused warehouse space launched manufacturing of personal protective equipment when things went sideways. Can you do a similar approach?
Decide how much revenue you need — Calculate how much revenue you need over what timeframe to turn the corner. Have a specific growth target and make it about top line revenue.

Even though the intent is to keep it simple and move fast, it’s important that you know approximately how many sales (and at what price points) you need so you can track your short term performance. You need to know if you’re making progress or not.

Declare your objective and be ok with not knowing how specifically to achieve it. Use ‘I don’t know’ to drive creativity and get your juices flowing.

Be short sighted — Look at short term performance; you don’t really have the luxury of looking far out into the future. Normally I would be recommending a planning horizon of not more than 24 months, however as I’m writing this piece three months into the COVID-19 era I’m now of the opinion that small businesses — no, all businesses — should be looking at what they need to do over the next 24 hours to achieve survival grade performance.

The shorter the planning period the more you have to execute to survive

Be clear on who you need to target — In the midst of chaos it’s really easy to start running all over and chasing opportunities. I’m not saying this is necessarily bad as long as it’s focused on customers you know have the potential to generate the sales you need to keep on breathing.

The easiest growth is achieved from the customers who buy from you repeatedly and often.
You should know who they are when they phone in an order or order something online; if you don’t, start capturing customer information ASAP so you can do everything possible to encourage them to return.

Organic growth is best achieved through the loyal customers you currently serve. Focus on THEM. Trust that with the right value proposition they will do more business with you and tell their friends and family.
Forget about trying to get new customers. If you happen to get some from word-of-mouth that’s ok but don’t try to be proactive. It’s time consuming, risky and takes your eyes off serving your existing base extremely well.

Think ‘fast-and-easy’ — An effective way to choose customers to target is what I call the fast-and-easy method.

It means choosing customers that:

Can be sold quickly — Customers you can get to fast with your current selling methods. If you have to build new sales channels, it will consume energy and precious time that you can ill afford without generating additional revenue.

In addition, as I’ve said elsewhere, it is critical to focus your efforts on the things that matter; those activities that you believe have a good chance at helping to grow your business.

Stick with what you know. Bear down on what you’re good at. Concentrate on customers you know. Ask yourself ‘Is this consistent with fast-and-easy?’ when considering chasing new stuff.

Are ‘close to home’ — In a geographic sense, explore the territory immediately around you before trying to exploit distant ones. If you have a good online presence, stay with the market focus you have.
Exploring new virtual or physical markets — probably with the need to establish new sales channels— can gobble up your time with questionable short term results.

Penetrate and dominate your current markets before you wander afar. This is an area where I’ve seen small business leaders fall flat on their face. They spot something new to do that is interesting and at least theoretically is a good idea and they decide to chase it, reducing the energy that is applied to fast-and-easy activities. They lose on both accounts: the new stuff doesn’t materialize and the current stuff suffers.

The fast-and-easy approach: get sales fast and don’t spend much time to get them.

Don’t need much selling — Where closing a sale can occur relatively quickly and revenue realized soon thereafter. An opportunity requiring a 12-month sales cycle won’t be terribly productive when you are in the survival mode.
Work with clients who will give you revenue tomorrow if you want to hit your sales targets.

And avoid customers who ask for proposals. Responding to the request and waiting for a decision will gobble up precious time you don’t have. The formal sales process is a time consumer; focus on people who are willing to deal you their business based on trust and past success with you.                         

Can give you quality referrals — Again, a short planning period requires closing as many high value deals as possible which generally means getting to deal closure without a lengthy sales preamble. High quality referrals should mean that your brand comes recommended and you can get to the solution presentation quickly.

Just do a few things — It’s critical to focus on doing the right one or two things that will kick in with sales; trying to do too much won’t work. You don’t have the resources or working cycles to pull it off. The secret is to pick a few critical objectives that you believe will give you an 80% chance of hitting your sales needs.

Avoid brainstorming as the way of setting priorities; if an action cannot be directly aligned with generating revenue from your loyal customer base, don’t chase it!

Stop! — It goes without saying that you can’t keep doing stuff that was part of your ‘yesterday’ unless you are absolutely confident it will make the survival sales you need.
Every time you’re tempted to do a comfortable ‘yesterday’ activity, stop and ask yourself whether it is necessary to meet your 24-hour sales goals.
You can’t afford to do unproductive things when you’re fighting for your life.

Yesterday’s relevance is today’s irrelevance.

Know where you are — Measure progress regularly to know if you are on track to hit your survival sales objectives or not. COVID has changed the meaning of time in this regard; you have to know literally every day where you stand. It’s the only way you will know if you have to change your plans on the run.
Pandemic notwithstanding, it takes discipline to grow your business; it doesn’t happen by serendipity.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 6.29.20 at 03:34 am by Roy Osing
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