Online presence is not only about having websites and social media accounts for your business but also about how the brand’s reputation is online.

It has become immensely crucial for small businesses and white-collar professionals to manage their reputation, as it affects their business directly. Managing online reputation involves social listening, actively participating in customer interaction, and includes proactive roles.

Therefore it has become necessary to have an Online Reputation Management (ORM) strategy or an ORM agency to handle your brand reputation online.  It allows businesses to look through a digital window, which evinces the avenues to improve and grow.

How to increase the reputation of your online business?

Ask your customers to write a review

What is worse than a negative review of you or your business online? Think! It’s not having a review at all.

Negative reviews are not always bad. If your brand has all the good reviews, the customer might not believe them at all. Negative reviews can be overpowered by positive ones.

Now the main question is, how do we encourage customers to write reviews for you or your business?

There are various methods to generate user reviews, some of which are listed below. Make sure you capture the attention of users to give you a review.

1. Email
2. In-App popups
3. Feedback prompt
4. Offline

An example of how an Uber Driver is encouraging customers to rate them. A message like this ensures that a customer rates the driver.

Expand your presence

Think extensively about your business and which platform people are more likely to use to search for you on the internet. You need to find out where your target audience is present and then leverage the power of social media channels. 

Most businesses and professionals have their presence on Facebook and thinking that it is enough, is a big mistake! Users rely on all types of websites to gather reviews.

• Yelp
• Facebook
• Google
• Trip Advisor
• Better Business Bureau
• Yellow Pages

Make sure you have a presence on all these platforms because it becomes extremely difficult to judge which platforms are trusted by maximum number of people.

Let us explain it by a simple example: A doctor did not list himself on Yelp, but customers still gave feedback and reviews on the portal. The timings and the phone numbers mentioned were all incorrect. Potential customers were turning into unhappy users as they were unable to communicate with the doctor.

In this situation, it would have been better if the doctor had claimed the business page and submitted correct information. Even if you received a negative review, at least potential customers now have a way to communicate with you. That is why it is important to spread out on all the portals where your customers might be present.

Encourage customers to upload the product in use

While you may be promoting your product or profession with high-quality pictures and videos, encourage your customers to upload pictures too.

77% of people say customers’ photos influence their buying decision more than professional pictures. The customer’s picture builds trust and gives authenticity to your brand which helps in improving your online reputation.

Find ways to get your customers to review your brand with pictures. A profitable giveaway, a chance to be featured on social media, are a few ways to get the customers to post pictures along with a review.

GoPro is benefiting from this marketing technique for many years now. They encourage customers to upload pictures that they have taken from their GoPro devices. It not only encourages customers to upload pictures on social media but also helps in increasing the conversion rate.

Respond to the public on social media

Social listening is a process that brands and individuals use to monitor social media channels for mentions, competitors, products or ideas which are relevant to their niche. This information is used to analyze the information for actionable insights. The action can be anything depending on the goal, like responding to a review or strategizing marketing for the future.

Customers will be talking about your brand on social media, make sure you notice. Thank the ones who have appreciated your business and maybe provide something extra which will keep them loyal to your brand. The ones who have left a negative comment are also important as this is where your customer service enters the testing waters. It is crucial as you want to defend your brand but would not want to start an argument with the customer.

Strategically plan your reply to a negative comment, address the issue at hand and provide the customer with a reasonable solution.

A restaurant received a negative review from the customer on Facebook. The restaurant apologized for the mistake but also moved the issue to another channel so that they can resolve the matter more privately.

Start working on your blogs

The best way to improve your online reputation is to build a domain authority which can be achieved by blogging.

A huge part of lead generation depends on blogging. Publishing quality content on a regular basis will help in SEO. Thus, helping in increasing inbound and outbound links.

Diesel cafe has a website and a dedicated blog section where they update their clients on new arrivals in the menu. This way the cafe is increasing their authority on search engines. 

Take advantage of tools that monitor your online reputation

How would a business know if their reputation in the market is good? Businesses can easily monitor reviews on their website and social media, but that is not enough to assess your online reputation. 

For example, a business has mentioned you in a negative light on their blog. Will monitoring Google and Facebook help? Would you ever get to know about it?

This is why it is important to take advantage of tools like Google Alert to monitor where your business name is being mentioned. 

Reputology is one of the dedicated solutions to help you analyze reviews and comments. The tool algorithm identifies the emotion of customers and finds an appropriate reply to the same. Some other important tools are: 

1. Mention
2. Buzzsumo
3. SentiOne
4. Chatmeter
5. Social Mention

The above screenshot shows a tool called Mention. When searched for Swiggy, it shows all the results where the word Swiggy is mentioned. It also shows the influencers who are using the brand name. A must-have tool to keep track of your online reputation. 

Partner with influencers

Influencers have the power to convince people to buy a product or do business with you. Just like user-generated content, they have the power to create social proof for the business.

Brands need to find appropriate influencers according to the niche of the business.

Instead of brands promoting their own image on their own page, influencers can show the product in use. People follow and listen to influencers because of their expertise in a particular area and when they approve of a product, it highly influences the decisions of consumers.

Skinny mint collaborated with Kylie Jenner to market their brand on her social media profile. She uploaded a picture with their product on her Instagram profile with an engaging caption.

Showcase testimonials

As we have talked about it above too, encourage customers to write reviews and add pictures in their reviews. Gathering a lot of reviews is not going to help your business unless showcased on appropriate platforms. Wherever the potential customer might search for you, reviews and testimonials should be present there. Make sure you showcase the name and designation of the reviewer. The designation must be in accordance with your business functionalities. For example, for a restaurant,  a food blogger providing reviews makes it a credible source.

A local dietitian has a dedicated section of reviews on her website that showcases reviews of the customers who have benefited through her diet plans. Before and after pictures of customers make it more authentic.

Steps for fixing negative reviews:

1. Build good reviews to suppress bad reviews- While business owners can not control the feedback customers leave on your website, they can dilute negative reviews by building up positive reviews.
2. Read the review and check if you need to change something- A negative review surely does affect your brand’s reputation. Think, is there something that needs to be changed in your business? One feedback might have affected a lot of your customers. Analyze the review and your business strategically.
3. Respond to it professionally and with a solution- Only one customer leaves a review (good or bad), a lot of them read it. So respond to every review that your brand receives.
4. Dilute negative reviews in SERPs- Like mentioned above, dilute the impact of negative reviews by an overpowering positive development. What if you are not getting enough positive? Take the help of a global reputation management agency. Talk to the critic on a private channel- While you are dealing with the negative review on a 3rd party review portal, make sure that you also email or call the concerned person to apologize and give a valid explanation for the issue.
5. Turn them around- Keep in mind the people who review you online can become the most influential fans of your brand.
6.  On the whole, if you or your business reputation has been damaged, it can be reversed. Also, if you are trying to build a reputation on the internet, it can be done by following the points mentioned above. Through an efficient online reputation, you can create the utmost credibility and trust for yourself or your brand. A good online reputation can help create a good perception from existing or new customers; ultimately resulting in increased sales and revenue of your business.

