Category: Insights

What You Need to Know for a Successful Digital Marketing Campaign

Miley on March 4, 2019

What keeps a business on its track? Many would say a good strategy. This strategy encompasses all the areas of your business, including the marketing aspect. And in the age of modern technology, a good marketing strategy is more important than ever.

If you want your business to grow and innovate, having a good strategy that you can integrate into your marketing campaign is a step in the right direction. The people behind SerpWatch have underlined the importance of a powerful marketing strategy in the infographic below.

The infographic presents the hottest statistics and trends that define the digital landscape today. Keeping an eye on these ensures that your marketing strategy will remain effective in 2019. Here are some of the important points you should remember before formulating your marketing campaign.

Local SEO

Having a general SEO strategy is great, but you should also focus on growing your local customer base. Stats say that over 40% of business revenue is driven by organic traffic. This means you need to rank in search engine results pages to gain more exposure which, in turn, can increase your leads.

But while general SEO is hugely beneficial, it also makes sense for you to give more attention to your local SEO in case you run a local business.

Many consumers go online to search for a company or store near them. In fact, 72% of those who do a local search end up visiting a store within five miles. What’s more, 28% of customers searching for a local business make a purchase.

That said, improving your local SEO ranking could help you build a strong relationship with customers who are within your business location.

PPC vs. Organic Traffic

Paid online advertising has been growing by the minute, but it must be used with caution. Studies show that 64.6% of people click on Google ads when they are looking to buy an item online. This means that they already have the intention to buy when they conduct a search.

But what if a person is looking for information and weighing options? The statistics are just as damning. For one, 80% of people ignore paid search results and opt to click on the organic listings instead.

Ads on mobile devices tell the same story, where 70% of respondents admitted to disliking mobile ads. There is also a significant increase, around 90%, in mobile ad blocking.

What does this mean to businesses? Paid advertising across different online platforms could help your campaign, but you should also make sure to weigh its pros and cons. Will it do more harm than good?

Content is King

Content marketing still holds an established place in any marketing strategy, whether it is on your website, social pages, or through emails. Producing valuable and relevant content across all your marketing channels can cement your credibility and authority in your niche.

Content marketing gets three times more leads than the paid search. Buyers have become more discerning, with 47% of them consulting 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales representative.

There are many more trends that you need to consider when you start creating your digital marketing campaign this year. Take a look at the infographic below to get started.

Insights

How technology can help boost your productivity

Miley on March 4, 2019

We have come a long way in finding ways to boost our productivity, and today we are on the threshold where we are able to look back and see the long winding road behind and be satisfied that we have achieved something. But should we be happy and contended that we are on the threshold or could we do better. We could do better and we have many things to learn and by doing so we could achieve greater heights and be superhuman somewhere in the future. Whether that would be a reality we may not see it in our generation, but the future is bright and that dream would be realized one day.

There are no limits to where we could go in the future and the more technologically advanced we become using it to increase our productivity and through it a better life is our paramount objective. There may be some very irrelevant distractions that could hamper our progress to that ultimate goal. One that we are encountering today wherever we may be is the very distracting prospect of being disturbed. Disturbance has become a very alarming factor which has put paid to concentration.

Concentration is paramount

To be able to accomplish anything we would need to concentrate and telescope our energies to ensure that we complete the tasks we accept or are delegated. If we are unable to concentrate then it would be an immense problem to concentrate and ensure completion.

Whether it is an office environment, field endeavor or even if you are flying in the air concentration would be what you should enjoy because most of what we do could depend on it. This issue has been a perennial problem especially for those living and working in an urban environment. The noise of traffic, the chattering of colleagues, the sound of machinery and a host of other sounds could put you off your concentration mode and your work could suffer.

Technologies to assist us

Today we are surrounded by technology and use and utilize numerous devices, equipment, online apps, machinery and many more to ensure we increase productivity. Every invention that has come before us beginning from the wheel which is considered the best invention of Man, are all geared to increase productivity. The list of the technologies that we use to increase productivity would take us around the Earth many times over but one issue would always stand apart.

That would be our ability to concentrate especially in the rat race environment that we live and work. A solution to this problem is now found and we are able to concentrate on anything from working to even sleeping which would increase productivity. Some may think as to why we would need to concentrate when we are sleeping, it is because if we are constantly disturbed during our sleep we would not be able to concentrate in our work the next day and productivity would drop drastically. Hence sleep is a very important component if we are to be productive. It we don’t get adequate sleep our wok could suffer and that would have a string of adverse consequences.

