However, a majority of people don’t understand the major differences between the two. While they are both closely related to each other, they perform very different functions.
So, we can deep dive into the topics to understand them better:
What is MarTech?
MarTech refers to “Marketing Technology”
The technologies that are used to execute a comprehensive digital marketing plan.
All the technology used from the point of lead capture throughout the sales funnel until the conversion is considered MarTech.
MarTech spending is only going to rise in the future.
There are more than 8,000 tools that populate the MarTech landscape, and this number is only expected to grow in the future.
That’s not all 60% of marketing experts have stated that they expect MarTech to grow even more soon.
This can include the following technology tools:
Email marketing tools
Lead magnets
Digital marketing analytics tools
Customer data platforms
Social media management tools
Marketing automation programs
Content marketing tools
CRM software
Web analytics tools
MarTech-specific tools are designed to help businesses understand their audience in a better manner. For example, if you publish a blog on your platform, you can use an analytics tool to determine the number of conversions that it generates.
Real-life examples of MarTech:
Mixpanel is a commonly used business analytics tool that tracks user interactions with a product. It allows users to analyze data such as sign-ups and conversions and help them track the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns.
Buffer is a social media management tool that allows businesses to offer better support to their customers through social media channels. It is a marketing tool that helps businesses understand the needs of their customers better and tailor their products accordingly.
What is AdTech?
AdTech refers to “Advertising Technology”
The technologies that allow for programmatic ad buying and digital spending.
Tech advertising primarily focuses on demand-side and supply-side platforms and ad exchanges.
With the help of advertising technology, companies can focus on a targeted audience.
This helps save a great deal of money and improves returns on advertising spend. The cost of consumer acquisition also dips sharply.
Needless to say, AdTech can help companies maximize the returns from their advertising spending by focusing on audiences that are interested in buying their product.
AdTech primarily measures the effectiveness of every campaign. Ultimately, this helps marketers get the best bang for their money.
Examples of AdTech include:
Data management platforms
Ad exchanges
Ad servers
Programmatic advertising tools
Tag managers
The Adobe Advertising Cloud is an example of a tool that’s used commonly in AdTech.
The two major platforms that play an integral role in AdTech are demand-side platforms and supply-side platforms.
So, what are Demand-side platforms and supply-side platforms?
Demand-Side Platforms
A demand-side platform is a digital platform, or a software program used by advertisers to purchase ads from a centralized marketplace.
Google Ads is a primary example of a demand-side platform.
Why they are important: Demand-side platforms remove the human element from the equation, thus making the process cheaper and much more efficient.
Supply-Side Platforms
A supply-side platform is a software program that allows publishers to sell their ad inventory.
The underlying technology beneath demand-side and supply-side platforms is the same. Whereas advertisers use demand-side platforms to purchase cheap ads, supply-side platforms use supply-side platforms to maximize the price for their impressions.
Common examples of supply-side platforms include Google, OpenX, AppNexus, and AOL.
Why Are They Important: Publishers actively avoid negotiating with human ad buyers for their media prices. Instead, they prefer using technology to buy ads more efficiently. A supply-side platform helps maintain a balance and allows publishers to effectively manage their relationships with several buyers.
Popular Examples of AdTech:
Tapad is a simple tracking tool that assigns a unique digital ID to each user and then tracks their activity on multiple devices.
Undertone helps its customers design advertising campaigns over multiple platforms. The company focuses primarily on mobile advertising.
AdTech primarily focuses on the use of programs and tools that can be used to analyze buyer behavior, evaluate the performance of ad campaigns, and improve them.
Conclusion:
So, now we have learned both MarTech and AdTech technology tools play a crucial role in the business.
Businesses are increasingly looking at different ways by which they can employ both AdTech and MarTech to segment their audiences in a better manner, which ultimately results in better value for the business.
Synergistic gains between the two will only help businesses in the long run.
In the future, we will probably see MarTech, a mixture of both MarTech and AdTech platforms deployed together to create a bigger impact on advertising and marketing techniques.
Most asked questions
What is the difference between AdTech and MarTech?
What software tools can be used to track user records in sales?
Most searched queries
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The gaming industry in India is experiencing explosive growth, expanding at an annual rate of approximately 38%. India is second only to China in terms of growth, with the industry projected to grow four-fold by 2027 and create at least 100,000 jobs each year. While the global gaming revenue is expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.64%, India is on track to grow at an impressive CAGR of 16.22%. The transformation from a simple pastime to a thriving business is nothing short of remarkable.
Challenges and Opportunities
Despite the rapid and lucrative growth of the gaming industry, the constant technological advancements make staying relevant a considerable challenge. Out of the 1000+ game development studios and agencies, only a few are keeping pace with the industry’s evolution.
Expand My Business: A Pioneer in Indian Gaming
Gurgaon-based Series-A funded tech service start-up, Expand My Business (EMB), is one such trailblazer in the Indian gaming industry. Our Game Development vertical is making an impact worldwide. EMB specializes in providing consultation and delivering cutting-edge tech and digital services across domains, positioning itself as the most proficient solution provider.
In just a year, EMB’s gaming division has become a significant contributor internally and has positively impacted its clients’ success. A clear distinction between iGaming and Core Game Development & Gamification has enabled them to penetrate gaming, e-sports, casual and hyper-casual gaming, and AR-VR-based games. The company has delivered more than 30+ game solutions across domains and tech stacks in FY 22-23, aiming to increase project volume tenfold in the current FY as they continue adding new gaming micro-level services to their arsenal.
EMB’s USP
Diversified Expertise and Innovation
EMB, the technical facilitator behind India’s digital gaming solutions, has strengthened its expertise in fantasy and digital card & board games. Making headlines for service expansion in niche domains like blockchain-based gaming, cloud-based gaming, immersive gaming, NFT-enabled gaming, and immersive gaming experiences.
Comprehensive Game Development Services
Not only is Expand My Business a one-stop solution for game development, but it is also an ideal destination for game design and strategic partnerships. The company fosters growth by cultivating high-revenue games and excels in:
Research
·Guiding
game development through studies and information gathering
Design
·Storyboarding
& Storytelling
·Game
Art & Animation
·Concept
Art
·Casual
Art
·3D
Assets
·2D-3D
Animation
·UX/UI
·Motion
Design
·Game
VFX Services
Audio Production
·Music
& Audio Production
·Sound
Effects
·Scores
·Audio
Assets
Deployment
·Game
Testing & QA
·TRC
Game Certification
·Game
Porting Services
·Full
Post Production Services
Marketing Services
·Social
Media
·Digital
Advertising
·Influencer
Marketing
·PR
·Content
Marketing
Full-Game Development
·Complete
the game development process, start to finish
·A final
roadmap cycle
Resource Augmentation
·Hiring
additional resources as needed (artists, developers, designers, testers)
·3D/2D
Artists and Designers
·Game
Developers
·Game
Testers, QA
Legal Services
·Intellectual
property protection
·Licensing
and distribution agreements
·Compliance
with local and international regulations
·Privacy
policies
·Contract
drafting and negotiation
·Dispute
resolution
Future vision
To be a significant contributor to India’s GDP which is fueled by the gaming industry’s extraordinary growth and the comprehensive array of services offered and create a global gaming footprint.
As the world marvels at the gaming industry’s unparalleled growth, choosing the right tech and consulting partner is crucial.
Most asked questions
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What is world economic forum?
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“Dear Diner, you have an upcoming reservation at La Pergola today. Save up to 30% when you purchase a voucher with us via Pergola. Terms and Conditions apply.”
I’m sure you must have seen similar promotional text messages on your mobile phones. The messages are short and thoughtful, and it has the potential to grab the attention of the recipient.
The message also serves as a reminder, which is a very important factor when it comes to marketing.
If you want your customers to remember something about your business, it has to be memorable and meaningful.
And what better way than through SMS Marketing?
Let’s take a look at why SMS Marketing is the best thing in business.
What is SMS Marketing
SMS marketing means sending marketing messages by text to communicate with customers. Businesses can use SMS to send promotional messages, notifications, and alerts to their customers’ mobile phones.
This can include things like special offers, discounts, and event invitations.
SMS marketing is often used as a means to reach customers quickly and effectively, as most people have their mobile phones with them at all times.
According to Statista, the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has become so widespread that these handheld electronics have become almost indispensable tools for reaching customers.
As more than half of the global population uses them to access the internet, businesses from around the world are seizing this opportunity to promote their products and services online.
SMS marketing is extremely effective, with high engagement and conversion rates, as well as lower costs than many other forms of marketing.
It’s also more personal, fostering stronger customer relationships between businesses and their consumers.
For successful SMS marketing, businesses that rely on text message as a primary means of reaching existing customers must comply with the local laws and structure their campaigns correctly. They also need to provide leads that are easily traceable and useful.
Best practices for SMS Marketing
Text marketing requires sales representatives to maximize the benefits customers receive from interaction with their company while minimizing the amount of time and effort customers have to invest in that interaction.
