Increase Your Online Success With An Effective Website

Increase Your Online Success With An Effective Website

An effective website is a critical component of a company’s overall online success. Company’s website serves as the central hub and foundation for its online activity. With a plethora of available website designs, the digital marketing team must determine the appropriate and optimal design and message.

Besides having a basic understanding of the technology on the website, the digital marketing team must also consider the following facets of creating a website.

Consumer Perspective

• Relevancy—Age, cultural nuances, geography, and other demographic factors of the target audience will influence the type of content on the website.

• Usability Design—The digital marketing team must take into consideration how technically savvy its target customer is. If the target customer does not generally have the appropriate comfort level with technology, the team should design a simple, text-based layout with easy navigation and basic features. If the target customer is comfortable and familiar with the Internet and computer use, a more intricate, interactive, and information-rich website can be implemented. The design of the site should depend on the expectations of both the users and the company. In some cases, the development might focus on consumer engagement, while in other cases, the design might be oriented toward supporting task-oriented behavior such as the ability to make changes to one’s account, purchase a product or service, and so on.

Site Development Perspective

• Purpose—Companies maintain a web presence for a variety of reasons. While some companies use websites as their main method of selling their products, other companies have an online presence just to support their business, message, and brand position. There are companies that use websites as a public relations (PR) tool, to enhance brand value in the minds of their customers, or to evaluate product feedback from customers that may help in understanding customer needs, general communications, product updates, and sales. The digital marketing team is responsible for ensuring that the website is designed to meet the overall strategic objectives outlined in the Marketing Strategy.

• Planning—The digital marketing team must work with the website development team to plan the execution of the website, beginning with creating a storyboard for the website; listing functional requirements; building the database structure; developing wireframes; and determining hypermedia linkages, search engine key words, graphical design components, user interface designs, audio/video sources, animation, and text requirements and formats.

• Performance— The digital marketing team also must consider the logical design of a good website, compare the performance of competitor websites to identify best practices, check for effective performance across browsers and operating systems, and perform usability testing of the website to ensure that it is easy to use.

• Maintenance—Websites create an online presence for a brand, so the marketing team must ensure that the website is maintained and tested regularly. Downtime on a website may adversely impact the direct online sales of products and may also taint brand reputation in the minds of consumers.

The brand messaging on the website has to be in-line with the overall brand message and must stay relevant to the target audience.

http://smstudy.com/Article/Increase-Your-Online-Success-With-An-Effective-Website

Is the Dancing Bear Threatening User Interface?

Is the Dancing Bear Threatening User Interface?

A “Dancing Bear” is very interesting and entertaining to watch, but the more you watch the more you think, what is the point?

Nicholas Griffin, regional director at Allen International equates a dancing bear to the digital experience. Everyone is looking for the digital experience: a computer-automated world that will get you what you want when you want it. But the more you think about it, what is the point?

Everything is right at your fingertips in the digital world, but that is until you open your mobile app and you can’t seem to navigate the app to save your life. Gone are the days where you could pick up a newspaper and skim through the pages until your eyes land on an article that tickles your fancy, welcome to the new age where that darn search button on your favorite news app appears to be hiding from you.

The information that you thought was right at your fingertips is actually not. And you’re not alone. Your customers are having the same experiences. So, what do you, as a company, to fix this problem for your customers?

The answer is quite simple really, look to SMstudy. According to Digital Marketing, book 3 in the SMstudy® Guide, “User interface refers to the quality of design, ease of navigation and responsiveness of an app or mobile site. An app or mobile site might perform all the functions and have all the features that customers want. However, if the graphic quality is low, or navigation is not intuitive, or the app or mobile site is slow to respond, then the perception of the app or mobile site from a user’s perspective is negatively impacted.”

In order to avoid the “Dancing Bear,” companies need to ensure their customers that they can do anything with the touch of a button and that button should be very easy to find. But don’t stop there. The app or mobile site also needs to be engaging. Which sounds difficult, but it’s really not. If you create content with your customers in mind rather than your business, the content will feel tailor made and will attract more customers. Visuals are processed 60,000 thousand times faster than text, so they are also a must.

But how do you know if your company has produced a product that will truly satisfy your customers? As noted in Digital Marketing, A/B testing can be very useful when a company is unsure whether their app or mobile website is, in fact, engaging, easy to navigate and performs all of the features their customers are looking for. The company can divide its’ budget between two or more design layouts and track the response rate.

