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How e-commerce Helps Build your Brand

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |E-Commerce |How e-commerce Helps Build your BrandBranding! A word with which everyone is familiar but do not understand its profundity. It requires a lot of effort from the business to propose the idea of branding. The outcome of successful branding is the growth of the product or service, triggered by a strategic marketing plan of the product. The main idea behind keeping your brand consistent is, however, a promise of quality which customers expect from you.

Association of the customer is the measurement of the loyalty of the customers with your product. Despite your best branding efforts, the customer must ultimately decide to continue with the product or not. You absolutely can understand with the customers’ behavior that what your customers’ expectations are and how far your product is to meet with the customers’ expectations, also known as ecommerce fulfilment.

How digital media promote business in the contemporary world

To grab on customers’ minds, marketing tactics have a peculiar position. In order to meet customers’ expectations digital, and traditional media has tremendously blasted to support the businesses. However, this decade can see the importance of digital media in advertisement and development of the product. There is nothing left in your marketing, which e-channels do not support. From promotion to selling and from launching to customers’ feedback, all the work is done using an e-commerce platform.

The advancement of the e-platform of marketing took place because the customers have switched from the real world to the virtual world. It means they have started using virtual channels to talk with their faraway relatives using their androids. You have got it! Yes, it is social media that connects people from distant places. Thus, businesses have also transformed their promotions to the social media network.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

An important aspect of digital marketing is Social Media Marketing (SMM). SMM has been formulated observing trends of the people towards social media. When companies find their target audience on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, or LinkedIn, they begin promoting their products on social media platforms.

Knowing the concern of the businesses, the social media channels have also extended their features for the advertisers. They have provided different online pages for the companies who can promote the launch or innovation of the products. Most common features of the social media embrace

  • Promotional campaigns give consistency in the campaign of the brand, which is very important for brand recognition.
  • Customers can give their feedback on social media platforms about the product. It not only helps in the promotion of the products but also complies with the enhancement of features of the product.
  • Users get aware of the features of the product. They can easily check for the positive or negative reviews about your product.
  • Your company receives feedback using the social media channel, either it is positive or negative. Loyal customers of the company give positive and negative feedback both for the product. Positive reviews enhance sales of the brand, and negative feedback provides the opportunity to the business to improve the brand.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The world has seen the advancement of digital platforms from the end of the last century. The e-commerce channels are updating as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. have enhanced their features, which are renowned search engines. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), thus, has become another essential tool for the digital advertisement and brand development of the brands.

SEO is the ranking of a company’s product, which appears instantly in any search engine when a consumer searches for a product. SEO enhances the ranking of the company. This is the reason that companies maintain their online presence and provide benefits of reaching to the customers directly. Apart from it, SEO is maintained by the corporations to increase the website ranking so that consumer will see their brand as they search for it.

If a business wants to appear on the first page of the search engine, it should be maintaining an SEO friendly page of the company. It is very difficult to achieve high rankings on Google, Bing or Yahoo – but if the business idea is unique, then your brand visibility will increase. For instance, Amazon is a pioneer of online shopping therefore, whenever customers search to buy something online, Amazon appears on the top.

Appearing on the top search enhances your visibility to the customers. Thus, your brand gets sustained in the marketplace as you reach to more users. If your business provides online delivery of the product, your brand becomes more convenient because customers want doorstep delivery. So, it is also helpful in your brand development to give the convenience of shopping to your consumers.

How 21st-Century Solutions Could Save Your Business

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Owning a business nowadays can be a struggle. It can cause stress, worry and be a financial burden. Today we are going to be looking at how you can alleviate some of those daily stresses just by updating some of the ways you do things.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | How 21st-Century Solutions Could Save Your Business

Outsource

Trying to do everything yourself is something every entrepreneur is guilty of. The result is always the same, exhaustion and burn out which results in a very moody boss.

The solution to this has been made ever more available, especially over the last 10 years. Outsourcing no longer has to be an outside consultant, prancing his way around your offices telling you what you should do.

It is now a fantastic option when it comes to adapting to survive. The key to succeeding in business is simple, it’s all about cash flow. So you can save some money, that’s perfect, right?

You can have your leading expenses outsourced and have all of your IT solutions dealt with from an outside company. You can even have a company operate a customer service solution for you. These companies are great and over the space of twelve months, they can save you an average of around 60% on what you would generally be spending on a salary.

Cloud

The cloud has become one of the most valuable tools we can use as business people. It can offer so many solutions.

Most people still think of the cloud as just a space for storage. In reality, it is so much more. Nowadays we can have cloud-based bespoke customer management systems that we can access on an international level. We have access to cloud-based accounting systems that allow us to manage international finances all in one place. We even have companies like SimplyClouds that will allow us all in one license service on our software.

