Smartphones have become an essential part of an individual’s daily life. For every task and activity, we have a quick solution in the palm of our hand with the help of mobile apps. The boom in the demand of smartphones has to lead to a surge in the number of mobile apps. The app development sector is committed to enhancing the experience of their users by maintaining the standards of highly advanced technologies.

The mobile is not just a device for calls and messaging anymore; it has become a mainstream tool, where businesses from all industries are using their best technology to boost their revenues by developing a highly functional app to meet consumer demand. Therefore, apps are in high demand which has to lead to the rise in user expectations.

Here is a list of current mobile app development trends which should be kept in mind while designing an app.

Mobile App Development Trends to Enhance the Users' Experience

#1. Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is the technology used in mobile apps, which combines virtual reality with the real world. It is in the form of live video imagery which is digitally enhanced with computer generated graphics. AR has become a key form of technology in mobile phones. Many growing businesses are considering the implementation of AR.

AR apps are constantly evolving. A lot of different things work together to generate an AR app. Therefore, the cost to develop these apps is higher in comparison to others.

The most famous example of augmented reality in an app is Pokemon Go. Though AR is deemed to be the future of mobile technology, it is still in its experimental phase.

#2. Internet of Things and Wearable Devices

A lot of mobile apps are leveraging on IoT these days. Apps, smart watches, belts and more are being upgraded to utilize IoT.

The virtual and real world is merging to the point where objects from different worlds can interact with each other. For example, smart watches and mobile apps.

A wearable device is a part of the Internet of Things. With the help of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity, devices can interact and transfer data between them.

Health and fitness-oriented wearable devices offer biometric measurements like perspiration levels, heart rate and oxygen concentration in the bloodstream. Technological advancements in apps can show the alcohol level or other similar data that can be measured via a wearable device in the future. Tracking body temperature might provide an early indication of a cold or the flu, which is made possible with the help of IoT and wearable devices.

#3. M-Commerce

The number of smartphone users is rising in this digital era, and businesses are taking advantage of this by shifting to M-Commerce Apps.

Mobile commerce took off in 2015, thanks to converging advances in retail mobile apps, smartphone capabilities, personalization technologies and mobile payment solutions.

Instead of using debit or credit cards, customers these days prefer to make their purchase through their e-wallets. M-Commerce companies like Paytm have attained enormous success during demonetization in India, when everyone from street vendors to citizens shifted from cash to Paytm wallet to pay for or purchase any item.

#4. Machine Learning Apps

Machine learning is a branch of Artificial Intelligence which has the biggest spotlight in business. Progressive companies are paying a lot of attention on machine learning apps and AI since it’s inevitable that industries like healthcare, finance, banking, retail will be relying on machine learning apps in the future.

Machine learning is a multidisciplinary field and can find its implementation at the intersection of various sectors like technology, science, and business.

These apps will help in predicting outcomes, big data analysis and improving customer service without any human intervention.

#5. Security Feature

Mobile apps available through Apple Store or Google Play have become a dominant way to distribute qualitative value to users around the world. Organisations have upgraded their mobile apps to improve user productivity and align with their mobile lifestyle. However, experts are raising questions like – are these apps secured and protected from hackers?

As per the reports of Gartner, 75% of mobile apps fail to pass the security test. This failure can lead to the theft of confidential and sensitive data. In order to combat this, web companies like Google are making automatic security updates for their apps and other granular app permissions model to secure apps and build trust between users and apps.

#6. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

AMP is a Google-backed project intended to open standard for any publisher to load pages quickly on mobile devices.

With the help of AMP, news, articles, top stories, highlights and more – according to the interest of the users – will load instantly on one page. You don't need to type and search for genres you’re interested in on Google; it will automatically update you through its analysis.

AMP personalises the topics every individual is interested in, and reflects a similar experience on apps, helping them attract more traffic and generate more leads.

#7. Big Data Applications

Customer expectations in the current scenario are an all-time high, and competition is always increasing. The digital era has empowered business to gather all the information of their customer's journey. This information includes their mobile app usage, digital clicks, interactions on social media and more. This data gives businesses a competitive advantage in analysing where the improvements are needed to fill the potential gaps in the market. Therefore, big data analytics has become one of the most valuable tools across the organisations.

Businesses are investing more in big data start-ups to get information of their users. The focus of the companies will be on refining the core big data capabilities by improving the functionality of big data apps.

With computers taking a toll on humans, there will be a time when AI will completely take over us and our jobs. “While automation will eliminate very few occupations entirely in the next decade, it will affect portions of almost all jobs to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the type of work they entail,” according to McKinsey Quarterly. Professions that require empathy and understanding like therapists, psychologists and roles that rely heavily on social and negotiation skills, like managerial positions, are less vulnerable to automation.

But for those who are in the creative field and require logical thinking and original ideas, like content creation, are also deemed at a comparatively lesser risk of having to lose their jobs due to these hard working, smarter and cheaper to manage resources. To create a machine that can generate great content and ideas which are worth reading as well as consuming is a tough job. Isn’t it? To assume such a thing will put us in the dark as the reality is leaning somewhere else. We do have machines that are already writing content and are good at it.

In fact, Gartner predicts, “By 2018, 20% of all business content will be authored by machines.” To some relief, it is safe to say that business content is not the same as creative content. Content marketing without humans would rob it of its most important aspect ----creativity. Artificial intelligence may be able to replace human effort to some extent, but creativity is where this debate stops.

Disturbingly, this might not be as clear-cut as most content marketers would likely hope it to be. Advanced computer-based products and tools already exist which are capable of producing amazing products.