Lucky for you the “Dancing Bear” is easy to evade if you keep a close eye on it, and for any future questions in regards to your sales and marketing needs visit www.SMstudy.com.

http://smstudy.com/Article/Is-the-Dancing-Bear-Threatening-User-Interface

The Rise of Organic Advertising on Snapchat

The Rise of Organic Advertising on Snapchat

There are 83 million Millennials. That is 83 million young adults that were born in the early 80s to late 90s, and 71 percent of those young adults check their social media websites every day. It only makes sense that companies have moved to social media when it comes to advertising their brands.

Snapchat, a company born in 2011, is now worth 18 billion dollars. So, ask the question. Go ahead. How did they do it? They learned how to monetize their product. Snapchat Discover is part of the latest app update. It provides companies with the ability to market their brand on the Stories menu. This not only eliminates the restriction of only being able to reach the people that personally follow a company but also costs 100 dollars CPM or cost per mille. For those who have no idea what that means, that is 100 dollars per 1,000 views. You can imagine how fast the money is being raked in when you consider there are 100 million daily active Snapchat users and the number is rapidly growing.

As fantastic as the new Snapchat Discover is, it doesn’t really assist companies that are not able to fork out large sums of money to reach the masses. Companies such as The Coca-Cola Company have figured out how to overcome this issue by handing the metaphorical reins over to Snapchat Influencer, Harris Markowitz. Snapchat Influencers are just your average Joes that have accumulated millions of followers by utilizing the app to it’s potential. The Coca-Cola Company partnered with Harris Markowitz to organically advertise their brand.

Markowitz has been providing weekly exclusive content for their Snapchat Story by, “reflecting the company's set mission: to refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness, and to create value and make a difference. The Snapchat stories Coca-Cola creates refresh the organic advertisement world within the app by meeting all of their company missions in a creative way,” said Julian Gamboa, Lead Course Assistant at the University of California, Berkeley.

So not only do these snaps reach the followers of The Coca-Cola Company, but every single one of Markowitz’s 5 million followers has the opportunity to enjoy the engaging and entertaining Snap Story. By hiring Markowitz, The Coca-Cola Company went from promoting their brand to the few that have chosen to follow the company to having the brand viewed by millions of users virtually overnight. Other companies such as Taco Bell and Mashable have also jumped on the organic advertising bandwagon by partnering with Snapchat Influencers.

Partnering with an influencer on social media almost tricks viewers into thinking they watching their favorite Snapchat star’s Story and in the digital marketing world we like to call this native advertisement. According to Digital Marketing, book 3 in theSMstudy® Guide, “native advertising is a form of online advertising that blends in with its surroundings. The objective is to promote a company’s product or service in a way that is ‘native’ to the platform in which the message appears. Native ads are promotional pieces that are attempting to look like the material to which they are adjacent.”

The going rate for partnering with Snapchat influences varies as much as their online personalities, but there are best practices when it comes to negotiating a mutually beneficial agreement. Most influencers accept a flat fee. It simplifies the process for everyone and it is helpful for the allocation of funds months in advance (if need be). As Snapchat charges cost per mille, so do influences. For the most part. Influencers have also been known to ask for a percentage of the sale rather than flat compensation, as well as free products or services.

According to Ad Week, “Snapchat splits revenue with the media companies for ads on Discover channels, and those sponsorships can cost as much as $75,000 a day, say marketing execs. In other cases, brands like McDonald's cough up as much as $750,000 for daily official sponsorships.”

Companies like Boost Insider aids brands in finding the right influencer for them at the right budget. You can partner with an influencer for as little as 200 dollars, but, again, this number does depend on the amount of followers the influencer has. For small business, hiring an influencer is not out of the cards, it will drastically improve the way you organically use Snapchat and give you the fun of going native.

For more interesting articles about sales and marketing, visit www.smstudy.com/articles

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Leaky Funnel

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Leaky Funnel

Accepting that the sales and marketing funnel will always be leaky is akin to accepting that, despite all efforts, we will not grow taller… or younger. It’s never going to happen, we know this. The marketing funnel will always be leaky, no matter how talented and thorough sales and marketing teams become at plugging the holes. But accept it we must! Since as of today, there is no leak-free funnel and none on the horizon, we all just have to deal.

We learn from SMstudy that the leaky funnel is an analogy. Water being poured from the top represents prospective customers and the water existing from the bottom represents converted customers. 

SMstudy states: “Digital media reaches out broadly and acquires potential customers using a variety of online tactics. Marketers then capture information about those customers and begin to target them more effectively with marketing messages and other digital marketing initiatives, and many become qualified prospects or leads. Eventually some of the qualified leads buy the product, thus becoming customers.”