Turning to the cloud can not just help you as a business, as far as 21st-century solutions go, you should be utilizing it at every turn. It will allow you to operate from anywhere in the world, at any time.

Should you be looking to expand, all of your data is in one place and easy to duplicate to a second or even third location.

Social Media

Gone are the days of expensive, bank-breaking advertizing campaigns. You now have the power of social media at your fingertips.

Social media is so much more important than you think. If we go back 20 years, it would cost huge rates just to reach a few thousand people. Now, with a little bit of knowledge and the right campaign, we can hit millions overnight.

Companies have built their reputation built on nothing more than Facebook videos, vines, and Youtube videos. The perfect thing about these videos, they not only cost nothing, given the right amount of hits, but the videos also start to bring in revenue for you.

Although it is a tough market to hit, you should consider approaching a social media mogul who can push your campaign. One thing you should not do is ignore the power of social media, it could be your winning move.

4 Business Skills to Improve in 2019

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Business Skills|4 Business Skills to Improve in 2019Most entrepreneurs and business professionals understand that to truly thrive within business, they must have valuable business skills. It’s important to know the importance of investing in yourself when it comes to growing your business. When it’s your own business, you’re the only one who can fully get behind it, bringing in new skills and strengths over time.

Each year, new innovations and trends in business arise. This means that you must be constantly on the ball, sharpening your skills to keep ahead.

Whether it’s learning how to improve your conversion rate on a certain social media platform, or improving your public speaking skills, everyone has their own areas they wish to improve.

Here are 4 key business skills worth mastering in 2019, which will confidently take you and your business into 2020.

1. Technology

It seems that there is no faster moving industry than that of technology. One minute we think we have the most up-to-date smartphone, only to find it quickly replaced by the next big thing.

The same applies for the technology required for businesses. Retail businesses must understand that their point-of-sale (POS) systems will constantly need to be compatible with mobile payment systems, like Apple Pay and Google Pay.

As the world goes mobile heavy, it’s beneficial to have your business accessed via apps. Perhaps to reach wider audiences, you could benefit from understanding how to make short video clips or even podcasts for your business.

All these require a thorough understanding of new and existing technology you may not be familiar with. Assess which aspects of technology could benefit your business and learn how to use them.

2. Social Media

Understanding the evolving social media platforms and how to use them is vital to any business. Whether you run a product-led retail business or service, social media can be used to reach new audiences and potentially increase sake.

Social media evolves rapidly, therefore, any entrepreneur needs to stay on top of the most popular platforms, without falling behind. In 2019, Instagram is constantly updating itself and has become the most widely used social media platform, so sharpening your skills across this platform is vital.

It’s worth studying the effect on social media platforms for both marketing and sales, sharpening your knowledge on how to effectively use them. It may be that only certain platforms would work with your business, but either way, it’s worth finding out.

3. Relationship Building

Communication is the key skill when it comes to relationship building. Without being able to communicate and build mutually beneficial relationships within business, you could be preventing new opportunities arising.

Some of the relationships you build will be more client or supplier based, in which you’ll not only need strong communication skills but that or negotiating and persuasion. These are key for working to anything numbers and financial based, so it could be worth improving your skills within negotiation and sales. You can look at seminars by companies such as Karrass, which teach you tactics and strategies.

4. Failure Management

With all new businesses, you’ll be expected to have highs and lows. No matter how hard you have worked on a plan, an unexpected outcome can happen. Everyone deals with failure differently, but it tends to be those who don’t deal well with mishaps and approach business failure negatively that fail to grow their business.

When you fully understand how failure can come and go, and how to handle it, you can budget for unexpected expenses and mentally prepare. It all comes down with understanding how to respond to a crisis. There are many courses and classes that focus on failure management to help to train you with this.

The above are a hand-picked selection of many business trends which will help you thrive as an entrepreneur in 2019. It’s worth assessing a combination of soft skills and hard skills spreading across technology, processes and personality skills. Both are equally as important, so do analyze your current strengths and weaknesses, and take action accordingly.

7 Types Of Marketing You Can Do Yourself

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StrategyDriven Online Sales and Marketing Article |Marketing Your Business | 7 Types Of Marketing You Can Do YourselfYou don’t need to hire a marketing company to promote your business. Whilst creating adverts and designing packaging are probably best left to professionals, there are many other forms of marketing that can be easily DIYed. This could save you money and give you more control over the voice of your brand. Here are just 7 types of marketing that you can do yourself.

Networking

Building connections is a great form of marketing. By meeting influential people and telling them about your brand, you can spread of knowledge of your business through word of mouth. Networking events are a popular ways of building connections. You can also use sites like LinkedIn to build connections online. Other forms of networking could include attending conferences, trade fairs, local launch parties, joining local business groups and reaching out to people directly via email.