White noise technology

Research has found and it is a very important breakthrough in human behavior that we are constantly disturbed by the many sounds that emanate in the environment. If these sounds are completely and totally eliminated whether it is in an office, factory, any other work place or even at home our concentration levels would rise substantially. This would be easier said than done because such an ideal situation would be a near impossibility.

It is to help in this impossible endeavor that the white noise machine has been developed which could be considered as a breakthrough in technology which directly affects productivity. This small but effective contraption does a very simple chore and that is, it emits a constant sound neither loud nor silent but just to be heard by those around. This sound when it pierces our ear drums in a continuous sequence it tends to tune our ears to that particular sound and eliminating all the other disturbing sounds that would otherwise be picked up by your ears.

The white noise machine is proving its effectiveness and is becoming an integral part with all other technologies being employed to increase productivity. It has taken the need to concentrate and increase productivity to greater heights and is fast becoming one of the most important technologies, though simple it could be to ensure a new working environment for many.

Tests have proven that it is bringing positive results wherever it has been used and is being introduced into many workplaces. Whether it is an office or large factory it does not matter as it is providing the right impetus and the foil to the inability for many to concentrate in their tasks.

It could be used in your bedroom to ensure that you get a good night’s sleep undisturbed from all the honking, banging, shouting and other noises manmade and otherwise. If you get up fresh in the morning that too would be the first positive step to increase productivity. Deprivation of sleep especially over a prolonged period of time though you may get a few winks intermittently would still take its toll on your body.

A sleep-deprived individual would be half less or more unproductive compared to one who would have had a good night’s sleep. Hence it is imperative that you grab some quality bedtime every day to be at your best spirits the next day. If you are being disturbed take home a white noise machine today and see the wonders that it could do to you. This is technology at its best and none other could put you to sleep like you have never had before.

When we talk about technologies our minds would float to how we could get to the Moon, but there are many little things that we need which are also technology-based that would do better for us here rather than getting to the Moon. The white noise machine is just one of them.

Insights Martech Products SaaS

Ideas, Formulas and Shortcuts for Audio Manager

Miley on February 28, 2019

Let’s look in the device manager to look at the status of our Realtek audio driver. Generally, a business development manager will carry out tasks like product development, promotion, and distribution. Android Assistant was made to be compatible with different Android brands from various manufacturers. Your property manager should offer you a summary of how he is going to be handling your properties. Only the very best property managers ought to be hired!

Audio Manager has an excellent little profile feature built into the application. Easy Audio Manager is also an extremely fundamental app. Business management is just one of the main areas in every organization. The automated frequency management employs a new algorithm which also evaluates the reliability of available frequencies.

DSP Manager is a great application that may be employed to achieve vibrating bass in spite of your stock headphones. Being a real manager is never simple. Realtek HD audio manager is quite vital for your PC. To make sure that one’s music playlist does not become lost or distorted, it is necessary to employ music file administration.

The majority of the moment, you merely will need to update your audio driver. Before downloading the new Realtek drivers, it is going to be required to uninstall all present drivers.

The Downside Risk of Audio Manager

Audio is among the essential features of any computer. Windows Audio will then be enabled. It’s essential for practically any sound to be made when a program is operating in Windows. In the event the sound is working then the issue is solved and you need read no more. In addition, in addition, it provides a high-quality sound to your system during the audio card.

What is Actually Happening with Audio Manager

There are a lot of audio manager apps, so it’s essential for you to choose from an audio manager for your Android. Whichever it was, click the suitable link for your audio device so you are taken to the right page.

The 30-Second Trick for Audio Manager

Once an item of hardware is not functioning, it’s highlighted for attention. Although the true audio hardware is HD Audio, it is going to allow utilizing the AC’97 front panel like that. In case the computer doesn’t have sound, proceed to the next process to fix the error. You may then register the software to go for automatic Driver Updates. Free software is a good example. Instead, you may use a tool designed particularly for the purpose of managing and searching for samples.

Ok, I Think I Understand Audio Manager, Now Tell Me About Audio Manager!

If there are simple ways on how best to hide your apps in your Android, in addition, there are quick steps on how best to unhide the apps that were hidden in your menu. In the majority of cases, you should install an audio device to acquire your sound working. The very first thing you ought to do is determine which two audio devices you need to change between. Utilizing a system without sound will help it become incomplete.