The post Online Reputation Management Tips For Small Businesses And White Collar Professionals appeared first on FATbit Blog.

In the changing business environment, making advancements in competitive measuring, monitoring or management strategies has become crucial. Hence, businesses are using Competitive Intelligence (CI) to obtain the necessary insights into the market and identify what their rivals are doing.

Methodically examining competitive intelligence helps you figure out the following questions:

• How to understand and compete in an ever-changing market climate?

• How to identify your competitors and the unique strategies that they follow?

• How to gain sophisticated insights to beat your competition?

• How to formulate an effective competitive strategy?

• How to follow the latest marketing, growth, and conversion strategies?

Stage a Successful Cloak-And-Dagger Operation

CI enables better business performance and accelerates your competitive win rates. It involves amassing the scattered bits and pieces of facts, observations and rumors, collectively termed as data. Then a team of experts performs pooling of these bits of data known as information. After integrating the absolutely important data, the significant information undergoes distillation. The information so analyzed is called intelligence that brings market insights to empower your business.

Take Better Decisions

Data helps businesses analyze their growth strategies and figure out the essential missing elements to acquire the competitive landscape. This information helps them find any market gaps and exploit the weaknesses of their competitors. Therefore, you must spot your existing and emerging competitors, and keep a watchful eye on them to gather data.

Competitive intelligence is all about evaluating your business strengths and avoiding or minimizing threats from established and emerging competitors with better decision-making. It brings agility to the following decision-making strategies with the changing industry dynamics:

• Strategic decisions: These are long-term decisions that are based upon strategic planning in harmony with the mission and objectives of your business. CI not only appraises business, but also helps discern the rivals and their strategies and set business goals. Therefore, you can overcome all the present and future competitive challenges and market hurdles. Besides, you can make strategic decisions for the overall planning of your business.
• Operational decisions: These are medium-period based decisions that are not frequently taken. Majorly, operational decisions are related to production and industry growth. With competitive intelligence, you can evaluate how your competitors are selling their products and exploit the market gaps in the best way to enhance your profit margins. This helps take more effective operational decisions in various operational aspects.

• Tactical decisions: Tactical decisions are short-term resolutions that are made in connection with issues such as capturing market share and collecting maximum revenues. Intelligent data helps you make wiser tactical decisions to grasp the potential market and competitive opportunities, thereby enabling you to assess moderate uncertainties in a cut-throat market environment.

Improve Business Framework 

Mirror your competitors’ business strategies and unearth their tactics to advance your market framework and processes. Competitive intelligence aids you to understand the weaknesses of your business rivals and identify innovation opportunities. Also, it helps you in informed commercial planning based on next-generation business concepts.

• STRENGTHS: Business strengths are internal positive attributes of your business that stimulate your growth. Competitive intelligence helps you identify your uniqueness and analyze competitive advantage.
• WEAKNESSES: Competitive intelligence helps you classify your business weaknesses. It helps you in adopting the best practices of your competitors to make improvements in your own business strategies.
• OPPORTUNITIES: Gather and analyze intelligent information about the latest market trends and your key competitors. Therefore, exploit competitive opportunities and build a plan for your business growth.
• THREATS: Competitive intelligence notifies you with an early warning for disruptive changes in the competitive landscape. It helps you accentuate the aggressive menaces to create and implement defensive strategies, thereby overcoming the threats from your competition.

CI gained through SWOT and TOWS analysis helps you:

• identify and utilize innovation opportunities
• polish product development strategies
• harness disruptive technologies
• filter win-loss strategy
• benchmark performance
• accelerate mergers and acquisitions

Profitable Customer Acquisition 

In this competitive ecosystem, customer-centricity plays a crucial role in business growth. With it comes the necessity to build and retain connections with potential and existing customers. CI aids you to outcompete your business rivals by crafting improved customer management strategies. The attributes of these strategies will expand your business value and broaden a loyal customer base.

• Support customer acquisition strategy: Competitive intelligence helps you create a supportive acquisition strategy. You will find out the best tactics and procedures to solve customer needs by monitoring competitors’ customer engagement activities and solutions for their customers’ pain points.
• Understand customer satisfaction strategy: The intelligent data gathered from analyzing the market and identifying your business rivals helps you work out the best solutions for your customers’ pain points. Also, impeccable customer support helps you listen to your customers and address their concerns.

Measure your Success

With competitive intelligence, you can create certain actionable strategies and processes that drive you closer to your business goals. These business battlecards determine the impact on sales, performance and growth with competitive intelligence programs. Therefore, it is wise to establish if the intelligent data is fueling your business towards growth or not.

• Establish metrics: Set metrics to define the quantifiable measure to check the success rate of your intelligent data performance.

• Determine the accuracy of your competitive intelligence: Ensure that the collected intelligent data signifies industry practices and trends that are helpful for your business.

• Win rates against competitors: Check if the intelligent information is beneficial for your business and helping you to outstand your competitors.

• Achieve notable sales cycle length:  Make sure that the sales cycle length achieved after employing competitive intelligence programs is significant.

• Influence your revenue: Evaluate if the intelligence-gathering efforts are making a difference and influencing the total revenue generated by your business.

• Get feedback from a customer-facing team: Coordinate with your company’s support team to share ideas and results from the use of competitive intelligence. You can ask the following questions:
  • How do they use competitive intelligence?
  • Do they use the data on a daily basis?
  • Do they have any data usage specifications?
  • What more can be added?
  • Did they hit their target?
  • Are there any issues with value pitch?

A complete attainment of sophisticated and granular competitive insights can effectively guide your strategies. Competitive intelligence augments your key business decision capabilities to drive growth.

Since there are multidimensional data sources to collect facts, reports and statistics about competitors and up-to-date market trends. Therefore, a sharp focus is required to mark a successful intelligence-gathering effort.

The post How to Drive Growth With Competitive Intelligence appeared first on FATbit Blog.

A tailored and right digital marketing plan presents an opportunity to streamline the marketing operations and effectively use digital marketing channels to expand their consumer base and promote their services. So, this blog presents a roadmap to formulate a successful digital marketing plan for a business. It presents the advantages of the digital marketing industry and lays down a beginner’s guide to utilize it to your advantage.

Advantages of a Digital Marketing Plan

A highly structured digital marketing plan for action steers your business toward success with well-planned strategies. Implementing agile and calculated measures in your digital marketing plan will reap numerous benefits listed below.