For example, deep neural networks, computer systems which are designed to replicate the underlying synaptic structure of the human brain do exist. Advanced systems like these have already managed to create pieces of music, and ING’s Next Rembrandt project used A.I technology to loyally generate an eerily accurate, entirely new painting in the style of the master artist.

What exactly is content automation?

Major leaps forward may occur as natural language processing (NLP) develops. NLP refers to a machine interpreting what human language means with an acceptable degree of accuracy. Natural language generation (NLG) is an AI technology that takes structured data and converts it into text. The data is translated according to the translation rules coded by the system’s creators. Thereby humans are themselves teaching the NLG system the relationships between data points. In some usages, NLP might also include elements of NLG, as a machine processes language, then generates more of it based on its understanding of a text. Siri and Alexa are two examples of consumer technologies that combine NLG and NLP. For example, the Associated Press and Automated Insights work together to code and hence teach the Automated Insights system each rule for successfully translating financial data into a text-based earnings report that is very similar to one written by a human.

Here’s an example of a command they can code into the system: an increase of 30 percent or more when comparing two data points over a period should be written as “a notable increase” in the final report. Once that command is entered, the system would automatically refer to an increase of 30 percent or more as “a notable increase” when presented with properly organised data. Thousands of human-coded rules like this work together with the machine’s various other algorithms to create full written reports from the codes and data provided.

These NLG systems already exist. However, they require extensive work to tailor the system to particular content needs. An earnings report is relatively easier to break down into its constituent parts: report rises and falls in various metrics, which are linked together by commentary about each rise and fall. Every time a different type of narrative is needed, the AI tool or platform must be customised to produce that data. Once it is, then many more descriptions of that type, generated from a structured dataset, can be automatically created.

Is your company ready for content automation?

The usefulness of content automation for a brand depends heavily on its situation, scale and feasibility.

If you do not require content at scale, then it might not be worth the effort or time to customise NLG technologies for automation. Is your brand willing or can it invest beyond the initial setup of NLG? Additional editing, tweaking, and improvements may be required. An NLG even needs another limb of social content specialists to manage the machines. Can your brand procure or produce the talent to implement NLG? NLG is not a regular writing job. Its implementation requires a solid knowledge of rules-based and branching logic as well as a low grasping power of primary narrative mechanics. Tracking the growth of A.I. over the years does bring us to a vague answer to the question of whether A.I will be able to replace the job of a content marketer.

Recognising audience, defining content purposes, creating informative and quality content, and assessing results to inform future projects. These are a few tasks that A.I. will gracefully take from our hands in the future.

Content marketers need not panic just yet. There is a long way yet to let any computer being able to do these things in correlation with one another. The sheer complexity of a good marketing strategy does involve human emotions and smartness, which these machines are still to be prepped for.

Content marketing still gets to stay given the fact that Artificial Intelligence may be getting smarter, but at the same time, it has its limitations as well. They are built for humans and should be used by them in the way demanded. Computer systems are combating with 1’s and 0’s but still lack the perfect algorithm for a marketing strategy.

>>To know about great Marketing Tools for SMB's.

There are hundreds of thousands of businesses on the web that manufacture all kinds of goods, and all of them are fighting for prominence within every industry imaginable; be it offline or online. From hyper-niche goods aimed at the most important customers to mass markets goods and business-to-business products, everyone wants to rank well in search results and maintain visibility for the potential audience. This is because a lot of people begin their purchasing journey by using search engines to look for the required product or service. With fierce competition for the highly sought-after higher spots in organic search results, manufacturers need to ensure they do everything they can to appear in the topmost search results. SEO for industrial companies is the best way to achieve this goal. Let’s understand what SEO is and why it’s so important for manufacturers.

Search Engine Optimization: The Game Changer

SEO is nothing but a set of techniques for improving your website's ranking and increasing its performance in search engine results for keywords and phrases related to your business. When it comes to optimising your website, these strategies are classified into types: on-page and off-page that take place on and off your website, respectively.

• On-page SEO

It is the process of optimising features on your website so that search engines can crawl and rank your pages more easily. For instance, you might insert keywords and phrases connected to your business in critical aspects such as title tags, meta descriptions, URL structure, and headings to help search engines understand what each page is about. You may also use alt text to help search engines determine how your photographs relate to your content. Adding useful, original content to your pages can assist consumers in finding your website and knowing all they require to take the next step with your company. Moreover, you can emphasise your products and provide more information about your industrial manufacturing company by creating blog posts, videos, or article pages on your website.

• Off-page SEO

Unlike on-page SEO, Off-page SEO focuses on gaining links from other websites to increase your website's authority. For instance, you can reach out to bloggers, reporters, and industry influencers when you publish unique content like blog posts, infographics, and videos to see if they're interested in sharing it with their readers. Then, when people link back to your site as the source, search engines will see it as a favourable signal and increase your rating in search results.

Importance of SEO for Manufacturing Companies

SEO for manufacturing companies proves to be a cost-effective strategy with higher returns on investment (ROI) than traditional advertising strategies. Industrial manufacturing organisations can benefit from a robust manufacturing SEO plan that includes both on-page and off-page approaches. The numerous benefits of implementing a Manufacturing SEO offers a plethora of benefits ranging from increasing revenue, the website traffic and brand awareness to generating qualified leads and offering a higher return on investment. Ultimately, SEO for manufacturers allows their company to gain more visibility in search results, reach more clients, and generate more cash online.

Preparing for future

The internet has completely changed how businesses function, bringing in a revolution for the future along. Particulars have changed in the past decade, but the constantly changing environment remains, especially in the SEO sphere. For instance, pay-per-click advertising is quickly becoming an essential part of a complete and fruitful SEO strategy. As more companies develop their SEO, it’s becoming increasingly competitive which drastically increases the importance of PPC in a matter of only a couple of years. The best way to manage and stay ahead of all this constant change is to remain in tune with trends. A good starting point is the various respected newsletters and digests which are designed to help you do just that.

