Reasons why you should set up a blog for your business

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Set up a blog|Reasons why you should set up a blog for your businessMost companies these days realize the need to be online and understand the tremendous opportunities that can be gained from having a well-designed, optimized website and strong social media presence. However, in a world where there are now more web pages than there are people, it can often be difficult for firms to make their content stand out and gain the attention it deserves.

Industry experts suggest the world now produces a staggering 2.5 quintillion bytes of data per day (for reference, a quintillion has 18 zeros – a truly astonishing figure when you consider that’s the amount output per day). With so much information already floating around the internet, it’s perhaps little wonder your clients (potential and existing) have so many problems sifting through the sheer volume of information that’s currently available.

The need for updated content

To gain attention online these days needs strategy and planning – from both the perspective of users finding your content to then sticking around long enough to read it or watch it – and one of the most successful ways to do that is through a company blog.

Of course, established tools like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and quality writing/images will help, but most web marketing specialists realize that Google (and other search engines) like nothing more than regularly updated content. Unfortunately, this can prove difficult when you’ve got a front-end corporate showcase site, as adding too many extra pages will only serve to confuse users – hence the reason a blog can prove so successful.

Tips for blogging

As a rule, you should keep your blog site separate (but linked) from your main pages – adding a simple ‘blog’ link to your main navigation will work well. Other tips for a successful company blog site include:

  • Add content that doesn’t particularly ‘fit’ with your main site but is still valuable or informative
  • Write about what you know (this should be obvious)
  • You should blog regularly – even while on the road – so make sure devices are charged regularly and protected from damage by power surge components like those available from https://baypower.com/westinghouse/circuit-breakers.
  • The last thing you want is failing or damaged equipment – particularly if you’re blogging from a sales conference or after an important meeting, etc.
  • Use your blog to detail company processes or things you might not normally be able to discuss on your main site
  • Try offering interesting ‘how-to’ articles as these can be a very successful way to generate attention and drive traffic online
  • Ensure you include a link to your main corporate site
  • Remember to focus on your marketing – while a blog shouldn’t be an upfront sales pitch, there’s no harm detailing your experience or knowledge on a subject in a subtle and informative way

How blogging can add value to your existing site

You want your main website to shout your company message, services, and products in the most professional and visually appealing way. Likely, you will have spent hours poring over your site’s images, text, and navigational structure to the point that there probably isn’t much room left for adding additional content. Using a blog site, you can add content that will subtly promote your skills (and could end up found in search engines) without detracting from your main professional, formal pages.

Online Marketplace: New challenges to overcome

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Online Marketplace: New challenges to overcome

The marketplace model of eCommerce is one such breakthrough that allowed everyone to become a part of the new ecosystem of online commerce. There was a time when the entry of an online alternative in a market would scare the hell out of small offline retailers. The consumer behavior was changing and the prices were getting aggressively competing; it was not easy for small retailers to keep up with their online counterparts.

Then came the marketplace model that allowed even small retailers to claim a share from the multi-billion dollar pie of eCommerce. Now, instead of competing with the offline retailers, the eCommerce sites were connecting third-party retailers directly to their customers. We called this model the pure marketplace ecosystem, where the owner of the marketplace did not maintain the inventory but simply connect the people with inventories to the people who want to purchase. The marketplace was just an intermediary, which would make money from the commissions they charged on each sale generated for their retailers.

The time changed, markets evolved, competition became even harsh, and marketplaces required more innovative ways to make money than the mere commissions. This gave birth to different sub-classifications of the actual marketplace model, which still exists:

  • E-Bay: A peer-to-peer marketplace that sales only from the third-party inventories
  • Amazon: A hybrid marketplace that sales from both in-house and third party inventories
  • Walmart: A hybrid combined with the physical model to sell both in online and offline ecosystems

What’s next in the marketplace model of eCommerce?