About the author

Usman Raza is a marketing specialist at PSDtoWPService.com and co-founder of Christian Marketing Experts. He has been writing for magazines and newspapers since 2001, and editing and managing websites since 2006. A generalist, his most covered topics are business and technology. Follow him on Twitter @usmanintrotech.

Insights

7 Social Media Marketing Strategies That Can Help Your Ecommerce Business Grow

Miley on February 21, 2019

https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-typing-on-macbook-1559048/

The concept of social media and networking may have boomed from a dorm, but it has grown tremendously over the years.

Just for the sake of an overview, let’s take a look at where some of the most popular social media platforms stand:

Facebook, the biggest social network, has more than two billion active users
Twitter is hitting the 350 million mark this year
Linked In is a network that connects more than 500 million professionals
Instagram has already crossed 800 million

The total number of social media users is now over 3.1 billion, and increasing at around 13 percent every year.

Any smart businessperson can see the potential of using these networks as a perfect marketing platform. It is where billions of people gather to share, learn, and discuss. It is why social media marketing has now become a powerful driver of business growth.

eCommerce businesses have a lot to gain from social media. Social media is now one of the significant drivers of website traffic. It stands quite close to search engines. The problem is that it isn’t as easy as it sounds. While it may seem like an ever-expanding pool of prospects, it is not easy to make your mark on such a busy platform. It is a competitive world out there. You need a strong strategy to make sure you are able to reach the right audience and get the right response. Here are seven social marketing strategies to help your eCommerce business grow.

1. Identify Your Best Marketing Channels

There is a reason there are more than one social networks. All of them are different in many ways. For instance, Twitter is just a microblogging platform while Instagram and Pinterest are about photo blogging. LinkedIn, on the other hand, has a more professional approach.

Due to such differences, there is a difference in their demographics. Customer behavior also differs for every channel. The key to a winning strategy is to identify your target audience and leverage the platform that is more popular among that group.

2. Focus on Impressive Visual Appeal

Social media users have a very short attention span. You need to grab attention through eye-catching visuals. It is the first thing they will notice, even before they read the text. Invest in professional logo design service to give your brand a makeover. Even if you are in for B2B leads via LinkedIn, a good logo can make a world of difference.

Visual appeal becomes even more important when you are selling products. You can make attractive videos and images to showcase your products in a positive light.

3. Get on Every Bandwagon

Social media is where trends start, and it is where they go viral. A great social media marketing strategy to make your business appear more relevant and relatable is to piggyback those trends. Thankfully, it is easy to follow and catch up on trends on social media. It is a great way to capitalize on whatever is happening around.

Keep an eye on the hashtags. They are a huge deal on Instagram and Twitter. Facebook and Pinterest are also leveraging the power of hashtags now.

4. Be Part of the Conversation

The greatest thing about social media is that it allows for a two-way conversation. It is where consumers are free to share their opinions and experiences. They want to have their say on everything, including your products and services. However, that conversation can only go on if you are equally involved.

Looking from the business point of view, you have the power to lead the conversation towards conversion. Utilize that control. Get people talking about your business and your products? Be quick to respond, and you can win their trust and loyalty.

5. Do Not Overlook Live Streaming

The engagement rate of live videos on Facebook is double the engagement rate of other videos. Every ecommerce store should look into leveraging this amazing opportunity. It is a great way to show your products and talk about them in real time. You can answer your prospects’ queries right there and then make sure they make a purchase without getting distracted.

Live videos give a very hands-on view of the product. If you can demonstrate how good it is while answering all the question then and there, you will get immediate leads.

6. Look Into Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is huge! The reason influencers are making millions of dollars is that they are helping businesses earn ever more. In 2019, businesses are thinking of spending more money on influencer marketing. Even big brands are jumping on this trend.

Contrary to popular belief, an influencer is not limited to any niche. While an online leather jacket store can hire a fashion blogger to showcase their new products, a furniture store can also join hands with a lifestyle blogger.

7. Always Test and Track

How do you know your strategy is successful? You analyze the results.

Testing and tracking your social media marketing strategy is crucial because of two main reasons:

You need to invest more on what works and change what doesn’t
You need to tweak your strategy according to the changing trends and algorithms

If something doesn’t work, change it. And before you go with it, do an A/B testing to see what works even better. A/B testing can save you from a lot of trouble and huge failures. Social media is a fast-paced world, and it is best to stay careful.

