Leverage Social Media to Tap

Back-to-School Market

Back-to-school shoppers are mostly students and mothers. Both the segments are highly active on social media. Especially with back-to-school shopping, most shoppers do their research, read recommendations, compare prices and look for latest trends. No wonder social media has emerged as a strong influencer for back-to-school shoppers. Moms usually look for trends and deals on Facebook, while kids more keenly follow Instagram etc. to look for trends amongst their peers.

Although, back-to-school shopping will only start after the mid of July at the earliest, this is the right time to start your social media planning, so that you can spread the work in time. Here are a few things that can inspire you to chalk you’re your social media plan for back-to-school shopping season.

·        Target moms and kids separately. Mothers may be more interested in bigger discounts and better quality, while kids might be hooked to what’s trending. Make separate campaigns for both groups keeping their preferences in mind.

·        Choose the right platforms. Moms may be looking at coupon sites, Facebook, Pinterest etc. Kids might be more interested in engaging content, that can capture their senses for the moment, so maybe a Youtube video or Instagram update or SnapChat promotions.

·        Focus on what’s important at that time; school essentials in July, fashion and accessories in August and September, winter fashion October onwards.

·      Don’t just focus on promotions and deals. Give out handy tips, planning charts, useful information, ideas etc. Most of the time stuff like this compliments the brand’s promotions. Users get familiarized and there is a certain trust also established.

Innovate. Innovate. Innovate. There is no limit to how creative and engaging your campaign can be. With technology, possibilities are immense. You just have to get very imaginative to stand out in a crowd that’s shouting deals and discounts only. Do you have a database such that you can personalize your offering? Can you add a little something extra to delight your customers? Engage your users, re-engage them. avail social media since it’s there, but do not overdo. Remember if you can go viral with a great campaign, you can also go viral with negative publicity, or hate reviews. 

Go Local Mobile!

Go Local Mobile!

If you have a business that caters to local market and you don’t intend to go global, you might have a valid argument for not having a mobile strategy. But what if your mobile strategy could get you a better grip on the local market itself? Now that’s a great argument too.

Here’s how local businesses can get a better grip on the local market growing their business in lesser spend than in traditional advertising.

Encash the ‘Mobile Moment’

Mobile moment is the exact moment when someone looks in to their mobile for something they need in that very moment. This could be some information, some place to eat, something they purchase, a song, a movie, or anything that your mobile can provide. By advertising in the relevant places with online banners and ads, you can encash on the mobile moment. Consider this use case; Alex was looking for pet food on his mobile phone. He saw an ad on Facebook about this pet store that has pet food, pet grooming services and vet services, plus it’s local. Bingo, Alex found exactly what he was looking for and by being in the right place at the right time, the store could encash on the mobile moment.

Good places to start with would be social media, advertising for local markets on social media, advertising on apps that provide geo-based advertising.

Encash on Your Mobile Presence

Mobile presence does not necessarily mean an app. While an app gives an added advantage, a responsive or mobile website does it as good if not better. Search engines are biased towards businesses that have mobile presence. When a user searches for something on the search engine, the search engine algorithm filters results by GPS location and, by mobile presence. So, if your business has mobile presence, you have a fair chance of having your listing placed ahead of someone who doesn’t. fair and square.

Have a responsive or a mobile website. Again, social media presence will give added advantage. Do get listed on all yellow-pages like listings popular in your area. You might even consider sponsored search results or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.  

Did Your App Just Get Uninstalled? Ouch!

You meticulously planned the app, got it created, chalked out a marketing plan that would make your app stand out amongst million others, incentivized users to download it, and boom, next thing you know is a chunk of users uninstalled it already…ouch! That must hurt. If it happened to you, here are some insight into what users expect from an app, and why they uninstall it. this should give you a fair platform to start your analysis and get back in the game.

According to a market research conducted by Survata, 71 percent of respondents, aged between 18 to 44, feel that tangible rewards was one of the most motivating factors leading to downloads. That said, retention also is dependent on benefits, but more than benefits, it is about performance.

When a user downloads an app, there’s brand promise, performance promise and value promise that user believes in, and downloads. To be able to engage its users, the app needs to be able to live up to that promise. If it fails in meeting expectations, users stop trusting it and uninstall it. For instance, for a retail app that promises to provide convenience and variety, but has a rather complicated navigation and limited stock, fails its users’ expectations and subsequently users uninstall it.

Another important factor is technical excellence. Users expect apps to be technically perfect, that’s the point of having an app in the first place. If your app crashes or freezes, users will uninstall it.

Last but not the least, you need to give your users reasons to come back to the app again and again. If you cannot bring your users back to the app, your app will become redundant to the user and will be uninstalled.