1. Provides Industry Insights
2. Assists in Determining Business Goals
3. Steers Department Co-ordination
4. Improves Efficiency of the Business
5. Helps in Finalizing the Time and Budget Allocation
6. Get Acquainted With Your Target Audience
7. Increase your Return on Investment
8. Boost Your Productivity
9. Reformed Analytics and Optimization

A digital marketing plan will guide you to your goals and help you benefit from your business. Next, we will discuss the components of a marketing plan.

Digital marketing strategies aligned with one’s business goals guide toward the required goals. Now, let us dive into the guide to creating a digital marketing plan for businesses that will produce effective results and enhance operations.

Steps to Build a Successful Digital Marketing Plan

A well-planned digital marketing plan affirms a successful expansion of services digitally. Expanding your business using a suitable framework assists small companies in competing with large and established enterprises. Given below are steps that can help one attain desirable results.

Step 1: Define Your Business Goals

The growth of a business highly depends on the set goals and the measures taken to achieve them. A thorough analysis of your SMART framework that assists in formulating a business plan in a specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely form while also aligned with your required business strategy formulates a profitable plan of action. Define your online value proposition while considering the 4 Ps of marketing- product, price, promotion, and place.

Furthermore, consistently defining goals and evaluating strategies helps businesses overcome stagnating barriers. Business owners can develop KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and adhere to a planned direction. Additionally, by following the RACE framework- react, act, convert, engage- business owners can analyze and adjust the marketing plan according to their needs.

Step 2: Identify Your Target Audience 

The primary aim of a digital marketing strategy is to build traffic and increase the global reach of a business. Identifying the customer persona of your target audience and catering to their needs is of utmost importance. You can identify your target audience by conducting thorough market research and analyzing potential competitors while also understanding the pain points and preferences of your client base. Formulating a content strategy that aligns with your audience’s preferences will give a head start to the marketing strategies. These plans include consistently monitoring analytics, market competitors, user feedback, customer behavior, and more.

Step 3: Choose the Right Digital Marketing Channels

After identifying their target audience, businessmen can employ digital marketing strategies for their business through popular channels such as social media platforms, content creation, pay-per-click marketing, email marketing, and more to utilize the benefits of the online ecosystem.

Additionally, smart budget allocation is also essential through paid search and social media advertising, email marketing, content marketing, and SEO marketing strategies ranging from high-performing channels to moderate budget allocation. Multiple digital channels that are used to increase the reach are listed below.

• Search Engine Optimization: SEO utilization assists businesses in increasing brand awareness. It helps recognize targeted keywords and attract the target audience. It aids in tracking, analyzing, and optimizing the online ranking of a business. 
• Email Marketing: Email marketing helps build a positive relationship with potential customers. Recognizing your consumer persona and producing a personalized email marketing strategy will ensure a positive impact on your business.
• Content Marketing: Promoting the brand and introducing new customers through informative content builds customer loyalty while providing readers with valuable assets and more. 
• PPC Marketing: The pay-per-click ad campaigns are known to yield better results when organic marketing campaigns are difficult to attain. It assists in increasing brand awareness. 
• Social Media Marketing: SM marketing requires a tailored strategy to attain performance-driven results leading to qualified lead generation. A well-structured social media plan assists in increasing business manifolds. 
• Video Marketing: The modern attention span can be attracted through video marketing. With high shareability and engagement prospects offered by the marketing strategy, this prospect increases the ROI of a business. 
• Online Reputation Mangement: ORM services are essential to maintain a loyal consumer base with the credibility offered by the business. A well-maintained online reputation yields high returns and is an effective marketing strategy. 

Step 4: Develop a Content Strategy

Developing a content strategy is essential while preparing a digital marketing plan. An effective order to follow while strategizing the content begins by planning the content and reaching out to the target audience through inbound marketing and planned campaigns.

Planning content after reviewing consumer journeys using analytics such as Google Analytics, Semrush, and Meta Insights to inspect the best platform with the highest return on investment. Preparing valuable and engaging content and making personalized AI-driven content will bear successful outcomes.

Step 5: Implement Paid Advertising

There are multiple ways to generate traffic on your website. Some require monetary funding and are known as always-on marketing, which includes paid, earned, and owned strategies. The methods can be implemented after a strategic content creation of your business.

• Ad Words Campaigns by Google: Adwords is a product by Google that displays the banner of your business on the platform. It is feasible for all business sizes as it only charges money when there is any click on the banner. 
• Yahoo Advertisement Solutions: Yahoo advertisements are paid solutions for businesses with good ad budgets. The platform publishes ads on its homepage at the access of millions of search engine users. Therefore assisting in targeting region-based ads. 
• Social Media Campaigns: Social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter) accommodate growing users worldwide. Social media Campaigns assist businesses in targeting a global audience. 

Furthermore, channeling retargeting strategies on the internet is another way of penetrating the cyberspace of a potential client. These are chosen by business owners to convert leads into customers by taking advantage of AI-powered advertisements. Modern AI technology has analyzed vast details and data and identified the patterns of the audience to predict user behavior. The retargeting process begins with the segmentation of the audience, followed by setting clear goals, testing, and then monitoring to adjust accordingly.

Step 6: Utilize Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the most effective digital marketing strategy with 63.9% of the world’s population on the internet. The best social media platforms for your online businesses are LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly called Twitter), and more.
Source:datareportal.com

Taking calculated steps for effectively leveraging the platforms, such as setting up the key performance indicators (KPIs), posting engaging content consistently on these platforms, utilizing the large proportion of the influencer market through PR and outreach, and finally, evaluating the strategies through multiple analysis tools to make data-driven decisions.

Employing social media marketing strategies in your digital marketing plan assists in increasing brand awareness, trust, and authenticity, promoting high revenue returns.

Wrapping Up

The modern business scenario presents monumental opportunities for new businesses to flourish and for traditional enterprises to expand their services by leveraging the benefits of the digital marketing plan. This blog covered the steps to create a widespread and successful marketing strategy that ensures thriving results. Utilizing the complete advantages of these marketing strategies, a businessman can boost their business manifold. You need a well-planned strategy to capitalize on and maximize the benefits of a good digital marketing plan. Consult market experts to provide an optimal digital transformation to your enterprise.

The post How To Create a Digital Marketing Plan For Online Business in 2025 appeared first on FATbit Blog.

During the initial phase you have zero customers, zero followers on social media, zero recognition and very little capital to invest in acquiring new customers. During the initial phase you have to find inexpensive options to create a name for yourself in the market.

One of the best ways to spread your brand name across your niche market is by getting yourself covered in media.

There are plenty of benefits of getting your brand covered in a popular media publication, some of which are: –

• Increase in brand visibility
• Easy user acquisition
• Interest of partners and investors
• Easier recruitment

Below we have mentioned some tactics to get your startup featured in media/press. Follow the point which align with your business and get your brand recognition.

