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You still have the power to excite customers and claim the profits: try experiential marketing

on November 26, 2018

Customers have always wanted to spend money and buy new things. There have been no exceptions to that. However, the current retail landscape is different from what it was five years ago. Modern customers are not ready to spend their hard-earned money on just about anything. They want to invest in experiences and make memories. They are no longer satisfied with the look-and-shop experience most e-commerce companies are offering. They want something more tangible. That is why the old brands are reinventing themselves in new ways that appeal to the customer groups, old and new. Several new companies are starting out with event-based activations and experiential marketing campaigns

How is the market going through a massive change?

A fresh study from the Harris Group shows that over 72% of the millennials would rather spend money on experiences than on material buys. It has managed to jolt the traditional retailers, who were relying on the conventional show-and-tell marketing format until about now. That trend shows how much the expectations of the potential customer is changing with time. At the same time, top experiential marketing agencies have created new opportunities for the emergence of new market leaders. It is the beginning of a massive shift in the market, and that is precisely what maximum marketers of tomorrow were awaiting.

Retailers are finally ready to take advantage of the changing preferences and trends of the market. In fact, there is a record shift towards experiential marketing and event-based brand activation ideas in the last couple of months. Brands want to make more connections, boost sales and engage their customers in building a loyal consumer base. Research shows that positive emotions are the glue that holds a customer base together.

What is so special about engagement marketing?

Experiential marketing can be a campaign, strategy or event that engages the customers with the promise of a unique experience. Whether you’re top experiential marketing agency suggests a live band performance, an exclusive talk show with a celebrity or a brand activation campaign with the presence of social media influencers, it is the exceptional experience that will help your brand stand out. It can include anything and everything from free classes to free food! One thing is common between old-school marketing and new-age experiential marketing – the customers love free stuff. So, when organizing an experiential marketing event, do not skimp on the goodies for your customers even when you are providing stellar experiences.

Who should be investing in experiential marketing?

Experiential marketing is not just for those businesses that involve customer interactions on a daily basis for generating revenues. Cafes, restaurants, fast food chains, and health food outlets do benefit tremendously from event-based activation and marketing stunts, but product-based retail services including cosmetics, skincare, hair care, clothing, fitness accessories, and travel accessories also enjoy a positive boost from event-based strategizing of marketing and promotions. As a result, almost all brands are making plans to incorporate experiential marketing in their strategy in the oncoming days. In short, all businesses have the potential to benefit from a well-crafted on-ground marketing strategy. 

It gets the customers talking among themselves

Another important aspect of experiential is word-of-mouth marketing. Consumers talk to each other through various web forums, e-commerce discussion forums and they follow the reviews and ratings on e-commerce sites. About 73% of the consumers share pictures of their new products while writing reviews and 49% are likely to share the videos of the events during the activation. It is easy to become the talk of the town when you have celebrities and influencers endorsing your products during the launch. It is imperative to craft a memorable experience, so your target audience has good content to share. Without enough content generation, even the best social media marketing strategies and SEO agencies will not be able to take you far.

It facilitates communication between brands and customers

Real-life, offline events help these companies establish real relationships with their potential buyers. With experiential marketing, it is not always about pushing sales or driving the customers to the POS. It is about providing something tangible to the consumers. Your consumers are right now yearning for something more than product quality and at-home delivery. You need to conduct extensive market research to find out exactly what your customers want. It can be an exclusive behind-the-scenes experience of your kitchen, a free sample of your new coffee drink, a photo shoot with their favorite influencers or an Instagrammable event! The possibilities of experiential or event-based marketing are endless, and it is time you tapped into this infinite potential.

Experiential marketing creates an engagement loop for the customer community, where the online customers interact with the offline ones. There is a thorough blending of the review channels, and the reach of a brand multiplies from breaking the silos of digital, land-based and online marketing down.

DevelopmentInsightsMartech

Update Your Dealership Website For Holiday Sales

on November 21, 2018

The holiday season is upon us once again and that means a huge boost to sales in every industry. Of course, the auto industry is no different. Whether it’s for a gift, due to sales promotions, or because of a big yearly bonus, people seem to welcome any excuse to purchase a new vehicle at the end of the year.

Every dealership manager knows that this is the time of year to ready their location for what could be their busiest selling season – usually that week between Christmas and the New Year. It takes weeks of planning to deliver successful holiday promotions aimed at driving up foot traffic to gain an advantage over the competition, but one massive part of today’s market that’s easily overlooked is a dealership’s website.

Passive Versus Interactive Online Presence

A website can be much more than an advertisement meant to lure customers to the door. If all you’re offering is a selection of photos or digital flyers meant to entice customers to keep on clicking – or leave home and physically travel to your dealership – then your strategy may be holding you back. Why should your website just sit there waiting for clicks when you could employ a technology that allows your sales team to interact with new customers?

24-hour Live Chat Services

The simple addition of new dealer chat software can open up a satisfying range of experiences for anyone browsing your website. Within seconds of finding your site, a small window will appear in the lower corner of the screen, immediately connecting that potential customer with a live operator.

