Why B2B Marketers Must Embrace Mobile Marketing Tactics?

22 April,2016 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

It is a well evident fact that the mobiles have successfully overpowered the use of laptops and personal computers. Moreover, when it comes to online marketing mobiles undoubtedly play a very crucial role. Here, it will not be unjust to mention that the B2B marketers too should adopt the concept of Mobile Marketing and the prominent reasons for it have been discussed below:

Postulate marketing metrics are largely influenced by the use of Mobile

In an era where mobiles have become a vital part of life, not opting for a mobile friendly site or choosing the one which offers less optimized mobile experience is certainly a bad deal. Therefore, the B2B marketers too must understand that a mobile approachable site without a doubt generates more traffic, leads to better bounce rate, organic ranking, and also proffer greater visibility.

Mobile friendly sites leads to fueled customer engagement

The above notion can be easily justified by the following statistics – A large portion of users got upset upon encountering that the site is not mobile friendly, out of which about 52% people decided not to indulge in business terms with the respective website. Therefore, a site which supports mobile marketing can successfully yield more sales, revenue to your business.

A large number of B2B decision makers are using Mobile devices

While business buyers incline towards the use of the internet for research and selection process, a large number of decision makers too are embracing the use of mobile devices. Thus we can say that the B2B mobile usage is gradually gaining a prominent role in the entire buy cycle.

A recent survey conducted by Google in partnership with Millward Brown Digital on about 3000 B2B decision makers in regard to their research and selection process indicated that about 42% people make use of mobile phones throughout the B2B purchasing process whereas the mobile queries too have shown a dramatic growth.

Tips to have a Mobile friendly site – Just 2 simple steps to follow!

Work on your Mobile Page Speed

For this, you may also need to optimize images, sanction compression, minify CSS etc.

Mobile Design Best Practices

Regulating the font sizes, viewport and avoid incorporating plugins.

These two steps account to be the most effective way to initiate or improve your mobile experience when it comes to business.

Mobile, your Competitive Advantage: The Bottom Line

Mobile marketing undoubtedly provides an edge to your business and contributes to the overall success of it. Not only this, it enables the business to generate more and more targeted traffic to its website and enhances visibility too. By rendering a comfortable experience to the customers, the respective business ends up generating more sales and new avenues too.

5 Best Google Chrome Extensions for Entrepreneurs

16 April,2016 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

Image: attitudes4innovation.com

The one thing that is common among all the entrepreneurs is that they work to maximize the outcome while they minimize their investment of time. Technology is one thing that could help them in a great way regarding this. And the apt extensions of Google chrome can be a revolution in helping them. However, there are plenty of them and you can definitely not download all of them. Few extensions work better when compared to others, few are more useful, and few may even slow down the browsing experience. So, which are the extensions that are most appropriate for entrepreneurs? Here is our list of the 5 best Google Chrome Extensions for entrepreneurs.

1) MixMax

If there is one chrome extension we would suggest that is best on the list, then that would be MixMax. Before it came into the scene, all of the TCF team used Boomerang for automated follow up and email scheduling and also the Sidekick for keeping a track on who clicks on links and opens the emails. MixMax effectively replaced them and there has been no stepping back since. If you haven’t already started tracking the emails of yours, you must begin now. Besides providing data on who opens your emails, you will also know how quickly this happens. Apart from scheduling of emails, tracking and reminders, MixMax also allows you to schedule your events and meetings within the email. MixMax will go through your calendar and will inform you about when you are available and will provide the person who views your emails proper meeting time. They would later choose the one that suits them and the extension will instantaneously mark it on your calendar as well as theirs.

2) Rapportive

If you want to know who is at the other corner of your emails, Rapportive is what you must use. It puts their profiles of LinkedIn on a sidebar so that you easily view them and access them. You can just click so that you connect to them through LinkedIn without having to leave your email. It will also draw the information of profiles of LinkedIn connections which you share in common and this will allow you easily to name drop quickly. Rapportive also worked quickly on constructing your connection networks that is precisely why it is said to be one among the best chrome extensions for all those entrepreneurs.

3) Hootlet

Using Hootlet will automatically make it your best friend forever. The best feature of Hootlet is that you can toggle among multiple accounts, be it business or personal. Just by clicking on the icon of Hootlet you will be able to share the page which you are on as you are browsing the internet.

4) Evernote

You are certainly missing a lot of you are not using Evernote. It can be used for everything from organizing webinar content an ebook to remembering your gym locker code. Using the Evernote is like having a second brain which doesn’t at all require a headspace. This extension of chrome allows you to snip as well as save while you browse and read your emails. Saving the PDFs and anything for that matter is as effortless as organizing your already existing notebooks.