Web design

It’s also possible to build your own website using a free website builder like WordPress. You don’t need any programming know-how to use these website builders, making it an easy DIY way of acquiring a website. These are hosting providers out there that can offer cheap web hosting with SSL, allowing you to keep to a tight budget. Paying for a more expensive host and paying a web designer to build your site may be necessary if you’re a larger company, as it could help with the speed of your site and authenticity of your brand – however smaller companies can simply rely on a cheap host and DIY website.

Social media

Social media marketing is also something you can easily do yourself. Setting up a Facebook and Twitter page is free and easy and you can build an initial following quickly by inviting all your friend and family to follow. Social media can be a great tool for keeping existing customers in the loop when it comes to events and promotions. It can also be a great tool for attracting new customers by promoting posts – this is something you can do yourself via social media without the need for a social media marketing company.

Blogging

Blogging is another effective DIY marketing strategy. Generating blog posts on your website can help you to keep your website active and utilise more keywords, which can boost your search engine rankings. Your posts can also be a chance to boost your reputation – most companies use blogging as a way of offering advice to potential customers, helping to demonstrate expertise and improve credibility. You can even create guest posts on other people’s sites to expand your web presence.

Vlogging

Vlogging involves creates video content. YouTube is the most popular platform for this – many companies have YouTube channels that they dedicate to giving advice. This is great for one’s credibility as it demonstrates a willingness to show your face and the fact that you’re confident enough to give advice. When starting a business YouTube channel, it could be worth investing in a good quality camera and microphone in order to keep a sense of professionalism. Setting up a YouTube channel is free and you can use other mediums to promote your videos such as Facebook and blog posts.c

PR

PR involves reaching out to journalists, influential bloggers and media outlets in order to encourage media coverage. A lot of businesses use a PR company to do this, but you can quite easily do your own PR. By researching into media outlets and finding people to contact, you can then start emailing them with requests for coverage. It’s best to have some kind of angle in order to encourage coverage – this could include a new product or an upcoming event or an interesting story related to your business. By creating a press release you can help to deliver this angle in a way that grabs people’s attention.

Event marketing

It’s also possible to host your own events without using a marketing company. This isn’t always easy but it can be done. Event marketing could include attending a trade fair, hosting a conference or putting on a seminar. You can even host webinars online. To promote the event yourself, take advantage of social media and use email marketing to inform key people.

How Social Media Can Grow Your Business

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Social Media | How Social Media Can Grow Your BusinessIf you’re a business owner, you have likely heard about how social media has a way of spreading the word about your business, even if you no clue on why or how it achieves results. Although it can take a lot of work to maintain a number of social media accounts, the overall benefits for your business are innumerable.

It is well within your reach to use social media if the correct strategies are implemented. If you’re standing at the side-line watching your competitors take center stage by using social media to boost consumer interest, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be jumping on the bandwagon too.

Here are a few top reasons as to why you should be using social media as a method to grow your business:

1. Gets the word out about your business

Firstly, social media helps spread the message about your business and gets potential new customers talking about your product or service. You will gain plenty of recognition for your business and gain a platform to talk to your target audience. This will build trusting relationships that are crucial for business success.

Your followers and fans are likely to spread the word to their own contacts about your business if you make a good impression, which should go on to grow your customer base considerably.

2. It’s cost-effective

Unlike other forms of marketing, social media offers great return on investment – which is an important characteristic for any business.

Due to the changes in algorithms on Facebook , which is now favoring personal posts, you will need to make low-cost advertising part of your financial plan. These adverts are designed to promote your product or service to reach a large quantity of your target audience.

Learning how to budget effectively for marketing campaigns can be difficult, as you don’t necessarily know how effective they will be in the long-term or whether your finances are being put to good use. Many business owners choose to enroll onto a finance course to learn how to succeed in a technology-based world and understand the impacts of financial decision making, by studying an online MBA in Finance.

Many businesses spend so much money on failed marketing techniques, that they aren’t left with many funds to grow their business in other departments. Rest assured, social media has been proven to have a winning combination of cost-effectiveness and success.

StrategyDriven's Social Media Publication Timing Whitepaper


3. It’s extremely popular

Social media is growing exponentially in popularity and users of every age have accounts across a variety of platforms as a way of connecting with friends and finding out the latest news. Facebook has an impressive 1.7 billion users active each month and is most often the starting platform for small businesses looking to grow their following.

However, other platforms such as Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram are all used to grow the interest of a business. Instagram for example, has 1 billion active users per month and tends to generate business interest with the use of influencers. These accounts are paid to promote certain products or services to their own follower base, with the intention of generating traffic to the business account and website.