Better Customer Service

In today’s world of automated customer service, it’s nearly impossible to avoid annoying chatbots and connect with an actual person in real conversation. Live operators on dealer chat software can give your customers the rare satisfaction of feeling respected and assisted online. They’ll also have access to your dealership’s local inventory while allowing your sales team to jump into chats to provide enticing incentives and further information about individual vehicles.
The major benefit of this personal interaction is that it allows operators to help customers find exactly what they’re looking for, at a price range that’s tailored to suit their budget. This may not result in instant sales online, but it will allow you to generate excellent leads for your in-house sales team.

Customer Information

With the ability to track analytics on your website, operators can keep a personal profile on any customer that registers. You’ll get well-informed documentation on every potential buyer based on information gathered by live operators and data collected from their browsing habits. This dual strategy allows you to make informed suggestions for your clients and increase the potential of leads.
If you’re holding out on updating your dealership’s website with more interactive technology, you’re giving the competition an enormous advantage on the online market. All it takes are a few clicks for online customers to find a competitor with more attractive online services and you’ve lost them for good. Instead, update your website with the latest features to increase your holiday sales and jump to the top of online automotive sales.

DevelopmentInsightsSaaS

Top 5 Amazing IDEs for .NET Developers

on November 19, 2018

Great variety of wide-known companies works with .NET. Among them are Dell, Accenture, HCL, Epic Systems. What is .NET and why is it so beneficial to create a product on this platform? Efficient and successful software development framework .NET is a platform for easy desktop and web application engineering. This free platform used for many various types of application providing environment for programming connected to most software development phases.

.NET goes well with business, as it involves a great range of tools like web-based services, desktop software, and cloud infrastructure support. The .NET can be divided into three branches: .NET Framework, .NET Core, and Xamarin. The whole group of these implementations is called .NET development platform. The .NET can work with C#, VB.NET, C++, F# programming languages and ASP.NET tool, which is among of the best web development tools for building web pages and websites with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and server scripting. 20 years have gone from the time the very first .NET was launched and this platform keeps gaining its popularity with companies’ to hire .NET developers for in-house or outsource work – find more information.

.NET Implementation

Fast forward and we’ve got three types of .NET implementation. Each of them has its features and kinds of products that can be created on these platforms.

The .NET Framework is the origin embodiment of the platform with three main app models – Windows Forms, WPF and ASP.NET Forms.

.NET Core was presented in 2016. This cross-platform is a rebuild of .NET Framework. Products from this platform can be used on both Linux and OS X, so they are not tied only to the Windows family. ASP.NET Core and Universal Windows Platform are also included in .NET Core.

Xamarin is the third implementation for mobile applications and Mac products development. From the very beginning, this platform was designed independently from Microsoft, but in 2016 the company made it a fully open source branch.

For simple and complex data, the structure of the .NET platform has a huge collection of class libraries. Hundreds of written codes by other developers are there, altogether with specific libraries for security, encryption, and database access.

IDE’s for .NET Development

IDE is an Integrated Development Environment that helps to facilitate the development of an application. There are some very useful and popular tools for .NET developers to advise:

Visual Studio is integrated with .NET including the specifics of language environments, from its earlier versions (VS 6.0). It is one of the most commonly used development environment as it provides single IDE for all .NET applications. Editing, compiling, debugging are available for a multiple-document interface. You can make your design up-to-date by placing the controls in the layout the display of the application. Visual Studio .NET supports Intellisense and code refactoring. Plug-in architecture helps to add tools for domain languages.

Visual Studio (for Mac) is newly created .NET IDE for Mac. It was launched as Xamarin Studio with a lot of additions. It is planned that the IDE will have precisely the same centerpiece code of editor like Windows VS has. Text editors will be easier to work with – for instance HTML, CSS or Razor. Unique Mac user interface and user experience altogether with Mac icons of Visual Studio native app will impress you. You can develop there with Xamarin and cloud development with .NET Core and ASP.NET Core.

SharpDevelop is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for .NET Framework applications. The IDE supports the creation of applications written in C#, Visual Basic.NET, and IronPython. It is in free access and provides code completion, code generation, project templates, and a form designer. It can be also compatible with Visual Studio Express if to use the same solution file format.

.NET Reflector is the class browser that explores and analyzes bugs through your application to see where the problem is – whether it is your own code, aside libraries, or components used by your application. With the help of this IDE, you can look inside the assemblies of any third-party platform to see the way they working.

Quest Comparison Suite for SQL Server Increases productivity and reduces costs protecting your data. You may simplify performance management and centralize administration. The IDE helps you to manage single/multiple database platforms.

Learning the .NET Framework

Microsoft gains a lot of credits for is how to learn .NET in an easy way for programmers as Microsoft Developer Network site has many resources for developers with documentation in details and sample code on different languages for using. It can be videos on Pluralsight for learning both the language and the web/mobile and Windows application code. Get acquainted with C# Yellow Book. This is a must-read for a solid base in programming. But practice goes at once, so the best way to get started is to take a project and start building.

