Author Archives: Harshal Shah

About Harshal Shah

Harshal Shah is CEO & Founder of Xhtmljunkies, Located in Gujarat, India, XHTML Junkies is one of the best companies that offer unique eCommerce solutions by the virtue of its dedicated professionals. Our professionals are extremely proficient in offering development services pertaining to eCommerce. You can find Harshal on and Twitter.

Latest Social Media Marketing Trends For 2022

Latest Social Media Marketing Trends For 2022

Do you have a social media marketing strategy for your business?

If not, you are missing something undoubtedly. Social media marketing is one of the most proven digital marketing strategies that can reap some amazing fruits for you.

Whether you know it or not, your target audience is there on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Pinterest.

These social media networks offer a tremendous opportunity for brands to interact directly with their potential customers and followers. You can promote your upcoming products, services, and offers and keep them updated about the latest business news, industry news, and information.

All you need is a robust social media marketing strategy by a good social media marketing agency. If you search on the internet, you will come across many such agencies offering high-quality social media marketing services. Choose one that fits your preferences and budget.

This post will discuss some of the latest social media trends that you can follow in 2022.

Stay tuned!

Social selling is the new normal

We all have seen lockdowns and how consumers suffer due to them. We were all tied up in our homes without any liberty to go out. Going shopping in physical stores was out of the question; people turned to virtual options. As per a study, 90% of people have bought products or services from a brand they follow on social media.

Social selling is the new norm, and it will stay long. If you think it might not work for your business, numbers reveal otherwise. As per the latest study, searches for Facebook Marketplace increased by 163% in the last two years.

People love to browse products on social media channels, and if you allow them to buy items there only, they will love it. You don’t need to redirect your audience from your social media page to your website. Users might fall out during such transitions.

All you need to do is facilitate your followers to buy a product on your social media page only. They will select the product, pay, and check out without redirecting to other pages.

Discuss how to go for social selling with the social media marketing agency Sydney for your brand and execute the strategy in the best possible manner.

Augmented Reality will Take Over

We all know what Augmented Reality is. Experts believe that AR will rule social media marketing in the upcoming future. You might think of AR as filters by Instagram or Snapchat. Snapchat was the first channel that came up with AR stickers, and then other brands such as Facebook, Instagram, and others followed.

Experts believe that more brands will develop their AR filters to improve customer engagement and interactions. Such innovative filters will help customers check out the products in a virtual space before buying them, giving a superior shopping experience. AR is one of the best social media marketing trends to watch for shortly.

Short-form content will rule

As per the studies, a user’s average attention span is around 8 to 9 seconds. You have such a short time to gain their attention. You need to develop a content marketing strategy that helps you lure your potential customers in such a short period.

As per the study by Wyzowl, people share videos at twice the rate of any other content form. The same survey revealed that 84% of consumers would buy a product or service due to a video.

Short videos can work wonders for your brand. The myth of a famous quote- Length is Strength is not working anymore. Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, and short-video content apps like Tiktok prove that the trend will never go out of fashion.

However, when incorporating short videos in your content marketing strategy, ensure that you don’t forget authenticity. People love authentic brands, and you need to ensure that the perception does not change.

You can come up with exclusive features of your products or services or behind the scenes or stories about your products in the form of short videos to gain their attention. You can also come up with sessions, interviews, product launch updates, and other catchy video content to impress your followers.

Brands will reach out to new audiences

The Covid-19 pandemic has turned social media marketing strategies upside down. Goals are changed now, and as we enter 2022, marketers reveal that their main goal is to reach out to new audiences online.

They will develop new strategies, offers, and products to reach out to new audiences and foster relationships with their existing audiences. Ask the social media marketing company Sydney you have hired to create buzzy content to attract new audiences and improve your revenues and sales.

Brands will hire dedicated social media professionals

Earlier, anyone from the marketing team would make social media posts and schedule them.

However, as marketers and brands now understand the importance of social media marketing, they will recruit dedicated social media resources to design, implement, and plan their social media marketing activities. There will be dedicated social media teams in the companies that look after their social media operations and try to improve visibility, plan social media goals, and execute a defined social media marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Social media marketing is a powerful digital marketing tactic that is affordable and offers some compelling benefits. You cannot miss social media marketing now. All you need to do is hire a dedicated social media marketing agency with years of experience and a proven track record, and that will be all. These agencies have all the necessary tools, technologies, and personnel to manage your social media marketing requirements. They will strive hard to ensure that your social media goals are met.

IFGICT

Microsoft Will Apply IFGICT Cybersecurity Standard By 2023

IFGICT and Microsoft are two great international organizations currently working to improve standards for the ICT industry. They have recently collaborated, and Microsoft will soon announce that it will apply the IFGICT security standard by 2023.

IFGICT is a non-profit organization in the US that establishes standards for enhancing talent growth in the ICT industry. IFGICT also offers various certifications for numerous international standards. In addition, it has been nominated by UNFCCC – CDM for offering good training and consultancy.

IFGICT has established cybersecurity standards to ensure your company has secure and harm-free data. Data stealing can cause major losses to organizations and can also decline a company’s growth. Thus, these standards will help organizations grow rapidly.

IFGICT performs regular audits according to the agreement to ensure security and safety for organizational data. These audits also help in noticing uncertainty and undesired issues and assist the organization in fixing them timely.

Such audits will help an organization in the following ways:

  1. Confirmation of the company’s safety policy to make sure it’s according to the circumstances
  2. Cost decrease by removing all hardware and software that are usually ignored during the audit.
  3. Reveals all the drawbacks of your organization that can damage it
  4. Demonstrates if the organization is following guidelines and principles

Microsoft is an international organization that provides hardware and software for computers, develops gaming and mobile systems and cloud services. It has developed Windows operating systems, Windows server operating system, Microsoft Office, including MS word, excel, PowerPoint, and many other apps. These MS office applications are widely used around the globe. It’s a huge organization working tirelessly to offer great communication and technology services.