To get your SMS marketing services off to a good start, let’s consider these 6 best practices.
Make sure you have a clear opt-in
It is important to ask for written permission from your subscribers before you send them any kind of message via SMS. Your message should include words like ‘Subscribe’, ‘Yes’, or ‘Deals’.
Similarly, make sure your recipients have a clear way to opt out of receiving your messages. You can configure these keywords to specific lists for easy campaign management.
Be SMS compliant
Businesses that send text messages to customers should consider partnering with global SMS providers to ensure they are compliant with regulations.
Such providers offer the added protection of a secure authorization process, allowing companies to avoid penalties for noncompliance and keep their brands above reproach.
Don’t bombard your customers
Sending too many text messages will mark you as a spammer, but sending too few leave your customers wondering about your business.
By localizing the content, managing dissemination times across multiple time zones, and segmenting customers to create individual experiences, you can keep them engaged with consistently interesting experiences.
A steady messaging schedule is key to a successful text message campaign and keeping your customers in the loop.
Keep texts short and thoughtful
To ensure that people read your messages, keep them brief and to the point. Long messages can cause users to stop reading or even opt out of receiving future messages from you.
Also, text messages are limited to 160 characters, so it’s smart to grab your customer’s attention with an exciting greeting and then relay details about the coupon or special offer.
For example, “Come to our restaurant and receive a 15% discount on your meal by texting YES to 123456789.”
Identify yourself
Don’t assume that your customers have your number in their mobile phone contacts. If you want them to open the message and read further, start by identifying yourself immediately.
You can do this by putting your brand name at the start of the message, followed by a colon. For example, “Smith Restaurant: Come in today and receive a 15% discount on your meal.” Businesses should also use local numbers for their customers, as this lowers their OPEX (operational costs).
Offer 2-way communication services
When offering two-way communication, be quick and responsive. If your text messages include live chat or call links, you can personalize your service by pairing customers with the same agent they may have communicated with earlier. Keep the channel open to receive feedback from customers and respond to their inquiries.
You can also use the channel to send out surveys, which is a great way to collect feedback and improve your business.
Schedule these series of messages so that they are automatically sent out at a certain time of day or week. If you want to make sure people have received their message, include an “SMS Read Receipt” link so customers can confirm whether they did in fact receive them.
You’ll find many SMS marketing platforms that can help you send bulk text messages, personalize them, and measure the effectiveness of your campaigns. Most platforms have an API that allows developers to integrate SMS into existing systems.
You can also use these tools to track when people open the message and click on links within it—as well as which ones they choose not to open.
If you’re planning to send SMS messages in bulk, it’s important to choose a platform that has strong scalability and reliability. Many platforms also offer mobile apps that will allow you to view reports and manage campaigns on the go.
Create and send scalable campaigns that are customized to your target audience and your message content. SMS and WhatsApp campaigns can be used to send promotional or transaction-related messages for marketing purposes.
SMS sounds primitive but it’s still powerful
The power of SMS is undeniable; it’s the most effective way to reach your target audience and drive action. With the right messaging, you can build trust and rapport with your customers, increase brand loyalty, improve customer retention rates, and boost sales.
For businesses with limited resources, it can be overwhelming to identify which channels to use for marketing.
Fortunately, SMS is an inexpensive and effective channel that can be used in conjunction with other digital marketing strategies.
SMS marketing is on the rise because it works—when done correctly, it reaches 95% of mobile users. To ensure your campaign is a success, you’ll need a sophisticated SMS service provider that can support your mobile marketing programs.
Most searched question
What are the rules and best practices for SMS marketing?
Why SMS marketing is the best?
Most searched queries
SMS marketing strategy
Types of SMS marketing
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The telehealth industry is expected to grow from US$26.4 billion in 2020 to $70.19 billion by 2026.
At the onset of the pandemic, virtual visits to healthcare providers peaked. As the population ages and more people live longer with chronic conditions, the demand for telehealth services will continue to rise.
Remote consulting allows patients – who might have mobility issues or live far from the clinic – to access medical services more easily and conveniently. It also enables doctors to provide more flexible and responsive care, which can be especially beneficial in the case of follow-up consultations.
Some will argue that remote consultations will never replace the in-person experience. This is where virtual consultations come in.
Virtual consultations are a modern approach to delivering traditional face-to-face consultations. When implemented, they offer a secure digital healthcare service to your patients.
What is a virtual consultation
It allows patients from their houses to consult with a doctor online using live video conferencing, which results in more convenient and cost-effective care for both parties.
Two-way high-definition (HD) video conferencing has paved the way for more types of virtual visits than ever before. Advisors can now engage with patients via this technology, which allows them to access a new range of treatment possibilities from any location–using a smartphone, tablet, or desktop.
A virtual consultation is also an effective tool for follow-up consultations between patients and their doctors after they’ve been discharged from the hospital or clinic.
We have seen practices establishing virtual health clinics with a full suite of diagnostic tools and secure video conferencing technology.
This allows the continuity and flexibility of best care without sacrificing the quality of that care and the patient experience.
Improving health services with virtual consultations
Let’s discover some of the best features that make virtual consultations an excellent tool for delivering healthcare.
Easy to use
A virtual consultation must be simple to join and a user-friendly tool. It allows patients to connect with their doctors from their homes or any location, using a smartphone or computer. The process must be quick, easy to follow, and not require any technical support.
High-quality video and audio
The quality of the video and audio is key to a successful virtual consultation. For doctors and patients to have a productive session, they must be able to see each other’s faces and hear each other’s voices clearly, with no delay in transmission. This is where carrier-grade services come into play.
Carrier-grade services are dedicated and specialized networks that deliver high-quality voice and video with minimal delay. The standard for this kind of service is the ability to deliver 99.95% uptime.
They are designed to ensure a consistent experience for both parties in all environments, including remote locations such as rural communities where there may be limited or no access to other forms of communication infrastructure.
SMS notifications
Text messages are often more effective ways to communicate with patients than emails. This is often the case of reminding them of upcoming appointments or medication.
The ability to send text messages to their mobile phones is a very useful feature that can help streamline your practice’s workflow and improve patient satisfaction.
SMS notifications can be used for many things including appointment reminders and schedules, prescription refills, disease management programs, and more. It’s also an easy way to communicate with patients who don’t have email access or prefer not to use it.
A recent study shows that text messages receive a 90% engagement rate and help patients feel more connected to healthcare teams.
In addition, call links or live chat can be included in text messages. This function allows patients to click a link in the message to connect with their advisors in real time.
Unified workspace
Combine all channels and networks in a virtual space where your team can collaborate in real-time on any device. It’s an environment that fosters patient care and empowers staff to work together seamlessly across different locations, making it possible for them to stay connected no matter how far apart they are.
A unified workspace brings together all of the tools you need—like scheduling, messaging, file sharing, video and call conferencing, and more—into one place so everyone has access to the information they need at any given time.
It’s an easy way to connect with patients while maintaining high levels of security and privacy.
Virtual numbers
Virtual numbers provide a convenient way to connect with patients, no matter where they are. Whether you’re a local clinic serving your community or a multidisciplinary clinic with international patients, virtual numbers can be answered on any device and will always forward to the correct location.
Data security
Keeping patient data secure is one of the biggest challenges for healthcare providers.
Healthcare organizations are required to comply with HIPAA regulations that govern the protection of patient health information, which includes ensuring that all data is encrypted and stored in a secure environment.
To protect your data, consider using platforms that offer encryption, backup and recovery, GDPR compliance, and relevant industry standards. In the age of data breaches and hacking, it’s paramount to have a secure way to communicate with patients.
Benefits of online consultations
Virtual consultations offer health services the chance to diversify the ways they interact with their patients.
In today’s world, convenience is key. This concept unsurprisingly applies to healthcare with 74% of patients preferring easy access to services over in-person interactions with providers.
Advantages for patients
Online triage, psychiatry, and therapy offer an improved level of healthcare to vulnerable groups, including the elderly and disabled. Patients are not required to leave their comfort zones and can feel more at ease during the consultation, enabling better diagnosis.
Advantages for doctors
Increasing the efficiency of care delivery and reducing the costs of transporting patients between medical care facilities.
The use of virtual consultations can also help doctors manage their workloads, reduce their mental stress, and improve their work-life balance.
A growing trend in virtual healthcare consultations
Virtual consultations in healthcare are a permanent part of the medical landscape, and they are here to stay.
They offer patients access to a wider range of healthcare providers than ever before and allow providers to extend their reach into areas where they have previously struggled to establish a presence.
Communication technologies have become an essential part of most people’s daily lives, but until recently they have not been widely used in health care. A secure and user-friendly installation with audio and video clarity is crucial for virtual health.
The implementation of remote consultations is not meant to replace in-person consultations but to improve the overall doctor-patient journey.