5) AdBlock Pro

We all agree that ads are too much annoying. Hence, this extension is as good for everyone as it is for entrepreneurs. This extension will do a great job of blocking all those unwanted ads that keeping popping onto the screen every now and then. This will save your time and patience by blocking them automatically.

How Much Does Local SEO Cost?

10 April,2016 Business Advice, SEO Tips No Comment Author: Marie

How much does local SEO cost? A lot of people live under the misconception that SEO traffic is free. You pay nothing and yet you get a good footfall. But is it really possible? Is it possible to invest absolutely no time or money for your website SEO and yet generate a good amount of traffic? The answer is no, obviously. You might have built a very good and impressive website, but that does not assure you good traffic or you do not rank high in Google search. So, you have to spend a few bucks to get good traffic.

The next question is, what are the factors affecting SEO costs?

Competition

Competition goes hand in hand with local SEO costing. The higher the competition, the greater will be your local SEO costs. So if you have enough names competing against you in the same industry, then you will need to work harder and put in a lot more effort in making your website stand out. The main point to note here is the fact that you need to outrun the others in the field of work and you are set. You just need to be better than everyone else. One of the best solutions here is that you can review websites that rank high in Google keywords.

Multiple office locations

This is yet another factor that determines the amount that you could be spending for the local SEO of your website. The idea behind it is very simple. If you have more listings under the same name, or different locations for your office, it only means you would be spending more for each of those put together, as compared to a single office setup. This is because for each of the locations, the citations increase.

Multiple products or services

It is quite natural that when you use more products or services, you would need more keywords to target each of those. This directly leads to a higher local SEO costing. This is even more pronounced when you tend to build separate web pages for each of those products or services. Also, keep in mind the fact that each product comes with a set of competition; so that again takes us back to the first factor we discussed.

Keeping in mind all of these factors, the local SEO costing might vary. For an industry that is not very competitive and if you are advertising one product from one particular location, your monthly expenditures could be around $500 to $1000. This number could go up to $2000 for more competitive industries, or targeting multiple products or services. For automated local SEO services, the whole management depends on citations where you have to submit information for an annual fee of about $300-$500. On the other hand, holistic local SEO campaigns, this involves an overall management of internal website elements and optimizing the external factors. These campaigns might go as high as $900 to $2000 a month. Small scale local campaigns range between $400 to $800 and aim to increase visibility of website by focusing on multiple channels.

5 mobile marketing trends to look out for in 2016

2 April,2016 Business Advice, Mobile No Comment Author: Marie

Technology is changing our way of living, adding a good standard in it and making it perfect for our future by providing many benefits to GPS navigation, easy way to pay your bills, video conferencing and many features which were just a dream in the past. It was a tedious task to achieve but technologists and scientists are exploring the way to make our life more comfortable which was just an impossible task in the past. Technology is creating a major impact on the mind of youngsters, Youngsters are becoming more intelligent and social media aware which was just a dream in past.

A recent study in mobile revolution shows that mobile users are exceeding the desktop one by a significant difference which indicates that users are attracted more to mobile technology rather than a big giant desktop one.

According to a recent study performed by eMarketers, It was predicted that 32% has increased mobile commerce from the past which was a good number to make it future perfect technology.

According to a recent survey, it was predicted that Apps mainstreams download is much more than Facebook and Twitter friends, followers, etc. It is a significant achievement that is achieved by Mobile technology world.

Wearable technology such as smart watches or mobile automation system such as Cortana, Echo and Siri makes our life more interesting and easy to live.

A grand announcement of $500 million from Hilton gives a serious look to M-commerce industry

Revolution through mobile apps.

Mobile apps are surpassing the television and social media marketing or even search engine optimization which is increasing the business and its impact on next level which can’t be ignored in this virtual world. It is an easy approach for independent shoppers and busy consumers to buy in the easy way which is a necessary step to increase the business in current scenario technology revolution.

6 Marketing Resolutions for 2016

20 March,2016 Business Advice, E-Commerce No Comment Author: Marie

Trends differ with passing time and this is true in every field. Specially, marketing efforts can go stale after sometime and you might have to give your brand a facelift. The New Year would be a good time to renew your marketing strategies with some resolutions which you could really stick to. Choose as many resolutions as you wish from this list and transform your marketing this 2016.