The meaning of an online marketplace is changing as we speak. Today, the boundary that differentiates a physical marketplace from its online counterpart is as thin as a thread. The biggest names in the marketplace ecosystem, such as Amazon, Alibaba, and Walmart, have established both online and offline presence and securing major shares of the pie through their Omni-channel manifestations.

Today, the marketplace business is no more about massive catalogs of different categories of products. Instead, marketplaces are creating ecosystems for their customers. They are driving customers towards the business from all possible sides and earning customer loyalty by offering everything at one place on any channel. Take Amazon for example. Is there anything that Amazon can’t offer to a common consumer? From entertainment to finance, grocery, vegetables, electronics, home furnishing, and cloud services, Amazon is the best example to understand the rapidly evolving face of the Retail 4.0 marketplace model today.

Is the marketplace is a profitable business idea in 2020?

It indeed is. Even the biggest entities in the market cannot cover everything. There are still numerous niches with profitable prospects for the new entrants. It certainly not an easy job to set up a marketplace and compete with the likes of Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, and Walmart. However, you don’t need to compete with them, if you identify some niche marketplace ideas. The marketplace model offers an array of benefits to the merchants and the customers, and all of them could encourage them to come along with your platform:

  • A combined channel: You could offer a hybrid channel to small retailers and merchants to generate sales from both online and offline markets.
  • Better exposure: Selling on a marketplace platform reveals new doors to the merchants who have been relying on traditional channels. They can even expand their business internationally.
  • Reduced marketing cost: Merchants need not spend a fortune to build eCommerce sites and then marketing them. They can save all these costs by simply signing up on your marketplace.
  • Established trust factors: Retailers get access to an established platform, which its customers already trust. This trust factor is induced to the sellers of the marketplace, too.
  • Competitive product prices: With so many sellers available for a single product, the prices are l always competitive. It encourages more customers to shop from your site.
  • Multiple revenue channels: As a marketplace owner, you need not depend on commissions alone to make money. You can make money from several non-traditional channels, such as showing featured products, sponsored products, and selling membership subscriptions for added benefits to sellers and the customers.

No doubt, the above benefits for everyone lay down the foundation of the marketplace model, but it’s not all breezy either. There are some pitfalls too that require strategic resolutions:

  • It’s all technology: The core that drives an online marketplace business is pure technology. From the marketplace software to web-hosting, content delivery networks, third party APIs, and compliance with the laws, everything is driven by technology. That makes a competitive marketplace setup quite expensive, complex, and workforce-extensive.
  • Chicken and egg problem: Sellers won’t board your marketplace until you have enough customers to make good sales, and customers can’t purchase until you have sellers. It makes the opening days for a marketplace business pretty complicated. You would need a significant amount of investment to market your platform, and then acquire sellers through handsome incentives.
  • Data security: When you are managing a massive marketplace with so many merchants, customers, and sensitive information onboard, there is a high risk of data security. Since the only asset you have is your platform and data, you have to be very particular about keeping it secure.

How you can start an online marketplace business?

It’s a big question – how to start an online marketplace business? There is the technology and there is business process development, both go hand-in-hand to form a complete marketplace ecosystem. If you have a business plan or a niche in your mind, you need to focus your efforts on handling the following four challenges first, and you could own a great marketplace business:

Note: You need to manage these challenges keeping your customers and sellers/merchants in thought. You can’t start a marketplace by conciliating with the needs of any of the two stakeholders.

Marketplace Software

Marketplace software constitutes your entire platform. You would need a collection of different marketplace solutions that work collectively to build your marketplace platform. One of the major constituents is – the marketplace website.

Marketplace website builder: You can develop your marketplace platform from scratch by outsourcing your project or hiring in-house developers. However, this would be a highly expensive and time-consuming undertaking. Instead, you can purchase a ready-made, open-source, multi-vendor eCommerce script to set up your platform in a few hours. There are various clone scripts in the market; you can get one of them and build your website. These scripts will provide all the fundamental features you need to build your platform. Since they offer open-source code access, you can also customize them the way you want.