Leverage the power of a unified CX and EX solution to create a truly connected, intuitive, and immersive experience. To learn more about CINNOX, request for a demo or sign up for a free trial.
Most searched question
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The travel restrictions in many countries have eased. Hotels and group tours are filling up. The travel and hospitality industry were the worst-hit sectors during the pandemic.
The challenges of going through the lockdown. No more dining out, partying with friends, or even setting out on a staycation with family.
We have come a long way. Even though most countries around the world have lifted travel restrictions, people are still apprehensive about booking a flight ticket, pre-paying for a hotel booking, or even dining at their favourite restaurant. But that doesn’t mean people are not keen to go out again.
The pandemic has changed the hiring landscape in nearly every industry, including hospitality. Now that the worst of the pandemic is over, the industry needs to thrive with the highest focus on customer experience (CX).
Leaders from the hospitality industry are well aware that compassionate customer service is the key to creating an excellent guest experience and winning their trust and loyalty.
Silent Pitfalls of Customer Experience
A New Generation of Well-Informed Customers
The post-pandemic traveller is savvier than before and has higher expectations from businesses.
The new-age customer is smart enough to not make a booking online before searching all avenues for the best price available, and if by chance the price on the official website is higher than the one offered by an online travel agency, then that business is likely to see a dent in their revenue.
From searching and booking the experience to sharing stories about the experience, customers expect businesses to go over and beyond in fulfilling their expectations for ‘something different and hip’ to be considered a full-course 5-star service.
Bad Experiences Shared by Customers
One bad experience is all it takes for customers to take to social media and vent about their negative experiences.
It is also true that customers are not so driven when it comes to sharing positive experiences and need to be goaded with enticing add-ons or coupons to share one.
Customers expect instant gratification and to accommodate customers’ on-the-fly requests, businesses need to have holistic visibility of their entire journey to craft top-notch experiences.
Data Collection and Personalisation
Most hospitality businesses have marked their presence on various digital channels to actively engage with their customers and offer personalised services. However, this is not the case.
Their efforts are hindered by the lack of availability to collect data from various distributed systems and use this data to fulfil customer expectations.
When customer data is distributed across multiple systems that have no way of integrating into one, centralised destination, it leaves the customer-facing teams grasping at straws to fulfil customer expectations.
Disconnected with Customer Service Touchpoints
Multi-channel communication hailed the pre-pandemic era.
However, the landscape has seen unprecedented changes. Most businesses are out of touch with how they handle customer enquiries across individual touchpoints.
To deliver great customer experiences, the hospitality industry needs to first provide its employees with the resources they need to thrive in any situation.
An increased focus on CX opportunities as we head into 2023 and beyond will be crucial to boosting team productivity, performance, and engagement.
Let’s take a look at some important pillars of how the hospitality industry can reboot customer experience with an omnichannel transformation.
Roadmap to Experiential Transformation
Deliver Proactive Customer Service
Having an online presence is just half the battle. The other half is taking a more proactive, consultative approach for online visitors. Rather than depending on conversion rate optimisation (CRO) techniques, have a smart greeting function to welcome visitors.
While some visitors prefer to browse alone to find the best deals, others will appreciate you asking questions to better understand what they are looking for, and their requirements.
The most pleasant moment is when the visitor is greeted in the native language. When the customer-facing agent speaks the customers’ language, this shows the efforts the business is willing to make to satisfy their needs.
A visitor clicks on the live chat link below the smart greeting, for example. From the enquiry window, your sales agent knows the visitor browsed a cosy resort.
When it comes to the hospitality industry, the customer experience begins right from the moment of discovery and the first interaction. Businesses need to proactively engage with visitors to convert them into paying customers.
Connect Customers with the Right Experiences
Bridge the gap between telecom and digital experiences, by unifying all touchpoints on a single platform.
Businesses can create frictionless and contextual experiences by effortlessly switching between social media channels, emails, SMS, video, and phone to adapt responses.
Post-pandemic customers are looking for live human support on their preferred channel of communication. Go further and provide them with real-time, humanised experiences at every touchpoint backed by customer intent and sentiment data from a unified dashboard.
Some visitors are hesitant to move forward, in this instance for the cosy resort booking because of some safety measures of the theme park.
It takes a split second for them to leave a chat and never return if their needs are not addressed optimally.
The ability to share files within the chat widget ensures that the chain of conversation does not get broken, and empowers the agent to keep the interaction contextual.
To ensure the visitor can make an informed purchase decision, your sales agent even turns the chat into a video call and offers a virtual tour of the resort.
Conversational AI capabilities can turn the live chat into a live video tour to seamlessly assist customers through the booking process. This will expedite the decision-making.
Humanise Customer Relationships in a Digital World
The hospitality industry needs to transform its customer experience to emulate real-world, personalised services.
This can be achieved by using smart capabilities such as sticky routing. Sticky routing empowers businesses to direct returning customers to the same customer support agents who attended to their previous enquiries.
Let’s say the customer who booked the resort returns to your website again after a few weeks. This time, the customer enquiries about the availability of corporate booking packages for the company’s annual event. The customer is then directed to the same agent who attended to the previous enquiries.
Intelligent routing and binding rules act as tunnels to ensure customers receive personalised service and help in establishing efficient workflows.
Adherence and Compliance with Data Security
Keeping data secure, private, and safe from breaches takes precedence when businesses decide to digitalise their traditional processes.
Currently, many businesses are limited by the strict regulations implemented by the governing bodies on outbound telecom communication services, which impedes their ability to effectively use calls and text messaging services.
Customers’ details are a wealth to a business.
They are highly confidential. Empowering the business with a robust cloud-based unified communication solution is highly essential.
To connect customers with businesses securely and offering data retention capabilities following the government regulatory requirements is critical.
Key trends driving the hospitality industry
If you are wondering about the forces that are driving the hospitality industry after coming out of the pandemic, these numbers would make you sit up:
97% of millennials share their travel experience on social media
Approximately 90% of customers are willing to share their behavioural data if it can lead to them being offered an affordable brand experience
80% of customers feel more emotionally connected to a business when customer service solves their problem
Sales in the leisure tourism market are projected to grow at 19.5% CAGR
86% of customers are willing to pay more for a superior customer experience
Customers who are loyal to a business spend 67% more than new customers
Look forward and understand your customers better
To deliver on ambitious aspirations, the hospitality industry needs a deep understanding of its customers. The needs and expectations are constantly shifting.
With the right omnichannel CX solution, businesses can offer secure and personalised experiences to their guests while eliminating loopholes from disjointed touchpoints.
Businesses are paving the path to a brighter future by making efforts to enhance their relationships by proactively engaging with their customers on channels of their choosing.
Leverage the power of a unified CX and EX solution to create a truly connected, intuitive, and immersive experience. To learn more about CINNOX, request for a demo or sign up for a free trial.
Most searched questions
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What is CX in travel?
Most searched queries
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Future of travel industry after COVID
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Property technology, or PropTech, refers to the use of information technology (IT) to help individuals and companies research, buy, sell and manage real estate.
Typically, the participants in the real estate industry are brokers, agents, developers, buyers, sellers, landlords, and lenders. This technology-based sector allows them to be more efficient by automating manual tasks such as managing inventory and communicating with clients.
The real estate sector encompasses a wide range of processes and transactions, ranging from how real estate is planned and designed to how it is bought and sold. The Proptech sector consists of start-ups and innovative products across the commercial and residential real estate markets.
The convergence of technologies, cloud, and digital transformation are forces driving the rapid growth of PropTech.
PropTech aims to minimize the cost and resources associated with real estate transactions, maximize efficiency, save time, and personalize property management.
Digital Innovation is Transforming the Property Sector
Real estate is a highly specialized industry, so these agencies require considerable flexibility when considering a digital solution.
If a solution matches their often highly customized requirements, then it will be able to support their prospect’s pipeline — which is a combination of marketing, in-person meetings, property showings, and property closings — as well as the customer journey in real estate.
The property industry is undergoing a shift from traditional to digital services, as a result of the rapid rise of online and virtual services.
Customers are increasingly being exposed to new technologies, which have affected the way they communicate with sales and lettings agents and property businesses.
To remain competitive in this rapidly changing market, businesses need to implement a customer experience strategy that will best meet the needs of their particular audience.
To learn how property industry players can leverage PropTech to create memorable customer and employee experiences, keep reading!
We’ll also share some use cases to show how a total experience platform can turn ordinary property interactions into extraordinary ones.
Customer Experience Still Evades Many Real Estate Agencies
A statistic that is widely quoted in the industry is that 1 in 3 customers will walk away from your brand after just one negative experience.
Multiple studies echo this, always with the same message that it’s cut-throat: that your business needs to act fast to retain them. The numbers are not exaggerated, but rather represent a normal part of everyday life, and most businesses miss these small details.
Not responding to a phone call or email quickly enough is an example of a small detail that can have major consequences.
If you don’t respond well to these kind of details, customers will leave your business in favour of another company that provides better service.