1) Make your content strategy and content schedule

One of the important questions you need to ask yourself is if you have a purpose for producing content. This could be the key for content marketing that is highly successful. It is your content that wins the goals which are defined by your brand and you. It creates interest among people about your brand. If you are just having a blog for namesake, it’s useless. Figure out what audience you are writing for, and write content that are of high quality and define your brand really well. You must also schedule the contents aptly.

2) Have a Brand Ambassadors’ team

Many of the companies underestimate the utility of their valuable assets, the employees. They are not just familiar with the brand but also work within the brand every day. You must ensure well-being of your employees and encourage them to endorse your brand through their own means. This happens by sharing your content through them and rewarding them for their engagement.

3) Start new training initiatives

This is something similar to the one previously mentioned. Choose courses that could upgrade the skills of your starts or develop other skills as well. It does well to your business as well as your employees’ personal set of skills. This will turn your employees valuable and give them the privilege of adding new skills to their resume.

4) Go for rebranding

If there are certain things that are not going well with your money and you are losing both money and customers because of it, you might have to go for rebranding in 2016. You must know well about when you are precisely choosing to go for Rebranding. If you have changed locations or if your website doesn’t do well, you must renew the brand!

5) Make use of new channels

What if the Twitter and LinkedIn, the channels that are good for putting up B2B content not enough? There are plenty other channels through which you can have your content reach the potential audience. You could go for press releases or go with ebooks as well.

6) Vary the content’s format

There are plenty of kinds of content but many businesses make use of only the text based contents. Because text content is easy to produce. However, you could choose adding videos, pictures, infographics or even memes. When used correctly, you can make the best out of these better formats.

5 Mobile Commerce Mistakes You Should Avoid

12 March,2016 Business Advice, Mobile No Comment Author: Marie

Mobile phone sales have been one of the reasons for increased eCommerce sales in recent years and it becomes clearly essential for the eCommerce websites to provide excellent experience for the users – be it the interface or the quality, it is vital that customer experience is valued. Since there is no instruction manual for a perfect mobile website, it will turn out to be hard to figure out what could be done and what not.

However, there are certain things which you must absolutely not do. Below is a list of the 5 Mobile Commerce Mistakes You Should Avoid.

1) Having a complicated webpage

Never use sliders or image carousels for any of the pages of your site, be it mobile or desktop. To begin with, no one actually spends time to go further than the initial image anyway. Besides, it will only make it difficult for your page to load quickly. Though the bandwidths of mobile are pacing up, they still haven’t met par with those on the desktops. This will put the users off, affecting your sales. You could rather use a single picture of call to action.

2) Not possessing an Email Newsletter

Though this is the age of consistently flourishing new apps, Email still has the potential to give you better returns on investment than any marketing forms. Stop and think of the cost that would go into just writing an Email newsletter and sending it. Also think of the number of subscribers you possess. Easy, isn’t it?

3) Making use of QR Codes

Let’s agree to this. QR Codes are no longer cool, new or useful in anyway. Besides, they include a lot of complex steps while having to use them online. Better to strike off the QR code from your site altogether.

4) Unnecessary expenditure on an app for smartphone

Having an app for your site wouldn’t really be a bad thing. However, it isn’t vouched as a good thing to do either. If you plan to have an app for your site, ensure it has got the need which your customer would have. Make researches to ensure it will be catering to the need. Or else, you have simply spent your money in vain!

5) Using Flash

This one is quite obvious as the iPhones don’t support it. Nonetheless, mobile websites are still making use of it. It is better not to use the flash on your website at all.

6) Having same designs for Tablets as well as smartphones

Since smartphones are extensively used, your customers don’t really use them to watch videos. Besides, video requires large bandwidth which will take away a lot of data from your customers if they don’t possess a proper data plan. Tablets, however, are appropriate to watch videos, and users generally use them in homes, connected to their Wi-Fi. If you really have to make use of videos, you could make separate designs for tablet users.

What are Custom Facebook Placement Strategies and How Can Your Business Benefit From It?

5 March,2016 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

Facebook has now become the top social media networking sites in the world which is used by more than 900 million people. Having seen such a huge visibility, businesses have started using Facebook advertising as one of the prominent Internet Marketing strategies online.

This article discusses various ways to advertise your business in Facebook and benefits of having custom Facebook Placement Strategies.

Facebook Ad Placement Strategies an Intro

To start with advertising on Facebook, the site offers three different Ad placements which are desktop newsfeed, mobile newsfeed and column on the right for the desktop. Some other ways of advertising which Facebook offers are through Instagram and its network sites which are also termed as audience network.