Staying ahead of the competition

More than a decade back, companies were investing huge amounts in building websites, putting in the right keywords, buying backlinks at minimal costs from overseas SEO agencies and putting in all efforts to avoid being found. Appearing in the top spot of search engines became – and still is – significant for manufacturers and industrial companies, irrespective of their marketing and sale figures. For instance, other sectors have already mastered using virtual reality and popular social media platforms, which are good for SEO, but not everyone in our industry can be successful in developing an informative and responsive website.

Getting more SEO manufacturing leads from search engine

Ultimately, search engines are trying to find appropriate content and the perfect answers for their user’s searches. So, by putting good content in place that will give search engines what they want, manufacturers are also putting in place the relevant information that human users will want to make it a win-win position. For instance, adding new, high quality and informative written content to your website will benefit both.

Getting more leads from local customers from Google Maps

For manufacturers, SEO is a larger prospect than just information/content about the client’s operations. It is pivotal to ensure that the significant details of the business are correct wherever they appear on the internet. Contact numbers, emails, and business addresses must match with Google’s registered address for businesses, across all manually created mentions on business directories and the like, or auto-generated citations pulled from Google maps listings. Social media sites also need to link directly to the main site, and business directories need to be verified for correctness. Only once all these necessary things are taken care of, can Google accurately interpret how well-known the company is and how beneficial it may be to people searching within that niche industry? Not controlling these particulars will make it tougher for Google in evaluating how the firm is faring, compared to its competition. Generating links to the company’s website from high authority websites that are relevant to your industry will be the next stage. And again, by ensuring that the information about your business is accurate and widely spread across the internet, manufacturers can make the task of potential customers easier.

Reaching SEO success faster than average

To target a bigger market share, manufacturers should aim at offering something more with their on-page SEO. Integrating it with social media inputs like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook profiles and embedding some video marketing is a great way to capture industry share by offering information to prospects at the very moment they need it. Only traditional trade shows and conferences are no longer enough to negotiate excellent agreements: Brands need to be accessible and informative in all instances.

Conclusion

SEO might look complicated at first, but many strategies that work in other markets are applicable as well as useful to manufacturing industries. Companies that decide to go the extra mile and adopt SEO as part of their marketing strategy will be cited for success as customers turn to videos and the mobile Web for information to make purchases. With all B2B industries vouching for SEO as the best tool for success, the manufacturing sector needs to understand its importance. Increased customer base, recognition and higher position in search results await the ones who plan to take a look at this tool.

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Social media has become a vital marketing model for a business to maintain a solid digital web presence. Small businesses and start-ups aim to reach their target audience in their limited budget, and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (to name a few) help such businesses to boost their social presence through their ads.

Facebook has become one of the best social media platforms for small companies and startups to spread awareness of their brand. It has 2 Million users at present and the most social media website to access worldwide. However, it can be difficult sometimes for the small business owners to know how to use Facebook ads and reach the masses effectively.

Therefore, here are the five strategies to boost your startup's growth with Facebook Ads, so that the marketers can start promoting their products and services to a wider audience.

Facebook Ads to Boost Your Startup's Growth

#1. Tap into Recent Purchasing Behavior among Facebook users

Earlier, Facebook was criticised by advertising analysts as a network with little commercial intent or potential customer insight. It was a place to socialise, not to promote products. But in 2013, Facebook collaborated with data brokers like Epsilon, Acxiom, and Datalogix which have access to trillions of data transactions each year. In fact, Acxiom has started their database which contains information about 500 million active consumers worldwide.

Suddenly, Facebook can keep track of each and every activity of their users on the web. Getting married soon? Love reading murder mysteries? Facebook probably knows! This consumer information gave advertisers the power to reach out beyond their CRM databases. Now, startups can use this data to reach their target audience segment by analysing the thousands of different consumer behaviours on the web.

Individual user database can be tracked, like their purchasing behaviour which includes buyer's profile, food, clothing, health & beauty and more. Facebook helps to give that database and categorise every individual's interest according to which the start-up can structure their product's advertisement accordingly.

#2. Life Events Targeting

Some campaigns are designed and products are advertised based on some significant life events of the users. For example, wedding photographers target the individuals who are recently engaged by showing them some of their most appealing couple images. Likewise, Moving services ads flash in front of you if you've purchased a new house.

Facebook has the data of almost every conceivable life event which the users tend to post on their timelines. These life events set the parameter in a unique way, so that businesses can choose their target audience at that interval of time to advertise their brand on Facebook.

For example, during Diwali festival season, there are lined-up Facebook ads for ethnic clothes, electronic sales and jewellery, so that they can target audience members who are interested in Diwali shopping online.

#3. Nurture Leads & Build Loyalty

Marketers can nurture their leads and build customer loyalty with the help of Facebook Custom Audience. It is an advanced feature that enables you to connect with your existing contacts on Facebook. Customers access your content on the web, and when they look at your Facebook ad, it reinforces your brand and gives your business an opportunity to increase customer value and loyalty.

You can also increase the efficiency of your valuable targeted customer list and avoid inappropriate clicks by listing your qualitative customer.

Custom Audience is created by uploading your user's purchaser/subscriber email list to Facebook. You can also create a Custom Audience based on your site visitors or specific actions taken within your app.

You could target the audience that has visited your website earlier by offering them a discount or a demo of your product. The user is already aware of your brand and was interested in your product, but it didn't get converted. So Facebook ads with the help of Custom Audience list could reach to the people listed on that list and convert these potential customers into leads.