Conclusion

Social media isn’t going anywhere. It is just getting better. It is a great channel to bring in leads, but more importantly, it is a great way to brings leads that are bound to convert. These platforms allow you to promote your product and persuade your audience on a very personal level. It helps you build a strong bond with your customers. With the right strategies, you can improve your acquisition as well as retention, and not to mention, the overall conversion.

Development Insights Martech

How Can You Innovate A Routine Travel Application Development?

Miley on February 20, 2019

Travel apps are on the boom, no divergent ways to the fact. Development companies and the clients are making a handsome revenue from it. But, bringing similar apps in the market to make money for yourself is not how you can proceed further. You will have to offer something extra, something unique, to stand a chance among the big and established players of the Google play store and apple app store.

Here are some of the top features offered by different travel apps. If you are considering travel app development, a combo of all of these won’t be a bad idea.

1. Geolocation

The basic thing any traveler checks after reaching the destination is nearby places to stay or cafes to eat or places to visit. Don’t give them any teeny weeny chance to drop your app and use some other one to get all these information they desired. For that location, geolocation feature is what you must have. The user can run any location-based search and fetch the results very quickly.

2. Weather Forecast

There are a whole bunch of people planning their entire trip without taking weather changes into consideration. A bad climate can alter the trip, like a flight delay or even worse flight getting canceled. So, include weather forecast feature into your travel app which can send weather predictions, any nearby calamity or any such events to the user.

3. Cab Booking

Right after landing, the first thing any user will be looking for is a cab. So, don’t give the user any reason to slip from your app. Give them the taxi booking feature and get them to their location.

4. Price Comparison

Your app would not be the only one they would be using, there will be 2 to 3 more to get the best out of all. So, give them that detail as well. Show them the price comparison of different flights, hotels and other things offered by different apps right on your app.

5. Offline Access

The bad network is a common problem and it can follow you anywhere. This can be a disaster for the users but not if you let them use your app even in offline mode.

6. Language Translator

Language can be a lot of trouble if not handled well. Communication in a different country can create issues but not if you avail a language translator feature in your travel app.

Something Out Of The Box

While traveling, hotel booking can cost a fortune. Those looking for low budget travel ideas, here’s one, “HolidaySwap”. This idea of a travel app is really out of the box. The app owner James Asquith holds the record for being the youngest person to visit every country of the world. The concept of this app is to provide stay at just $1 per night. He brought back the trend of barter. The users of the app can exchange their homes at distant locations. If you are staying in Australia and want a home in the US, find any US person looking to stay in Australia, and swap homes with each other. Isn’t the idea fascinating? So, something like this can help you create your own space in the app market.

Another such concept is Preparture. While visiting an entirely new nation, you might know the routes which is quite blatant. Now Preparture not only shows the routes to the locations you feed but creates a whole route itself. Say for example you are want to grab a bite at XYZ restaurant, you want to withdraw money from the ATM, you want to visit the local mall of the area. You feed all these destinations in the app and it will plan the route based on which location is near and what task you should complete first, where you should head next, and where should your journey end. It is your one-stop travel planner app.

So, I guess now you know if really want to top the app store charts, you will need something never thought before or never done before.

Author Bio

I am Pratik Kanada, founder & CEO of 360 Degree Technosoft, an iPhone and Android app development company which makes app ideas into reality by providing unique design and development services across the globe. To keep up with the trend, I have also laid steps into React native and ionic app development. I generally write blogs on mobile technology, app development, and app marketing.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratik-kanada-31793020/edit/photo-opt-out/

Development Insights Martech

How to Manage Your Email Marketing Campaign to Improve Sales

Miley on February 19, 2019

Email marketing is a marketing strategy that was believed to be declining due to the emergence of social networks. However, the truth is that it is still very functional. Promotional emails are an essential part of sales and larger marketing strategies used by brands and businesses.

Today, close to 70% of businesses and brands in the United States invest money and time into email marketing, according to the infographic by 99firms.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is building huge email databases, with lots of unsorted email addresses. Such a database is usually quite challenging to successfully manage, which is why you have to take certain measures and optimize your email marketing efforts.

Here are some tips for managing your subscriber’s database and optimizing email marketing campaigns.

Segmentation

As the name suggests, segmentation means creating several emailing lists according to specific criteria, such as age, sex, geolocation, and other relevant parameters. This is essential because if you send the same message to all your subscribers, your open rates and conversions are probably not going to be very good.