One should know how to use these Ad placements and network sites before starting their advertising campaign. Some Ad placements like audience network only runs when mobile news feed is active. So it is very important to understand the significance of each of these custom placement strategies and use them effectively.

With the latest trend of Android and Windows mobiles phones and the tab market increasing popularity, it is very important to have different placement strategies for each of the platform as the Ad and website behaviour is different for each of the platforms. One should have a separate placement strategy planned for each of these platforms which include multiple Ad copies, customized landing pages thus having different Call for Action for each of these platforms.

Given below are the 5 advantages of having a plan of action for having Custom Facebook Placement Strategies.

Better Visibility of Facebook Ads

Ultimate aim of every business which is advertising on Facebook is to enhance the visibility of their products. By having customized Ad copies and landing pages for each of the platforms brings better visibility and increased profits through custom placements.

Optimized Budgets with Precise Control

By having a customized Facebook placement strategy, you can optimize budgets by having precise control over CPA for each of the placement strategy. It may happen that some placements may have more CPA while some have less CPA.

So configuring right Ads for each of the platforms helps in planning an optimized budget for each of the placements.

Improved ROI with better Advertisement Placements

Even though it is a time taking activity in identifying the right placement for every platform, it also helps in having better ROI. By placing Ads at the right place, it is possible to achieve more ROI.

Increased Conversion Rates

By having customized landing pages for every platform, there will be increased visibility for each of the placements chosen. This will not only improve the popularity of the brand but also increases the conversion rate for each of the placements.

Increased Success with improved strategies

Once you get familiar with each of the custom placements and start using these placements on each of the platforms, you will get the results and understanding of each of these custom placements.

By analyzing the results and developing customized landing pages and Ads for custom placements increases success and visibility. Once a particular placement starts working and showing results, one can develop efficient strategies and planning on what will work the best making the Ad strategies flexible, effective and innovative.

Hope this article has helped in developing an idea of using customized Facebook placement strategies.

How will the 2016 USPS Rates Increase Affect Your Business?

2 March,2016 Business Advice, E-Commerce No Comment Author: Marie

With the growing number of eCommerce sites, online shopping has become the norm for many people. In fact, there are countless websites that offer their online shopping services. However, as of this year online retailers will begin to experience many changes due to the fact that most shipping carriers such as UPS and FedEx have increased their prices. The United States Postal Service, more famously known as USPS, has also changed some of its products offerings aside from the price hike, which is the first in the last 3 years.

The USPS Rates increase may seem extreme, but USPS is still the best option for small businesses especially for light weight packages. You may visit the Pitney Bowes page or the Postal Regulatory Commission website for more information regarding the changes and new prices. Given these, it’s high time for small businesses to think out of the box and explore other ways to deliver their products or even have a carrier mix to utilize different shipping providers in order to get the best service and costs.

It is not advisable for businesses to have just one carrier. They must create a shipping strategy that considers all factors in order to avail of the best service and prices. Cloud based shipping solutions are also available and these are good options for small businesses because it simplifies the shipping process. Lastly, having the right packaging is vital. Companies should use packaging for the sole purpose of making sure the items remain in good condition. Shipping small items in big packages is a waste of space and can incur additional costs.

Price Increase Overview

No changes for First Class Mail and the Forever Stamp
Overall Priority Mail Express Service 15.6% increase
Average retail price of Priority Mail Express 14.4% increase
Priority Mail Express Flat Rate Box has been discontinued
First-Class Package Service 12.8% increase
Standard Post is now called Retail Ground 10% increase
International Shipping Prices -Global Express Guaranteed (GXG) 7.1% and Priority Mail Express International (PMEI)6%

The USPS is also encouraging ecommerce companies to use the Intelligent Mail Package Barcode (IMpb) and meet all its requirements to benefit from the commercial mailing prices.

What are the benefits of IMpb?

No more scanning. There is no need to scan a parcel 11 times. It is now easier for companies and customers to track information, while improving USPS customer service
FREE insurance without having to go to the post office to purchase it
5-50% savings on postage, but depending on the package size, weight, class and distance of delivery.

In order to take advantage of IMpb, all packages must have unique tracking IMpb barcode. To qualify, businesses must have their own web based shipping solution or application. The good thing is that most businesses that have been transacting online already have applications that incorporate shipping charges into the shopping experience. But due to these changes, business owners should check with their providers how these changes affect them. Some apps like ShipperHQ and WebShopApps have automatic updates while Magento has patches that need to be installed.