App users are fickle. Your marketing needs to be sharp, focused and agile. You need to race ahead of the users’ minds to be able to stay in the game.

How To Streamline Delivery with App

Mobile apps are not only bringing convenience and cost-effectiveness to consumers, but are also aligning business processes, saving man-hours, accelerating response time, connecting teams, expediting operations and catalyzing internal processes, helping businesses make huge savings and take giant leaps in customer fulfillment.

While apps are affecting all areas and functions of businesses, here’s an example of how an app can streamline ‘Delivery’ for retail businesses.

For retailers, especially in the online and mobile domain, ‘delivery’ is one of the most critical functions in the entire business processes cycle. With limited spaces for storage available, exorbitant warehouse costs, and increased same-day-delivery demands, delivery and fulfilment have become a real challenge, especially for small businesses that do not operate with the luxuries of sheer scale enjoyed by retail chains.

Delivery and fulfillment issues can be sorted by an application that combines planning, execution and reporting to monitor and chalk-out optimized delivery routes with real-time tracking, all on mobile devices to increase effectiveness. Here’s what companies need to consider when getting an application created for delivery.

Cost per delivery will considerably come down drastically if your trips are logistically planned,even if the number of deliveries goes up. The following features will in your app will ensure you have a smooth, hassle free and efficient delivery process.

·       Vehicle tracking – GPS tracking will ensure you are on top of the vehicle movement system at all times.

·       Live map – A live map of the entire region where your deliveries are taking place, with zoom in feature, will help you keep track of your vehicles and plan the delivery system better.

·       Assigning deliveries – The app should be capable not only of tracking but should enable you to assign deliveries as well. For instance, a delivery truck gets jammed in traffic, the other truck has just finished delivering closeby, the app should be capable of assigning the job to the second truck and making the de-tour changes both the trucks. Both drivers should receive real-time intimation with scope of receiving acknowledgement as well.

·       Automatic re-scheduling – The app should have auto re-schedule feature wherein all detour deliveries, uncompleted deliveries should be scheduled for the next day.

Although there can be a lot more features that can help, but more or less, if your app can give access to real-time tracking, mobility planning, auto re-schedule, etc., your delivery system will be streamlined and you’ll be able to see the efficiency and of course the savings.

Retargeting

Gone Wrong

Retargeting is the panacea to all problems of the online marketing world, it’s the ultimate answer to cart abandonment and the absolute formula for getting customers back to buy what they strayed away from.

But unfortunately, there’s another side of the coin. And the dark side is, retargeting doesn’t work all the time, in fact, sometimes it does the exact opposite. Here are a few examples of how retargeting can go grossly wrong, some pitfalls you might want to avoid with your retargeting.

Retargeting can actually annoy your customers

More than what marketers feel about retargeting, the question is, how do customers feel about retargeting. According to a survey conducted by InSkin Media, the more consumers are exposed to advertisements of a particular product, the more strongly they despise the brand. And by over exposing customers to the ads, negative impact becomes far greater than the positive impact.

Retargeting is intrusion of privacy

Case in point, Gina a college student, who became pregnant and was looking for pregnancy related information on the internet, was shocked when her parents discovered about her pregnancy because of retargeting ads. Similarly, Tim’s family discovered his not-so-popular sexual orientation due to retargeting ads.

Retargeting can sometimes be based on partial truth

Case in point, Sara, a who works as a researcher, was surfing the Internet for cancer hospitals and treatments available in US. Since Sara was concentrating on pediatric cancer, her research involved around the subject. Sara was taken aback by cancer hospital ads that were crafted around emotionally creating a connect with a parent who’s child has cancer. Most ads were worded around the lines, “…your child has cancer…”, with pictures of cancer struck bald children. The whole experience was very upsetting for Sara.

TLDR

Should companies stop retargeting? No. Not, at all. All said, retargeting still remains a great tool for keen online marketers who have reaped the benefits of retargeting. But companies that opt for retargeting, need to have either a very sophisticated algorithm to pick up genuine interested-prospects from general surfers, or it needs to have some kind of a permission clause that allows companies to see the line between personalization and cyber-stalking.

Marketing

It the Social Way

Not only has marketing changed, the platform of marketing is also going through tremendous changes. Online marketing is evolving to incorporate social media marketing, and social media is acquiring a whole new dimension in itself.

Facebook has acquired social media giants like Instagram, WhatsApp and lately Snapchat. Not only this, the new social video app by YouTube has also opened up new avenues for keen marketers. Find out what’s new in the social space and how you can make most of it.

Facebook Messenger Day

Messenger Day is like Snapchat. The images or videos that are posted on Facebook Messenger Day, will be live for 24 hours only and then will disappear. These messages can be viewed by the audience you choose to show the message to.