On the contrary, as you can see from the infographic below, segmentation increases open rates, leads, and revenues by 39%, 24%, and 24%, respectively.

Mobile-Friendliness

Nowadays, the vast majority of people read emails on mobile devices. This entails that one of the first steps of your email marketing campaign must involve checking that messages are mobile-friendly. In other words, the entire message, including videos and images, must render perfectly on mobile devices.

If you fail to do this, the users are not going to bother zooming in and out or scrolling sideways to read the email. They will simply send it to the spam box.

Unsubscribe Option

Of course, you don’t want to lose subscribers. But leaving out the unsubscribe option is going to be considered rude and unprofessional, and your email address will most likely get quickly blacklisted. Therefore, always make sure that email users could leave your mailing lists if they are not happy with the messages you send them. If you wish to keep and increase the user base, email optimization is the way to go.

Top-Notch Content

This might sound like trivial advice, but you would be surprised how many businesses neglect this aspect of composing an email. The content of your email should be optimized in terms of length, structure, and elements. You should be aware that people prefer watching videos over reading text.

That said, you need to find a perfect balance between the two while making sure that the video does not start playing automatically. Let your customers decide if they want to see it.

Call To Action

Even if you create the best email in the world, it is not going to be quite successful unless it brings conversions, among other things. To accomplish this, you need to include a call-to-action button. The button has to be clearly visible, clickable, and contain clear instructions about what are you asking users to do – whether they should check out your latest product, subscribe to your new social media channel, etc.

Conclusion

As you evolve with your ways of reaching subscribers, you should study reports and statistics derived from each of your email campaigns. These will help you to understand better what you do properly and what you need to work on.

For more help on how to successfully optimize emails, consult the infographic below.

Insights

Why Your WordPress Website Might Be Slow

Miley on February 12, 2019

WordPress powers about 30% of all websites. That means if you’re a blogger or you run a small website, there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with it.

Unfortunately, even though popular content management platforms make speed optimization a breeze, a lot of WordPress sites are still slow. It might not seem like a big deal if your site takes a few extra seconds to load, but it is. Website speed is important for user experience, SEO, and website revenue. Even a single second can make a big difference.

That’s why we’ll outline several things you should look out for if you want a fast WordPress site.

Server Resources

Your choice of hosting could be the first problem. If you don’t get enough server resources, it’s difficult to maintain fast speeds. It’s essential to pick a good hosting provider.

According to the website hosting experts over at the Hosting Tribunal, who prepared the informative graphic below, SiteGround offers various benefits, including a fast server and good customer support. They also offer managed WordPress hosting.

Mind that managed WordPress hosting is not a must-have if you want to host a WordPress website. However, it does have a lot of conveniences like more security, automatic updates, and more qualified technical support.

Excessive Plugins

Another common bottleneck for WordPress sites is plugins. Plugins are one of the great things about WordPress and these days you can find a plugin for just about anything. They let you create things you would otherwise need years of web development experience for.

That being said, too many plugins can bog down a website. Your server must spend resources to run plugins. If you have too many plugins active, they increase your load times. Using many form builder plugins can cause your website to load slower. That’s why choose one form builder WordPress plugin and you’ll see the difference in the performance.

If you’re experiencing performance issues, it could be because you installed too many plugins. Delete any you’re not using; you’ll be doing yourself a favor.

Hosting Environment

A third common issue is that you haven’t upgraded to PHP 7. PHP 7 is two to three times faster than the previous version. However, only a third of WordPress sites run on PHP 7.

Chances are your hosting provider supports PHP 7. Still, they won’t upgrade your site to it without your consent because they don’t know if your theme and plugins are compatible with PHP 7. If you’ve owned your WordPress site for a while and haven’t upgraded, you could still be on PHP 5.

You can use the Display PHP Version plugin to check if you’re still using the older version. If you’re not using PHP 7, contact your hosting provider’s support team. They can help you upgrade and make your site faster.

These are some common issues that trouble WordPress sites. There are a lot of other ways to improve website speed. Looking into them is always worth it.

WordPress users have numerous plugins that make speed improvements easy. If you want to make your website faster, you can find ways to optimize images, enable GZIP compression and server-side caching, and many other things.

And if you want to learn more about website speed itself, the infographic below has all the core info to get you started.

Development Insights Martech

How Much Good Will Video Content Bring To Your SEO In 2019?