The typical setup for a .NET application uses Visual Studio as the IDE. Editing, compiling, debugging are open for use in this IDE. Visual Studio for Mac is in process of development, but it’s already available with a variety of peculiar features of the iOS system. SharpDevelop creates applications in C#, Visual Basic.NET, and IronPython languages. It is in free access and provides code completion, code generation, project templates, and a form designer. A web developer can facilitate the process of programming and check on any bugs their application to see where the problem is. The last but not least IDE for .NET developers in this top 5 is Quest Comparison Suite for SQL Server. Controlling productivity and evaluating of data protection is available with this platform. Microsoft provides the variety of useful IDE’s for a developer that mean even bigger possibilities for getting involved in .NET development.

SaaS

Know how much you should spend on a mobile app like Uber

on November 19, 2018

So, planning out to start an online taxi and car-sharing business, or you already have one and looking out for a mobile app for the advancement?

Regardless to say, Uber will be the first name that would come in your mind for the references to research about the procedures and would want to know about it.

Along with the process, you would be more keen to know how much would it cost you to develop a mobile app like Uber, am I right or am I right?

Well, today I will be discussing in this complete article about the process and cost of development of a mobile app that functions like the one for Uber does.

However, before we start discussing the cost, let me focus on whether or not you want to build an app highly functioning like Uber. Here we go!

Uber – Mobile Application

While thinking about mobile applications for taxis or car hires, what makes Uber the first one to come to our minds?

Well, it can be its brilliant services, the vast variety of features or the functionalities of the mobile application itself.

Uber, along with the services on the road, provides the best user experience on the app comprising of the highly efficient app functionalities.

It uses high-end functionalities like GPS tracking, Payment gateways, and Fare calculator which may not be functioning well with a weak or bug-full app backend.

Further, it is available on both the major platforms – Android and iOS.

The APIs related to the functionalities and their integrations is a different process in both the platforms.

Also, they come up with superb updates enhancing the riding experience and app’s user experience much better every time.

The app comes with a robust backend as the scaling, and the features of the application do not make it a heavy load on the user’s Smartphone.

Thus, when you are planning to create an app like Uber you need to justify with your app features and its robustness and yes, the service of course.

Then, how much does it take to create an app like Uber?

Here we come to the title topic what I started writing this article for.

The complete Interface of Uber, if considering the car sharing one only, includes a minimum of two platforms:

  • The driver’s app
  • The passenger’s app

Let us review the list of features each app may require.

Features for a Driver’s App include

  • Registration
  • Booking
  • Notifications
  • Map Navigation
  • Fare Calculator
  • Reporting
  • Messaging
  • Support & Contact Center

Also, to manage the complete schedule and circulation of the drivers from a center point, an admin panel will be required too.

Features for a Passenger’s App include

  • Sign up / Login
  • Booking Interface
  • Tracking
  • Fare Calculator
  • Payment options
  • Push Notifications
  • Messaging
  • Reviews & Ratings
  • Booking History

Looking at the list of features mentioned above, we can understand that a solid base of developers and technologies is sure to be required.

Uber, being thoughtful to this requirement, has disclosed its API to the public and the developers on its website to help them tailor-make their taxi hiring mobile app.

However, while considering its development, a company should be thoughtful enough not to consider hiring an offshore mobile app development company just by cherry picking the lowest cost one.

One thing you need to tie the knot in your head that developing a taxi hailing mobile app is not a one time task and it is never finishing the development.

Its development and maintenance will be termed as an on-going project only since the day you start planning and preparing it.

Thus, be prepared that you are going to get a dent, wait, not a dent but a bottomless pit on your bank balance while developing a correctly functioning taxi app.

Now when you know that you can’t outsource the project, you need to find and hire the best mobile app developers, both for iOS and Android and give them the in-house job roles on a full-time salary.

The complete development of an efficiently functioning taxi app may take up to 4500 to 5000 hours. You can count up to 12 months to launch it to the public with complete functions to use.

The Cost of Development

The cost of developing the complete app is broken into the phases of development each thing.

For iOS –

  • Backend Development – $5,000 – $6,000
  • App Development – $12,000 – $14,500
  • Frontend Development – $9,500 – $11,000
  • Testing – $6,500 – $8,000

The total of above development elements sums up to $33,000 to $39,500 for developing a basic taxi app for iOS.

For Android –

  • Backend Development – $5,000 – $6,000
  • App Development – $13,000 – $15,500
  • Frontend Development – $12,000 – $14,500
  • Testing – $8,000 – $10,000

The total of above development elements sums up to $38,000 to $46,000 for developing a basic taxi app for Android.

Total cost for both platforms

The total cost for developing a basic taxi app functioning on iOS as well as an Android platform will sum up to $71,000 to $85,500.

This is an estimate of a basic taxi app development, but as and when your business grows you would need to add up more features in the app and maintain it from time to time to keep it bug-free.

Its maintenance has its own cost. It would help if you instructed your team of developers to keep a timely check on all the features.

This particular category of application requires high maintenance of bug testing as it deals with the personal details of the users.

Further, if you are planning to outsource the project because of lack of skilled people in your locality or because you can’t keep a check on this aspect and want an experienced brain to look after the complete management or whatever the reason may be, you can count the cost adding up a few more thousands.