#4. Create Lookalike Audiences

Building a lookalike audience is the next step once you create a custom audience on Facebook. You can mirror your Facebook fan base even if you don't have the email list and contacts of your customers. It allows you to expand beyond your reach and target the people with highly accurate profiles by creating audiences that look like your targets.

Once you have made a decision about the audience, you’d want to replicate; you can expand your business to appeal to a larger audience or something more specific and similar to your original audience. Therefore, with the help of a lookalike audience, you can run ads that are targeting people who are similar to your real customers.

#5. Layer Targeting

You can layer your target customers one upon another by making it more and more precise with the combinations of demographics, behaviour and geolocation to specify your audience. You can build up a creative ad and offer it to your preferred audience by using the combination of such data.

For example, a paying guest company that’s promoting a special discount has an offer for students who have recently moved to the new city, within the age range of 18-25 and their service area location. So the target audience for the paying guest company is the students within the age of 18-25, who are new to the city and looking for a cost efficient place to live.

To display such ads, you need to understand the intent, likelihood and needs of the audience segment. You can use the layer targeting option and get in front of them to spread awareness about your product to that segmented audience.

These are the best 5 Facebook strategies to implement in order to boost your start-up’s growth and generate leads.

Artificial Intelligence is something that excites and frightens people at the same time. AI is something that has provided the world with a level of technology that was only dreamt of a few years ago. From chatbots to self-learning robots, the journey of AI is truly awe-inspiring. AI has been associated with the field of robotics and machinery for a long time now, but for the past few years the technological dominance of AI has been increasing in every area and doesn't seem to be coming to an end. With the advent of AI in the Marketing and Sales field, there has been a tremendous shift in the way things are done.

With the arrival of the new age media and social platforms, marketers have a lot of data and information about their customers and the market scenarios. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning enables marketers to use this information wisely and make better decisions.

From executing autonomous marketing campaigns to mining the content engagement report; AI-powered tools are available in the market to help companies get all these tasks done quickly and efficiently. With companies like HubSpot, Boomtrain, Indico, etc. working to create artificially intelligent tools and functions, marketers are getting better insights about the market and can take better business decisions.

7 Benefits of AI in Marketing: Things You Must Know

Here, we have listed down some of the things that you must know about these artificially intelligent tools and what benefits it can provide to your company.

#1. Delivering Personalised and Relevant Content to Customers

Today, when there is so much competition and everybody is in the race to win the customer's attention, what truly helps is the personalisation. No one wants to read long, uninteresting messages and waste their time. AI-powered tools help companies gather customer data and provide personalised and relevant customers accordingly. Brands can depend on these AI-powered tools to extract relevant information and provide better content to consumers by engaging them on a constant basis. If used wisely, these tools can help bring a new level of profit to companies and increase brand awareness and authority amongst the customers.

#2. Abolishing Marketing Waste

A lot of businesses tend to create mass awareness campaigns and execute expensive marketing stunts to gather the attention of the masses, but nowadays such attacks are not worth the money. With the presence of AI, a company can easily find their target audience and what that particular zone of the public wants. AI helps businesses to narrow down the target group and allows them to design campaigns and marketing stunts accordingly without wasting a hefty amount of money on mass campaigns.

#3. Simulated Assistants and Chatbots

Virtual bots and assistants not only help to get a better understanding of the customer's behaviour, but also generates a certain level of excitement in them. Being new, having these virtual assisted bots can help you to get a lot of attention from the consumers and build an authority amongst people. For example, virtual sales representatives such as Conversica’s sales assistant help to qualify the sales to lead before they’re passed on to human agents.

#4. Changing the Skill Set for Marketers

Although these AI enabled tools are of great help to companies and marketers, and help them understand their customers better, it does have some side effects on the marketers and experts. Marketing is not just about how good of a communicator you are or how good you are in creating new marketing campaigns anymore. AI has changed the game completely and now professionals do need to have an understanding of technology and the relevant tools. A future marketing team must have a business analyst, data scientist, data-driven marketer and the marketing technologist.

#5. Consumers Behaviour is Affected by AI

AI is not only developing for the marketers but also changing the customer’s world. With so many new developments and innovations, experts believe that there will be a time when bots will be doing the research and other tasks for us, including purchases. The first phase of content review will be done by bots and not by humans, and humans will read only the best content after sufficient filtering from the bots.

#6. Quality content is Key

Just adopting cutting-edge technology is not going to work for the company. Companies must understand that AI needs an of ingredients and quality content is the most important thing amongst them. A system is good when it is not just smart algorithmically but also rich in content.

#7. Challenges while Adopting AI

According to a survey, 60 percent of marketing experts admit that they are worried about AI stepping into the marketing world. They’ve stated that it is going to take a lot of time and effort to integrate these new AI tools with the existing technology. Also, training their employees to get them ready for these new devices will also take up a lot of time and resources of the company.

These AI-powered tools are not just changing the face of the marketing industry but also the jobs of marketers. With all the major tasks getting auto

mated, experts fear that this will lead to an overall loss of employment for professionals. For example: earlier we used to turn on our TV to get the news and get informed about the world events, and there were news channels for the purpose of providing news. But, nowadays when we have so many apps and different online platforms to read any news story, we barely use our TV sets for news.

Despite these fears and significant transformations in the marketing world, AI is the next big thing in the world of marketing. The reason why AI has been a hot favorite in every industry is because of the interest it has generated amongst the people. Straight out of the fiction movies, AI has been taking over the world of technology at an incredible rate and has gained the attention of masses. This is one reason why no company want to neglect the presence of Artificial Intelligence and is using every possible thing to get the attention of the masses.