The best part about Messenger Day is Facebook is not positioning it as a board where you could post what you’ve done or what you’re doing; Facebook is positioning Messenger Day as a planner for one day in advance, where you can post what you are going to do. This gives marketers the window to help people make plans for the next day. Marketers can send special offers, discounts or even event information to their customer base.

Facebook Stories is again pretty much the same thing, just that Stories lets you share

Facebook Videos

According to a research by Quintly, native videos on Facebook are shared above one thousand percent as compared to any other formats. This is followed by YouTube followed by Vimeo and then others.

Marketers need to understand the power of Facebook videos and create videos that have fun, imaginative or genuinely informative content, for such videos have a better chance of going live.

Instagram’s ‘Suggestions’

Instagram has introduced the feature ‘Suggestions For You’ which provides link suggestions based on your social network, ‘liked’ posts etc. The feature is great news for marketers that are active on the platform, because this will add to the exposure to friends of friends and so on.

WhatsApp’s Broadcast List

Unlike a WhatsApp group, the WhatsApp broadcast list allows businesses to create a list and with a single tap, send one-on-one messages to the entire list. Most people quit WhatsApp groups instantly if it is a marketing related group but with the broadcast list the message goes as a personal message. This comes in handy for sending subtle promotional messages to your friends and people in your personal circle.

YouTube’s Uptime

YouTube’s social media app allows users to watch YouTube videos in group messages with friends. Users can comment or interact real-time while watching videos, pretty much like Facebook Live. This feature is not yet out for everyone and on all devices, but nonetheless, it’s being tested.

Marketers can get full advantage of interactive videos for their broadcasting events, interviews, behind-the-scene videos, new product teasers etc.

Technology in Retail:

Essential Guidelines for Local Businesses

Technology has penetrated deeply in all aspects of our lives. Knowingly or unknowingly a major part of lives has become so tech dependent that technology is no more an option, it is the only resource.

Local business owners, especially retailers, find it difficult to keep up with the ever-evolving technology trends. And on the other hand, there is this fierce competition from big retail chains that are leaving no stones unturned to woo customers through mobile and digital channels. For most retailers, catching up with technology and the huge costs involved in embracing it, is in itself a major turn-off.

If you are a local business owner and are keen on exploring technology for your business, here’s a quick brief on the kind of technology that is used in retail and how you can adopt it.

Mobile Technology

Your customers are increasingly getting dependent on their mobile devices, especially smart phones. There are a number of ways retail businesses can actually go mobile. First and foremost, a responsive website is a must. Responsive website is the kind of website that can open on different screens including computer, tablet, smart phone etc.

Then there is the mobile app. Mobile app provides better customer engagement. However, some small businesses prefer the brick and mortar way of businesses. However, one cannot overlook the importance of mobile apps. Advertising in a popular app makes a whole lot of business sense. You can advertise on social media apps like Facebook, Pinterest etc. or you can advertise on apps like InstaTeam that promote local businesses on their app http://www.instateam.net/#home. You can also get your business listed on the local yellow-pages apps and business directory apps.

Internet of Things

Though the technology seems new and pretty intimidating for technologically challenged, but this sophisticated technology is making life easier and economical for businesses, especially small businesses. Internet of Things (IoT) is nothing but the integration of Internet in everyday objects (things) to enable ordinary things perform extraordinary tasks.

Case in point, Bigbelly. This company manufactures solar powered garbage cans that can sensor how full the can is and can send notifications to officials. Officials in turn can route the trash collecting trucks accordingly saving them unnecessary trips and helping them save costs.

In another instance, RainMachine, a SME revolutionized the irrigation controlling system. The conventional home irrigation systems have been complex and expensive. RainMachine worked out a sophisticated system using sensors, smart phones and real-time local weather updates and came up with automatic irrigation through sprinklers that are triggered by sensors that are linked to weather update. Not only is the system is inexpensive, but it also helped people save costs by reducing their water bills and by helping prevent over or under watering in the garden.

Video

Video is not fancy anymore. It is a basic requirement. Create videos to talk about your brand story, showcase your collection, broadcast your local reach, reach out, foster customer engagement and do so much more. creating videos, sharing them on social media and getting people to comment on it, is perhaps the best PR in the digital age.

Beacons or Geo-tech

Beacons are small, self-contained sensors that broadcast signal to Bluetooth devices in the vicinity. In itself the technology doesn’t really mean a lot, but when combined with the right mobile app, it can do wonders to your business. Imagine a customer walking outside the bakery gets the message that fresh bread has just arrived. Or a retail customer who just arrived near the store, gets the message that since they are in the vicinity of the store, they get a special offer that can be availed within an hour. This type of real-time marketing can actually work very well for the business.