Benefits of co- browse technology: III

1. Increased grade of customer engagement:

An increased grade of customer engagement is one more benefit offered by co- browse technology. Co-browsing teaches customers how to do things rapidly and effectively. Moreover, proactive invitations to shop together drive customer engagement, giving agents the ability to make offers, answer questions, and provide the help needed to close more sales as actively engaged customers convert. Co-browsing feature is of potential use to serve the customers that aren’t tech savvy.

Customer engagement
Customer engagement

2. Boosted e-commerce sales:

Co- browsing is not just meant for instant query resolution or instant guidance through the purchase process. In fact, agents engaged in a co-shopping session can be trained to up-sell, cross-sell, and encourage opt-in for future sales opportunities. These offers may include joining a mailing list, connecting on social media, subscribing newsletters and more.

Increased sales
Increased sales

3. Identify the weak points and help in customer service improvement:

Co-browsing can actually be used to monitor or keep a track of customer queries through screen shots of issues. These screen shots can be used for knowledge base, training, or bug fixes. It helps companies maintain real-time visibility into the customer experience and further assist in improving the customer service.

Co- browsing screenshots
Co- browsing screenshots

4. Enhanced buyer experience:

 

According to a study conducted by Forester, co-browsing has the highest customer satisfaction ratings of any customer support tool. The study shows that live-assist communication channels like phone, chat, co-browse have much higher satisfaction ratings than asynchronous electronic channels such as email, web self-service. Satisfaction ratings as stated by the above mentioned study are as follows: phone (74%), chat (69%), co-browse (78%), email (54%), and web self-service (47%). Thus, the study clearly proves that with co-browsing the customer achieves another level of customer service. Many a times it is seen that the customers ask the agent to co-browse because they understand that co-browsing will easily resolve the issue that too faster.

Enhanced buyer experience
Enhanced buyer experience

 

Benefits of co- browse technology: II

1. Long term adoption of self service tools:

Showing customers how to utilize self service tools leads to the long term adoption of self service tools which is yet another benefit of co- browsing. It is extremely beneficial when:

i) a company is launching new online tools or updating existing tools or procedures

ii) when specific customer segments are having trouble using online tools

iii) when white-glove service can be provided to top-tier customers.

Utilization of self service tools
Utilization of self service tools

2. Differential customer service experience:

These days customers ask to co-browse when they contact an agent because they know co-browsing allows them to get help instantly and conveniently. In other words, co- browsing creates a differentiated customer service experience. This exempts the risk of losing customers and results in returning customers. Hence it improves your business performance.

 

Customer service experience
Customer service experience

3. Customer service agent satisfaction:

There is a possibility of agents being frustrated when customers articulate issues and agents are required to verbally direct the customer to perform actions online. Thus, providing the agents with technologies such as co- browsing reduces this frustration and leads to an increased efficiency of customer support. Moreover, agents appreciate being given the tools they need to be more efficient and productive so they are able to meet their performance goals.

Contented agents
Contented agents

5. Reduced call handling time and improved efficiency of customer support system:

Co-browse technology helps in the reduction of call handling time. As a matter of fact, the less call-handling time agents will take, the more level of customer service they will provide. Thus, co- browsing promotes efficiency by enabling agents to handle issues more quickly and accurately. It can also be used as a real-time live training tool to help on board new agents and familiarize them with the customer experience quickly and efficaciously. The customers also get satisfied as they get faster resolution and the agents save their time.

Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction

 

 

 

Benefits of co- browse technology: I

By now all of you are quite familiar with co- browse technology. Apart from being a great tool for the success of a website, it offers a number of benefits to the companies and sites inculcating this technology. Some of those benefits have been mentioned below:

1. It improves support accuracy:

Co- browse technology helps to improve support accuracy by seeing exactly what the customer is seeing. Through screen sharing you can actually see what steps he is taking, what errors he is getting, reasons responsible for that error and more. Co- browsing helps ensure complete resolution as you’ll be solving the issue together with your customer.