>>Keep your Business in the League with Digital Marketing alongside with Latest Trends in Digital Marketing.

A firm’s website is its gateway to more and new leads. As more and more consumers make decisions based on their online purchase journey, the company’s website becomes more important than ever. It should establish your brand, provide information on your products or services, and ultimately produce leads. As a critical component of your marketing strategy, your website should be changed and optimised as digital, and industry standards evolve, trends shift, or your personas change. However, a site that’s not at its best level or helping your company meet its goals doesn’t necessarily require an entire redesign. Instead, it might need just a website refresh. A website update is a brand-new look for your site.

Call up Your Team Now to Give Your Website Design Update

A refreshed website design is one of the most effective marketing tools for business. So here are six reasons why you must call up your team now to give your website design update:

#1. High Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page sessions where a visitor came and left without interacting on the firm’s site. This metric is available on a site’s Google Analytics dashboard. A high bounce rate is typically an indication that the visitor on the site did not find what they were looking for, became bored with the site, or didn’t get a great first impression. The average website’s bounce rate is 45%. A business should aim for under 40% by giving its website a refresh, paying extra attention to the homepage. Ensure it is simple, easy to navigate, and only uses two to three complementing colours.

#2. The site is slow

With an audience finally getting to your website being disappointed when it takes more than two seconds to load, you know it is too slow.

• According to a survey from Akamai, 49% of consumers expect a site to load in two seconds or less.
• Only 51-percent claim to patiently wait for a website to load.

If a site takes more than two seconds to load it might just miss out on leads and sales. No firm can expect a visitor to wait for the website, the world is moving fast and so should the web.

It is always advisable to check a site’s speed manually by opening or browsing it on mobiles, tablets and desktop computers. Your site should load fast on all devices at all locations. You can also use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to check for loading speed and find areas for improvement.

#3. Your Current Website Isn’t Mobile Responsive

With teenagers holding iPhones which cost an average man’s monthly salary, one can quickly notice that humans need mobiles more than food. A firm should develop a website that satisfies today’s multi-screen behaviour. If a site is not mobile optimised, there are huge chances that a business can easily miss out on valuable leads and customers.

A study released by Salesforce found that “83% of mobile users say that a seamless experience across all devices is significant.” People want to be able to access the information when and where they need it, and if a website can’t provide it to them, they’ll look somewhere else.

If you haven’t mobile optimised your site yet, look into a content management system that's responsive (for instance, the HubSpot COS Web Design and Platform). This will get your site up and run faster with little development knowledge needed. Investing in a browser testing software is also recommended to ensure that the website looks consistent on every device.

#4. You Branding is Outdated

Your branding along with your marketing goals should be consistent with your website. Firms which have recently undergone a rebrand should also update their website to accommodate such changes.

But one thing to be kept in mind that rebranding is not just limited to logo or colour scheme, it also includes the tone, format and content on the site. Your company’s identity and reputation should match with your website and should communicate the same to a new visitor.

#5. Your Top Competitors Have Redesigned Their Sites

Finding out if your company’s website is outdated or not is no easy task unless you are a designer.

One way to find out is to check the websites of the firm’s competitors and other similar companies in the industry. Analyse your competitor’s online activities to assess if they have changed their designs or if they look slightly different to you.

Note the text size, colours, and creatives they use. If they recently redesigned and these elements are too different from yours and others in the industry, consider getting suggestions from a professional designer.

Outdated websites are not just limited to aesthetics. They provide an experience to your customers. A fresh design is inviting, let customers know that you are evolving with the times and that your business is booming.

In general, if your website’s current look was created seven years ago, design trends have probably changed enough for your site to look outdated.

#6. Information is not accessible

When potential audience visits your site, they should be able to figure out what to do and where to go quickly. If they’re looking for accurate information, they can find what they’re looking for in a couple of minutes with the website loading in not more than two seconds- hence accessibility and speed are essential. If they are trying to purchase, subscribe, or inquire, they should be able to do it without external help. Otherwise, you need a redesign to make your navigation easier.

If you get way too many enquiries about information that exists on the website, then it means that people are facing difficulty in finding what they need from your site.

Conclusion

A well-designed website is an important and one of the most effective marketing tools a business has at its disposal. Make the most of it by keeping it updated and easy to navigate. If you find any of the above reasons relatable, then a website refresh can be your new best friend.

Your website is meant to bring you business. If it's not doing that, it’s time to determine why not and make necessary changes. Do you think you're in need of a website redesign? Contact us if you are looking for the website redesign

Content Marketing is the new age marketing strategy. It employs the use of content like articles, blogs, videos and photos to engage with potential customers. One of the major platforms that content marketing focuses on is social media. Social media is the largest platform in today’s time since a huge number of people have a social presence and are active on some social media platform. In such a time, using content marketing strategies can help a company grow. This is why we have made a list of 10 things every marketer should know about content marketing.

1. It is the marketing of the future

Every company nowadays is getting inclined towards content marketing. It is 60% cheaper than traditional marketing, appealing to consumers and requires less manpower. People have gotten immune to traditional marketing, with call blocking for spam numbers, ad-blockers on their web browsers for online ads and so on. People want to engage with your company to know more about it, but if – and only if – the consumer is looking for a product/service that you offer.

2. It works best with shareable content

The main strategy of content marketing is to get people talking about your brand through the content that you create. Here, the visitors of your content become the promoters of said content if they find it appealing enough. For them to become promoters and promote your content on social media, the content has to be easily shareable with the click of a button. Generally, any link to a blog or any photo or video is easily shareable. Making good content in such easy-to-digest forms is the heart of all content marketing and social media marketing strategies.