According to recent studies, 86% of consumers will not remain loyal to a company after a negative experience; and if they do stay, it is likely because they are unable to find what they need elsewhere in which case you got lucky.
In a highly competitive market, providing a great customer experience will help build loyalty, nurture repeat business, and create brand advocates. Agents and employees need tools to stay productive and collaborate effectively online from wherever they are.
4 Customer and Employee Experience Strategies to Boost Business
Here are some examples of how you can harness Customer Experience (CX) and Employee Experience (EX) in your business to create a competitive advantage.
Great customer service can differentiate real estate products and services from competitors, while time-saving tools and hacks for employees can turbocharge their productivity and keep them from burning out.
How Communication Builds Trust between a Tenant and an Agent
Georg and Berta, who are relocating from Germany to Hong Kong for an expatriate posting, browse your property agency website and shortlist a few rental apartments.
Wanting to know more, Berta clicks on the smart widget on your website and watches a branded video featuring an agent while being connected with him directly.
The call routing system detected the customer’s browser language and routed them to an agent who speaks German. The customer is delighted to be talking to someone in their native language.
Your agent then suggests they switch to a video call for a more interactive conversation, taking just one click to seamlessly make that change while still on the same call.
By chance, your agent is currently showing a property in the Mid-Levels area with rents of around HKD 40,000 a month. Using the mobile app, she checks Georg and Berta’s browsing history and sees they are coincidentally looking at the Mid-Levels area with rents of the same price range.
Qualifying the lead further, she gets their expected move-in date which helps to narrow down the listings more.
While a real estate agency website can contain virtual reality walkthroughs and videos, nothing beats a personal live video tour from the agent. Sensing the prospect’s eagerness, she conducts an impromptu walkthrough and adds her commentary on the apartment’s condition.
Discover new ways to market a property and generate interest
Keanu, who lives in New Zealand, saw an advertisement for your company’s new beach resort in Hajodae, South Korea. To promote the launch of the property, your firm took out a full-page advertisement in his local newspaper with a QR code.
Wanting to know more, he instantly connected via web call to an English-speaking property agent in South Korea.
The property is still in the pre-launch stage, so the only way to get a sense of the completed unit is to visit a show flat. Your agent switches easily to a video call, slowly panning his phone to show Keanu what he can expect from the resort property once it has been completed.
Currently, you only have a basic landing page for visitors to register their interest. However, your property agent screen shares from the video call and plays him a promotional video of the property.
As Keanu is an enthusiastic surfer, he inquired about the facilities. Your agent provides you with a link to a VR walkthrough of the resort.
Your property agent mentions that the firm has a tie-up with a financial institution that can offer loans denominated in South Korean Won, and Keanu seems excited by the possibility of such financing.
As he discusses his plans for the property, your agent invites the expert to the ongoing call.
Transform the way of closing a new residential lease
Taiwan real estate agent Annya has just ended a virtual tour of four apartments with a couple from France, who are now considering the properties. Although she feels they are good prospects, she knows that they may change their minds at any time, or another agent they’ve contacted might win the deal.
Annya received a message on her phone. The couple had used the web link on the agency’s website to send a message; they liked the last viewed apartment in Taipei and wanted to offer a two-year lease at TW$80,000 per month. Thrilled by this news, she called the landlord through the smart app, and he happily agreed.
Annya prepares a provisional tenancy agreement and attaches it to a live chat session with the French couple.
She reminds them to wire the initial deposit to the landlord once they have digitally signed the contract. Receiving signed copies of both the contract and a screenshot of the telegraphic transfer, she calls the tenants.
She walks the tenants through the landlord’s leasing process during a video call. The landlord’s solicitors will prepare a draft tenancy agreement for them to review. In the meantime, Annya suggests that she recommend a lawyer who can represent them. They agree, and she invites the lawyer to join the conference call.
Increased communication and collaboration by overseeing commercial tenants
As the property manager of a large-scale commercial complex consisting of a shopping mall and offices above it, Shoba is responsible for hundreds of retail and office tenants. A member of a dedicated team of accountants, technicians, and procurement and contracts specialists working in the onsite management office, she leads her team in providing an exceptional level of service to all clients.
The use of a lightweight CRM offers tenants a chat room environment, centralizing every interaction and communication.
Through the use of interaction history, she is able to chart the correspondence over time, enabling to resolve issues quickly.
In addition, Shoba uses CINNOX as a cloud communications tool, enabling her to manage chats, calls, video calls, and emails from one place, thereby avoiding the cost of installing a more complicated PABX system!
When a new tenant moves into an apartment community, he or she is given a laminated card with QR codes printed on it.
When scanned, the codes direct callers to the appropriate team for help with payments and statements—saving tenants time from searching for a number. The same teams are also shared via web links in an email, giving tenants an option to chat instead.
CINNOX helps teams collaborate. For example, if a new tenant wants to move in after hours, Shoba can create a chatroom to notify operations about the loading bay, advise facilities to keep the lights on, inform security about the removalists, and add the external moving company as a contact so everyone is kept updated.
An Experience-Driven Approach To PropTech
From the examples above, it’s clear when you address your immediate CX and EX needs with a total experience platform. You are also laying the groundwork for future success.
By putting all your interaction data in one place, you are creating a treasure trove of data that can be analyzed with powerful machine learning and AI tools to discover valuable insights in the future.
PropTech is a new industry that combines property with technology, allowing developers, landlords, property agents, and property managers to leverage technology to keep in step with digital-savvy customers.
When choosing the right partner to develop your customer experience, look for a business that puts the customer (your customer) first and foremost, and who demonstrates that they too take that approach from their business.
Leverage the power of a unified CX and EX solution to create a truly connected, intuitive, and immersive experience. To learn more about CINNOX, request for a demo or sign up for a free trial.
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Consumers no longer see shopping as a mere transaction; it’s about providing an entertaining and engaging experience.
When you don’t win a customer’s trust, they go to a competitor or change their mind about making a purchase altogether.
What can you do to provide a great customer experience that generates loyal customers and maximizes revenue?
Humanizing the customer experience is one way to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Instead of offering discounts that hurt sales, engage with customers, and provide a personalized experience to increase customer loyalty and drive repeat purchases.
While most e-commerce storesoffer self-service options such as knowledge bases, FAQs, and perhaps an automated chatbot, many consumers prefer to speak with a real human being. For businesses, live chat is a low-cost alternative to expensive phone calls.
Here are five ways to use live chat to make your online shopping experience more personal.
Be sure to make a good impression on your online visitors
Visitors’ first impressions of your e-commerce store are determined by many of its elements, including design, user experience, and product offerings. Others include how easy it is to get customer support and service when they need it, and the channels available.
Customize the look and feel of your live chat widget
Enable a friendly Smart Greeting that welcomes your visitor
Design your widget icon and chat box in a way that matches your brand image
Even better, embed an in-call video or image to introduce your brand
Localize your live chat; enable Smart Routing on your widget to automatically assign visitors to the most suitable staff based on device language or geographical location
Give your customers the option to contact you at any time
Live chat support is a fast, efficient way to help customers.
Customers don’t have to wait for an email response or pay long-distance phone charges to get help; they can just chat with you directly!
You can also set up offline contact forms so that people can leave their contact details for immediate follow-up when staff are online.
Enable web calls from the live chat widget for consumers who prefer to speak with a staff rather than type in a message
Visitors can also access a directory of staff members to find the best person to answer their questions, such as exchanges & returns, shipping, or payments
Create an emotional bond with shoppers
Inspire consumer trust by showing the human side of your staff. Live chat allows customers to interact with real people, rather than automated messages, bringing e-commerce one step closer to humanizing the customer experience.
For example, if your staff are into running, they can share their recommendations on running gear. Providing instant replies to customer inquiries can make customers feel valuable and important in addition to reducing customer churn by keeping your best customers and encouraging repeat sales.
Having a live chat widget that allows you to seamlessly switch between chat, video calls, and voice calls inside the same app is a winning feature that can help you stand out from the competition
When you add value to a conversation, you make it more meaningful
As your customers progress through their purchase journey, you should be creating and sharing content to keep them engaged. The best way to do this is by creating content that is timely and relevant to the conversation your brand is having with its audience.
This could be a new product offering, promotion, or even a social media post showcasing your brand personality.
Add a web link to push visitors directly into a live chat session, or a web call with a staff who previously helped them
A great way to keep offline interactions going is with QR codes. Stick these on the backs of your products so that customers can easily access help if they need it
Print QR codes on your marketing materials so that leads can be generated from printed posters, leaflets, and brochures in addition to your e-commerce website
Personalize the chat as often as you can
Customers expect to be treated as individuals, so try to tailor your responses based on the information you have about them. Great customer service means using the customer’s name in the conversation, whenever possible and appropriate.
This helps the customer feel like they’re speaking with a human person behind the brand rather than an automated bot.