In a perfect place known as “Sales-and-Market Landia,” every dear soul who ever views our ad, not to mention visits our website, would be swirled into our seamless steel-trap funnel with no chance of escape except out the bottom as the proud owner of our product or service, free to roam and spread the good word.

Well, the real world is not “Sales-and-Market Landia,” and most of those who venture into the funnel will ultimately slip through the cracks on their way to the final stage (aka the sale). Leakage numbers vary, but according to Lisa Cramer nearly 80 percent of those who fall into the funnel are never brought to sales. On the bright side or perhaps a cautionary warning, 60 percent of leads who enter the funnel will end up purchasing within the next 24 months… just maybe not via that same funnel.  

With figures like these it’s no surprise we find all sorts of advice on how marketers can plug the holes of their own unique funnels. Just google, “plug leaky funnel” and you’ll see what comes back, a bucket load of funnel advice. 

Basics such as data analytics and understanding the Point of Loss (POL) and Point of Influence (POF) can help to identify and shore up the holes, and realistic genuine attempts should be made to do so. But at some point, acceptance of a leaky funnel is key to not obsessing over the holes and maintaining your sanity.   

David Lund of Marketing Executives Networking Group recognizes the inevitable nature of the leaky funnel and the necessity of accepting said leakage, but still offers these simple steps to increase sales even for a hole-riddled funnel:

• Put more total people in the funnel.  Your funnel still leaks, but more people in should mean more people out.  If only 1-5% of the people at the top of your funnel actually buy from you or sign up for your services, you need to first focus on improving your funnel rather than putting more people into it.
• Put more of the right people in the funnel.  You hope to attract and sell more of your target audience.  But, if you don’t clearly understand why they are choosing you, this approach will not be fully effective.
• Retain more of the right people in the funnel.  By slowing or stopping the leaks in your funnel, you will optimize your efforts to attract and retain more target customers.  This is usually a much more productive near-term effort versus just spending more on ads or offering promotions.

So, ideally, yes, all holes would be plugged and anyone who ever knowingly or unknowingly fell into our funnel would come out the proud owner of whatever product or service was for sale. But that is a myth, a dream straight out of “Sales-and-Marketing landia.” The truth is, despite all our efforts, there will always be holes. Always. But still we plug on!  

For more articles on sales and marketing, visit smstudy.com/articles

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VMEdu Looks at e-Learning Trends for 2016

VMEdu Looks at e-Learning Trends for 2016

Almost sixty percent of online educational providers are ready to kick their LMS to the curb.

A recent report referenced by DDI Development on current e-learning trends asserts “that nearly 2/3 of online courses’ students, as well as their managers, are not satisfied with their current LMS and are not going to renew their subscription.”[1]

As a software development firm, DDI is interested in how these trends affect coding and coders. When their blog says, “New e-learning companies create new learning trends, as their online community is very flexible and quick to abandon LMS solutions that do not meet learners’ needs,” they are seeing opportunities for programmers to write the code that provides the new solutions e-learning companies are shopping for. When VMEdu sees this trend, they know they have that solution already.  

“Unlike other traditional LMS platforms, you do not have to pay any licensing fees, buy expensive hardware or hire expensive software professionals to launch your online courses and mobile apps,” says VMEdu, adding, “traditional LMS platforms usually have negligible support for mobile apps; VMEdu creates best-in-the-industry mobile apps for you at zero-cost for Android phones (if more than 1 hour of video is uploaded for a single course) and $250 for iPhones.”

Based on these differences and their LMS’s connection to the VMEdu Authorized Training Partners (V.A.T.P.) network, the company claims, “You will save more than 90% of your current LMS expenses by using VMEdu– and have signifi­cantly more capabilities than those offered by traditional LMS platforms.”

They explain the value of this connection saying, “Courses created by our V.A.T.P.s can be made available and sold through our fast-growing partner network of 800+ Authorized Training Partners in 50+ countries. This makes your course available to an extensive network of companies, colleges, universities, training companies, and individual trainers and experts. No other traditional LMS platform helps you with customer acquisition.”

The e-learning trend is projected to continue explosively, “It is estimated to reach $200 billion worldwide by 2018 - more than 200 million people actively using various learning management systems,” according to DDI. They conclude that “One of the most important features any MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) should provide is scalability.” This trend makes VMEdu happy because “V.A.T.P.s have the ability to scale their training very quickly with negligible upfront investment. They get to create and launch their courses on their own websites and mobile apps using the VMEdu Cloud LMS.” DDI notes that for scalability, “As of now, only cloud hosting is capable of providing sufficient resources for this task.”