Another alternative is using a free eCMS like Magento, PrestaShop, or OpenCart. However, these Commerce platforms are mainly suitable for inventory-based eCommerce sites, as they do not provide multi-vendor support out-of-the-box. You will have to purchase a corresponding multi-vendor module or extension from a third-party vendor to add marketplace features. They are open-source too.

Some SaaS solutions are also present in the market with ready-made marketplace sites. If you are ready to pay a monthly recurring fee, transaction fee per-sale, and can do with limited control over your site, this could be one of the fastest ways to build and launch your site in a day. These solutions are closed-source.

The choice is yours, you can use any of these options based on your preference and requirements. Do some research and select the most suitable option, as it would be a long-term commitment. You can’t switch your marketplace software every now or then.

Branding and Marketing

Be advised that customers don’t remember the seller but the marketplace platform itself. Therefore, every bad experience customers receive from your sellers directly affects your business image. All the discounts, Ads, and promotions, happen in the name of the marketplace platform. If you can’t get your customers to remember your brand identity, know that there is something wrong with your marketing and branding activities.

Supply-chain and Demand

The sole purpose of a marketplace platform is to fill the gap between supply and demand. Both the buyers and the merchants are your customers. You need to maintain a steady flow of demand and supply to keep both of the ends happy. Without buyers, you will lose customers and demand; without sellers, you will lose the supply-chain. Happy customers create demand, and sellers create the supply. You have to maintain an optimum balance between the two entities to succeed.

Flawless Customer Support

For both the buyers and the sellers, customer support is the most volatile constituent that might just ruin everything at any stage. There is a need for offering continuously impeccable customer support to the stakeholders. However, it cannot happen unless your sellers are supportive to the customers. You might try your best to give flawless experience to the buyers, but everything stops if your sellers don’t do their part. You must create an environment where everyone is doing his or her jobs properly. From quality control to addressing queries, processing refunds, and undertaking replacements, everything should work in harmony with each other. Consider professional grade customer service software or hiring professionals to build you efficient systems to reduce customer support issues.

To Conclude

Overall, the marketplace is a challenging business. However, easy businesses don’t furnish good returns. You can win this war with technical advancements and customer-friendly policies. If you want to create a hub of customers like Amazon and eBay, you shouldn’t arbitrate on the above four fronts. Invest in innovative marketplace software solutions, bridge the supply-demand gap, market your business, and extend the best customer support –this is the optimal way to command the new challenges of marketplace business and succeed effortlessly.


About the Author

Jessica Bruce a professional blogger, guest writer, Influencer & an eCommerce expert. She is currently associated with ShopyGen as a content marketing strategist. Jessica also reports on the latest happenings and trends associated with the eCommerce industry.

Follow her on Twitter @Jessicabruc (https://twitter.com/Jessicabruc)

How to Use Webinars for Commercial Prospection?

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Webinars for Commercial Prospection|How to use webinars for commercial prospection?In order to succeed in their commercial prospection, companies are competing with each other in terms of ideas and thinking outside the box. They rely heavily on the Internet to try to stand out from the competition and increase their turnover. Many of you use webinars for prospection. This tool is an important marketing lever in the age of digitalization. Moreover, with the current health issues, the webinar offers significant advantages for SMEs, large groups and startups. What do you need to know about webinars? How can you use it to develop and succeed in your commercial prospection? Focus on the subject.

Towards a Better Understanding of the Webinar and Its Challenges

Before delving into the various techniques for exploiting the webinar in a commercial prospection, it is first necessary to understand how it works.

Brief definition of the webinar

The webinar is a very popular concept. It is a virtual seminar during which participants can interact. This is the definition from which the term was born: web + seminar. Here, the word “webinar” is the English version. In the French-speaking world, the term “webinaire” is used instead. However, both terms primarily define a “web conference”.