Microsoft is focusing on cybersecurity by coordinating with policymakers around the globe to talk about cybersecurity issues. It also assignment help international struggles to enhance the security of computing future. In addition, Microsoft believes in developing a public policy to uphold the belief in the technology and protected cyberspace contrary to novel and developing threats. Currently, Microsoft is concentrating its research on four wider themes that are of great interest to policymakers. These include:

  1. Cybersecurity Strategy and Flexibility
  2. Cloud Safety and Insurance
  3. Cybercrime Law and Policy
  4. Digital Geneva Caucus

Microsoft has also partnered with IFGICT in ISCICT Summit and will announce to put on cybersecurity standard established by IFGICT.

The collaboration between IFGICT and Microsoft would be a huge success. As Dr. Kayyali Mohamed, the IFGICT president has said, such an initiative from a global organization like Microsoft would highly empower their sustainable communication and technology standards.

It’s great news not only for IFGICT but also for other companies in the ICT sector. Every organization needs to follow a particular guideline to keep it safe from privacy breaches. Moreover, Microsoft’s huge initiative shows how great IFGICT standards are and how other organizations can get help. Thus, this collaboration will help address the importance of IFGICT standards worldwide.

It’s great news not only for IFGICT but also for other companies in the ICT sector. Every organization needs to follow a particular guideline to keep it safe from privacy breaches. Moreover, Microsoft’s huge initiative shows how great IFGICT standards are and how other organizations can get help. Thus, this collaboration will help address the importance of IFGICT standards worldwide.

influence eCommerce application

Top 7 elements that influence eCommerce application

Most specialists rely on virtual reality and augmented reality, changing the dynamics of shopping. Enterprises have recognized this trend and aim to take advantage of the developing technology in order to provide personalized customer experience, accelerate services and eradicate factors that cause hindrance. Whilst forming an eCommerce application, you need to keep in mind the technological advancement and the trends within the industry that keep users engaged for longer periods of time.

In the meantime, it is essential to pay attention to functionality, accessibility, performance, usability, and safety of the online store. These factors are going to put an impact on how effectively audiences are involved and contribute to purchases.

However, certain factors surpass all when it comes to influencing an eCommerce application and providing an optimal customer experience.

7 Elements to keep in mind for an eCommerce application

1. Smartphone shopping:

Shoppers these days have the option to access eCommerce sites on their smartphones. And applications provide an additional feature to the users, offering them functionalities which enhances their shopping experience. In short, it is important to aim towards an application that influences an increase in conversion rates. Whilst planning your strategy, keep in mind the variety of devices and platforms based on different user conditions. Another thing to ensure is that your application caters to a personalized experience that allows the user to utilize different methods according to their needs and requirements. Web stores require optimization for devices to generate greater amounts of revenue.

2. Real-time shopping:

For each customer, shopping experiences vary. However, eCommerce applications are required to deliver an experience that boosts conversion rates. You can opt to personalize shopping for certain targeted customers based on their geographic location, preferences, brand interactions and previous purchases. Having a customer persona is going to assist you at transporting relevant content, recommendations and offers as search results. Using analytics to one’s own benefit in order to identify expectations and requirements for each customer, leading to a successful persuasion into purchasing products. Make sure to integrate tools that are used for analytics to obtain actionable customer data and information that can be used for your eCommerce application.

3. Assistance for virtual shopping:

People often reach out to web stores to save their time and effort. However, most shoppers miss out on experiences such as interacting with sales executives. There are ways to improve familiarities by deploying virtual assistants, for example, a chatbot that responds to queries and comments given by customers. This will allow users to feel like they are associating with a real sales executive, helping them make a decision and gain information. As useful as this is, you will still be needed to deploy actual sales staff to look after complex concerns raised by the consumers.

4. Multiple payment methods:

Since eCommerce websites can be accessed through different devices, customers prefer to pay through their mobile wallets. However, each customer is going to pick different payment solutions, whether its internet banking, debit and a credit card or Paypal. The eCommerce application must be able to facilitate through different payment options to reduce the chances of shopping cart desertion. As Android mobile app developers, you must integrate payment processing systems into your application, one that supports conventional and non-conventional payment methods.

5. Securing customer data:

Web stores are vulnerable to security attacks; similarly, data breaches have grown recently and that dissuades consumers to share their personal information on online platforms. A massive percentage of shoppers have been found to leave shopping carts during moments where they don’t feel secure regarding payment processes and security policies concerning personal data. In addition to that, allowing shoppers to pick from different payment methods, you will be required to make them feel safe to persuade them to go through checkout procedures. It is crucial to incorporate robust security features within eCommerce applications and make use of security-related emblems on checkout processes to help them associate with your service comfortably.

6. Persistent testing:

You need to keep in mind to deliver an eCommerce application that is evergreen. Accessibility, performance, functionality, security, and usability has a direct link with customer experience. Testing your eCommerce application with the help of devices and platforms followed by networks and user conditions is going to help you evaluate the position of your app allowing you to highlight factors that are beneficial for you and those that require alteration. Not just that, it is also going to assess user experience based on features you have implemented and their influence on the customers. This is exactly why it’s important to perform tests to mark deficiencies and performance bottlenecks hindering the user’s experience. You will also require a robust software that examines frameworks. You will also need tools that assess software efficiently.

7. Social factors integration:

It is a known fact that people tend to spend more time on social media than on any other platforms such as websites and applications. Most shoppers use social media to gain information in the form of feedback and research that is for products they wish to buy. Comments and reviews on social media by customers who have already bought those products, often assist as recommendations for viewers. To enable these functionalities you will be required to integrate social media factors on different pages. You should encourage customers to post their reviews on social media with the help of comments and ratings, allowing others to gain knowledge on the product. This is going to help your customers in making a decision and aid you at accomplishing an increase in conversion rates.