Personalize conversations by asking for additional information through pre-chat forms
Get the most out of your e-commerce customer experience
When e-commerce stores are focused on generating leads and growing sales, it’s easy to lose sight of the personal touch. The simple truth is that people return to brands they know and trust to give the best buying experience.
Live chat is the perfect antidote to this problem: Provide a human touch with your customers’ questions and concerns, and you’ll transform transactional experiences into memorable and pleasant ones.
Leverage the power of a unified CX and EX solution to create a truly connected, intuitive, and immersive experience. To learn more about CINNOX, request for a demo or sign up for a free trial.
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The world of customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) is a complex one. One of the main challenges that organizations face when trying to create a seamless customer experience is the fact that it’s not just about creating happy customers – it’s also about creating happy employees.
The “experience economy” is a term coined by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore in their book, ‘The Experience Economy, Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage’. They argue that the experience economy is a new economic paradigm where companies compete for consumers’ attention, not just their money.
To compete in this new landscape, businesses must focus on creating experiences for their customers and employees.
The concept of ‘experience‘ has been around for a long time, but it’s only recently that we’ve seen organizations begin to realize just how important it is.
Identify Critical Interactions and Journeys With Your Customers
Combining customer journey mapping with customer experience (CX) strategy can help your business identify the pain points in your customers’ transitions through various stages of their relationship with your brand.
Once you have a basic roadmap of the customer experience, it’s time to identify where most of your customers are experiencing friction.
Think about how they interact with your business:
What channels do they use?
When do they need support?
How long does it take for them to get a response from your company?
The answers will help you determine where improvement is needed.
The same concept applies from an EX perspective. An EX journey map would include everything from how potential new hires learn about career opportunities with your firm to how they’re onboarded and set up for success as new employees, what kind of coaching they get as they progress within the company, and how they pass on their work to successors.
A Digital-First, Data-Driven Approach Is What Connects CX and EX
Companies need to help their employees get up to speed on the latest developments and changes in their field. A great customer experience happens when everyone on a team is knowledgeable about customers’ preferences, behaviours, and needs.
When your team knows what the customers need, they can better serve them.
The best way to do this is by providing your team with clear and accurate customer data that’s easily accessible from a single source.
A customer-centric company puts customers at the centre of everything they do. That means making the customer experience a priority in all areas of the business, from sales and marketing to product development and customer service.
It also means collecting data from all touchpoints to get a clear picture of who your customers are and what they want—and using this information to inform decisions about products, services, pricing, promotion, and more.
Unify Communications – Humanize the Experience
85% of the time, a great employee experience will result in a great customer experience.
To foster this, companies need to provide human-centered support.
Customer service positions in the new age of remote work or a hybrid workplace can be isolating, leading to burnout and high turnover rates.
Companies must foster a sense of community and encourage employees to engage with one another through internal platforms.
Equip your employee with the right tool
Start with a unified communications platform that brings all your chat, voice, email, and social channels together. This will make it easier for employees to find past conversations and work together on tutorials for new employees.
Priority routing with relationship mapping technology can also be used to help achieve faster first-time resolutions.
Encourage your employees to work together
Ensure your next-generation CX platform delivers a single view of the customer where employees can smoothly switch between external and internal conversations without having to toggle between different applications.
Look for capabilities like omnichannel integration, IVR, AI bots, smart routing, and live chat. Unify your teams so they can work faster and smarter.
Employee Experience and Digital Customer Experience: A New Way Forward
We’re used to thinking of customer experience as the sum of all interactions with an organization. But as we’ve discussed, there are many different touchpoints that make up an organization’s digital customer experience.
And for your employees to deliver on their mission, they need a great employee experience. The two are inseparable—and when they work together well, there is no limit to what you can accomplish.
A good EX program can help you increase CX, profitability, productivity, and employee retention.
Leverage the power of a unified CX and EX solution to create a truly connected, intuitive, and immersive experience. To learn more about CINNOX, request for a demo or sign up for a free trial.
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Many brick and mortar businesses have put new retail and omnichannel strategies on their agenda. The pandemic has pushed many consumers, like us, online. But yet, different sets of consumers still long for the in-store experiences.
On another note, companies, now, have to battle with a mix of high inflation, consumer behaviour and changing trends. With big brands like Walmart and Shopify laying off their workforce, there is a significant uncertainty in the retail industry.
That said, all sectors of the retail industry had embraced technology solutions to accelerate the pace of digital transformation.
For the many of our beloved retails brands, offline-to-online commerce (O2O) is the solution.
O2O integration is where retailers use online and offline to provide improved customer experiences. It’s a strategy to convert traffic from ecommerce into offline sales.
A report by Forrester notes that while online shopping is projected to grow to 27% of overall retail sales by 2023, consumers are rethinking the in-store experience – with 40% of adults in the US saying they enjoy shopping in stores less than before the pandemic.
A hybrid O2O retail model bridges the two channels with a single strategy – elevating in-store shopping with digitally-enhanced experiences, while providing enticing virtual environments online. As customers become more experience-driven, the gap between ecommerce and physical stores is further reduced, with completely re-imagined customer journeys.
Virtual shopping with live digital support
Online shoppers can be instantly connected to skilled in-store staff to explore products. Customisable web widgets for live chat, audio and video calls can be leveraged for instant customer service or virtual shopping experiences. These widgets can also be activated by clicking web links – which many businesses design in their branding as buttons or images on their websites, inviting shoppers to enjoy tailored shopping experiences.
Digital platforms connect customers to staff best suited to their needs, while delivering rich customer insights.
They can even follow up with the customer over their preferred instant messaging and social media channels for better relationship building – even sending special offers and deals exclusive to that customer.
Many of us know QR codes where customers can scan them for shopping, provide product information and make payments.
Another way is to bridge the divide between in-person and virtual environments through QR codes. This blends the O2O shopping experience. For example, sharing of QR codes in marketing campaigns and advertisements, or sending a message on your Facebook Pages can transform them into a powerful communication platform. Strong retail relationships can be built through live chat, instant message platforms, virtual number or video calls and more. A QR code linked to a cloud-based omnichannel solution can help you to build a 360° customer profile with minimal effort.
Humanising your brand to nurture customer relationships
Modern customers have come to expect almost immediate responses to their queries. If you keep them waiting, or force them to navigate through a complicated procedure to answer their question, you will miss opportunities and risk losing customers to the competition. Another key differentiator is quality of service – which the right technology platform can help with, through the power of data.
Inspire loyalty from existing and new customers by building a brand that they love through a total customer engagement platform.
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With the rapid increase of users on digital platforms has been a great opportunity for brands and organizations to get hold of their customers, interact with them, acquire new customers, take feedback, make improvements and the biggest benefit has been measurable results of marketing campaigns.
Starting from the beginning of the journey to the end goal of a brand, one can easily make a high converting funnel with expert guidance.
The most effective generic funnel has always been Brand Awareness —> Consideration/ Engagement —> Conversion
With the help of social platforms, we can reach out to people who are found mostly on digital platforms. According to a recent study, on an avg. the user spends around 147 minutes daily on social media. Now the best part has been that audiences on these platforms are scattered which gives us the advantage to target users on basis of their demography and behavior. Example: Young generation up to the age of 27 are more active on Instagram while the elder generation still prefers Facebook. This number isn’t a universal constant but keeps on changing depending on the country, geography, literacy, income, and various factors.
With the help of targeting options available for advertisers, we can target the right audience with the right content at the right time to achieve the brand goals.
With the help of remarketing campaigns, we can target the customers who have already been our buyers or shown interest in our ad in any form. It might be a scroll to the bottom of the page, Clicks, search on the website, add to cart, checkout, add a payment method, etc.
Differentiating all these audiences with different events, we can create and feed content accordingly. Thus, increasing the conversion rate.
There’s an ongoing debate if paid media is beneficial or organic –
To achieve the best results, both approaches should be followed simultaneously. Though all the platforms are somehow decreasing the organic reach and visibility of content. It’s advised that paid media should not be neglected at any cost.
While Organic media gives long-lasting results if carried out constantly for a never-ending time, Paid Media gives instant results at any point in time.
Some of the biggest mistakes that brands should avoid-
Irregularity in maintaining a digital presence
Not having a brand identity
Not following brand guidelines
Ignoring Content
Ignoring Paid Distribution of ads
Being Impatient
Concluding this article, marketing is all about creating a perception. The best is to create the right one. Maintain distance from unethical marketing tactics. It might give short-term results but in long run, you will end up losing the trust of your customers and among competitors.
In today’s fast paced digital era, there is a clutter of brands popping out of everywhere and anywhere to catch the attention of customers on digital screens and trying to convert them into loyal customers. The marketers are facing unprecedented challenges in achieving their objectives of having customers be loyal to your brand with the hope that they follow the brand on social media platform, endorse your brand and spread the positive word about your brand digitally.