3. It has tangible results

The progress and success of a content marketing campaign can be measured by monitoring social and website traffic. It is not a strategy with no measurable results, as the variation in social media traffic and website are indicators of how many people view your social media posts and follow through to your websites. This helps you manage and tweak your campaigns to get desired results and an understanding of what strategies work and what won't.

4. Social media is the tool to use

Social media is the biggest and most effective tool to be used for promoting the content you post. On an average, most people tend to spend an hour every day on various social media platforms. This makes social mediums the most widespread tool for promoting any content. It has a broad, widespread reach and helps in spreading news swiftly.The widespread use and reach are essential for any campaign to become successful. It also helps campaigns attain success without having a wide follower base.

5. Keep the campaign organic

Keeping the content outreach organic is important. Potential customers don’t want to be bombarded with paid advertisements everywhere. They are more interested if someone they follow or are friends with, shares some piece of content, as they tend to believe more in shared or liked content. Keeping it organic also ensures that the website traffic or social traffic that you get continues even after the campaign is over. This is essential for the growth of a company.

6. It helps build networks

For promoting your content, you need to collaborate with other blogs and/or profiles which have large followings. This helps you widen the scope of potential customers that you can reach. You can achieve a lot by these collaborations as there is mutual benefit in them. People start relating to your product as the one that social media influencers use, which makes them want to try out the products by themselves. Also, via the widespread reach that you achieve, people will also want to invest in your brand, helping you with professional connections for your brand.

7. Interact with people online

Never forget to appreciate positive remarks about your brand or content. Replying to negative reviews or dissatisfied customers is equally important. This habit of replying to customer reviews helps in building brand trust and loyalty, which is an important part of marketing in the competitive world. Brand loyalty helps make your existing customers come back to you for repurchase and also become promoters of your brand and products in their social circles. This is an important aspect of attracting new customers continually – when non-associated people talk good about your brand and are loyal to it.

8. Consistency is key

Be consistent with your posting schedule, and make sure that you are incorporating the company’s vision. Analytics have found that post interaction and website redirects are more from those social profiles that post regularly. Not every piece of content has to be the viral kind, but it has to contain information relevant to your potential customers. Being consistent with the company vision helps maintain a connect between you and your existing customer base. This builds the trust that people have in your brand.

9. Don’t neglect your existing customers

Your existing customers are a big asset for your company. Don’t neglect them in any way. The key to doing that is by running some kind of a loyalty program where you give them some offers on your brand from time to time, or some form of an exclusive first look at your products. This makes them feel like a part of an exclusive community – a community that is interested in and likes your products.

10. Stay in touch with what’s trending

Being ahead of the trending topics on social media is always important. Creating interesting content on the trending topics helps in keeping people invested in your presence on online media. As the trending topics are always hot for conversations both on social media and face-to-face interactions, it helps improve brand recall if you can create good content on those topics. The best promotion for any brand is when people talk about it. It all depends on where you get people talking about you; online or offline.

Today’s business world has undergone a transition from how it functioned in the previous era. Technology has not only contributed to exponential growth graphs, but it has also managed the planning, strategized goal orientation and made the workforce resourceful. Marketing Automation has helped the businesses with its efficient use of technology. Tasks like emails, social media optimization, forms and landing page creation, content generation and other website development and design related activities are managed marketing automation more easily.

What is Marketing Automation?

As it suggests, marketing automation can be categorised as a mechanism to automate multiple basic marketing actions and streamline the workflow with organisational goals and targets. It saves the time as multiple campaigns can be scheduled ahead of its time. Such facility boosts the efficiency and effectiveness of operations and drives ROI.

Suppose, when you log in to Amazon, you will find out your name dynamically inserted around the page which contains all your search history, wish list and suggests you the products accordingly. Even later, you'll find predictive suggestions on your web screen which will force you to think of the product again, and compel you to make the decision to purchase said product. All this personalization of the consumer interest has been possible because of marketing automation software.

Marketing automation is often misunderstood when it comes to how it works. The database it maintains is gigantic and needs personalization for improvements. After buying an automation tool, its adoption needs meticulous attention and extensive effort.

Some necessities to look for while using a Marketing Automation Tool

• Identify the trends and demand benchmarks while initially beginning with an automated workflow.
• Pay close attention to how frequently members get converted and how many responses your emails get.
• Automation metrics can be calculated to keep a track on performance and can help in building fruitful master plans.
• Identify which metrics turn out to be most productive for your business enhancement. This can help in driving traffic (including organic traffic) and improving lead-to-customer conversion rate.

Why is Marketing Automation needed for Lead Nurturing

Adoption of any marketing strategy is possible only if you trust your workforce to implement it effectively. Furthermore, the level of technicality needs to be raised while maintaining the comfort of consumers. Working with an automation software raises the bar for performing difficult tasks, and consequently contributes to the company’s growth which helps in generating leads. For a better understanding of its usefulness, here are two sample workflow situations for a detailed analysis of this discussion.

1. Newly Earned Leads

Imagine you have been successful in converting your potential customer into a lead where the lead downloaded an eBook. His complete profile database (buyer persona) is recorded with the help of marketing automation software, and now you can get the insight of the customer's persona and the kind of content that was consumed. Now all you need is to follow a simple procedure to proceed further:

• Send a confirmation email with an attached eBook.
• Within the next week, send an email with a link to a different and relevant content form.
• When the open rate and click-through rate is good with the lead, invite them to sign up for your newsletter with a CTA within the eBook.
• Make the lead reach your social media accounts with respective links through CTAs or emails.
• Your workforce must plan to send the lead a series of customised emails, depending upon where he lies on the buyer’s journey. The aim is to educate and make him search for solutions through your website.