In order to keep the users engaged and stay top of the mind, it is better to communicate with them in their native language. Thus, if you are running an online store in different regions, make sure you translate and localize your content with the help of professional translation services. In this way, you will be able to communicate with the audience in a better and effective manner.

It is still important to keep in mind that trends in eCommerce applications grow with time. Therefore, current and emerging trends are both important for the application. At the same time, you should ascertain factors that make an impact on customer experience. Make sure to focus on aspects related to the software development lifecycle to deliver personalized and real-time customer experiences.

 

Here is another category which is introduced by A class Blogs. Category name is Write for us tech for guest blogs.

Ahrefs Marketing

5 Golden Secrets I Learned from the Ahrefs Marketing Strategies and You Should Also

You’d be surprised to know that the SEO giant Ahrefs has a team of only 50 people in marketing and they generate $800k per employee. Sounds great?

I also had the same expression as yours and it leads me to the curiosity to learn more about them. On digging in-depth, I came across the 19 SAAS marketing strategies that make them powerful in the realm.

Here are the top six points I concluded from their strategies. I’m sharing it below from you so you can also gain the nuggets of wisdom.

Let’s dive in!

1. Word of Mouth Advertising

If we own a small business, product or web design software 2020, our strategy lies in promoting the product. Even if our product has some flaws, we do best to cover it through marketing. That’s why Seth Godin says: “All marketers are liars.”

But Ahrefs aren’t like the one, instead of focusing on the conventional marketing strategies, they give their time to the product and work to increase the quality of it. They believe in word of mouth advertising that means if their product is better, they will naturally get the gains.

2. Blogging as a Help

In all our school life, marketing training and blogging courses, we have been told not to market our product or introduce it in the blog post. But they prove this old school of thought wrong by writing their blogs on their website and teaching users how to do it.

Pick out any of the top five blogs from their site and you’ll see that all those featured their product. Apart from that, they focus on building a connection with their audience by teaching them how to use their tools. When you’re addressing the pain points of your audience and help them to solve their queries, you add value to their life. So, for the next time they have any problem related to SEO, without any further ado, they’ll come to you.

3. Out of the Box Ideas

They don’t follow what everyone is doing but instead stand out from the rest. Like recently, they break the conference code by offering coffee cups branded under their tags while others stand on the stall and ask people to visit them as they have something for them.

Since marketing is versatile and creative so the marketing team should brainstorm ideas that make their product stand out. So, if you also have a product and want it to get viral as theirs, you should think of something innovative. A great idea can work wonders.

4. They Promote their Employees

You must have seen some successful product marketers who would invite blog posts but don’t encourage the author’s name underneath. Or sometimes they post it as anonymous. So, the authors don’t feel motivated to put more on the table. But if you see Ahrefs marketing team you always know who’s the author, what’s their bio and who’s the marketer.

So, they always promote their employees and then onwards employees help to build their businesses. There’s a great lesson to learn here. If your employees feel like they are appreciated, famed, encouraged with your business, they will show more dedication to promote your product or professional website design services in Dubai.

5. Ask for Feedback

If you see their Youtube channel, you’d know how much research, innovation and marketing strategies they have applied to their video promotion. And you’d find the same thing on their blogs. Every content of them is close to perfection and so their product. But still, they are open to feedback and continuously ask clients to learn how they can get better.

Asking for feedback shows the clients that you care about their experience and makes them feel connected. When they know your feedback matters to the business so they’ll become more loyal to your product.

To Wrap it Up

There’s a lot to learn from these five tips if you want to make your business successful, especially through marketing. So, now when you have known the powerful marketing strategies, how about implementing it and coming back with feedback?

chatbot

Top 7 Benefits of Chatbots your Business Cannot Afford to Miss

With artificial intelligence (AI) getting mainstreamed, more applications of the technology are being discovered each day. AI-powered chatbots are being deployed by businesses to streamline and automate customer support functions.

While some chatbots can respond to basic user queries, the more sophisticated ones can comprehend complicated issues and carry out a natural human-like conversation. No wonder, the likes of H&M and American Express are leveraging the technology to create an unsurpassed customer experience.

In this brief post, we will discuss the major benefits of using chatbot services for your business. So, let’s begin.

1) Round-the-Clock Customer Support

While you may not run a 24*7 business, your customers can have issues even during odd hours of the day. Waiting for hours to get their issues resolved can frustrate your customers and tarnish the reputation of your business.

The key lies in implementing chatbot services-chatbots can deal with customer queries 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. They can handle multiple queries simultaneously and offer instantaneous answers without getting perplexed, exhausted or annoyed.

While it’s true that chatbots cannot completely replace your support agents, they can take some load off their shoulders by answering simple, routine queries and transferring only the complex issues to human agents.

2) Enhanced User Engagement

In order to keep users interested in your brand, it’s vital that you take steps to boost user engagement. Chatbot services can be immensely helpful here. Chatbots can not only maintain users on your website for a long time by providing them with the information they’re looking for but also recommend products and services based on their browsing and purchasing history.

They can further engage the customers by sending them to push notifications and apprising them of new, exciting offers. What’s more, chatbots can be integrated with social media marketing channels such as Facebook Messenger to create a seamless customer experience.

3) Cost-effectiveness

According to Chatbots Magazine, implementation of chatbot solutions can trim down customer service costs by around 30%.

Across the globe, businesses receive close to 265 billion service requests every year. If these businesses hire human agents and add other resources to deliver 24*7*365 support, they will need to spend a considerable amount of money.

Chatbot services can be used to respond to routine customer queries, freeing up support agents for complex issues. In some instances, chatbots can be the first point of contact in a complex query also, which can then be escalated to the appropriate support agent.