Talking about Uber

When we are looking at the development cost of a taxi app and referring to Uber, we need to see how much did the peer pay.

Back in 2016, the company had over 1200 engineers on the desks working over the app which probably would have touched the count of 1800 to 2000 by now and each costing the company around $270K to $350K a year on an average.

Moreover, looking at the services and the functionalities encompassed in the application, we can nod to yes that the investment of such a tremendous amount of development is making an asset to all, not the company alone.

Uber takes utmost care of all the features of the app such as the Geo-location feature, Payment Gateways, and others.

It keeps on working towards more and more integrations to various platforms such as combining to social media and maps which ease the lives of people on the go.

So, how much to spend on such an app?

Well, concluding this piece, we see about here that the referring platform is the one that has drawn the eyes towards itself for years now and to develop a same kind of app is a shoulder bending task.

Further, if you are looking forward to it as one of your business goals, you must give your hundred percent to its development and well-functioning.

The features in tech are never-ending, and if you want to walk head to head in the competition, you need to be up on your toes to stay updated about the tech and use it to make users’ lives better.

The above written are just the basic numbers as I mentioned earlier in the paragraph, but when you want to excel, you must try to invest as much as you can.

Also, the development of the app is not the only thing you need to do to make millions out of it.

You need to invest in the marketing of the app and your services related to that.

For marketing, you must consider hiring an excellent digital marketing specialist with great market experience and knowledge of the trends.

 

Author bio:

Manan Ghadawala is the founder of 21Twelve Interactive which is one of the best mobile app development company in India and the USA. He is an idealistic leader with a lively management style and thrives raising the company’s growth with his talents. He is an astounding business professional with astonishing knowledge and applies artful tactics to reach those imaginary skies for his clients. Follow him on @twitter
SEO Process Diagram
DevelopmentInsightsSaaS

SEO Basics Small Businesses Should Know

on November 17, 2018

The market nowadays is highly competitive and crowded with various businesses. Small businesses that are new to the market will have difficult times competing against other companies that have already built their presence on the market and are favoring good incomes. However, just because something is difficult, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. There’s always a way for small businesses to outrun even the more-developed competitors. A good example of this is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO allows companies to establish their online presence, visibility, and awareness, among other things.

Simply put, SEO helps your website become more visible and accessible on search engines, such as Google. The main reason SEO is important is that, as mentioned before, the online market is highly competitive and overcrowded, which means that your business needs to find a way to stand out and cut through all that noise. Moreover, aside from being a cost-effective marketing strategy, SEO provides many more benefits to businesses. However, it takes a bit of time before the results kick in. That being said, here are a few SEO basics small businesses should know.

The importance of keywords

Every small business must know how important keywords in SEO are. Keywords are the core of every SEO effort. They are words or phrases that match the content on your website and individual pages to that of user intent on search queries. Ranking for the right keywords will bring you closer to your target audience. For instance, if you own a small business that focuses on dog food, you’d want to rank for keywords that have “dog” or “food” in them.

You must also consider long-tail keywords most commonly used by your audience when searching for dog food online, such as “the best dog food” or “affordable dog snacks”.  Comprehensive and detailed keyword research is simply a must for your SEO strategy. That includes conducting a competitive analysis to determine which keywords your main competitors are ranking for as well. The more you understand which keywords to opt for, the more successful your strategy will be.

Local SEO

Many small businesses are mainly competing on their local market before they grow enough to tackle the global one. That’s where local SEO is crucial. Local SEO strategy slightly differs from a regular one, as its primary focus is on your local market. You must adapt content, keywords, your business information, and other factors to match the needs of local customers. For example, you must update your business information, such as location, phone number, address, work hours, etc. on Google My Business listings feature.

It’s also important to sync that information with other local business listings. For instance, if your small business is in Hong Kong, you must ensure your local SEO strategy is optimized for local customers and that you have your business information on every local business listing. However, Hong Kong is a big and busy place, so you might consider opting for SEO services in Hong Kong to help you with creating a local strategy. Once you’ve established a good presence on the local market, you can aim for expanding your dealings to an international or country-wide scale.

Content is king

Yet another SEO basic every small business must know about is content. Content is king and there’s no doubt about it. The main reason content is considered as the most important factor in SEO is that it delivers value to your customers or target audience through information, entertainment, and education. Content is crucial for SEO both on your website and outside of it. Website content helps you provide relevant information to visitors while helping you include keywords your rank for into it, in order to boost rankings for your pages and your website in general.

Moreover, content is vital for your off-page SEO activities, such as guest posting and link building, as it helps build authority, credibility, and exposure. What’s more, content is the number one ranking factor alongside backlinks, according to Google. In short, there’s no SEO without good-quality content. However, not just any content will do. In fact, when developing content for either your website or off-page activities, you must ensure that it’s top quality and highly relevant to your target audience.