Miley on February 11, 2019

Video content has become one of the most, if not the most, influential mediums on the internet. Long gone are the days where you would visit a website and find only text posts. Nowadays, everyone wants to get in on the craze of video content. The best part is that search engines have taken a liking to videos just as much as users have. With this in mind, you need to take some steps to ensure that your video will be at the top of searches everywhere.

1. Bring quality instead of quantity

The quality of a good video is what keeps viewers coming back. On YouTube, for example, the most viewed videos are those with the most effort put into them. You need to start with the basics. For starters, come up with a good premise for the video, the main theme can’t be any topic that comes to mind, it has to have a purpose. Good video quality shouldn’t be disregarded. In the age of 4K video streaming, you want to be ahead of the curb. Don’t forget about audio, either. The audio in your video should be crisp and easy to comprehend.

Driving more views and clicks to your site will require some quality content in your video. There’s no reason to go overboard and spend months on a single video. Quality over quantity is the name of the game, but don’t exclude quantity from the equation. If you have a particularly brilliant idea that can lead to a complex and long video, try splitting it into several parts. Viewers aren’t patient when it comes to waiting for videos so your content has to come out at least semi-regularly. This way it will constantly be searched and it will bring in traffic.

2. Don’t neglect social media

People are constantly talking about the influence of social media on the newer generations. The truth is that social media has an effect on everyone, not just the younger crowd. Hosting videos on social media platforms are possibly the best way to spread them across the internet. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are itching for those videos with attractive content. Facebook has started optimizing its model to better fit videos because they are preferable to photos. They are easy to share and the users do the job for you.

In order to maximize the number of clicks and shares you get from a video, it has to appeal to a broad audience on these social networks. Viral videos are what you should strive for. Social media sites are like marketing machines, if you put something good in, it’ll basically share itself. Major brands have begun investing in live videos as well. There’s something about their spontaneity that attracts users and they might not feel like it’s as much of a timewaster as a fixed video.

3. Integration is key

When it comes to making quality content, blogs have always ruled supreme. Text posts aren’t a thing of the past just yet, they’re still going strong. With video marketing on the rise, it might be a good idea to create complementary content that connects to blog posts. There’s no reason you can’t integrate a specific video that has a similar topic on your blog. This will be key in helping your content better get across to viewers. Some subtext is given by the blog post and then the video provides the heart of the content. Readers love getting a different dimension and perspective while reading a blog post.

Bridging different topics with blogs and videos is great for spreading content as well. You can adjust your blog post to match the topic of your video so it becomes much easier to share. This way, not only do you optimize the user experience, but you also get an easier medium to share your videos in. For example, say you want to share a video game review article. Making a review video to match would not only attract more users, but it would also give attention to your video channel. Either way, you can’t lose by making both.

4. Pick the right thumbnail

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this doesn’t really hold up on the internet. Most people will give your video a casual glance before deciding to click it, which is why it’s important that the glance shows them exactly what they want to see. There is a near-infinite number of videos online and people simply do not have the time to check each and every single one of them. The thumbnail is going to make or break the popularity of your video.

To create an engaging thumbnail, you need to think about a couple of things. First of all, it has to stand out. Make sure it doesn’t get lost in the sea of other video thumbnails. After that, you have to decide which frame of the video represents the content of the video best. It should be an impactful moment that shows the gist of the content, without being too chaotic. Alternatively, you could just add an image that isn’t actually from the video but still represents the point accurately.

5. Focus on titles

As with anything that you share on the internet, the title is an extremely important detail. It’s the main way to find your content. This might be even more important for video content since there’s no matching text that could be used to identify what the video topic is about. In order to get people to the page, your video is in, you’re going to need a proper keyword in the title. There’s nothing more important for Search Engine Optimisation than picking the right keyword. Think of what your video represents and try to find the right word or words that would describe it best.

Search engines like Google need something to start with in order to show your video as a search result. It would be ideal if your video also had an accompanying description below it. This way you can add some more details that signal what it’s about. Don’t overdo the keywords, search engines might penalize you for it.

6. The right host

Search engines really like pages that have a fast load speed. Nobody likes waiting for something to load on their website. Unfortunately, integrating things like videos on your page could potentially slow down your blog page or wherever you host your video. There is also quite a difference between hosting your video on a site like YouTube or its alternatives.

Picking the right host could mean the difference between a quick page load and a page load that search engines recognize as slow. Make sure you test out your website on page load speed test applications before going live.