Throw an Event

Everyone loves to attend a party, Right? Same is the case with reporters. Do not do anything quietly, like a product release, store opening or something big, just throw a party. Invite all the reporters you know of, tell them why attending your event would be helpful – A small investment can result in a big ROI.

The event does not have to be a huge event but just make sure the reporters have a great time. If they do enjoy your event you have reserved yourself a permanent seat in the publications. After the completion, create a press release with details like who, what, where and why. Sent the press release to the reporters who attended the event and otherwise for reference while publishing the post.

Focus on Relation Building

Getting yourself published in the media is a time consuming task. The company should first focus on building relations with the reporters. Do not just randomly build relation with any reporter; make sure they are covering your niche. Once you build a relation with the reporter of your niche, it will help you at a later time. Relation building does not always means giving gifts, talking about their latest vacation or giving them passes for an event can also do the trick.

Remember to be tactful when using this approach as you do not want the reporters to feel you are offering them a bribe. Do not make the relation feel like a transaction. Understand the common interest point and connect with it.

Piggyback on trends

Reporters usually do not cover a brand in their news as it mostly looks like an advertisement. Journalists and media houses prefer to cover news related to latest news or trends. To be covered by media publications make sure that you fit your strategy into the latest theme.

You need to find an empty space in the market and create strategies how your company can fill in the void. Also keep a tab on the latest content marketing trends that will yield your business success.

For example – An ecommerce company that sells beard-related products for men, breadbrand, was able to get themselves featured in New York Times article which was regarding the renaissance of barber shops.

Offer an Exclusive

Like every other sector, media publications also competes among them striving to be the top media house. If you are trying to be published on renowned publications like Wall Street journal, New York Times, Etc., helping them cover an exclusive story.

An exclusive makes sure the publication you are partnering with will break the story before any other publication does. When you offer an exclusive to the publication, make sure you make the most out of it otherwise you will hinder all future opportunities with the publication.

Once the media house you partnered with has released the exclusive, offer a press release to other publications who would be interested in releasing your story.

Get involved in local events

If you want to get yourself published, you need to keep an eye on the local events that you know for sure will catch media attention. Get you brand involved in the event deliberately.

If you want the attention to be towards your brand on the local event make sure you do something different like keeping the staff wearing similar color or making a formal announcement about your presence by a press release. You can also host a local event and invite media personalities to it. This will bring more attention to your brand and help in making your debut in media.

For example- Sign up for a speaker of an industry event or volunteer your staff for charity event.

Further read: Improve your business’s search engine visibility with these local SEO Tips 

Sponsorship

If you want to spend less money and want to market your brand and generate exposure, then one of the best ways is to sponsor events happening in your niche market. This will help you in getting your name out in the market.

If your business is a lead sponsor on a given place, you will get mention in every media channel of that place. For example: – “The Christmas celebration event is brought to you by [Business name]”. Every place where the event is covered, your brand name must tag along; this positive mention will help in gathering attention of potential customers.

 Viral Marketing

Till now we were using the approach where when a news is covered by media it will gain the attention of many others. However if a brand uses viral marketing approach they do not have to approach the media – the media house will want to cover the brand.

Brand has to put in a lot of thought when deciding what their approach is to market their brand. As huge number of people connect and engage with the viral content, the media will want to cover the news automatically.

Paid PR

If you are want yourself to be featured in a media channel but do not have the time or resources to plan the above mentioned points the best thing is to resort to outsourcing the work to a PR firm.

A PR firm has good relations with journalist and media houses and has clearer idea of how to craft your content so that it catches the attention of media.

Over to you

After you have gone through the entire article, you must have understood that getting yourself published in the media is not a daunting task. It just requires understanding of who you are preaching; building relations and analyzing the demographic you are trying to reach.

Keep your focus on your end motive, whether it is selling a product, trying to get investors for your startup or simply grabbing media attention for your business.

P.S: You cannot take a back seat and let press do the wonders and engage people. It is very important that your business is purposeful.

The post How To Get Your Startup Featured In Media appeared first on FATbit Blog.

But the real reason why memes are so effective is because they’re almost impossibly straightforward. The meme format is perfect for taking a single idea and expressing it in a clear, clever way in a format that is perfect for sharing on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and more.

All of which, by the way, happens to be exactly what you’re already trying to do with the types of visual content that you’re creating as marketing collateral.

What’s In a Meme? Turns Out, Quite a Bit

But just how popular are memes as a format? In a word, very. In October of 2016, Google Trends reported that earlier in the year searches for “memes” had literally outpaced searches for “Jesus” – which itself had been the most widely used search term consistently since 2011.

Take a look at some of the following meme-related statistics and see how many of them overlap with the results you’re already trying to generate with your marketing collateral:

• According to one study, 87% of page interactions on Facebook happen on posts that have photos. Not one of the other types of content receives more than 4% of post interactions.
• Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest drive most traffic to external websites like your own domain. What they all have in common is the fact that their users value visual content among all other types.
• YouTube has become a particularly powerful avenue for meme propagation, particularly when it comes to viral videos.

Memes are nothing if not simple, clever, catchy and shareable – basically, all of the boxes you’re already trying to check when you create a piece of content and send it out into the world.

So from that perspective, yes – memes absolutely have a place in your visual communication and marketing efforts. They’re a tool, the same as anything else. It would be a shame not to at least attempt to make use of every last tool in your proverbial tool belt at some point during your day.

Memes are also inherently tricky, however, which is why they also require you to keep a few key things in mind.

The Art of Memes

Many people look at memes as a purely innocent or creative endeavor, which can make the act of actually using them for something as “business-centric” as marketing somewhat difficult if you don’t approach it from the right situation.

People are willing to put up with a meme being co-opted for marketing purposes provided that you’re using the meme correctly. There is no better, more efficient way to find a large group of people laughing at you and not with you than to use a meme in a way that is completely oblivious to its original intention.

Use sites like KnowYourMeme.com to research memes that you’re thinking about using from a few different angles. Not only can this be a quick way to make sure that you “get the joke,” but it’s also a perfect way to see which memes are hot right now and which are far past their expiration date.

Meme culture evolves incredibly quickly, so an image that is popular today may be totally forgotten by the end of the week.

If you’re going to attempt to create a meme and use it as part of your marketing efforts, make sure that A) your intention matches the original joke at the heart of the meme, and B) make sure that you see it as more than just a tool to sell your product or service.

The same is true with the types of Infographics that you create with a tool like Visme (which I founded), but people tend to view Infographics from a bit more of a cynical angle than they do memes.

You would never use something like an Infographic to just visualize your product’s spec sheet and call it a day. You would use it to tell a larger story or to hit at a larger point, creating an emotional response within your audience along the way.

The same is true with the types of presentations that you’re designing – they’re less sales tools, more educational and informational tools.