Website performance

Every business these days needs a website, small business included. Without a website, you simply don’t exist in the online world and you certainly won’t need SEO. Most of your SEO efforts are regarding your website. However, all of that is in vain if your website isn’t performing well. In other words, you can simply say that website performance is a ranking factor as far as search engines are concerned. But what is that? Simply put, customer satisfaction on your website is a ranking signal and there are plenty of performance factors that influence customer satisfaction in the first place.

For example, website speed is a factor for both SEO and customer satisfaction. Sluggish websites won’t rank well on search engines because most consumers aren’t patent enough to wait for your pages to load. In addition, mobile friendliness is also an important factor. If your website isn’t responsive or mobile-friendly, you won’t have good rankings. Other factors include navigation, security, user-friendliness and so on. For website security, install an SSL certificate that encrypts the information pass between browser and server. Therefore, if you want your SEO strategy to succeed, you must ensure your website is performing well, to begin with.

Every small business must know about the basic rules regarding SEO. If you don’t understand how it works or you don’t understand its purpose, then you won’t be able to utilize the full potential of SEO.

DevelopmentProductsSaaS

Domestic Chip Industry Adds New Crisis, Two Big Sound Module Manufacturers Fight Inside

on November 15, 2018

As we all know, for the whole Asian semiconductor industry, China has been subordinate to South Korea and in a weak position, and often subject to the United States squeezing. However, the Chinese rise and the country’s strategic objectives make the domestic semiconductor industry has been rapid development after the efforts of several years.

In recent years, the development of smartphones has been calculated by leaps and bounds. Its screen fingerprint technology has received a lot of favor, so far the most popular principle of photoelectric fingerprint technology is to illuminate the finger texture in the form of light, and through the OLED screen panel reflects back to the sensor, and eventually form a fingerprint image and complete identification and authentication. Although there is no advanced high-pass ultrasonic technology, the cost is low and can be widely applied.

The fight inside has been a disaster, GOODIX and SILEAD come to blows

Two of China’s largest fingerprint chip manufacturers, GOODIX Technology and SILEAD Technology, fought a big patent lawsuit on both sides, which had been involved into a total of three A-share listed companies, and the row between them could not be undone. On September 29, Shanghai SILEAD Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. announced that GOODIX Technology had formally declared to the Shenzhen Intermediate Court that SILEAD and Shenzhen Tripod Infinite Technology Co., Ltd. had invaded their three patents, demanding a total compensation of 210 million yuan, and immediately suspended the sale of their products.

Influenced by this incident, the holding company behind SILEAD has now stopped falling, and the share price of GOODIX Technologies has plummeted by 5.26%, which can be said to have a huge impact on both sides. In response to this matter, some netizens said: “regardless of the final outcome of the lawsuit, this situation will certainly cause great losses to the domestic voice IC industry, it is really not appropriate.¡± However, there are netizens who believe that there will be progress only if there is a competition, and the dispute over patent infringement on both sides will help to establish a legitimate professional order, and will not present a mixed phenomenon.

According to statistics, since 2017, the global shipments of fingerprint recordable sound module for toys have been gathered in the hands of FPC, GOODIX Technology and SILEAD. The former belongs to Swedish companies, while the latter two belong to domestic enterprises. Among them, GOODIX Technology takes second place with 34.5% and SILEAD takes third place with 6.50%. Therefore, the infighting between GOODIX and SILEAD is likely to allow the FPC to seize the opportunity once again, continue to expand the leading advantages and open the distance between them. And it is believed that it is really what the Chinese are certainly reluctant to see.

It is understood that GOODIX Technology pointed out that SILEAD and Tripod Chip sold a capacitor fingerprint chip made by the former and sold by the latter without authorization. The chip is involved in the scale of three patents aggressed against GOODIX, thus GOODIX raised a lawsuit and demanded compensation and suspension of sale.

China’s  USB Push Button Sound Module road is not only about technology and talent. We should also calm down and lengthen the timeline, pay attention to the changes of the times, and keep pace with the times and help each other. Thus, we can create unique advantages and occupy a niche in the chip industry.

InsightsProducts

Why Should Every Blog Start With a Coming Soon Page?

on November 15, 2018

Should you create a coming soon page before you start your blog? Our answer is a definitive Yes.

Why do I need it?

There are several mammoth reasons to start off with a perfect Coming Soon page. This may sound intimidating right now, as it is an extra step to take before you launch and start earning money that you probably haven’t considered yet. However, once the benefits of having it are there in the back of your mind, we are sure you won’t be able to resist the temptation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saeCtruLgz4&feature=youtu.be Imagine this: you have spent hours and countless nerves figuring out the best possible website for your blog. You have picked the theme, set up all the widgets you would like to have, or you have spent quite a bit on your developer to do that for you. Your initial blog post is perfect, though you wish you had the time to remove those three words from paragraph or two. The launch date is today, and you are thrilled. Yet, you are the only one (or maybe the developer, too) that gets to enjoy the hard work, simply because no one else knows about your blog but you! The perfect website has no initial momentum, and no matter how many times you click “refresh” on your statistics page, the number of views is still one – you. This can get quite depressing, and you may feel as if both you and your website are circling around in the endless black hole of the internet. You sigh, as you realize the tremendous work ahead of actually promoting it and getting visitors to your website. This is where everyone who has used the Coming Soon page gets to say “I told you so”. This tremendous work could have been done beforehand, or even better, it would have happened on its own. Let us prevent the terrible scenario before it happens to you.