Query resolution through co-browsing
Query resolution through co-browsing

2. Higher conversion rate:

Co-browsing lets the agents have a look at the customer’s browser tab to guide them through your website and support them with the buying process. Resolving purchase related queries during this process helps clarify their purchasing decision which results in higher conversion rates and thus higher revenue per call.

High conversion rate
High conversion rate

3. Increased customer contentment:

The attention span of visitors is very short and so is their patience level when they are online. So, they appreciate being helped quickly and efficiently, and having their issues resolved instantly. Most communications channels available show that customers demand fast fixes for their problems. Co- browsing is one such technology that can be used to provide quick fixes to customers’ problems. Companies can successfully meet their customers’ expectations by using such services that provide fast customer service.

Customer contentment
Customer contentment

4. Reduction in call handling time:

Another advantage or benefit that co- browsing offers is the reduction in call-handling time. This further increases agent utilization and reduces costs. Co- browsing involves sharing screen space online and being able to have a look at the customer’s screen which results in more involved and motivated agents. In other words, this technology actually helps to shave off all the time spent articulating what is on the screen, what the customer did previously, and what the customer should do next as it makes chats and calls more efficacious.

Reduced handling time
Reduced handling time

 

All you need to know about co- browsing

Co-browsing, in context of web browsing refers to joint navigation through the world wide web by two/ more people accessing the same web pages at same time. Complete co-browsing supports automatic synchronization of the browsers’ state and content, including frames, portlets, or even content of the form fields and controls. Various tools are employed for this purpose some of which can even identify complex media objects such as audio and video players and offer capability of synchronous playback with start/pause/stop functionality.

Co- browsing
Co- browsing

Co browsing is a short form of collaborative browsing. It is a software-enabled technique that allows someone in an enterprise contact center to interact with a customer by using the customer’s web browser to show them something. In case of a B2B scenario, it can actually be used ease out the complex purchasing process for the customers. For instance, a B2B customer facing difficulty placing an order could call a customer service representative who could then show the customer how to use the ordering pages by sharing screen on the desktop or whatever device is being used. Collaborative browsing may include e-mail, fax, regular telephone, and internet phone contact as part of an interaction.

B2B co- browsing
B2B co- browsing

Co-browsing has so far evolved to support a full user web experience. It has come up as a great tool for customer service and support teams. You need to keep the following points in your mind while considering a co- browsing solution for your business:

i) co-browsing solutions must be offered in a seamless manner irrespective of the communication channel the customer initiates the conversation from.

ii) solutions that cannot share critical information that exists outside of the browser will inhibit the experience your customers expect.

iii) co-browsing technology that mandates tagging each and every page that a customer may want to share may be a technical challenge and, in many cases, not feasible.

iv) co-browse solutions that share a browser experience may help with simple web page based content but are not capable of extending to view the rich content on every web page, so make sure that all viewers are seeing the same and synchronized content

Co browsing solutions
Co browsing solutions

 

 

Your guide to omnichannel customer service

Omnichannel refers to a cross-channel business model that companies employ to increase customer experience and improve the quality of customer service. This approach has verticals in healthcare, government, financial services, retail and telecommunications industries, including channels such as physical locations, FAQ webpages, social media, live web chats, mobile applications and telephone communication. Companies that utilize omnichannel contend that a customer values the ability to be in constant contact with a company through multiple avenues at the same time.

Omnichannel
Omnichannel

Previously customers expected to receive service from an organization on the channel of their choice. Thus companies employed multi-channel customer service technique which made use of voice, email, SMS/text, web, mobile or social media. Omnichannel customer service takes the multi-channel customer service to the next level as with an omnichannel solution that integrates channels to provide a consistent customer experience.