You need to look at memes from the same perspective. You’re making your own comment about a larger trend and idea not to create a sale, but to provoke a feeling or to start a conversation. Once that conversation has begun, then you can worry about that eventual sale.

Luckily, tools like Visme are also great for creating social media graphics, memes and other types of visual content.

Because memes are just another extension of your visual marketing efforts, you also don’t need to be a graphic designer in order to make the best impression in this format. Take a look at this free eBook that we designed about how non-designers can create compelling presentations and other types of visual collateral for more information.

The Once and Future Meme

The thing that Infographics, presentations and memes all have in common is that they’re a way to make your brand much more approachable to a modern audience. It’s not the equivalent of a cold call or a face-to-face interaction at a trade show and viewing it that way is a recipe for disaster.

It’s a way to tag someone’s joke, or to show people that there are real humans with real sense of humor behind the brand that you’re representing. It’s not the type of thing that is appropriate for every last situation, certainly – but when you do have an idea that would be best expressed in the meme format and you have selected the right meme, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.

The post Do Memes Have a Place in Your Visual Communication and Marketing Efforts appeared first on FATbit Blog.

Not just offline, this consumer behavior applies to online shopping too. When shopping from online store, the price of the product is right next to the product image and name. After checking the general look of a product, price is the next thing that qualifies a product for final purchase. The decision to buy or not to buy a product is taken only after this.

So, before you price a product, it is important to understand some psychological triggers that improve profits as well as customer satisfaction. Following is a list of various kinds of pricing and major triggers (associated with them) that businesses can use to their discretion, as per suitability.

1. Charm pricing

All of us have seen the charm of number 9. Every supermarket store is packed with products whose price ends with number 9. In an experiment conducted by MIT and the University of Chicago, a standard women’s clothing item was tested at the prices of $34, $39, and $42. The item that was sold the most was priced $39, even more than the cheaper $34 price.

2. Round Number pricing

According to strategy business, 57% customers prefer whole dollar amounts (e.g. $10) and 4% are okay with half dollar pricing (E.g. $10.50) Some people prefer simple pricing rather than messy pricing as the latter just distracts and seems unnecessary. The image below depicts why different type of people get attracted to different pricing. If you own a business or are about to launch, you need to understand this about your target audience before pricing your product.

3. Syllable

The number of syllables or how we read/pronounce a price affects the decision-making process of online buyer. The one which is easier to pronounce converts better than longer syllable pricing. For instance, among twenty-seven eighty five and twenty-seven sixteen, the latter will convert better as it is easier to pronounce.

4. Anchor effect

Placing premium product (or service) along with standard ones increases sales of the standard option. Customers view the less expensive option as a good bargain (compared to the higher cost product). Selling a $2000 watch is easier when you put it next to a $10,000 watch.

Also Read: 6 Creative Ways to Promote Your Product on Social Media

5. Omit the currency sign or use small fonts

According to Cornell researchers, customers see a currency sign as a metaphor for the pain of spending. Currency sign like $ creates an unconscious cognitive barrier to spending. When the currency sign is present, customer concentrates on the price rather than the product. To increase the chances of conversion, businesses should omit the currency sign completely or keep the font of the sign smaller than usual.

6. Think of 3c’s

When you are about to decide the price of your product, put it through the lens of Cost, Customer, and Competitors. Do not let just one factor dictate your pricing strategy. The amount of money you spend to create the product/service, the categories of customer you are trying to sell your product and the price range of your competitors, all must be taken into account. Considering these things, you will be able to come up with the perfect pricing.

7. Odd Numbers

According to a study by Marketing Bulletin in 1997, a consumer prefers to buy products whose price end with odd number especially 5, 7 and 9. If a product is priced $47, customers would readily buy it instead of buying a $46 product.

8. Useless price points

Dan Ariely explains in his theory that a business should try and add a useless option along with their products. While no one will choose the useless option, it may make the other product with similar pricing more attractive, thus increase sales. Understand more about such useless options below.

The Economist reportedly offered three different subscription offers
• A one-year online subscription – $59
• A one-year print subscription- $125 (Useless option)
• One year online and print subscription – $125

Dan Ariely conducted this experiment and found that among all pricing options, 84% of people chose the third option. In the second experiment, he removed the useless option and checked the results. Surprisingly, 68% people chose the first option and 32% chose the third.

9. Buy one get one free

This pricing strategy makes the customer pay the full price of one product/service to get another free. The psychology that is working is greed. When customers come across an offer, they forget their logics and buy the product just to get the free item. Besides giving a free item, you can tweak the offer in different ways, like-

-Buy one and get 30% discount on second product
-Buy 3 get one free.

All these options will have the same effect as BOGOF (buy one get one free).

10. Scarcity

This psychological trigger if used wisely works wonders with people. The less the quantity of product/service, the more is the perceivable value. Expedia uses this technique on their pricing page.

This way they entice the customers, that the hotel is in high demand and the customers should book before losing their chance.

11. Customer-segment pricing

In some cases, different customers can be charged differently for the same product/service. For example – The entry charges for a theatre for a student or senior citizen is much less than normal entry charges.

12. Product-form pricing

Different version of the same product is priced differently but it is not always proportionate to their cost. The difference of price between iPhone 7 – 32 GB and iPhone 7 – 256 GB is an apt example of this sort of pricing.

13. Prestige pricing

Prestige pricing is also Known as image pricing, this is one of the most widely used practices. Some companies price their products artificially high, just for the sake of image that it brings along. Products are priced high only for the exclusivity or luxury that they bring to a customer. Luxury goods are specially priced this way.

14. Channel pricing

The place from where a product/service is bought is a big factor considered while pricing a product. The price of a product/service is different when bought from different channel in the same city. For example:- When a bottle of water is bought from a five star restaurant from ABC city it is priced differently as compared to water from a local vendor.

15. Location pricing

The same product is priced differently in different locations, even though the cost of the product is similar but the retail price differs at different places. Government policies, transportation cost and other such factors play vital role in determining such prices. For example: – the price of Lays chips when bought normally and when bought from a tourist destination differ considerably.

16. Time pricing

Prices of a product vary according to time/day/season, etc. The best example to explain this is restaurants change their prices of weekdays and weekends on a regular basis. You must have seen that early bird dinner prices are different from normal dinner prices; that’s also a form of time pricing.

17. Psychological discounting

Psychological discounting is when a product/service is priced higher and then a discount is offered on it. This strategy is usually adopted by e-commerce platforms during sales as it is a zero-loss game.

18. 10 for $10

We have all seen this offer in supermarkets. Consumers think that they have to buy 10 products to avail the deal, so they will load their shopping cart. This offer plays with the psychology of the consumer and leads to increasing the sales of the product.