It is usually companies, brands and professionals who organise an online conference for marketing purposes. The event is focused on a particular topic and lasts on average 30 minutes to 1 hour, or much less, depending on the objective. People, often prospects, receive invitations to participate in the remote webinar. They are free to participate and ask questions.

Webinar: an interactive and communicative tool

The main issues of the webinar are :

  • Interactivity
  • Visibility
  • Persuasiveness

The webinar is indeed a powerful tool for the 21st century. It is accessible anywhere, which makes it a significant marketing lever. The tool is also distinguished by the opportunities it offers, namely:

  • To make people aware of the qualities of a product or service
  • Demonstrating the expertise of a company
  • Proposing solutions to various problems

The strength of the webinar also lies in its interactive part. Participants are free to express their opinions during the webinar. The communication model used is also more friendly and in total opposition to the standard scheme where the audience remains passive. Because of these multiple advantages, more and more companies are placing webinars at the heart of their marketing strategy. This method is a development lever for your commercial prospection actions.

Tips for successful commercial prospection using webinars

As mentioned above, webinars are high-impact communication and marketing tools. However, different aspects need to be taken into consideration in order to make it an effective tool for commercial prospection.

Making the most of webinars

After organising an impactful and interesting webinar, your company should be able to generate leads with this tool. You can exploit the data collected from the webinar for example. This includes participants’ opinions, feelings, participation rates, questions asked, etc. This information will help you refine your target profile for commercial prospection.

Find webinar participants with a dedicated tool

Once you have defined the profiles of the prospects, you can easily find them thanks to the LinkedIn social network. The Kaspr extension is a must for generating leads quickly. It allows you to find email addresses, phone numbers and other information about these people in record time.

Kaspr is one of the most popular tools used by salespeople and companies for prospection. You can easily integrate it into your marketing strategy in order to increase your turnover and guarantee a good return on investment. For the prospection stage to be a success, your webinar must nevertheless be an event that has made an impression on prospects. Otherwise, you risk working harder to convert your prospects into customers.

Analyse the post webinar statistics

At the end of the webinar, participants usually receive an email as a thank you. In some cases, organisers also send out a feedback questionnaire to improve future webinars. The answers to these questions provide a framework for improving the organisational aspect of the webinar, the content, but also the quality of the product or service.

To Conclude

A webinar is an efficient way to develop a company’s visibility. This event goes beyond the time and availability constraints often encountered in communication actions. With relevant themes and rich content, your company gets known and (subtly) talks about its services. But above all, the webinar is a means of providing solutions to prospects, while demonstrating your company’s expertise. The webinar allows you to interact with your potential prospects and offer them the answers to their questions. You can then track down these prospects and convert them into customers through proper prospection.

4 Must-Know Dos and Don’ts During the Creation of Your Digital Marketing Strategy

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Dos and Don'ts Digital Marketing|4 Must-Know Dos and Don’ts During the Creation of Your Digital Marketing StrategyAmerican business owners and entrepreneurs spend around $400 billion on digital marketing annually. Most business owners are adamant about getting a great return on their marketing investments. The only way to accomplish this goal is by optimizing your marketing campaigns based on data and consumer behavior. As 2022 approaches, now is the time to start figuring out how to approach digital marketing in the New Year.

Making mistakes during this planning process can create long-term problems. This is why you need to do all you can to think ahead and capitalize on any marketing trends in your industry. The following are some dos and don’ts of creating a digital marketing strategy for your business.

1. Do Optimize Your Content For Voice Search

When creating a marketing strategy for your small business, you need to take note of trends in the world of advertising. In the past few years, the popularity of voice-activated technology has increased substantially. There are many devices that allow consumers to search for items on the Internet with the sound of their voices. If you want to drive more traffic to your website, then you have to find a way to attract people who are using voice search.

Doing this will require the use of long-tail keywords and great content. In most cases, content based on frequently asked questions do quite well when trying to attract voice search users. You also need to realize that the average voice search user will pose their queries in the form of a question. Putting these questions into your content can help you get attention from these users.