“It appears that 2016 will become a year when Big Data will stop being a distant future and become our everyday reality, so it’s best to keep this in mind when planning statistical algorithms for your LMS technology,” says DDI. The VMEdu Cloud LMS enables “your courses to include videos, tests, study guides, flashcards, and more: students can track the progress of their coursework, and determine improvement opportunities.” The ability to track student progress, manage courses and more is part of the VMEdu LMS’s ability to handle big data. As they are fond of saying, “VMEdu’s state-of-the-art Cloud Learning Management System (LMS) takes care of this!”

A continuing trend is the growth of mobiles: “Mobile LMS technology is supposed to surpass computer counterparts soon (as well as in many other fields of application). Developing mobile LMS apps is vital for any provider aiming for success,” according to DDI. VMEdu says, “We can create the best-in-the-industry mobile apps for your company with your company name and logo. This app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store (for Android Apps) or the Apple App Store (for IOS Apps) and can be used by your students to experience all of your courses. This provides your students the flexibility to study online and on-the-go.”

“Backend as a Service – That’s the one of the trends underlined by Martin Puryear on TechCrunch. Third party services that support chunks of backend tasks are faster to apply than repetitively building generic things. That helps to focus on innovative and competitive aspects of a product,” is a trend Marina Blinova cites in her article on LinkedIn’s Pulse.[2] VMEdu believes that by providing professional trainers and educational organizations with one of the industry’s most robust LMS, those educators can focus on developing the best educational experiences and value for their students.

VMEdu began creating its LMS more than seven years ago. They tested it thoroughly by launching multiple courses and websites, which have now become global leaders in their fields, teaching more than 500,000 students from 150 countries and 3,500+ companies. The VMEdu LMS is hosted on a scalable cloud infrastructure and already hosts hundreds of courses, with more than 50,000 learning resources including videos, questions, case studies, simulated exams, flashcards, study guides and more.

With its professional training and accreditation bodies, innovative LMS and extensive network of training partners, VMEdu has grown to be an industry leader. That growth is one of the most reassuring trends in e-learning today.

http://smstudy.com/Article/VMEdu-Looks-at-e-Learning-Trends-for-2016

Its All in Your Head: A Brief Introduction to Psychological Pricing

Its All in Your Head: A Brief Introduction to Psychological Pricing

Have you ever tried to sell something quickly (desperately) by lowering the price well below market value only to discover no one will bite? If so, your frustration is not unique. You’ve just experienced the quirky, seemingly-counterintuitive nature of the human consumer.

It’s long been known that pricing can make or break your sales, even when the value and quality of the product or service hasn’t changed. To the consumer, it matters not that you’re offering them the deal of a lifetime. They’ve already decided that the price is too low and, therefore, something is amiss. Of course, it’s all in their head, but the effects of pricing have real-world outcomes, such as a loss of sales because the set price doesn’t seem to match the perceived value. This is just one of the reasons why it’s wise to know a few basics of psychological pricing and how it contributes to a product’s perception and, in turn, sales.  

Psychological pricing is one component of a much broader and more complex pricing strategy for a product or service. TheSMstudy® Guide defines a product’s or service’s pricing strategy as “focused on creating a sustainable brand perception and sustainable profitability for the product or brand, while growing and maintaining a healthy market share.”

All aspects of a pricing strategy are important to the success of a product, but psychological pricing can have a very significant influence on how consumers perceive a product’s value. In a recent post titled “Focus on the Why,” we noted the critical function emotional responses play in consumer buying decisions. Why a product was created or why a company does what it does speaks directly to consumers’ emotions and creates a strong call to action as well as brand loyalty.  According to Shelley Frost of Demand Media, psychological pricing works on the same level, by tapping into a customer's emotional responses to promote sales.

“Instead of appealing to the rational side of the consumer, this strategy appeals to their emotional side. The pricing may aim to strike a thrifty note with a bargain or stir up feelings of prestige with a high-end item,” Frost said.