Guests are coming – clean it up!

What is worse than a non-existent website? A website that is a total mess. No one wants to see that. However, the ugly truth is, you cannot create something without getting your hands dirty. To get the perfect website, it will be in the ugly duckling phase for quite some time. The bigger of a perfectionist you are, the longer the perfect website is going to take. You don’t want your customers to see the work in progress, because you know no one wants to part with their money. For that reason, the website should look flawless, not scammy. You want to look credible, professional and like someone who knows what they are doing, so that they will put their trust – and money – in your hands. You need a Coming Soon page. While the whole website can take several weeks to set up, with a free Coming Soon plugin for WordPress, you can set up an immaculate Coming Soon page in a matter of minutes. Even though it takes just a couple of minutes, it will not look hastily done – it is a single page after all, with just enough information on it. Hide the work in progress and have your customers wait for your website with an awesome first impression. If you have a Coming Soon page, you don’t have to worry about losing your credibility over a bunch of typos, disproportional images, or a non-working map.

Get them to talk to you

Get the people that are interested in what you do or offer behind and cheering for the website before it is even a website. You might have a number of social media followers, but what do you do with them? They are no good just on Instagram (or Facebook, if they are old school). Give them a link they can work with – the link to your “in progress” website currently in the Coming Soon status. Make sure to add the “Subscribe” button, or some other Call to Action form of your choosing. You need them to give you their email. Once you have the emails of your interested social media followers, it is extremely easy to get them excited about your launch date, blog posts, product or services. At that point, all you need is a great newsletter and you won’t have to install additional plugins for the job. If this is set and done before the launch, your website will not be a part of the black hole, but rather a rabbit hole for your potential customer to get lost in. There is another side to this. You could be getting some traffic on your Coming Soon, but without actual content on it, it seems that these people won’t get back once the content is there? Make sure to use social media icons, and divert your potential clients to places that are less in progress, such as your Facebook page.

Reserve your spot at Google Search results

You don’t want your customer to go to the competition just because you haven’t launched yet? We don’t want that to happen, either. The Coming Soon page can help you get organic traffic, even before you have something concrete to say. You know your keywords and what your customers search for. Even if you don’t, the plugin that you can use to create the page can give you a helping hand with your SEO. So, why don’t you get a stronghold on that and make sure that you are the solution that they will see first? Once they land on your page, you want to keep them there, or at least get their email address. You can do this by making sure that your Coming Soon page is impeccable. Put up a theme that looks beautiful and relates to what you do to get the most out of the first impression. It will help with minimizing the chance of them hitting the “back” button. Use the theme to add the most descriptive and informative elevator pitch you’ve got. You want them to know what you do and why you should be the one to help them. This should be enough for them to take the bait, and leave you with their email address so that you can start the conversation!

SaaSStartups

How Do I Know I am Hiring the Best iOS Developers?

on November 7, 2018

The market for smartphones is increasing constantly and usage of mobile applications has increased a lot. Apple has been known for their innovative features and every year they introduce some innovation that amazes the world. As a business owner, you have two options for developing a mobile app. The first one is developing a mobile application with your in-house team and the second option is to hire an app developer from an eminent mobile app development company. The in-house developer is not affordable for small to medium size companies, as once application is built, there are no further tasks for mobile app development. That will lead you to the second option which is hiring a mobile app development company. So as a business person, you might have decided to build an iOS application for your business but you don’t have an idea how to hire an iOS developer that provides you with the best iOS application for your business without ruining your project, money, and time. Before choosing any app development company, you need to ensure a few things that give you a better idea about the company and their development team’s skills. Here we are trying to provide you with a few key factors you should consider before hiring an app development company.  

Past Projects

This is the key aspect that needs to look. You can request the iPhone developer to display some of their past work for your acknowledgment. Please ensure that all those links are live and available to download. It will be an advantage if a developer has developed something similar to your application.

Past clients’ details

This is another key factor to identify best iOS developer for your job. You can talk with their past clients and understand what are the pros and cons of app development company. Moreover, if you get a chance to speak with the client of the same industry then it will boost your confidence while hiring iOS app developers. You can ask their past clients about how company handle timeline, manage the project and resources, communication skills and many more. Through all these questions, you can set your mindset and able to deal with work was chosen development company.

Proficiency

This is an important factor as every application has unique features. Before hiring, you should ensure that they have the expertise for the features that you are looking for your application and able to give details what is the procedure they will follow to complete the required functionality in your application.

Experience

Another important factor that you need to check before hiring app developers. Experienced developers can provide you with the best quality code and error-free application for your business. The bug-free application will help you increase your user experience.

App Support

This is another most important factor that should not be ignored. Every application requires some support after completion of the development and that should be properly managed by mobile app Development Company as it will allow you to improve your application once it launches and live on the app store to download.

Other development services

Application development is not enough for any client and every client expect more than that like quality assurance, business analysis, launch application, post-development support etc. So based on their different services, you can choose the best development company for your application.