Chatbots can thus supplement the work done by humans, allowing businesses to work with fewer agents and bring down operational expenses considerably.

4) Enhanced Lead Generation

Chatbot services can supplement your lead generation efforts. Chatbots can understand the needs of your prospects and offer them relevant answers. They can also follow up on your visitors from the time they first visit your site to the time they make a purchase. Chatbots can expedite the lead generation process by offering users prompt answers to queries pertaining to your business. They can route the qualified leads to suitable customer support agents, helping them close a deal in the minimum possible time.

5) Seamless Customer Journey

Businesses often lose valuable prospects halfway through a marketing funnel. E-commerce companies, in particular, find users abandoning their carts on account of a complicated check-out system or hidden costs.

Chatbots integrated with business websites streamline the buying journey of customers. They pop up on websites to offer additional information about the product or shipping. At times, they also offer discount codes or lead users to FAQs, user guides or related videos and articles. All this makes the customer journey smoother and boosts up conversion rates.

6) Fewer Errors

However competent your customer support agents may be, they can always make mistakes. They can address a customer with a wrong name, direct him to an incorrect webpage or agent and even get aggressive or rude. None of this happens with a chatbot. Your virtual agents always provide users with the right answers. When they don’t know the answer, they route the query to a suitable agent. Besides, they don’t experience fatigue or irritation even after working for hours at a stretch. These features make them an asset to any business.

7) Monitoring of Customer Data

Chatbots can be seamlessly integrated with websites and messaging applications. This allows them to gather valuable insights about your prospects and customers. You can use this information to get an assessment of their interests, preferences and pain points and, accordingly, bring in new products and personalize your offerings.

The Final Word

Chatbots are revolutionizing customer service in ways we wouldn’t have imagined a decade back. With advancements in AI-ML and Natural Language Processing (NLP), chatbots are expected to become more intelligent and human-like in the days to come.

How to design a Travel and Tourism Website Using the Inbuilt

Travel and tourism industry today has taken its giant form because of this ever-persistent need for some happy and stress-free hours. We all are forced to live a mundane and workaholic life which makes these breaks in the form of a holiday a dire necessity. Hence, the industry, which was neglected or was considered a menial market, have now formed this intricate global network mapping the whole of Earth.

 But, do you know the main reason behind the widespread popularity of this area? From where do we get insights about these tour packages and deals?

 The most obvious answer would be the Internet, with several websites, portals and blogs with their fresh and tempting content and offerings. But not all of them enjoy equal success, right? The success lies in forming a unique and exciting website along with some stand-alone core features.

 WordPress website designer serves as a medium to give your website a fresh and tempting outlook. WordPress offers the website hoisters a string as innumerable plugins which are both flexible and supportive in the functioning of the content management system. With WordPress, along with its customization options, is best suited for virtual marketing. The WordPress web development is easily installed and can be availed from a simple computer system as well.

 What does WordPress web development add to your travel and tourism website?

WordPress adds several incorporate and salient features to your website, transforming it into a profitable marketing media.

1. As the interface plays the most crucial role in giving the website its legit place on the Internet, the WordPress web designers make sure to give your site the best graphical representation possible.

2. The portfolio of a travel and tourism website is built in collaboration with the plugins available in the WordPress.

3. WordPress is among the best content management systems, and hence, it backs your photo gallery along with the apt blog or travelogue or a destination guide.

4. All the buttons available for the navigation and search boxes are supported by WordPress and are laid out in a very sophisticated manner to make your website presentable.

5. WordPress web development also offers an interface for your pay-modes and commercial exchanges.

6. WordPress is also known for promoting your travel and tourism website by the aid of several social media platforms.

 To give you a further glimpse of these travel and tourism themes here is a shortlist comprising of the most used customizable themes for building a popular tourism website using WordPress website designer:

 VOYAGE: TRAVEL WORDPRESS THEME

 Voyage is a customizable theme developed by Themefuse and supported by WordPress web development. The theme is beautiful, receptive, efficient and easily customizable by the general user. The travel-friendly theme also supports several options such as maps, attractions, visually compelling calendars for bookings and essential events etc.

BOOK YOUR TRAVEL

 Book your Travel is a one place stoppage for those who seek all the popular features of WordPress web designer at one go. The theme is considered to be a gold mine for those who are looking for an integrated travel and tourism website. The site offers enhanced features such as bookings and reservations management system, full WooCommerce support and personalized inquiry forms.

COUSTEAU

Cousteau is famous among the travel and tourism website users as a painter of perfect holidays and vacay. The site offers breezy images of the destinations and is a delight for visual sensations. The WordPress web development easily supports the drag and drop page builder by Cousteau and thus making it popular among the website owners. Other qualities of Cousteau include a superfluous search panel and elegant, customizable layouts. Cousteau is also one of the most straightforward web development plugin theme to work upon.

TRENDY TRAVEL

Trendy Travel is an all-rounder multitasking travel and tourism theme supporting the inbuilt feature of drag and drop page building. On top of it, the theme also enables the problem-free networking between the owner and the site viewer as the theme is easily compatible with bbPress and BuddyPress, so the interaction taking place is somewhat more comfortable compared to the others. The theme also supports a revolutioner slider inside it.

MAGELLAN

As it is evident from the name itself, Magellan gives your site a comprehensive approach. The theme is popular among the users because of the extensively advanced features it provides while building a full-fledged tourism site. The theme is easily customizable because of the elements present in it. The theme because of a customizable post area and built-in short-codes is known for the quick responses it generates in the site.

LOVE TRAVEL: CREATIVE TRAVEL AGENCY WORDPRESS

 The theme is specially designed for the WooCommerce and the Shop Pages and isotopic filters. The catchy representation of the theme enables your website to support all the exotic and beautiful pictures and videos, along with the required data.

Omnichannel: How Is It Thriving Ecommerce Retail Market?