Sometime back a marketing colleague from the industry was discussing with me the scenario of catching the customer’s eyeballs. Expecting consistent loyalty from the ever-demanding customers has become a daunting task as part of brand management. Thanks to the advent of social media, the customers are empowered more than ever, and their loyalty can swing anywhere and anytime depending on their off-line or online brand experience.
I agreed on the points raised by my colleague, but I didn’t want to give my point of view using marketing strategies, management jargons, statistics etc. I was pretty much sure that he may already be bombarded with various marketing gurus’ theories and the abundance of marketing related content available online.
So, I gave my perspective by asking him if he would join me during my next visit to my hair salon. He gave me a weird look which was not unexpected as it may have not made sense to him at that point of time, but I liked his instant response that he was more comfortable going to his regular salon. Bingo!
I asked him why he would stick to the same salon, his answers were brisk as below:
1) The salon is a neat place with good, experienced hairdressers
2) His regular hairdresser knew what kind of a haircut suits him based on the previous umpteen visits to the salon
3) The hairdresser also understands how to change hairstyle suiting his personality depending on new fashion trends
4) The hairdresser gives him a free good head massage that relaxes him post every haircut and sometimes induces him into a facial package when his face looks haggard
5) The cost is not at all high for the services the hairdresser offers him
6) The salon is located close to his house
7) Last but not least, he enjoys the entertaining chats during the hair cut that revolves around his favorite topic of movies and sports while at the same time the hairdresser provides him insights on the local area activities and updates that he may not get to read in the local newspapers.
I was impressed with his customer loyalty to the salon, and I just translated his experiences into a familiar marketing lingo addressing each of his point as below:
1) Quality Products and Services
2) Understanding and Personalizing Customer Needs
3) Improvised Services by Pre-empting Trends
4) Offering Value-Added- Services
5) Offering Value-For-Money
6) Location of Convenience
7) Educate, Engage and Entertain Customers
Digitally the way we communicate with our customers may have changed but the customers’ expectations about product and services may not have drastically changed.
Consistently offer quality product and services with VFM (Value for money) pricing, backed with integrated marketing and periodic research to gauge the consumer and competition trends. In all probability you will have consumers loyal to your brand even when the competition is fighting for the eyeball attention on digital screens. Conquer the marketing funnel using the right MarTech, and AdTech!
My industry colleague couldn’t wait to pay his next visit to the salon to interact with his new “messiah of marketing” so that he could pay closer attention to his experience in order to apply similar marketing skills in his quest to build customer loyalty towards his brands both offline and online!
About 15 years ago, the early disciples of Direct-To-Consumer [DTC] brands, began spreading the word – DTC as a business model was about lower prices, higher margins, and one-to-one customer relationships. Fast forward to today, the DTC landscape is crowded with brands jostling for consumer mindspace. With customer acquisition costs rising and Apple’s iOS ATT update resulting in a reduced ability for facebook and email marketers to track, understand user behavior, target audiences and measure performance accurately – there hasn’t been a more important time than now to leverage and build a powerful marketing technology stack that puts customers at the front and center of a DTC brand’s strategy and mission in order to survive.
Successful DTC brands today focus on building a deep understanding of their customer, strengthen their offerings, educate, entertain, and remind their customers with a single goal to convert visitors to buyers and grow customer lifetime value.
Technology has been at the forefront of a DTC entrepreneurs arsenal influencing daily decisions from understanding a customer’s first order, to building a content strategy leveraging analytics and research, gaining a better understanding of on-site visitor behavior in the storefront, or targeting audiences that are most likely to convert.
Below are ten powerful ways DTC brands leverage technology to scale to 8 figures and beyond profitably.
Let’s dive in.
Building a content first strategy with powerful SEO for brand discoverability
Building a search engine optimized site that is discoverable with high quality content that educates your customers across the customer journey is a good starting point. Additionally, customer journey mapping, with creating a content strategy as a fundamental foundation to communicate with your customer personas and on-site conversion rate optimization yields a flywheel for continuous growth. As we know it a brand without content is faceless, it has no way to get repeat business, grow a customer base and compete against companies with similar products. A real brand has a strong email list of subscribers, authority in their niche and a community of raving fans who consume their content and buy their products again and again. The world’s best DTC brands leverage content to tell their stories to customers and address “why” they exist to serve the customer. Organic content costs less than paid for each marginal visitor – its upfront investment is offset by reduced customer acquisition cost (CAC), more loyalty and a much longer ROI window.
From product pages, blogs to social media the best DTC brands leverage content marketing to build engagement and trust with the brand. Below are ways in which successful DTC brands leverage different technology platforms and applications to provide a full funnel experience by embracing content as a primary pillar.
Top of Funnel Content: focuses on educating the audience, entertaining, engaging the customer and addressing a specific pain point or need they are looking to address. Creative assets for paid social such as images, sales videos, testimonials, UGC can be created via technology platforms such as Canva, Snappa, Adobe Spark, Visme, Vimeo and Wistia are great to build rich experiences on the website and creative assets such as carousels, videos, collection ad formats besides create Instagram stories, Instagram reels that particularly work well for DTC brands. UGC platforms Cohley and Pixlee help brands connect with customers and engage them with authentic conversations inviting them to discover the brand. Building on-site personalized quizzes can further improve time on site and grow engagement with your customer.
Middle of Funnel Content: focuses on helping educate, informing and building trust with the customer. The focus here is to solve for why your product or service would help fulfill the customer’s needs. Building social proof by integrating platforms like Trustpilot, Yotpo are great. Brands integrate chat via Paloma, ManyChat and MobileMonkey that help DTC brands engage, inform and retain visitors on the website – channels such as Instagram and facebook messenger accelerate customer experience and brand credibility.
Bottom Of Funnel Content: this is where the rubber hits the road. Ensuring your store has product optimized pages with a goal to ensure a frictionless path to conversion with one click upsells, a seamless add to cart experience, a secure check-out with a post-purchase cross sell opportunity to grow average order value (AOV), conversion rates (CR) and customer lifetime value (CLV) are big rocks that aid conversion optimisation. Landing Pages that are AMP optimized for quick mobile downloads and desktop optimized separately are important to ensure a rich customer experience and reduce bounce rates, load times and improve conversions. Ensuring message match between ads, content and product offer pages is key not only to ensure a high-quality score when running facebook and google ads but also is key to increase conversion rates and lower cart abandonment. By adopting technology software such Unbounce and InstaPage to launch custom landing pages in a drag and drop environment DTC brands are able to drastically improve customer experience, drive customer retention and prevent a leaky bucket. Apps such as Zipify and Candy Rack are two of the top-rated apps on the Shopify app store that allow you to easily create upsell and cross-sell offers.
Nik Sharma, CEO of Sharma Brands states, “If you invest in SEO today, you will reap its ROI over 12 years”. For some brands, relevant search volume will allow them to scale to tens of thousands – if not hundreds of thousands – of qualified shoppers per month through search engine optimization (SEO).
To do that requires a combination of three factors.
One, optimizing your collection and product pages for high-buying-intent keywords. Two, optimizing those same pages for technical considerations – correct H tags, alt image tags, and load speed. Three, producing additional content for non-buying-intent keywords. By leveraging SEMRUSH, BackLinko and Ahrefs a seamless search engine optimised storefront with organic traffic can be built, growing the stores brand authority while driving conversions.
2. Ensuring a healthy channel mix while building traffic
Once a DTC brand builds a great product that solves a specific need or pain-point of the customer, saves time, money or solves a problem – then the next ideal step is a laser focus on building traffic. Traffic = store visitors. As John Mac Donald, President & Founder of The Good, a conversion rate optimization firm states, “Visitors come to your store only for two reasons – to research your products and understand if it solves their problem or need and to purchase as quickly and effortlessly as possible. Your job as an ecommerce marketer is to get them what they came for with the least friction”.
As an young DTC brand, a focus on growing organic traffic, improving on-site conversion rate through conversion rate optimization and establishing a retention strategy via email and SMS marketing to grow your short-term LTV (60-day LTV) will deliver profitability in order to better prepare you to scale in the future.
Early DTC brands that have seen success aim to push revenue via organic traffic to 20%+ and email marketing to 25% to build for profitability.
Once brands hit 15M+ and are a maturing DTC brand, direct organic traffic should contribute to at least 40% of total traffic. As DTC brands build sizeable organic traffic and continue to grow with a goal to deeply understanding their customer personas, they grow higher quality traffic to drive to their storefront and scale business further by a focus on paid advertising via search and social. A focus on full funnel advertising optimized at an SKU and price point level to win profitable sales, building high converting creatives rooted in analytics focused on time tested principles that accelerate the customers journey should be the focus all with one primary goal – get visitors to make a purchase. Further brands build intelligent remarketing campaigns that separate customers, visitors, browsers, and cart abandoners. Search engine marketing (SEM) is leveraged to make sure that the store “owns their real estate”: the top results for branded searches. Google ads versus Facebook ads shouldn’t be pitted against each other; but instead work together to build an omnichannel presence across search, shopping, and social media. A healthy store has a 40-60 organic to paid traffic mix or an ideal 50-50 organic to paid traffic mix.