Good Communication

Communication is another important factor while choosing an iOS developer. The developer should be a good communicator and able to communicate easily as communication gap will surely affect your project. You should ensure that iOS developer asks all the requirement related questions at the initial stage of the project so your project can work smoothly. The developer should also be able to suggest good ideas for your business so you can generate better revenue and having a few USP features in your business application.

Updated With the latest trend

The iOS developer should be updated with the latest trends in iOS. iOS developer should able to code in Swift language rather than Objective-C. The main reason for Swift development is that you get an idea about the developer and their approach towards new technology. Swift programming language is quite clean and time-effective compare to Objective-C. Another advantage of Swift is it’s cost-effective as well as more productive.

Monetize App

Most of the business applications are developed to engage with consumers as well as generate revenue for the business. You should also need to understand their strategy for generating revenue from your application. There are many monetize technique like in-app purchase, pay per download or display ads. App development company should able to give you the best advice to generate revenue from available option.

Summary:

Based on the above details you can identify the good iOS developer with the following qualities:

  • Have the quality of works done
  • Keen to learn new technologies and a good approach to develop new skills.
  • Understand your business and help to find the best way to make your application popular into the market.
  • Work with you as your technology partner, not as just developer.
Insights

Bring Your Startup Back on Track – Get a Debt Consolidation Loan

on November 1, 2018

One of the most important things in managing a startup is to arrange for funds. You may get brilliant ideas in your mind for starting with the business, but giving the necessary support to the ideas to materialize needs money. Hence you need money to start things, and that is why you would need a startup loan.

What is a startup loan?

A startup loan is a great way to get your business funded. Many banks, organizations, investors, private lenders, online banks and such places offer loans for startups. The loan amount may be small or big. The motto of the loan is to fund the startup at the inception or to fund it at a later stage for development. You can get this kind of a business loan easily by applying to the right place at the right time. For this, your credit score must be healthy to prove your creditworthiness. If you are taking a loan for the first time, then also you can get the business loan at a little higher interest.

How to take a startup loan and how to prepare?

To get a startup loan, you will have to prepare a file that represents your business plans. Your entire plan for the business, detailed case study, market research, projections for the coming years, backup plans for crises management, and all such things with total calculations must be made clear in the file so that you can impress the lender. You can apply to traditional banks, and may also apply to private lenders and online banks through online loan agencies and loan comparison sites.

Things to consider while taking a startup loan

You can take one or more loans as needed for growing your startup from time to time. And this is pretty natural too. Entrepreneurs do take loans and raise funds from the market. And you can do so also. Just you have to be careful that you clear off the loan on due time without lingering on with late payments, and non-payments. To ensure the loan EMIs stay comfortable with the revenue generation of your startup, so that you may comfortably pay the EMIs, you should check that you get the loans at the lowest possible rate and longest possible tenure. A low rate and long tenure combination make a loan comfortable to bear and payback in most cases.

What if you are unable to pay the loan back?

You may discover or realize late that you are unable to pay back the loan. This may happen for a number of reasons. Your business may not do well, the entire business may fall sick or close, or you may mismanage the multiple loan accounts. Anything that results in delayed payments of the installments, or total non-payments, or skipped EMI payments; all results in two things, and that is the charge of penalties for the delays together with impact in the credit score.

The reputation of the business, its credit history all goes down with time, and you lose your creditworthiness in the market due to non-payment of loans. These things can get too worse to bring collection and recovery calls to you, disrupt your mental peace and wellbeing, get you legal notices and make the business even sicker under heavy debt. You may lose your staffs and workers owing to non-payment of salaries and bad reputation, and many more damages may come to the startup. Hence, failing to pay the dues on time can be fatal for the business and its reputation.

How may you get into trouble for multiple business loans?

Getting under the heavy pressure of multiple debts in business is quite common among entrepreneurs. And may cope up well with the situation while many fail. Failure to manage finances and debts is one big reason for many startups to fail. And that is why if you are suspecting any such scenario in the near future, you must act now, and get help now before it’s too late and your credit score and reputation get ruined.

Once your credit score is affected, your good healthy resort to take a debt consolidation loan to manage all the dues may not work, and you may never be able to consolidate your dues in a sorted way. Then you may have to look for other solutions like debt settlement or even bankruptcy, with the help of a bankruptcy lawyer in Phoenix, or wherever you are based, in severe cases. And naturally, such solutions are not great for your reputation or business health. Hence, a timely analysis of the situation to take the right step for getting out of multiple business debts is the best thing to do.

A solution to get out of multiple debts

The best solution to get out of multiple debts while you still have a sound credit score is to get a debt consolidation loan. A debt consolidation loan helps you get a loan amount as much big, which will help you pay off all existing dues in the market with the full and final settlement. This helps you get sorted and get rid of all dues which you were unable to manage. You get in return one single loan for a big lump sum amount which is still manageable to pay, because it’s tenure to pay back, and rate of interest are both favorable. Paying back a debt consolidation loan is easy for the lower rate of interest than what you earlier paid. Also, the long-term helps divide the loan amount into smaller manageable EMIs. Hence you can manage such a loan much better without taking any burden. More ideas about debt consolidation can debt relief programs can be obtained from important resources like nationaldebtreliefprograms.com.