Do you know more than 80% of retail customers conduct online research before buying any product?

As consumers tend to switch between different channels, their retail experience is somewhat disconnected. In this fiercely competitive digital era, if you have only a retail store sell your products, you may not be able to sustain the market competition for the long run. Hence, retail business owners are adopting the eCommerce platform and another medium to deliver an omnichannel retail experience to the shoppers. This article us a comprehensive guide that gives you detailed information about how omnichannel thrives eCommerce retail market.

But, before we move on to further details, let’s understand the basics.

What Is The Omnichannel Retail?

The omnichannel retail experience aims to provide consumers seamless, continuous, and integrated shopping experience as they switch between channels the retailer is offering. Generally, omnichannel retail unifies both online (with mobile devices) and offline (in-store) shopping experience. In short, omnichannel retail is a complete integrated approach to eCommerce which extends to social media, eCommerce marketplace, and traditional stores.

Omni-channel eCommerce solutions usually go beyond brick-and-mortar to online stores including;

  • Ecommerce platforms

  • Social media marketing, retargeting, and sales

  • Messaging and SMS

  • Mobile websites

  • Mobile applications

  • Personalized email marketing, etc.

At its core, omnichannel marketing is a multi-channel approach to sell products. It provides customers with a unified overall shopping experience. They can transition from shopping online on a desktop, laptop, or tablet, to the phone, or a brick-and-mortar store, and the experience will be flawless. This experience cultivates a greater sense of acquaintanceship and relationship with the brand. And, surely, it impacts positive brand image and retention rates.

Its sole purpose is to provide a single buyer journey on any platform of the retail business. The multiple ways to purchase a product from a company attracts customers to stay connected for a long time. In fact, because of this approach custom eCommerce solutions are in demand. More and more retail business owners want to create an online platform to boost sales.

Now, let’s look at how the omnichannel approach works for eCommerce retailers.

Enhanced Productivity

When you develop an omnichannel retail strategy, it enables you to provide a consistent experience to the potential consumers across all platforms (online and offline). It also allows retailers to respond to their customers’ needs with a standard, central database of products, offers, prices, etc.

The consistency on all platform increase overall productivity for your retail business. Thus, the consumer can experience the brand with commodities and promotional offers that are consistent across all the retail channels. So, the physical outlets become expansions of the main supply chain. Although the purchase occurs in a retail store, the buyer researches the same products on several communication channels.

Higher Profit Margins

A well-developed online sales structure on an eCommerce platform reduces the occurrence of various discounting schemes. In the traditional retailing, huge discounts are offered only to those merchandises that are not getting sold quickly in particular shops. However, with omnichannel retailing, businesses can sell these products to their consumers at the full price easily without offering additional discounts.

Improved Data Collection

You can personalize customer experience if your business becomes visible over multiple channels. It will be easier for you to track customers’ behavior, preferences, and shopping habits. These data help you to identify the strategies to increase sales. The unique tactics will encourage your customers to come out and get involved while shopping at the physical stores which raises the likelihood of impulsive purchasing.

Moreover, when you are building the omnichannel strategies for your eCommerce business, you need to consider the two vital aspects to map customer behavior and boost engagement rate. Understanding the customer decision-making process is key to entice them to make more purchases with your business. More precisely, look for the following consideration while mapping their shopping habits;

  • What they purchased?

  • When the item was purchased?

  • What products are most popular?

  • What is the frequency of purchase?

On the other hand, while boosting customer engagement you can encourage their participation by;

  • Offering a special discount on various occasions like Christmas, Newyear

  • Sending reminders about the offer or sale

  • Sending proximity notifications

  • Posting engaging content on social media

In addition, multiple communication channels enable you to access more information about targeted customers. Follow these data streams to satisfy your consumers’ needs and demands. With the integrated analytics, you will be able to comprehend, quantify, and reviewing the communications with them.

Additionally, businesses should leverage innovative modern technologies like VR (virtual reality) and iBeacon amongst others so that they can bridge the gap between the physical and online stores and deliver seamless, consistent customer experiences across all platforms. According to a study, about 80% of customers said experience with a company is equally important to a product or service.

Hence, you can empower your business growth with the omnichannel retail approaches. It not only allows you to increase productivity but also boost sales with increased customer satisfaction. There is no doubt that eCommerce retail businesses need to adopt the omnichannel approach to sustain market competition and increase profitability.

Therefore, if you are in a retail business, you should look for creating opportunities to increase online sales via eCommerce development or mobile application development. There are many IT companies out there who provide eCommerce development solutions to expand your business growth. Just opt for the right custom eCommerce development company to embrace the new era of omnichannel retail business. The more sources you offer to explore your products, the more customers will engage with your business.

Biography:

Jayaram Bhat CEO of  Smart Sight Innovations, an eCommerce Web Development Company since 2014. He is a highly motivated individual with a mere focus on smart IT and web-based solutions.

 

Here is another category which is introduced by A class Blogs. Category name is Write for us tech for guest blogs.

Digital-Marketing-Strategy

Top 5 Digital Marketing Strategies for Ecommerce Businesses

Online shopping has always been appreciated in developed countries like the USA. And now, it has become a trend in developing countries as well, because people nowadays want to enjoy shopping without being tired or going out of budget. Due to this, the competition in the e-commerce world has reached new heights. And boy, the race of being number 1 isn’t going to end anytime soon.

If industry reports are turned into reality, e-commerce sales, by 2021, will increase by up to $4.479 trillion.

The major difference between ruling and struggling companies is, ‘Digital presence.’ It is worthy to get your attention because, without buttressed online presence, you are unlikely to get success in the e-commerce world. To put it briefly, brand awareness is all that matters.

At the present time, the salience of digital marketing is on the whole new different level because this can unlock several new revenue-generating opportunities at once. Although you have to play your cards right to reap the desired benefits.