2. Inactive Leads Earned Long Ago

Segmentation can play a significant role in such cases, where segments can be personalised according to the potential of the conversion.

Analyse the kind of content preferred and disregarded by the potential customers. Considering a case where they have recently attended webinars or personal phone calls and further can be approached in following ways:

• Email them a precise questionnaire for feedback on the webinar.
• Responses will be delivered an immediate confirmation email with brief guidelines to (recent) future events, similar to the one they recently attended.
• The second email can be drafted for those who haven’t replied back within a specified number of hours or days.
• Leads who answered the survey and consumed the content will then get an invitation online for as per their interests.

Marketing automation is the optimisation of software to automate repetitive marketing tasks to save time or perform certain tasks at high scale. It empowers marketers to take concrete, data-driven decisions and serve customers with the most personalised experiences. Therefore, using the above-mentioned tactics will help to build a relationship between the lead and the increase the brand loyalty.

>> Know more about Hubspot and Hubspot India Partners.

Before you begin, recall all the issues and complications you’re undergoing in your business to get them answered right away! But before getting to the core of this problem, you must grasp all the basics.

What is Inbound Marketing?

The term ‘inbound’ relates to shifting towards the center or moving inwards, in order to concentrate all the clutter in one place. ‘Marketing’ refers to the act of promoting goods/services to increase awareness and hence, sales. Inbound marketing is thus the field of promotion which attracts customers to the organization instead of approaching them. It draws people in by getting found by them.

Instead of the traditional method of searching customers by utilizing the ‘sell anyhow’ concept and reaching out to an unknown public, inbound marketing is buyer-centric, cost-efficient and practical. It acts as a magnet to attract potential customers. Not only does it convert interested strangers into fully-fledged customers, but also utilizes their enthusiasm to create promoters. Interested already? What if you’re told that it’s economical with defined planning techniques, and ensures justice to every bit of your money and efforts?

Implementation is not as easy as it seems

The traffic driven on your websites is gathered organically. This clearly indicates that the use of sponsorship in advertisements through paid means is not the inbound way. One can only imagine the depth of research and technical management techniques it requires! SEO, content with context, buyer persona and journey or inbound methodology: these strategies give results not when they’re merely presented, but when they’re aligned and systematically approached.

If you wish to adopt it or couldn’t figure out the best way to go about it, here are seven detailed expert-initiated ways to attain Inbound Marketing success:

1. SMART approach sets realistic goals

Goal setting forms the foundation of a planned strategy. Goals give direction to the workflow, letting them evaluate where they stand and where they need to stand. And while a business can set huge targets to term itself as successful, it should only focus on the aims which can be reached, without shooting too high for more.

An ideal goal setting follows the SMART way:

S- Specific: The goals should be precise, clear and to the point. They must hold the capability to answer the questions of Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. Assuming accountability to all these questions makes your goal complete.

M- Measurable: Your goal should be numeric to give a clear vision. Benchmarks and trends need to be analysed properly for the same.

A- Attainable: Your workforce may not be capable to achieve unrealistically high goals. So, you should confirm whether your company has achieved similar goals in the past before setting such lofty goals. You should also have apt resources for the same.

R- Relevant: The aim should comply with organisational goals and meet the overall as well as primary focus.

T- Timely: Create deadlines to keep track of how much time you need to complete tasks.

2. Recognise the Buyer Personas

Marketing is an art and being successful in it is no rocket science. A successful approach for inbound marketing always considers the target audience it reaches. Buyer personas relate to the detailed information of any prospect, including their personal information, professional backgrounds, future interests, goals and challenges.

Aligning with content-with-context technique and maintaining buyer personas helps you in sending the right type of content to the right kind of people. According to recent surveys, it is noted that 90% of the companies using inbound marketing are well aware of their personas and trigger their interests according to their preferences. While 70% of the successful revenue generating companies have created buyer personas, 56% already have highly-qualified leads registered in their system.

3. Marketing Automation is the key

Since your goals have now escalated as inbound is a new way, digital assets will help you in reducing duplication of tasks, enhancing productivity and improving transparency. High-performing assets bring out the best of this potential. For instance, landing pages and Calls-To-Action act as the spirit of a sale and making them appealing enough is the main task. Specialised Marketing Automation Softwares like Hubspot contribute in designing these elements as well. These tools help in creating customized and personalised content, opportunities of easy conversion, blogging techniques, and mobile-first mechanisms.

4. Reach out to the world

To boost your online visibility – that too organically – there are some defined marketing tactics. Two of the most important tactics are Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

• Social Media Marketing techniques uses social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn etc. to reach the eyes of the target audience. This helps in improving brand image, increases recognizability and – if done right – leads to a drastic boost in driving traffic.

• Search Engine Optimization helps you attain a better ranking that your competition in the results of various search engines. While searching online, a visitor enters keywords which shows a list of links that carry the typed information. SEO optimizes your website by using a set of techniques to make sure you enter the top results organically, i.e., without making additional payments.

5. Make customers reach you

In order to generate leads, you need to gather their information. Create attractive yet relevant content that drives them to you. Try to meet their interests in a way that they are able to find solutions to their doubts, confusions or problems from you. Content innovation is not restricted to simple textual information; it can be framed in different content forms like infographics, eBooks, newsletters, whitepapers, videos, podcasts, case studies and many more. You can build lead intelligence, formulate numerous social media strategies and also create compelling blog content.

6. Nurture your Leads

Inbound techniques always focus on educating and serving leads over having a seller-centric approach. While you try to help them grow, you grow with them and from them. You can act as a magnet over speaker when your approach shifts to buyer-selling perspective. Empower your leads and get discovered by them. Draw people in and create a marketing campaign that people love. But how? Activities like personalised forms, CTAs, emails, automated navigations etc.