19. Time over money

Researchers suggest that entrepreneurs should quit selling the product for money and start selling it for time. If the brand wants to offer personal experience to their customers, they must focus on making their time memorable.
For instance, the two distinct signboards at a lemonade stall read,

1) Spend a little time and enjoy ABC Lemonade
2) Spend a little money and enjoy ABC Lemonade

The sign stressing time attracted twice as many people to buy lemonade who were willing to pay twice the amount.

20. Longer payments terms

Now that everything is available on easy EMI option, companies have stretched the payment over a longer period. Longer payment terms allow sellers to lower the monthly payment amount. Consumers often worry less about the interest rate rather they check whether they can afford the monthly payment or not.

21. Power of context

Economist Richard Thaler researched regarding the power of context. Consumers are ready to pay higher prices of a particular product if they are given subtle cues that justify the premium prices. Perception plays crucial role in influencing their evaluation of prices.
For example – People prefer “multimedia course” over an eBook, even if the information offered is exactly the same.

22. Some people believe more the price, better the quality

For few products, consumer believes that higher the price means higher the quality. This is especially valid for beauty products. So while pricing a product keep in mind the quality/category of the product.

Also Read: Product Selling & Customer Experience Rules are Similar Online and Offline

23. Discount pricing

It is no secret that consumers love sales and discounts. From increasing traffic to offloading unsold inventory, there are several reasons why sellers offer discounts. Adding discounts to your pricing will help in attracting price-sensitive customers to your website.

24. Free shipping/ warranty

When the word free is allied with the price of the product, the consumer is attracted towards it inevitably. Marketers often combine free shipping/warranty with an expensive product to persuade consumers to buy it.

How should websites place the pricing on product page for maximum conversions?

25. Keep the font smaller

Researchers at Clark University and the University of Connecticut found that consumers perceive the price to be lower if the font of the price is reduced. The theory is that the human mind connects physical magnitude to numerical magnitude.

26. Comparing price (not always best)

Most entrepreneurs use this strategy to compare prices of product/services. It is a very good practice to show customers the different price range of the same product. However in some cases, it may hamper your sales strategy.

For example – A price comparison between the different seller of an e-commerce website is good while if there is price comparison of a specific medicine, customers would want to buy the expensive option rather than the cheaper as they are looking for quality over pricing.

27. Highlight discounts

When you offer sale prices along with previous price side by side- you make more sale as customers see the difference in the amount and calculate the money they are saving. To make this price strategy work, many sellers use the trick of changing the font, size, and color of the discount price.

Also Read: Colors & Conversions of a Website have a Deep Connection

28. Define what are you appealing- utility or pleasure

It is very important that the entrepreneur knows the target audience. Check whether the audience of the website is conservative or liberal spenders. An effective way to target the conservative is by focusing on utility and an effective way to pitch it to the liberals is by focusing on pleasure.

29. Reframe product value

When a product is available with EMI option, the seller needs to be very careful how they write the price of the product. Consumers like to evaluate the monthly cost to them rather than yearly. It is better to write $84/month rather than $1,000/year even though the average is same.

30. Make the context smaller

In a study by CMU, it was found that when the context of the price is small, it extremely affects the consumer psychology. You must have seen (or experienced) yourself that “$5 only” seems more tempting than $5 when you are going through a store. Here, the word “only” brings out the context of “smallness” and makes up buyer’s decision to spend those “$5”.

Final thoughts

Pricing a product is the trickiest part when you are ready to start your ecommerce business. While pricing a product, you require experimental attitude coupled with the intuitive feel for how you want your brand/product to be perceived in the market.

If you price the product too low, you will be able to get a lot of sales but your revenue might take a dip at the end of the month.

If you price the product on the higher side, you will give out a sense of luxury thereby attracting better-off clients. However, if the consumer finds a competitor with the same quality of product at lower price, they would surely shift.

That said there is never a wrong or right approach of pricing a product; it is all about understanding the value of a product and target audience. Experiment with the pricing and check which of the above-mentioned psychological trigger works for your business.

The post 30 Psychological Triggers To Keep In Mind While Pricing Your Product appeared first on FATbit Blog.

For those who are still doubtful about the right techniques or fear of spending an absurd amount of time and resources in creating content and planning campaign for different channels, we have put together this list of lead generation strategies.

Email marketing

One of the few online marketing channels that have sustained any type of competition is email marketing. Email has turned 25 years this year, and it still holds the first spot on many of marketers’ lists and lead generation strategies.

The trend most marketers are adopting (due to great results) is marketing automation. Marketing automation tools are hybrid email marketing tools that connect with your CRM to send out effective / highly targeted emails to prospects.

The era of traditional newsletters and email marketing is still here, the race of capturing more data on users and checking user-behavior has made marketers smarter and more capable of capturing a user through their inbox.

Content marketing: Blogging & microsites

Recent statistics by WebDAM’s revealed B2B marketers who blog consistently generate 67% more leads than those who do not.

Take a hint by this stat that no matter what your business model is, content will always RULE, so plan your marketing strategy keeping content as the primary goal.

To reach the customers directly and to leave an impact on them, these steps can help –

• Identify the content user wants
• Create successful content headline
• Gather data and statistics
• Write your content and make it in-depth

Next step is- concentrate your energy on promoting your content on the right platforms.

In 2012, Xerox created a campaign, which offered relevant tips for businesses owners.

The results showed that 70% more businesses interacted with the microsite, which led to 300-400% increase in readership. This campaign also added 20,000 new contacts out of which there were 1000+ scheduled appointment. In all, this campaign yielded $1.3 billion in the pipeline.

Given the broad areas of content marketing, a good question is what type of content should B2B marketers concentrate on to generate maximum leads. Look below to know the answer.

That said, let me tell you that a good marketing strategy requires a high level of diversity and experimentation to figure out the best opportunity for your business.

Search marketing

According to a survey in 2016, 93% of consumers begin their shopping journey on a search engine, out of which 73% purchase the product/service. Organic search marketing is undoubtedly the best long-term strategy for generating B2B leads.

Here is one case of Hauser-Ross eye institute, Illinois, that invested in local SEO strategy and observed humongous results. Illinois-based keywords were researched to appeal patients, and were strategically embedded in various parts of the site. The overall results were –

• Revenue boost of over 333%
• Improvement in ranking for more than 400 keywords
• More than 50% organic traffic and boost in revenue

Reaching the #1 on Google has become challenging due to the huge amount of competition and content on the internet so search marketing is one feasible way to get there.

Social media marketing

In the 21st century, 40% people spend more time interacting on social media rather than face to face conversation. Exactly why marketing through social media channels is the perfect place to gather your target audience and turn them into leads.

Lead generation through social media is a piece of cake as people readily share their information on social media and these platforms have armed marketer with various promotion strategies. Promoted posts, ads in videos, live videos and a robust analytics system to gauge the difference between paid and free content promotion is there. Just choose a platform and see how quickly your brand image improves.