Today, we will discuss some amazing digital marketing strategies that will help you to earn money online genuinely and take your e-commerce business forward. So, let’s get started:

  1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

For any e-commerce business, SEO is imperative as it will help to reach out to the larger audience in short time. By dint of effective SEO strategies, you can easily get organic traffic on your e-commerce website, which is valuable and very hard to get. The more traffic you gain, the more sales opportunities you are going to unlock.

Having an SEO strategy is somewhat crucial for your online businesses. Following a good strategy will bring you more ROI and definitely more sales. Read this 2019 Link Building Strategy | How to Plan Your Backlinks | Outreachmama guide to learn more on how to implement that on your eCommerce business.

Most of the e-commerce businesses have already realized the true value of search engine optimization, thereby, approaching established SEO companies in contemplation of long-term partnership. To reap desired benefits thru SEO, you must include all the ingredients in your content, right from pertinent keywords to compelling headlines to a fantastic conclusion.

It is imperative to note that spamming your content with keyword stuffing would have an adverse effect on your website’s ranking on search engines.

  1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a paid technique that can help you to get a throng of website visitors. It makes sure you will get bang for your bucks. By means of SEM, you can improve the visibility of your website notably well. Plus, it will enable you to attain desired results in a short time-frame.

In search engine marketing, you target those keywords, while running ad campaigns, which potential customers search on the internet. Google AdWords is one of the best SEM platforms. Simply put, you can make so much profit while running an e-commerce business if you are focused enough while search engine marketing.

Seeking a piece of advice? Well, target long-tail keywords as they have lesser competition and don’t get chosen every so often. This happens because maximum marketers are skeptical about the search rate of long-tail keywords. Surprisingly, internet users search via long-tail keywords to get precise results. In a nutshell, use long-tail keywords and uplift the CTR (click-through rate) without facing much competition.

  1. Email Marketing

Email marketing, a tried-and-proven digital marketing technique, can help in the pursuit of establishing a bond of trust with potential customers. Whenever customers place an order, they get the confirmation and digital invoice thru email, which somewhere reflects the brand’s integrity.

Plus, you can remind customers about those products that are in the cart but yet to be purchased. Thru email marketing, you can promote your products and services with aplomb. There is a great chance that customers make a purchase decision after being impressed by your personalized emails.

According to the latest industry reports, customized emails secure 75% higher open rate than ones lacking personalization.

Apart from this, you can also gather feedback about your recently sold products and learn about how much customers are satisfied with their shopping experience. These things matter most, especially when you are trying to gain stability in the market.

  1. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

To enjoy an exponential growth rate while running an e-commerce business, it is paramount to make certain that your brand message reaches to maximum prospects. Here, what would be more beneficial than social media platforms? business messenger sites have always been known for their larger user base, therefore, it would be very easy for you to reach the targeted audience.

Social media marketing has transformed the way of doing business. By means of social media channels, you can promote your brand without spending a dime and nurture your relationship with customers in a seamless manner.

For better results, you can go for paid Ads option. Don’t want to spend money on paid ads? Here are some practices you should follow to catch the eyes of social media users:

  • Always keep your caption enticing.

  • Use 3 to 4 hashtags to increase the chances of trending.

  • Share infographics, videos, etc. periodically to maintain the internet level of your followers.

    Read More: Buy Instagram Followers Australia

  1. Content Marketing

We have saved the best for the last. Content is what on which the effectiveness of all your digital marketing strategies depends. That’s the prime reason why content is deemed as the king of the marketing world.

Why is content marketing so important?

High-quality content can easily create hype for your products/services overnight in the internet world. That’s the main reason why businesses are always supposed to develop top-notch content that educates readers in an appropriate manner. According to an ideal ratio, your 80% of focus should be on rendering information and the rest 20% should be on promotion.

It is imperative to note that if you are trying your hand in the content marketing, these factors should be on your checklist:

  • Content like e-books, whitepapers, etc. should be gated.

  • Guest blogging should be done to increase the reach of your content.

  • The language should be kept simple during the content creation process.

Thanks for reading!

Author Bio:

Rahul Garg, a content writer, has been working at Cyfuture for more than a year. He is passionate about learning digital marketing. As far as other hobbies are concerned, he loves to watch psychological thrillers in movies, listen to retro music, play racing games, etc. We like to underline the fact that he never compromises with the quality of his write-ups, no matter which situation he is in.

How Bigcommerce is efficient in reaching a dynamic audience after WooCommerce

Being in the age of online shopping and social media, every business prefers to start an online store for selling their products.

So, are you thinking of creating an eCommerce website??

What will it benefits you??

Do you know that having an online store can quicken your chances of capturing more audience?   This obviously will make you stand out among your competitors.

But to build a website, it is critical to choose the best and reliable eCommerce platform.  The web world has an immense amount of options to give you. It becomes tough to choose the one that can provide you with the desired results.

In the analysis of selecting the powerful eCommerce platform, WooComerce and BigCommerce are on the top. They have their robust features, support and easiness, but it is tough to choose the one for your eCommerce website.

So, here in this article, we will find out which platform is better to pick according to your needs. Let’s continue!!

Which one is better? WooCommerce or BigCommerce?

Being an eCommerce website builder, BigCommerce has assisted 100,000 users in creating their online store.  WooCommcerce is a WordPress plugin which can sell the products online. Comprehending both platforms is essential to find which one is the best.

This platform gives you the functionality to decide which platform to choose, or as per the requirement of your business, better knowledge or as per the demand.

Functionality

BigCommerce has more built-in features as compared to any other platforms. You can quickly sell your products on various social media channels, such as Amazon, Facebook and Instagram.

Whereas WooCommerce gives fewer customer supports, and it requires more advanced technology.  Though, it has limitless customization.