Conclusion

Platforms like YouTube have made creating video content easy and affordable. No business should go without at least one interesting video on their website. It’s a huge boost to visitors and you’ll find that search engines like Google will adore you for it. Just make sure you create unique content that caters to the masses and you won’t have to worry about your website not receiving traffic.

Insights Startups

How Well-designed Triggered Emails Help Your App Startup Stand Out of The Crowd

Miley on February 5, 2019

#triggerwarning: If you aren’t using triggered e-mails, you’re leaving money on the table! Triggered and transactional emails are often overlooked by new companies because people tend to consider them as less important than making a good product or having a nice website and neat landing pages. However, these emails are the outer spin electrons of your marketing molecule — those emails are the everyday connection between your product and your audience. You may have to pay more attention to them, treat them gently. Good copy won’t be enough; you need a stunning design for these emails too because it’s the medium that new leads, users, or customers see first.

Credit: Shutterstock

What are triggered (and transactional) emails?

Triggered emails are a subset of a larger group of marketing emails — those which are sent based on some kind of action. It implies some level of automation and preparation. These are NOT like emails that you write to your partners or clients on the fly. The trigger could be anything. The most used and common triggers are connected to payment services and purchases. We call this little group of triggered emails _transactional emails_. These are the messages you get after you order something on Amazon: a confirmation, a receipt, shipping updates, etc. There are many different things that could trigger an email. My favorites are the Welcome emails of freemium or free-trial offering startups. This is the moment when your website visitor became interested in your product and ready to try it. The welcome email is the first “real” and “personal” communication between a company and the new customer.

The open rates of triggered emails are so high because…

They are contextually and temporally relevant to the recipients. It’s about something they did and should be close enough in time that they remember it well. If the triggered email’s subject line is well-aligned with the context (triggering event), the probability of opening the email goes sky-high. Why? It’s purely a psychological matter — we are reinforcing our own decisions about things that we’ve already expressed interest in. The timing also a helping factor here: the email comes immediately or shortly after the event that triggered it — it helps the feeling that it is connected and important. So people tend to open these emails ~70% more often than any other kind. So what prevents you from using them? Hopefully, you’re already doing some kind of automation and sending triggered emails. Now I’ll help you to get the most out of them.

Timing and context matters when sending triggered emails

It’s true. Let’s examine closely my favorite triggered email scenario, the Welcome emails. You sign up to try a shiny new tool that will help you conquer the world by reducing your time doing some horrible busywork, let’s say ……….. (pick your least favorite task, I don’t want to insult anyone). The minute you enter the app you get a welcome email (it’s often coming from the CEO of the company). How does this email look? Boring. Why? Because most of the marketers think that a plain text email will look personal. Also, there is a legend that the plain text message will land in the Primary tab (which only applies to Gmail) or easily avoid the spam folder in other email clients. Does it really serve to get into the Personal inbox — the holy Primary tab — with your Welcome message? Do you want it to be read immediately? While you are thinking about the best way and time to send out the welcome email or any other triggered message, please remember this piece of advice: immediate messages could be nice, but please do not distract people from your own context with the connected triggered email. The worst case scenario coming from an old e-commerce tale, a webshop marketer had the idea to up-sell things in a triggered email followed by the initial webshop order offering a 20% coupon code. Timing was the only problem. They sent this email before the checkout had closed. The visitors of the webshop who had seen the incoming email and had opened it before the end of checkout easily applied the 20% code and bought their very first item for 20% percent less price… That was not good for the revenue of course. Timing is important but sadly, good timing alone is not enough.

The design is the delicacy you’ve been searching for

Delivery to the Personal inbox may not be the best for marketing and product related emails. People tend to delete messages that are sent to their Personal sanctuary, but then turn out to be marketing material. In the previous example, the Welcome message is surely marketing material, but everyone will see it. Then why does everyone try to deceive their leads and fresh customers with plain text designs? Your message might be better placed in the Updates or Promotions tab (in Gmail) or to the “Other” folder, however, it has to be exceptional to stand out amongst the others. You need a hilarious copy and/or stunning design. The branded design is a must-have, but a nice design or image that drives interest is clearly the first step. If the visuals are on brand, it leverages optical continuity, while any additional creative and eye-catching thing would do the job to pin down the reader of the email and entice them to read further. A well-designed layout, a flashy image, a funny GIF — all of these could serve your goals.