None of this is possible to track and measure without using the rich machine learning capabilities and algorithms of the big three – facebook, google and amazon ad platforms and pixels or even first party and third-party data technologies.
3. Optimizing for the conversion always! Growing revenue per visitor as a goal.
When DTC brands focus all efforts into cutting down wasteful expenditure testing ads with small budgets first, always testing 6-8 creatives and remarketing to existing customers while prospecting to new potential customers only – they see a lift in conversions and conversion rates besides improved return on ad spend (ROAS). When brands test both ads and funnels leveraging the AIDA model and rapidly iterate creative assets to optimize for the conversion, paid advertising finally pays off and allows brands to rapidly scale, grow new customers and drive repeat purchase rates and average order value.
By accelerating on-site conversion rate optimization actions, focusing on bespoke photography and video asset optimization, site speed and mobile optimized AMP pages for quick load times, brands are able to build profitable ecommerce funnels that reduce friction points to conversion such as your offer, return rates, bad reviews, poor product quality, creative, account optimization goals or an incongruent message or visual between your ad and landing page structure. Testing each element of the ecommerce funnel – ad imagery, headlines, copy, blog copy, video, testimonials, social reviews creates a frictionless path to conversion with a coherent message to the consumer. Further conversion rate optimisation does not end with the purchase – post-purchase retention strategies help further drive engagement, cross-sell and upsells that consistently grow brand loyalty, increase repeat purchase rates reducing average time between orders.
By personalizing the customer journey across touchpoints, focusing on product assortment optimization, directing paid dollars to acquire ideal customers and ensuring message match between the ad and landing page, DTC brands are able to greatly impact conversion rates and volume. Marketing software such as Adobe Spark Post, Canva, no limit creatives allow entrepreneurs and marketers to rapidly test creative performance and build stunning creative assets. Conversion Optimisation Software (CRO) software such as Omniconvert, Optimizely and VWO enables brands to conduct RFM segmentation, cohort analysis and launch customer surveys to better understand customer clusters with varied lifetime value, on-site behavior and intent. This helps every marketer to successfully focus on profitable growth.
With heatmaps, rapid A/B testing and software such as HotJar, Microsoft Clarity, brands are able to optimise on-site product page experiences. Further, auditing customer reviews on your store and on Amazon can play a part in strengthening the product offering and service capability.
DTC brands personalize cart recovery by installing LiveRecover. They recover about 20-25% of abandoned carts at minimum. All these actions are an essential part to conversion rate optimisation for the storefront online.
4. Accelerating LTV with retention programs via email marketing, SMS marketing, informative newsletters, community building programs for your brand
If you aren’t leveraging email and SMS marketing, you are leaving a pile of cash on the table. Nik Sharma, CEO of Sharma Brands says, “Good retention is about coming up with plays that keep your product in the top 15-20 things in a person’s head at any one time”. Simply put – email marketing and SMS marketing are those #1 and #2 retention channels!
No other channel matches the ROI of email marketing. For every $1 spent email generates $38. Well performing email marketing has the potential to drive 20%-30% revenue.
Email is the most important touch point between brand and community. It helps convince people to engage, consider, buy and express, take interest, engage and influence buyers. With customer acquisition costs likely to continue to spiral upwards, investing in email marketing to build a direct relationship with the customer and “own” the relationship is critical.
As Chase Dimond, Co-Founder of Boundless Labs says, “I think email’s important for a lot of reasons. First – with the iOS 14 update and cookies going away, it’s going to be even more important to control your audience and really have predictable revenue.
The goal is to get to a point where you can press send and you know that this campaign is going to drive you X number of clicks and X number of sales and the revenue per recipient is this.
And with Facebook and some of these other channels, those are obviously very effective for what I do. We are dependent on top-of-the-funnel traffic, but they’re going to become a lot less precise, a lot less predictable. So having a channel like email marketing where you own, and you control your destiny is going to be super important”.
Marketing automation platforms such as Klaviyo, Privy, Active Campaign and Sendlane allow marketers to not only establish a one-to-one relationship with the existing and potential customers but leverage deep learning to build segments and communicate with your customers to inform, educate and convert more visitors to customers.
By focusing on a healthy mix of both campaigns and flows. Ensuring your core flows welcome series, cart and browse abandonment and post purchase series are always activated. Building a cadence of list hygiene and cleaning to ensure healthy engagement rates – email marketing can become a highly profitable channel.
Merchandising emails with top-sellers and bundled offers to drive repeat purchases help grow a DTC brands average order value (AOV).
Post purchase emails are critical to keep customers engaged, thanking customers for purchases made and launching cross-sell and up-sell opportunities over time grow AOV. Educating your customers about how to use your products leveraging newsletters, build social proof and valuable feedback. Email Marketing helps shore up organic traffic through a continuous stream of existing customers visiting your site to explore new products, engage with your blog and feel part of a community.
With the iOS 15 ATT updates, we will see a potential impact on opens leading to our inability to accurately understand revenue, IP based activity, ability to serve dynamic content, list segmentation, build automated triggers and logic, launch list hygiene and offboard unengaged subscribers. Ensuring UTM tracking is accurate and consistent to enable last click reporting through Google Analytics would be key. Collecting historical data to adequately read without open data would help create a baseline to benchmark against. Updating segments to utilise recent creation, clicks, purchases and site sessions to build segments of engaged contacts. Auditing all automated flows for use of opens and identify any elements of the program reliant on Geo-IP. Implementing batched re-engagement series for pre-iOS 15 list hygiene would go a long way in making informed and intelligent decisions to boost the health of your email marketing program.
5. Building A Frontline of Defense with Customer Service:
Martech platforms such as Gorgias go a long way in not only reducing churn but also leveraging data to build customer service as not only brand advocates and grow one-on-one relationships with the customer. Customer service is a brand’s frontline of defence. Customers are the first to know when something is wrong, broken, or if anything can be done better. By identifying the needs, concerns, and issues of the customer faster than anyone else, brands can also fix or address problems before it gets any bigger and becomes damaging to the company.
It is important to keep the customer happy. If it is their first-time ordering from a brand and they have a less than stellar experience, they are most likely not going to order again. They will not give any of the company’s second products a try, such as the more expensive purchases or subscriptions. That is why customer service helps in not only preventing any bad experiences but building a trusted relationship. By offering simple solutions from a technical standpoint, such as dealing with refunds or providing a shipping label, the customer is excited that the brand provided them with a solution. Tools like Gorgias help drive stellar customer service enabling brands to leverage data to cross sell and up sell products, retain or win back customers and provide exceptional customer experience.
6. Scaling with Facebook Ads Profitably
Why facebook you may ask? With more than 2.9 BN monthly active users worldwide, facebook is the largest social network. Besides the continuing challenges with Apple’s iOS updates, it is estimated that ad spends would continue to rise by 32% on facebook in 2022 per eMarketer. While CPMs have risen by +47% on facebook in the US and +54% YOY for ecommerce brands – there simply put isn’t a single channel replacement for facebook that provides better or similar returns.
Facebook and Instagram are the highest performing, most efficient channels out there why? This is because of the humongous data they are sitting on. Facebook pixels are over 8 million websites on the internet. facebook knows about their users through their conversion tracking algorithm more than anyone else.
On the buy side of the facebook platform it is important to focus on five key areas to leverage the power of the platform profitably.
Feed the facebook algorithm with a variety of ad creatives, testing every part of the ad while leveraging a consolidated account structure, ensure message match and congruence between ad and landing page
Set clear prospecting goals only targeting new users to be able to retarget to existing users for scale and profitability
Build audience exclusions while setting up retargeting for visitors, cart abandoners, engagers, and varied customer segments
Calculate facebook budgets and CPA targets based on profitability goals
Eliminate single account ROAS goals while focusing on SKU based goals
Embrace Adobe Spark, Pixlr X, Snappa, Adobe Premier Rush to create outstanding Facebook ads that convert.
7. Always refining the almighty offer to grow AOV and short-term cash multiplier LTV 60 days
Focus on understanding different customer segments and their purchase trends, what they are willing to recommend and what they have returned. If you have excess inventory, BOGO is a great promotional offer to increase customer engagement and generate sales. Free shipping belongs on every customer list. Conversion rates are known to increase when you use free shipping. Free returns set customers minds free and gets them to purchase more. Threshold free shipping can incentivize shoppers to add more items to their cart increasing both AOV and LTV. At all times, merchants must cater for what people really care about – which is almost never a brand or founder story – but something relevant to their needs.
Limited edition and low in stock are great ways to drive urgency besides money back guarantees. Product bundling including starter kits and special edition seasonal items. A membership or subscription program is a powerful way to bring your customers into an exclusive club and generate some guaranteed revenue. If your membership is structured well, you can get your customers to spend more than they would otherwise. Store credits are a great way to get your customers to come back again and incentivise the next purchase.