BigCommerce has the tools that are required to develop a website with an easy guidelines manual. WooCommerce follows a different approach. It is designed as a plugin in WordPress Content Management system.

It clearly says that it is an add-on which is needed to be added to the website to change it with an online store.  It is developed by Automattic, which is a web development enterprise discovered by WordPress. WooCommerce is known as the popular platform for an eCommerce platform.

BigCommerce owns numerous features that can help in hosting. So, if you are developing an online website for your eCommerce business, then BigCommerce is a promising choice. It is helping the retailers to grow their business by approximately 28% every year.

WooCommerce is intended for those users who need eCommerce functionality in their WordPress website.  But, it offers less support or help in any case you require. WooCommerce can be integrated and customized easily.

Winner: BigCommerce

User-friendly

Overall, BigCommerce is more user-friendly than WooCommerce. It attains the ability to provide a base to develop an outstanding website with regular maintenance and support.  Although BigCommerce demands familiarity with the learning curve, once you are proficient in doing so, you are good to go.

It does not require any technical expertise for development. BigCommerce can assist you in hosting, domain and security and Wildcard SSL certificate.

Whereas WooCommerce is somehow a confusing platform. Its requires more efforts to set up and run an online store, so, it is quite tricky and tough. You should be familiar with the technical skills to use WooCommerce.

Winner: BigCommerce

Easy Adaptability

Don’t you want that when the visitors approach your eCommerce website, they feel pleased with the engaging design? First impression is the last impression. Big Commerce has seven free themes, with premium themes costs from $145 to $245.  It is seen that more than 300% of the repeating customers are spending than newbies.

WooCommerce has 14 themes with a cost of  $39 for premium themes. The storefronts of WooCommerce are cheaper and customizable than BigCommerce.  Customization is a case of BigCommerce is stiffer but plain.

You can edit the font, text size, promotional banners, navigation placement and page layouts. So, it can be said that it is an editing interface. In the case of mobile responsiveness, both platforms stand out.

Winner: WooCommerce

Ecommerce Functionalities

BigCommerce wins when it is a matter of features and tools. It has plenty of built-in features, such as Multi-channel integration, SSL security, promotion code and discount creation, abandoned cart recovery, analytical tracking and reporting tools. With abandoned cart recovery feature, you can recover approximately 25% of the lost sales.

WooCommerce even has few but excellent features, such as One-click refunds, limitless customization and blogging.

BigCommerce has more variety as a comparison to WooCommerce. It let you manage the eCommerce store easily from multi-channel integration to abandoned cart recovery.

Winner: BigCommerce

Search Engine Optimization

It is a close-run contest when it is about Search engine optimization (SEO).  They both can enhance your eCommerce website ranking in the search engines, like, Google, Bing and Yahoo.

BigCommerce let you customize the URL slugs, amend meta titles and details, integration of alt text and keyword support.

With WooCommerce, you can customize the URLs slugs, change of descriptions and meta titles and combination of image alt text.  WooCommerce lacks in providing some of the additional benefits that are necessary, such as SSL security. It is critical because it let Google know that your eCommerce website is secure for those who are visiting.

Winner: BigCommerce

Concluding Remarks

WooCommerce and BigCommerce both have a different set of functionalities, but, it can be concluded that BigCommerce is a champ. It can reach a wider audience.  So, if you are planning to own an eCommerce website, then BigCommerce is a recommendation. Convert your dream into reality with its exceptional features and support.

We hope this article helped you in deciding which platform to choose when it is about your business website.  Please let us know if you liked this article in the comment section below. Your suggestions and queries are always welcome. Thanks for reading!!

Author Bio: 

Morris Edwards is a Sr. Web Developer and Marketing Consultant in

Awebstar- Singapore Web Development Company. He is a hobby writer, loves traveling, exploring science and AI techniques. He specializes in sales funnels, targeted

traffic, and website conversions. He has consulted with Fortune 350 companies, influencers with

digital products and has created an n-number of influential websites with AI(artificial intelligence) and other splendid features.

Main Factors That Determine the Cost of Developing an iPhone mobile Application

5 Major Factors That Determine the Cost of Developing an iPhone App

If smartphone segments are considering as a growing market then it is quite obvious that smartphone-related things will have a greater demand. And when it comes to apps, people love to download and use tons of apps. Children get attracted to the colorful toys and apps can be compared with this. Basically, apps are the colorful toys of adult or above childhood people.

Talking about apps, it serves every purpose of human beings while being busy with daily duties and responsibilities. Apps put a smile to people’s face and do a lot of other tasks. The operating system is an immense part of the smartphone and apps perform on the base of OS only. It’s Android and IOS that are currently dominating the smartphone software segment.

Android is for everyone and IOS is for premium users. Apple is a premium brand that has made a name of providing costly smartphones to users. That means the people who like to spend bucks on a smartphone, are the ones who will be able to buy the phones. As the brand is premium so definitely the software and the apps will be premium too.

If you want to dig deep then you will find that Apple spends a well amount of time and capital in their software and hardware. R and D (Research and Development) is one of the strongest segments of Apple and that is why the software and the apps see the light of success with a high amount of cost.

In this article, you will get to know 5 major factors that determine the cost of developing the apps of iPhones.

Costly factors and reasons why iPhone app development is expensive

Downloading an app may be free but developing an app is definitely not. It requires high skills as well as complicated steps to finish an app and publish it on the app store. Then coding, designing, testing, debugging and many other steps are performed. If you want to know how app developing factors can be this costly then you should consider the following list.