7 Myths of PPC Advertising

21 February,2016 Business Advice No Comment Author: Marie

PPC or pay-per-click is a long standing internet marketing model where the advertisers pay a fee as soon as someone clicks on their advertisement. But the problem arises when the advertisers fall prey to the misconceptions of PPC unknowingly and as a result of you may even end up being duped and missing out on a good and useful marketing method.

Here are some of the commons myths in regards to PPC advertisting:

Beware of AdWords

AdWords are a very potent weapon in the arsenal of any power user, which can easily lighten the pocket of any advertiser without even giving them any clue of what they are getting into.

Paying less for acquisition or leads

If you are trying to achieve a target which can be deemed aggressive, you will have to spend a little extra, as paying less here will not yield results.

SEO and landing page quality score

The importance of relevant words in the SEO and the landing page is more than the actual content in them. Also, the click through rate is what you should give importance to as compared to the quality score of the landing part page.

Exact keywords = better ROI

The online market is a growing one with people looking for different products. Therefore, getting the exact keywords is not easy. Even if you have exact match keywords, it will still not assure better profit making abilities.

Long tail AdWords will give me cheaper clicks

The days of long tail AdWords are over, so don’t even think of doing that. Search engines have been taking steps to clean the search pools to get better results, hence getting into long tail AdWords won’t work here.

Testing time

Testing is always good if you know how to do it. Go for a more scientific approach when testing rather than wasting money and time unnecessarily on trial and error testing methods.

Taking help

If companies like GOOGLE are running point for you, then you don’t need to think of anything else. But, you are mistaken and it would be much better if you take help of an actual expert instead.

If you are looking for help in PPC Advertising, Simplio Web Studio is here to help you. Simplio Web Studio offers a complete PPC management service, which includes all stages of the process from initial research and campaign creation to extensive research, analysis and optimization of the campaign results. Check out our services here.

Why Should You Care About Google’s Search Quality Rating Guidelines?

18 February,2016 Business Advice, SEO Tips No Comment Author: Marie

If you aren’t completely aware of what the article headline is trying to say, we must inform you that Google has released a full version of its Search Quality Rating Guidelines for the year 2015 in PDF format – a first for Google.

Google never has been so open about the guidelines in the past!

Earlier, Google had contacted people who had put up the link of previous versions of the guidelines and had asked them to remove those links in order to keep them away from the eyes of public. That brings us to the question of why Google has decided to put up the link now. Well, the answer is simple. It was already leaked. Many blog posts have put up these links open to the public and it is difficult even for Google, to remove them.

Moreover, there might be a person who works in Google who realized it was foolishness not to release the guidelines. Why would they teach their raters about the aspects that would result in a quality page, and not tell people making their pages?

What are the Google Search Quality Rating Guidelines?

These guidelines are nothing, but confidential and proprietary written guidelines which Google provides to those it hires to verify the quality of a webpage.

Honestly speaking, there are not any secret recipes or tricks in the guidelines. But why such hype?

Here is why: It is always best advisable to act in such a manner that produces benefits in the long run in search visibility for your students and clients. Hence, though the guidelines aren’t really a compelling read, you could take suggestions from it to improvise.

Do you want to get noticed by Google and the searchers? Go where they are going!

Do not make an attempt to tamper with Google’s algorithm and reverse engineer it. Instead, observe where Google is headed. Google has always been driving towards the goal of favoring those sites which offer something that pleases the audience who land on any site that is displayed in their search results. This is a general motive, as there are many useless search results too. Hence, the guidelines of quality rating are vital as they let us know what Google exactly looks for. After this happens, it is easy for Google to refine the technique used to reward websites which give them what is sought by them.

Hence, if you need to configure your websites in such a manner which will be beneficial for upcoming years, understand the quality rating guidelines and impact on the company’s mindset which created them.

A good decision by Google

Sharing the quality rating guidelines with the people is a good decision that Google has come up with. This is also a sportive comeback, giving it back to those who illegally tried to leak the guidelines. Well done!

You can download the full version, courtesy of Google, over here.

Sources: (1) (2) (3)

BlogSimplio Labs Blog

Competition

Multiple office locations

Multiple products or services

1) Having a complicated webpage

2) Not possessing an Email Newsletter

3) Making use of QR Codes

4) Unnecessary expenditure on an app for smartphone

5) Using Flash

6) Having same designs for Tablets as well as smartphones

Better Visibility of Facebook Ads

Optimized Budgets with Precise Control

Improved ROI with better Advertisement Placements

Increased Conversion Rates

Increased Success with improved strategies

Price Increase Overview

What are the benefits of IMpb?

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