About choosing a social media channel- one of the biggest mistakes most marketers make while marketing on social media is they try to get leads from the wrong channel. For instance, it is assumed by most marketers that due to the number of users on Facebook, it is the best option, but that is not always the case. The investment must be made only after confirming presence of your potential customers on a platform. To know how brands can make their Facebook marketing campaigns more fruitful, click here.

Lastly, integrate your lead generation strategy

At the onset of a business, experimenting with strategies can help you decide what works and what does not work for your business.

Later, you can use the time and revenue of your business on specifics, to yield high returns and more leads.

The key to generating high quality and quantity leads depends upon the marketer’s inclination towards experimenting with different tactics.

The post Content Marketing Strategies For B2B Businesses To Generate Leads appeared first on FATbit Blog.

Discounts and offers are the most prominent ways for promotion. This is the reason why daily deals websites, which primarily list discounted products in a given market, have been so successful in recent years. So, if you’re an online retailer or a brand owner then you might be well-versed with the power of discounts!

Discount coupons & other offers, not only affect your overall sales, but also help create the buzz around brand in the long term. Therefore, as an online retailer, you should opt for various interesting ways to offer discounts and attract more and more customers. The ways that can help you improve the coupons and discounts’ positioning are as follows:

1. The Exciting Loyalty Reward Programs

The fact of the matter is that bonus discount offers or the loyalty reward programs lead to retention and return of the customers. So, you can incorporate that within your business and win the interest of a lot of buyers.

By rewarding customers who make a given amount of purchase will ensure an increase in average order value of your store. Additionally, you can also give special discounts to customers in the form of cash-back points.

2. Let them save while introducing a friend    

Offering discounts with a condition – such as customers get a certain percentages of discount or a lucrative coupon, if the ask their friends to shop from your brand or store – works really well.

So, go for a ‘Refer a Friend’ option in your website. It will tempt your buyers more and more to advertise about your website, and thus, you’ll gain popularity and ultimately a hike in your sales.

3. Offer Coupons to Customers for their Reviews

Okay, if you’re selling any kind of products or services then you should know very well that how important your customers’ feedbacks are for you. Then why don’t you make the whole episode more interesting? Just offer a coupon to them for providing their valuable reviews which will lead them to respond to you more and more.

As a result, you will come to know about what people love and what they do not love about your store & offerings. This will help you make more informed decisions and improve your brand’s image.

4. Offer Exciting Coupons on Sign-ups

There is yet another exciting way to offer coupons – discount offers exclusively for newsletter sign-ups and for email alerts. I mean, don’t you think people will obviously sign up to your email service if they get a $5 coupon or a 10% off on their next purchase just for subscribing?

Updating your customers regularly about the deals, new arrivals and other interesting facts about your brand, tempts them to buy more. So, you’ll earn a lot of prosperity in terms of your business and finance surely.

Conclusion

So, what are you waiting for? Just make your discount coupon strategy versatile and smart by following the above mentioned ways and watch your sales skyrocket! I am sure you’ll feel the difference within a small period of time. Good Luck.

The post 4 Ways Discount Coupons Can Boost Engagement, Sales, & Brand Awareness appeared first on FATbit Blog.

Start with the Basics (Search Engine Marketing)

Before anything else, you need to ensure that your website has a solid online presence and got everything needed to acquire high ranking on search engines & to attract more traffic. That’s where search engine marketing comes into the picture as a mix of SEO & PPC ads. Here is what you need to ensure in that regard:

• First of all, make sure your food ordering website has key SEO elements in place such as user-friendly URL structure, manageable meta tags, sitemaps, 301 redirecting, image alt tag, duplicate content control, etc., to be able to rank better in search engines. As the search engine algorithms have become smarter follow advanced SEO techniques to ensure the best performance of the website for the present and as well as for future.  
• Optimize your website content by including relevant keywords like “order food online”, “ online food ordering business”, “online restaurants in <location>”, “food delivery in <location>”. This will help customers to easily find you, which ultimately will also result into better ranking. Therefore typical keyword research mistakes can make the SEO efforts go in vain.
• Start a blog that allows you to produce content on regular basis. As much as people love eating, they also love reading about the recipes, nutritious value, new cuisines, etc. Besides, a blog will also allow you to target relevant keywords & attract traffic to your website.
• For PPC, use Google AdWords Keyword Planner to choose the right keywords. The keywords should relate to what people are searching for.
• When running a PPC ad campaign, pay special attention to negative keywords. For instance, suppose you offer food ordering service in city A, so you wouldn’t want your company name list up if a user searches for “online food delivery in city B”. Negative keywords helps in keeping the cost down by saving you from unnecessary clicks

Go Creative on Social Media

We need not repeat the benefits of using digital marketing or the importance of social media as a digital marketing channel, but with every other business active on social media, the question is how to get customers’ attention. The answer is – by being different. Social media marketers know it all – campaigns, how to run them, the frequency of updates and everything technical. Plating up a dish, presenting it beautifully, everything has been done and has been happening for a while now. So, how do you level up your social media game? Here are some food marketing ideas:

• When running an offer, let the food do the talking with the customers. Here is how McDonalds does it: “Hi, I am the crispy burger you love to eat on Sundays, how about my calorie conscious cousin, roasted chicken salad?”
• Whether you are vegetarian, non-vegetarian, or eat-anything-on-the-table-tarian, pictures of food always lead to drools. But how creatively you display them is what matters. Here is another example from McDonalds

• Other than being creative, also focus on your customers’ need. Reply to their comments and queries timely. Pay attention to their feedback. Run offers & loyalty programs exclusively on social media to solidify your presence there.
• Leveraging all these ways to promote business through social media can help to generate more leads and create a buzz around the brand.

Video Content Can Take You a Long Way

Explainer and marketing videos are effective methods to put across your brand message and to ensure it stays where it is supposed to – in your customers’ mind. Now, this may sound fun & easy, but the art of video storytelling for brand marketing is quite tough in practice. Here are some tips that will take you in the right direction and help you in creating more effective video content for marketing for food business:

• Gone are the days of generalized and explanatory narratives. Now are the times when you should introduce your product/business through storytelling with characters people can relate to. Stories that instigate feelings and imagination. Remember how KFC inspired us all with the story of Colonel Sanders?
• Convey your brand’s mission in the explainer video, since branding is not all about what you are doing today; it’s also about what you are going to be in coming years, and how you plan your roadmap to achieve that goal.
• As a food ordering marketplace, you have so much to offer through video content besides just the explainer video. You can share recipe videos, videos for the nutritious value of ingredients, and much more during marketing in food industry.
• To precisely understand every aspect of video marketing i.e. kind of videos, their length, aspect ratios and all such queries go through the complete social media video marketing guide to engage the right kind of audience.