Expensive app development

As it’s stated above, every app requires complicated steps of development. If you are a developer then you will know that there are several tasks that you have to perform to make sure you come up with an app that is fully feature-packed and easy to use. And all of these scenarios tend to end-up really costly. Factors you need to consider in the entire development period are,

  • The infrastructure of the app.
  • Proper app UI (User Interface) maintenance so that it becomes a friendly UX (User Experience).
  • Choosing the type and functionalities of the app.
  • Data encryption.
  • Scalability.
  • Testing of the app.
  • Software integration from 3rd party.
  • Publishing on the app store.

cost of app development

(Source: visionsoftech.com)

All of these steps are complex and it requires a good amount of focus. But the primary and main requirement is of getting the capital or fund so that, you can perform all of these steps successfully and with full freedom.

Definitely, the pricing is expensive and it is common for developing almost every OS apps but it is different in iPhones. The app developing cost is much higher in iPhones because it takes care of top-notch security and simple yet feature-packed UI. It is one of the biggest reasons why developing an iPhone app is costlier.

Maintenance of apps is not cheaper either

Now, if you are thinking that developing an app especially for iPhones require only the necessary steps to perform and if you get the fund then all of your problems are solved. Just wait right there because you are not on your way to success yet. The fund requirements will help you to initiate the process but an iPhone app requires tons of maintenance costs.

Cost of apps is not cheaper

(Source: hawkscode.com.au)

You have just started the app development process and it has started well because you have the funds. Next, you maintain the app in each and every step of developing because you need to remove the bugs as much as possible. Though it is not possible to remove the bugs and make an app completely bug-free. All you can do is to reduce the bugs on a much higher scale.

A bug-free app will always give users a great experience with the app. In the case of iPhones, it is satisfactory to all the users because the developers maintain the app in every step. They monitor the app performance and if any malicious behavior is found then actions are taken immediately.

Security issues, data leaks, server maintenance, technological mishaps, malware threats, latest risks, and several other flaws come under app maintenance. Every app version has some specific lifecycle and you need to make sure you maintain the cycle until you push the next update. So, providing updates to apps is always a concern to make the user-experience buttery smooth.

iPhone apps take special care of this segment and that is why it shows reflection in iPhone app development high-cost.

Costly app hosting

If you are considering the app development and app maintenance as the primary maintenance cost then you are going to surprise because calculating the cost of iPhone app development has just started. Developing an app is not just performing complicated steps and maintenance, app hosting plays an important role in developing an app. Choosing an app hosting service requires a high amount of investment.

Image 4

(Source: mirror.co.uk)

Why choose app hosting? If this is what you are thinking right now then you are going in the right direction. App hosting service for every developer and entrepreneur is mandatory to develop an app. On the end-user side, it makes a huge difference in the user experience. You have to choose the apt hosting provider and then your developed app will get the features of scalability. Not only that but your developed app will work smooth and quick too.

So, you need to choose app hosting and it requires a big investment. An app hosting service performs several tasks.

  • Manages a high amount of user requests.
  • Attracts traffic on the web.
  • App memory and app support memory optimization.
  • Database hosting.
  • Taking actions against security threats.
  • Provides data-expending.

All of these operations are considered as very high-value tasks of every app. As iPhone software IOS takes great care of these aspects so, it requires a very high amount of costs. It is one of the giant reasons why iPhone apps development is expensive.

External API functionality

API stands for Application Programming Interface. To develop an app, you need to code it, design it, test it, debug it. Coding is a vital part of any app development India process as it makes the base of any app. Then the app will be built on the base of this coding.

You can code your app for a specific platform or OS. As there are many operating systems available in the world, so you may need to code an app for one OS, and then you may need to code the same app for another OS, and then another OS and it continues. This process is time-consuming as well as not smart-work.

External API functionality

(Source: Stepin-solutions)

An API plays just the right role here. You can code an app and then users can use it by integrating with other apps and in any other platform. So, API does the smart job exactly as it is. The app gets the feature collaborating with other apps and operating systems. Adopting the API functionality will just serve the right purpose of convenient user-experience.

But having an API functionality is costly and you may need to spend quite a high amount of money. iPhone developers take great care of this section and they always want to go for the quality service. That is why they spend extensive bucks on API features and as a result, the cost of developing an iPhone app gets expensive.

Providing high security to user data

Now, coming to the final point for what iPhones are famous for. Of course, iPhones are costly and that’s what makes it a premium brand. But iPhones get popularity because of the high-security it provides. Every iPhone is considered as the most secure phones in the world. Same can be applied for the iPhone apps too.

If you are digging the reason then it is the secure IOS and the iPhone apps that make the iPhones that much secure. Developing an app is easy and you may even publish it on the app store but if you didn’t emphasize enough on the security options then users are not going to like it.

Providing high security to user data

(Source: iphonehacks.com)

A smartphone carries extensive user-data stored in the apps. If the iPhone apps don’t have high security then there will be a blunder. So, iPhone app developers do extra focus on the security features of iPhone apps. This requires a big amount of money to make security options tight.

iPhone app developers try their best so that user data doesn’t get vulnerable to a third party or unknown web contents. Developers provide security updates, bug fixes, malfunction elimination, and other performance improvement features so that users don’t have to compromise with the security.

And all this comes with a great cost. To maintain the iPhone security properly and in a continuous manner, it costs bucks.

So, this is the list of the major 5 factors that are responsible for determining the cost of developing an iPhone app. This is the list that will clear many doubts of yours such as why iPhones has high-security features, what are the reasons the iPhone apps are costly, why the apps can run smoothly in the user-interface and others.

These are not just the factors that give the answers to the reasons behind iPhone app development costs, the reasons also give an overall idea of how the iPhone apps are different than other operating system apps. There is no doubt that iPhones have the smoothest smartphone UI in the smartphone segment and the apps and the software are the main reasons for that.

Hope the curiosity of yours to get to know the special factors of expensive iPhone apps, is satisfied. All of the iPhone apps are feature-packed, has a user-friendly UI, lag-free, has very few bugs and don’t stutter while operating.

So, if you are an app developer and really onto developing iPhone apps then consider the above factors and set your budget accordingly.