2. Don’t Stuff Keywords into Your Content

Some business owners think that they can take a fast track to search engine success. This usually leads to the use of black hat marketing techniques. One of the most common black hat marketing techniques used by inexperienced business owners is keyword stuffing. These business owners think that stuffing as many popular keywords into their content is the best way to attract attention from Google. In reality, the practice of keyword stuffing can hurt your chances of moving up the Google ladder.

The algorithm used by popular search engines is very complex. This means they can detect keyword stuffing and will penalize websites that make this mistake. Instead of worrying about stuffing keywords into your content, you need to feature them naturally. By focusing on the quality of your content, you can attract more attention and move your website to the first page of Google search results.

3. Do Use Social Media to Promote Your Business

While having a website is a key component of developing an online presence for a business, you need to do more to reach a wider audience. Social media is one of the best tools a business owner can use to engage with their audience. Popular platforms like Twitter and Facebook have millions of users. One of the best ways to promote the new content on your website is by posting about it on social media.

4. Don’t Let Your Website Get Slow

When crawling a website, one of the first things the Google algorithm will check is how fast it loads. If your website is slow, it can lead to your website getting put at the bottom of search engine results page. This is why you need to stay one step ahead of website loading issues. As soon as you notice loading problems, you need to reach out to an experienced web designer for help.
By using the information in this article, you can create a marketing plan that will garner lots of sales leads for your business.

The Advantages of Online Payment Systems for Digital Products

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Online Payment Systems|The Advantages of Online Payment Systems for Digital ProductsThere are currently 24 million eCommerce sites on the web. So it’s fitting to say that there’s much competition. Yet you can stay ahead of the game by offering secure online payments. Platforms like PayPal and Stripe are among the most popular online payment systems for digital products. These systems offer the distinct advantages of being more secure, quick, efficient, and trusted.

Easy Shopping Cart Management

One of the most crucial systems on an eCommerce site is the shopping cart. The shopping cart forms the basis of interaction between a customer and your products before payment processing begins. By placing a shopping cart feature on your site, you give customers the ability to browse, select, and, more importantly, pay for products when they want to. Payment is typically received at the end via credit and debit cards, but digital wallets are popular.

Established and Trusted Brands

Digital or eWallets are a secure method of payment by which users can complete a transaction for your products. While systems like PayPal and Stripe are used for purchasing real-world goods, they are excellent for digital products. Digital products include video game codes, eBooks, software licenses, video or music, and website memberships. Digital wallets are the preferred currency for these as they provide efficient online payments.

Simplified Transactions

There are many eWallets to consider as payment options on your eCommerce site. PayPal and Stripe are the most common, yet tech companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon also provide digital wallets. The more you accept, the easier it is for customers, and that means repeat business. Using digital wallets is simpler these days since they are all available as apps on smartphones. As such, there are over 1 billion eWallet transactions per year.

Payment Security

In addition to convenience and efficiency, digital wallets are very secure. In fact, they are more secure than standard debit and credit cards since the magnetic strips on these are easily cloned. eWallet providers initiate multiple security measures such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, and one device registering for smartphone apps. A user also needs to be in possession of a mobile device to complete a physical transaction in a store.

Instant Receipt of Products

PayPal, Stripe, and others are excellent for digital products because transactions are instant. Therefore you can provide instant access to a product purchased by a customer. For example, ACH or card payments might take time to clear. This means a user cannot access their video game code until payment has been processed. There is no processing time with a digital wallet payment, so you get paid instantly, and the customer immediately receives their product.

Meeting Expectations

A vital aspect of operating a successful eCommerce storefront is the ease of use and customer experience. Meeting expectations is part of a good customer experience. For example, users now expect 24 hours LiveChat support features on a website. In addition, customers expect multiple payment options when completing a transaction via eCommerce. The reasons vary, but some of the most common is that people find PayPal more secure. One survey found that 63% of users don’t want to divulge personal data, and 80% agree they feel more confident using PayPal over cards.