Bolstering your business with a robust live chat experience, customer service platform such as Gorgias or building a customer review via UGC with Okendo would work wonders for your brand. This would help in driving more traffic by showing reviews in paid and organic marketing channels including Google Ads, Google Search and Google Shopping. The above tactics all go a long way to improve average order value (AOV) and LTV 60 days i.e., a cash multiplier for the brand.
8. Capturing demand through Search Engine Marketing with Google Shoppingand Google Ads
If brands want to be wherever their customers are, then this is one of the foundational steps. If someone finds a brand on Facebook or they see the brand on Amazon, one of the next things they’ll do is search for same brand on Google and so as DTC brands, we want to show up there for branded search.
Now you might be asking, if someone is searching for me by name, won’t my organic search do the trick? Because I’m going to probably rank for my own name number one. And the answer is, yes you most likely will rank at the top organically for your own brand name. There are very rare exceptions that you would not. However, there are likely going to be some ads above you.
Branded Search Ads help prevent competitors from poaching a brands customers. Search Ad spend is still growing at 20% per year. Google Shopping makes up 55-60% of all retail paid search clicks per Search Engine Journal. One of the reasons why Google Shopping is so popular is because the return on ad spend (ROAS) is just consistently strong.
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is the holy grail. Once you install the GTM container pixel on your site, you’ll be able to manage all your pixels from the GTM user interface. Launching Google Tag Manager on site, also makes sure you have a much less chance of accidentally breaking your site trying to add pixels. More importantly it will help you track the holy conversion and other key actions such as add to cart, order value, product or item bought, sales revenue and much more.
9. Launching private label brands on Amazon FBA and leveraging Amazon Advertising
Amazon is quickly becoming a destination for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands looking to expand their reach and increase their sales. Since third-party sellers joined Amazon in 1999, they’ve grown to account for 58% of Amazon sales.
DTC brands that have an already established store can leverage 300 million active customers across 180+ countries via Amazon. It is one of the most efficient ways to reach new customers with 66% of new product searches beginning on Amazon.
Positive Customer Reviews can boost the brands perception and drive organic traffic to their store thereby improving conversions and sales. This means healthier profit margins.
With Facebook ads costs rising post Apple’s iOS ATT rollout by almost +45-55%, Amazon PPC ad costs could be cheaper depending upon the category. DTC Brands could leverage market intelligence platforms such as Jungle Scout and Helium10 to make real time decisions on their Amazon FBA strategy based on their inventory availability, new product launch strategy, gain competitor insights and feedback from customer reviews to continuously iterate the product and improve product features, packaging and after-sales service. Brands could even launch bundled offers to push excess inventory or plan to push sales during peak holiday seasons to maximize both sales volume and profitability
10. Measuring what Matters
Successful DTC ecommerce brands know their growth is tied to a fundamental set of metrics. Visitors, Conversion Rate, Operating Expenditure, Contribution Margin and Customer Lifetime Value are some of the key metrics that when tracked and measured, lead to informed decision making and a profitable DTC commerce business with more cash in the bank. Other key metrics such as Net Promoter Score, Customer Acquisition Cost, Purchase Frequency, Average Order Value, Time to First Response and CLV to CAC ratio are additionally important metrics to track.
A holistic view of these metrics cannot be attained in the absence of technology driven software such as Google Analytics, OmniConvert, Tydo, Ramp, Settle and more.
Successful DTC brands start with a mission to create world class products that best serve the customer to deliver exceptional customer experiences with customer lifetime value as their north star. Some of the world’s best DTC brands such as Glossier, Beardbrand, Lalo, Qalo, and many more power their DTC technology stack leveraging these world class software applications and platforms mentioned in the article above.
Smarte Digital is a boutique ecommerce growth marketing consultancy with a mission to scale DTC brands that are between 2MN-30MN+ profitably.
Convergence of Marketing 5.0 and T-Shaped Marketing
Here we are, on the precipice of a post-covid world, yet another one is brewing…(It’s not the emergence of Omicron if you are reading this in early 2022).
Industry 4.0’s impact on many facets of human lives and societies (Image Source: The Marketing Journal)
Convergence of New Customer Experience and “Next Tech” (Image Source: The Marketing Journal)
Customer Empathy first, Technology second
So, how do marketers fit into this ‘next tech’ vision?
As the book’s name suggests “Technology for humanity”, humans are central to successful applications and marketers are still at the core of Marketing 5.0.
It is not about replacing the human with computer intelligence but rather finding ways in which “machines and people might fit and deliver the most value across the customer journey.”
In today’s connected and on-demand economy, relevance is the most important currency. This harkens back to the drivers of marketing evolutions, which are marketing technology and consumer needs. To stay relevant, marketers must adopt a customer-centric approach.
The 5 components of Marketing 5.0 (Image Source: Think Beyond)
Next Technologies’ main purpose is to amplify the capabilities of marketers to create and deliver value. With the rapidly-changing consumer behaviours due to the pandemic, marketers can create solutions that are more relevant than those created by the current-state AI.
Kolter touches on how Technology is adding value to marketing through the above five components with society and sustainability in mind.
Stepping into Marketing 5.0, T-shaped marketers would see the expansion and deepening of various domains (e.g. Behavioural Psychology, Digital Analytics, AR/VR, Service & UX Design).
Am I ready for Marketing 5.0?
The biggest challenge marketers face is the journey from strategy to execution! Let alone being ready for Marketing 5.0.
In my career journey, I am neither on track with Jack Ma’s career advice nor ready to take on the entrepreneurship path. I believe there is no rush to setting deadlines to attain your career goals (something that Jack Ma begs to differ).
My current goal is to advance from being a T-Shaped to a V-Shaped Marketer by broadening my business acumen, technical know-how while strengthening interpersonal skills. Individuals are rarely capable of achieving a true, deep “V” shape in their skill sets, but a collective unit can. I am blessed to have the opportunity to learn alongside similarly-minded, differentiated knowledge-experts within Google.
If you are just starting your digital marketing journey or at the cusp of a career-pivot, don’t fret – here are some readings that will help you get up to speed with the MarTech Universe (not the Marvel Universe!) and pivot to becoming a T-shaped marketer.
Good Reads and Frameworks: Marketing 5.0’s Marketer
Low data prices has increased Internet users in India (mobile first Internet market) while propelling the growth/reach of social media giants as well as video content watch time over the last 5 years; but digital media still isn’t the preferred vehicle of marketing for most clients and only accounts for 25-30% of the industry spends, although it is growing YOY.
The adoption of digital media has been hindered by the fragmented digital ecosystem, doubts over ad fraud and effectiveness of the medium, questions over viewability of ads, traditional mindset of brand managers and their lack of understanding of the digital ecosystem. Even until recently, I have been asked to run campaigns targeting the brands HQ or been provided with custom audience lists of senior executives in the company, to be targeted with the brand campaign so as to satisfy and address the question a lot of brand managers ask – I am not able to see my ad; as they compare it to traditional media where ads are shown in an appointment-viewing manner.
The ever-changing pandemic situation has definitely forced a digital pivot, with print and outdoor media taking a hit. Brand managers are forced to consider digital due to its targeting capabilities ensuring low spillage and cost efficiencies. And like learning the ABCs of the alphabets, all brands jump on the bandwagon of Facebook and Google with over 80% budget going to these 2 platforms. The platform scale/reach, along with cost efficiencies as well as brand credibility is definitely unbeatable in the space and hence becomes a no brainer for brands. But as the adoption of the duopoly increases, the strength and power of the walled gardens grow and so do their prices.
As marketers spend more on these platforms, they understand less about their customers as walled garden campaigns and interactions can’t be tied back to the brand’s CRM database. Brands receive a consolidated view of how their campaigns performed rather than an individualized view. There’s no way to verify impression/reach data or understand affinity target selections that work, you simply have to take it on faith. Yet marketers continue to spend more and get less.
A more equitable value exchange needs to be more about standardizing taxonomy and identifiers across all of these platforms to see and understand the customer journey. Today, even having unified unique reach in a digital campaign is next to impossible due to the fragmented ecosystem as well as walled gardens.
With the increased spends on digital, reports indicate that ad fraud rates gone up by 40% in these COVID times.Today ad verification in India is in its nascent stages and only around 10-15% invest on third party verification tools. The path for safer and more secure digital advertising effectiveness lies in third party ad verification, which ensures that brands are investing in quality media. Third party verification would ensure 4 things mainly
Ad Fraud – identifying Invalid Traffic to help evaluate efficacy of platform and calculate brands return on media investment
Viewability – helps measure effectiveness of ad delivery
In Geo – ensure ads served within intended demographics
Advertisers need to understand these underlying challenges as the adoption of digital increases at a rapid pace. Investing in third party verification tools will not only improve trust and transparency in the ecosystem, while also holding publishers accountable and thus help decreasing fraudulent traffic and increasing overall return on investment.