Leverage the Power of Influencer Marketing

Nothing works like word-of-mouth marketing. Thanks to the internet, today we have an amplified version of it – influencer marketing. As mentioned earlier, people love to read about recipes & nutritious value of the food they are eating. And to cater that need, there are thousands of food bloggers active on the internet. So, as a food industry startup, you have a huge number of influencers at your disposal. Here are best ways to leverage them:

• • Tie up with popular food bloggers through a mutually beneficial business partnership. Have them add value to your own blog by writing for it and also get regularly mentioned in their blogs. These mentions can simply be part of the story they are telling and don’t have to sound like advertisement.

• A featured article about your business in a popular food industry blog or business news site can be a game changer. It might cost you a little but its ROI will also be all the more desirable.
• Always remember that customers are the biggest influencers for your business. So, don’t miss out on capitalizing their reviews, feedbacks, and testimonials. People love to share their food pictures on social media. Besides influencing other people, such user generated content can also help you level up your social media game.
• In all influencer marketing has become a new way of branding and brands are following top digital marketing experts for expertise in food industry marketing.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Email & SMS

Efficient food marketing strategies are all about sending the right message to the right person at the right time. Not all users will visit your website frequently or have your app installed. To reach out to them and inform about your offerings and details about their orders in a timely manner, email & SMS are still the most reliable means of communication. Here are some tips on effectively implementing Email & SMS in your digital marketing mix:

• • 90% of the text messages are read within 3 minutes. So, for limited period offers, broadcasting the message through SMS is a great way to reach your customers in timely fashion.
  • Emails are ideal when it comes to a long term offer, or when you need to inform customers about a future offer in advance. Make sure that email marketing software you choose comes with customizable template (such as NotifyVisitors), since look & feel of your email directly impact its click through rate.
  • Other than these, text messages & emails can also be used to send out important notifications to customers such as for order confirmation, delivery, etc. Offering such service works greatly towards customer retention.

Conclusion

While it is crucial to act on the latest trends & techniques when running the digital marketing campaign for your online food ordering business, it is equally important to keep the customers need at the center of it. Your end customers are tech-savvy, they use multiple devices, live in urban areas, have a busy schedule, prefer convenience over price, want quality food without prior planning & traveling and that too at their doorstep and in a timely fashion, and so on. Once you have outlined these factors to define the buyer persona, you will also get a clear picture of how to implement the above mentioned digital marketing practices in the most effective manner.

The post Digital Marketing Strategy for Online Food Ordering Business appeared first on FATbit Blog.

The point is that if you want product sales and customer loyalty, then, it doesn’t matter if you are online or offline. Both the worlds have same rules. I tried to pen down most of them; have a brief look below.

Great Returns Policy

People have all sort of reasons to not want something they earlier couldn’t imagine their life without. And it’s completely normal. What’s not normal in today’s brutal market is not having a good returns policy. A good returns policy will make customers favor you over others and also improve your mind recall.

Planning to launch an online store? This is something you cannot compromise with. In fact, highlight the same on homepage itself in BIG BOLD LETTERS.

Impeccable Customer Support

What do you do when the gadget you recently purchased is not working? You make a call to the guy who sold it to you. There may be nothing wrong with your product but people like to have someone they can speak to when something troubles or displeases them.

Buyers can’t be happy if you are not providing them with this ever ready person who is accessible 24X7 to discuss their concerns about your products; they may never deal with you again. This holds true for online as well as offline retail business too.

Latest collection

Why would anyone pick your online or offline store over some other? There can be many reasons but if you are active in an industry where style and fashion play a crucial role, then, ‘Latest’ is the selling mantra for you. Be it clothing or furniture store, shoppers are attracted towards sellers that have the newest design and collections in the market. Again, whether you are selling online or offline doesn’t matter.

Quality products

Hosting the biggest sale of the year? That’s great but don’t you dare compromise on the quality. Customers expect value for the spent amount and if it is not delivered by the product, they have strong tendency to turn hostile and never look back. That’s why maintaining the promised quality standards is of utmost importance.

Customers have the advantage of physical presence while shopping from offline stores and when they shop online they can count on images and reviews online. So, there is no getting away from this. Deliver nothing but quality.

Positive word of mouth       

Yelp and hundred other review sites are growing because people like to talk. They will talk when your sales guy will give them great service.

They will share a review when you will deliver a product before stated deadline.

In short, positive word of mouth is a sales and growth driver in the real as well as virtual world.

Word of mouth can be negative too. So, watch out for them and take timely action if you run an online store.

Variety

Why do you think people favor big ecommerce brands like Amazon over small ones? Of course discount is the biggest reason but the second is variety. It has millions of products under different categories and thus rarely disappoints a shopper looking for a particular item.

Competing with such an ecommerce giant is obviously something that only few can accomplish. But you can build on your appeal by expanding your stocks and offerings. This will work whether you are online or offline.

Shopping experience

We may have moved ahead in time and technology but we still care about the little things. While shopping, we like it when attendant is quick at handling queries and checkout is fast. We like shopping experiences that are unique, whether that’s because of personal service or technological assistance.

The same goes for online shopping. People prefer shopping from online stores that give them what they want while enhancing the whole experience. Borrow online store engagement tips from top brands.

Reason to come back

Someone came to your store, made a purchase, and left. Maybe she will come back, maybe she will not. As a business, your job is to make sure that she does. Offline and online businesses are doing it by:

• Offering discount on next purchase
• Gathering contact information to notify exciting offers
• Connecting through social profiles

Even if you don’t want to attract discount seekers, it would be worth it to connect with your customers through email or social media. This way, you will have valuable data at hand for future marketing strategies.    

Consistent marketing push

The advantage of ‘the only grocery store in the neighborhood’ disappeared long ago. Now, there is the supermarket and retail giants like Wal-Mart. Don’t forget the ones who make the delivery direct to your home. In such a scenario, thinking you can do well with irregular marketing investment can cost you big sales.

If marketing push is greatly needed offline, it is enormous online. So, what’s the point of thinking otherwise? Check out these 69 tips to improve your online presence and store.

Discounts and special offers

This is kind of obvious and that’s why we saved it for the last. Big online businesses seem more aggressive on this front but the truth is that the difference in pricing is not that great. Offline businesses have trimmed down their margins to become more competitive and this has paid off.

Pro tip – Never compromise on product quality to bring down price.

End note

The line between offline and online shopping is thinning as offline brands are embracing technology to enhance shopping experience. Even if we brush aside the whole technology talk, above listed rules of products sales and customer loyalty will remain the same for many years to come.

P.S – Do you think we missed a point? Be kind enough to share it in the comments section and we will include it!

The post Product Selling & Customer Experience Rules are Similar Online and Offline appeared first on FATbit Blog.