Inspiring ideas of well-designed triggered emails

Let’s start with Asana and a traditional Welcome email, my favorite type. They decided to have a simple layout, with a simple picture and a really compelling button (CTA). While they help in the onboarding, they redirect the readers to their mobile apps, with the same sort of app download Block that a wide variety of companies could use at the bottom of their messages. While I promised not to show any triggering event that is connected to payment or purchase, don’t think that you’ll get away without seeing some e-commerce examples. There are numerous opportunities to send triggered emails in the e-commerce world. Check out this example from Debenhams. They send this remarketing email when looking at one of their products without buying. Why? To help you remember them when you make the final choice. As you can see, this email is not the average, nearly plain-text, triggered an email. They sent a comprehensive email with a complex layout structure and different content blocks for different little goals. You may think, that the hardest part in an email like this is to set-up the automation, but in fact, the most time-consuming part was the email design itself.

Wrap-up

Fortunately, there are tools like Chamaileon.io that you can use for designing emails and templates, quickly and easily. With a drag-n-drop editor and ability to tweak complex elements, an email design like the above can be done in hours. To identify the right events you can use as triggers, I suggest talking with your colleagues and holding a brainstorming meeting.

Insights

Tips for Boosting Output through Technology

Miley on January 30, 2019

In theory, in order to increase one aspect of your output, you would have to sacrifice something else. We’re either talking about more time, more money or more resources. Well, one of the ways to get a productivity boost without making a sacrifice of any sort is to get more efficient tools. Nowadays, these tools (either software or hardware) are either free, inexpensive or give an amazing ROI. Here are five such ideas.

To-do list apps

The first thing you need to understand is the importance of making a to-do list, on paper or in-app. No matter how focused or dedicated you are, it’s impossible for you to keep track of absolutely everything and there are some things that must, eventually, slip your mind. With the help of a to-do list, this can easily be avoided. The reason why it’s better to do this on an app than on paper is a simple efficiency. No waste of paper, no fear of forgetting the list (who leaves their home without a phone?) and an extremely easy way to alter it. This also helps you avoid difficult handwriting, crossing items off the list with a pen and much, much more.

Project management tools

Managing a project is difficult enough even without all the various technical issues that you have to deal with, time and time again. With adequate software on your side, it’s fairly easy to see how a project management tool could help you assign tasks, share information, make public announcements and even exchange files within the team. Even though diagnostics shouldn’t be the main objective, keep in mind that with a reliable project management tool available for all types of servers, you’ll also be able to keep track of all changes made on the project. Should a mistake happen somewhere, it’ll be easy to trace back to it. Moreover, even though casting blame shouldn’t really be your thing, going for a project management tool can at least help avoid unjust accusations.

Dual monitors

Source – Pexels

Previous two items on this list were software-based, which is why it’s now important that we mention at least one hardware solution to the issue of productivity. The first thing that comes to mind is the concept of dual monitors and the ways in which this can improve your productivity. For designers, writers and, overall, content creators, this can allow more insight into what they’re currently doing, as well as the ability to look at resources while working. For programmers, the advantages are even greater. Furthermore, this is a one-time investment, unlike software subscriptions that you might be forced to make every month. In other words, getting an additional Samsung monitor for your office is a course of action that will, beyond doubt, yield a great ROI.

Noise-canceling earbuds

Source – Pexels

The problem with noise lies in the fact that it’s often just impossible to ignore it. If there’s a visual distraction in the office, you can just not look at it but if there’s something making noise and you can hear it from where you sit, there’s not much you can do. Make no mistake, in the office, there’s always something making noise, even if it’s just people typing, breathing or walking by. Most likely, on the other hand, you’ll also hear appliances humming, coworkers chit-chatting, while it’s not unlikely that the outside noises, like traffic, might also end up being an issue. Fortunately, all of this is avoidable with the use of noise-canceling earbuds.

Time-tracking apps

Finally, when it comes to the issue of productivity, time is one of the most misused resources there is. One way to improve this is with the help of time-tracking apps. Sometimes, these tools will use the alert system to help you stay on track. At other times, they will provide you with a better analysis of how you use your free time. The latter allows you to deal with this situation in whatever way you see fit. Either way, your productivity is bound to experience a serious boost.

Conclusion

Boosting output through technology is not only possible but it is also simpler and more frugal to achieve than you might have expected. With just a couple of apps and peripherals, you can make a massive difference in both your performance and job satisfaction. In other words, this is a competitive edge that’s so easily obtainable that it would be outright negligent not to do so.