Finally

Debt consolidation is a smart step in multiple bad credit management in an early situation when things are not gone too wrong that you are denied a consolidation loan. If your credit score goes too bad, then you may be denied the approval. Otherwise, you can get the loan and sort out things much easily, and bring back your business on track.

Startups

Do you own a business? Importance of Funding

on October 29, 2018

Many dreams to start a business but don’t have an adequate amount of funds, so the dream remains as a dream. Business is nothing but a platform for the exchange of products or service with respect to money or any other service but starting a business is a huge decision because we invest lots and lots of money in it.

The main motive of a business is to delight the customers and try to acquire more customers along with a proper plan and strategic management. According to Michelle Dipp, a life sciences investor and venture capitalist, “There must be an appropriate vision or goal for starting the business. If you plan to pitch to investors, you must understand that investors don’t just put money on products, they invest in the future. The best way to foresee the future is through company’s vision or goals”. Like humans, the business also undergoes various stages such as:

Budding Stage

This stage is the starting stage of any business. Here the businessman or the entrepreneurs need to define the pathway like where they want to take their business after a certain period of time. This is one of the crucial stages. The budding stage defines the initial stage of the business. The businessman needs to water it every day with efforts, hard work, and other factors to make it strong day by day.

Growth Stage

The growth stage is otherwise known as Survival stage for the business. The times come when business face cut-throat competition from the competitor, here the team should perform really well and generate their unique selling proposition.

Maturity Stage

In the maturity stage, the growth of business tends to be in the break-even point, no profit no loss. Here a new strategy should be implemented, and business should re-enter with new product and service so as to earn a profit and acquire customers.

Decline Stage

In this stage, business is in the position of winding- up. The ideas don’t work, the customers are retained by the competitors, or maybe they don’t have funds for further proceedings.

Be it a start-up or a renowned business; there comes a certain period of time where every business requires funding or loan. Various business websites and vendors provide funding and loans for starting a business.

There are various types of investors like angel investors, venture capitalist, personal investors, peer to peer investors, etc. The investment can be a purpose for assets, capital, furniture, etc. Financing is required in every arena like employee’s salary mostly running the payroll, maintaining the inventory, etc. A business owner or entrepreneurs fear from borrowing money, so they start and accelerate the business but due to lack of lump-sum amount they need to shut down the same.

What are the necessary points which should be taken care of while searching for a funder or a lender?

Terms and Condition

When an investor invest in your company, he/she will obviously enter into the contract with certain terms and condition, make sure you have properly read out all the conditions and have made all the points clear and the agreement is made in a way that both the parties are mutually benefited.

Make sure you are aware of the history of the investor

Partnering with someone is a big decision, make sure you have proper communication regarding the same. Try to understand what all other companies in which he/she has invested are? Was the investment for a short period of time or a long period of time? Why the contract got over? What is the type of industries he/she has invested?

You can check out with this popular financial institution https://www.libertylending.com/ to get funds for your business quickly.

What is important?

To maintain the working capital

The foremost important part of a business is to maintain and keep consistency in respect to capital. The working capital includes furniture, employees’ salary, office equipment, and other administrative responsibilities. If the business is in the mode of expansion, it will require extra workforce and space and this will increase cost and if the business is in the constraint of only loss, this will require amount and can be raised considering market trends.

Recovery or meet the accident expenses

Accidents can happen at any time or any moment like fire in the building or certain asset brokerage or short-circuiting. This will again incur a cost. No doubt there is an option of business insurance but this will just help in making the burden less, but still cash flow is required. Consider a factory outlet where workers are always prone to accidents, machines often break down, this needs proper care and safety measures, and these factors cannot be fueled without money.

Maintaining a relationship with Key account manager

Every firm requires a key account manager for the investor, to hire an experienced professional so that investors can be backed-up for the same. Key account manager helps in maintaining a good relationship with clients helps you in financial terms and helps in accelerating the growth of the business as well.

Introducing a new product

New product development is usually becoming forte for the firm. But product development again requires huge money because it will involve testing, workforce planning, digital marketing service, etc.

Mode expansion

Sometimes when the business is growing at a faster pace and is able to acquire the customers, and the team decides to expand in different corners of the cities or PAN India, money is the first and foremost thing which will be required for the various purpose for financing, increasing the inventory, etc.

Small projects

There various companies which undertake projects on a contract basis or cloud software, basically here the companies tap the investors known as crowdfunding.

Conclusion

Business is an ongoing process. Funding can be required at any point in time, but finding the correct and appropriate ways of funding and finding the investors must be chosen wisely. There is a big market of investors and loan providers, but everyone cannot be trusted. Firstly, understand the benefit of funding; what are the risk involved along with the Pros and cons of funding. Why is the investor interested in your company?  Most importantly make your strategy strong so that the funds are used in a smart way, and you incur profit from the same. Funding can be on the basis of profit sharing as well.

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