There are many forms of psychological pricing that may be employed by marketing departments (and individuals), including the value perception pricing example noted above. Others you may have encountered include these five provided by Psychology Pricing:

1. Odd Pricing – Quite simply, it’s the illusion of the difference between .99 and $1. We humans perceive a real value difference between the two even though we understand logically the difference in price is a mere .01.
2. Prestige Pricing – The opposite of odd pricing, prestige pricing creates the perception of higher quality by pricing a product or service to a rounded number. For example, $1 instead of .99.
3. Buy One, Get One Free – Same as 50% off, right? But somehow it looks so much more alluring when a product is marked “Buy One, Get One Free.”
4. Comparative Pricing – Similar to the straw man definition, comparative pricing sets up a false comparison so the consumer finds one offer decidedly more attractive.
5. Product Bundle Pricing – The gift basket of marketing ploys, product bundle pricing offers a discount on a group of items packaged together. A win-win situation for marketer and customer.

Psychological pricing may have a touch of the “dark arts” about it (it is, after all, a system of psychological manipulation), but it’s been proven effective and is at this point nearly ubiquitous. So the next time you are selling an item and feel the temptation to set the price low in order to turn a quick buck, consider that you might be selling yourself short. A higher price tag, whether fair or not, creates the illusion of greater quality and value and may actually stir up the deep psychological urge to buy compared to the friendly bargain price you thought would create a fast sale. 

For more articles on sales and marketing, visit http://www.smstudy.com

http://www.smstudy.com/Article/its-all-in-your-head-a-brief-introduction-to-psychological-pricing

Do You Have the Guts to Do That Again? Sales, Strategy and SMstudy

Guts are squishy, often irritable, and can be irregular, yet, many sales and marketing professionals base their practices on “gut feelings” and hunches. 

“Marketing departments will continue to become less dependent on quantifying the value they are delivering to the organization based upon squishy, feel-good branding efforts and they will be even more driven to leverage data and analytics across all marketing channels,” says Russ Hearl, VP at DoubleDutch[1] in a collection of seven sales and marketing predictions for 2016.

To do this, marketing departments will need to borrow some tools and techniques used by other managers in their company. One such tool suggested by SMstudy in its book Marketing Strategy is Value Chain Analysis: “Value Chain Analysis is used to analyze the value created by a company’s current activities. It explores where more value can be added, as well as where value is not being added throughout the chain of activities.”

In addition to “quantifying the value [the marketing department] is delivering to the organization,” the data collected in the Value Chain Analysis can be used as benchmarks for evaluating the company’s existing accounts with a BCG Growth-Share matrix[2]. “Among the many things you should do is start by going backwards, not in how you sell, but how you plan and set yourself up for success,” suggests Tibor Shanto in “It’s A New Year – Let’s Go Backwards.”[3] Identifying which accounts are Cash Cows, Stars and Dogs can give great insights in how the company has set itself up for success in the past.

Shanto says that sales professionals need to make plans for the new year based on data. Among the data required, he includes “some core conversion rates: number of proposals that close, number of real prospects required to generate a REAL proposal, and number of people/companies you’ll need to engage to land one REAL prospect.” Based on a well-developed example, Shanto concludes, “The key is to execute a well-planned strategy, rooted in the real numbers to drive real results.”

“One of the most widely used criteria for lead qualification is BANT, which stands for Budget, Authority, Need, and Time frame,” says the SMstudy® Guide for corporate sales. An analysis in each of these areas produces real numbers that can be used to build successful strategies. SMstudy’s soon-to-be-released Corporate Sales book presents and analyzes the processes of lead generation, lead qualification, needs assessment, negotiation and closure—all within the arena of creating sales strategies that work.

Thinking about sales and marketing from a strategic point of view that leverages data and analytics demands a new approach. That approach is being championed by SMstudy and presented in our six-volume SMstudy® Guide because we want today’s sales and marketing professionals to be tomorrow’s success stories.

Find additional posts on sales and marketing at www.smstudy.com/articles. 

[1] Quoted by Erin Sherbert in “Seven Sales and Marketing Predictions for 2016” (12/7/2015) Salesforce Blog Retrieved on 1/26/2106 from https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2015/12/sales-marketing-predictions-2016.html?d=701300000021KSN&soc=LinkedIn

[2] The BCG Growth-Share matrix by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is discussed more fully in SMstudy® Guide; Marketing Strategy, book one of A Guide to the SMstudy Sales and marketing Body of Knowledge (SMBOK® Guide), pages 42+ [available at http://www.smstudy.com/SMBOKGuide/Overview-of-SMstudy-Guide]  

[3] Tibor Shanto. (1/7/2016) “It’s a New Year – Let’s Go backwards.” SellBetter. Retrieved on 1/25/2016 from http://www.sellbetter.ca/its-a-new-year-lets-go-backwards/

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