7. Close into Customers and further, Promoters

This stands as the ultimate stage of inbound marketing, wherein potential prospects get converted into customers. But thinking beyond selling is what inbound marketing focuses on. Nurturing leads is necessary to gain their loyalty and build trust, which will in turn empower them as promoters of your business. If they like your product or service, they will undoubtedly spread the word about you with more people who may be your future leads. Quality of performance over quantity is appreciated as the main inbound marketing success mantra.

Marketing can be a remarkable tool to accelerate your business growth, but only when it is strategically and smoothly utilized in operations. Attracting strangers, converting them into leads, closing leads to customers and delighting the customers so they act as promoter; the methodology seems convincing to hear, but what about the implementation?

As the journey from converting a stranger to a customer is defined and followed, you need to be distinct in your own unique way in order to stand out in the marketplace from the other competitors. To stimulate your sales, you need to generate the demand of your product or service in the market. After all, prospects will be able to reach you when you become visible to them. You need to engage with them in a way which grabs their attention and interest, making them prefer you over others. That’s where the role of demand generation benchmarks comes into play.

Following are the four benchmarks which will help you ascertain where you stand in the industry:

1. Software companies are equivalent to other industries in terms of visitors, leads, and opportunities in sales

[caption id="attachment_5854" align="aligncenter" width="669"] Image Credit: HubSpot[/caption] [caption id="attachment_5855" align="aligncenter" width="669"] Image Credit: HubSpot[/caption] [caption id="attachment_5856" align="aligncenter" width="669"] Image Credit: HubSpot[/caption]

Observations:

• The charts given above compare software companies and the respondents from all industrial backgrounds.
• A similar distribution of patterns is observed, wherein plotting curves along the graphical information would result in the two curves coinciding with each other in all cases.
• To speculate, there are chances that different industries are observed to have hidden yet similar trends.
• But since reports are formulated from selected samples, the probability of coincidences in the assortment of marketer samples also exists.

Conclusion:

• There is a direct relationship between a company’s overshooting targets and revenue growth with the conversion of leads. As the traffic visiting your website increases, they’re more likely to consume content they’re interested in, get converted into leads and get closed as customers.
• With this survey, marketing is now foreseeable with patterns that recur when diverse plans and methodologies are adopted.
• Companies unaware of lead generation tools, benchmarks and trends are on the losing side when it comes to competition, informed practices and detailed decision-making processes.

2. Inbound marketing methodology and techniques are adopted by software companies over the traditional approach.

In accordance with the report, the software industry has taken a step forward to opt for inbound techniques in their marketing. Strategies like marketing automation, lead generation, workforce management, and content creation – to name a few – are among their priority marketing investments. Appropriate demand generation strategies go hand-in-hand with the application of inbound ways.

[caption id="attachment_5857" align="aligncenter" width="669"] Image Credit: HubSpot[/caption] [caption id="attachment_5858" align="aligncenter" width="669"] Image Credit: HubSpot[/caption]

Observations:

• The survey allowed marketers to select their most and least (three) productive marketing investments in their business workings.
• The aim was to establish business strategy management and set benchmarks after assessing them.
• Standards of external factors like the budget were kept constant and didn’t interfere in their investment criterion.

Conclusion:

Software companies put more time in inbound marketing methodology more than any other industry. Inbound marketing helps in reducing the gap in the performance of various teams in an organization by streamlining efforts and providing a window to all departments. It can be in the form of email marketing, tracking a lead’s journey or tracking content with context. Indeed it is the most effective method of marketing for SAAS.

3. With the per-lead analysis, software industry spends more than any other industry

[caption id="attachment_5859" align="aligncenter" width="669"] Image Credit: HubSpot[/caption]

Observations:

• Competition and Customer Lifetime Values (CLVs) in the software industry is increasing rapidly due to the ease in the user interface, space and time management provided by SaaS.
• The reasons for increased acquisition costs in the software marketplace are mentioned above.
• As reported, software, information tech & services, marketing agencies and financial services invest between $51 and $100 on an average per lead.
• Such services are the highest payers as compared to other enterprising sectors spending between $1 and $50.

Conclusion:

• Marketing investments go futile when leads which are unconvertible or don’t have much potential are tapped up.
• Lead nurturing plays an important role in gaining customer’s trust and loyalty
• Pay attention to buyer-persona segmentation, and track their position in the buyer’s journey before re-contacting them.

4. Click-through rates and opening of emails are observed exponentially better in Software Media

[caption id="attachment_5860" align="aligncenter" width="669"] Image Credit: HubSpot[/caption] [caption id="attachment_5861" align="aligncenter" width="669"] Image Credit: HubSpot[/caption]

Observations:

• Out of all the software companies covered in the survey, 70% of them open emails at a higher rate by 10%.
• Also, almost 80% of them reported a higher clickthrough rate by 1%.
• Demand generation marketing via lead generation tools are the main indicators of such growth.

Conclusion:

The reason behind this success can be quoted due to risen ROIs and revenue generation. By relying on segmentation, marketers in software invest in lead nurturing techniques through inbound schemes, personalised attention and triggering the customer’s enthusiasm for more. Being a software marketer, one must make sure that the cloud management interface is user-friendly, reaches maximum prospects and keeps data secure from malware. Consumers also appreciate the privacy of information and tend to trust more when provided with qualitative and educational services.

The closing final statement is that marketing tactics work for you tremendously, but only when you work after them. Contributing to the personal growth of the workforce and building relationships bring forth exemplary performances. Aligning strategies with organizational goals in mind develop all departments and build a better connection with the audience. Always strive for more!

>>To know about great Marketing Tools for SMB’s.