Multichannel customer service
Multi-channel customer service

As far as the customers are concerned, channel is the least important matter of concern for them. What’s important for them is finding an answer to their question or a solution to their problem. For this purpose they may reach out via voice, mobile website or over a social media channel like Twitter. In today’s era, as more consumers adopt mobile devices, the lines between channels tend to blur. As a result, customer expectations for the convenience of starting a conversation in one channel and then continuing in another, become even higher.

Customer query resolution
Customer query resolution

Omnichannel self-service is a solution to such high end expectations of the customers. It empowers the customer to initiate an activity in one channel, and seamlessly transition to another such that a conversation that begins on Twitter can be continued via text message or phone call with all of the relevant context preserved across channels. Omni-channel solutions don’t require implementing every possible channel  and it also ensures the service level, responsiveness, and quality of service received on individual channels and across channels would be exceptionally high.

Contented customers
Contented customers

 

Strategies for generating B2B leads online: II

1. Content Marketing:

Content marketing refers to the marketing focused on creating, publishing and distributing content to online targeted audience.It is a crucial element for B2B lead generation. It is often used by businesses in order to attract attention, generate leads, expand their customer base, generate online sales, increase brand awareness or engage an online community of users. While pursuing content marketing, the main focus of the businesses should be the needs of the prospect or customer.

Once a business has identified the customer’s need, information can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, video,white papers, e-books, infographics, email newsletters, case studies, podcasts, how-to guides, question and answer articles, photos, blogs, etc. The appropriate type of content for any business will depend on the business’ goals and target customer.

Content marketing
Content marketing

2. Search engine marketing:

Search engine marketing includes both paid search results (using tools like Google Adwords or Bing Ads, formerly known as Microsoft ad-center) and organic search results (SEO) and plays a crucial rule in B2B lead generation. It includes the following steps:

  • Keyword research and analysis: It involves ensuring the site can be indexed in the search engines, finding the most relevant and popular keywords for the site and its products, and using those keywords on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic.
  •  Website saturation and popularity: It means how much presence a website has on search engines, can be analyzed through the number of pages of the site that are indexed by search engines (saturation) and how many back links the site has (popularity).
  • Back end tools: These include Web analytic tools and HTML validators which provide data on a website and its visitors and allow the success of a website to be measured.
  • Whois tools: They reveal the owners of various websites and can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues.
  • Google Mobile-Friendly Website Checker: This test will analyze a URL and report if the page has a mobile-friendly design.
Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing

 

 

Strategies for generating B2B leads online: I

In the previous post we talked about B2B lead generation and its components. Now let’s take a look at the strategies that can be employed to generate leads online:

1.Email marketing:

It refers to sending a commercial message to a group of people (typically potential or current customers), using email. It basically inculcates the use of email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Email marketing can be carried out using:

  •  Transactional emails: These emails are usually triggered based on a customer’s action with a company. To be qualified as transactional or relationship messages, these communications’ primary purpose must be to confirm a commercial transaction that the recipient has previously agreed to enter into with the sender, along with a few other narrow definitions of transactional messaging.
  • Direct email: It involves sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message (for example, an announcement of a special offer or a catalog of products).
  •  Mobile email marketing: It develops large amounts of traffic through smartphones and tablets.
Email-Marketing
Email-Marketing

2. Social marketing:

This type of marketing involves leveraging social media to generate leads online. Businesses can use it to generate and nurture millions of dollars worth of leads. As a matter of fact, one of the most obvious ways to generate B2B leads from social media is using LinkedIn. Since social media is an integral part of content marketing, and to some extent, search marketing, so, your blogging or info graphics can be extremely successful if you are active on social media platforms.

In order to integrate social networks into their marketing strategies, companies have to develop a marketing model. One such model includes the following steps:

  • Selection of the correct social networks to use
  • Setting out a financial plan for hiring social media brand managers or consultants
  • Designing organizational structures to manage the social network in the companies’ market
  • Selection of target markets
  • Selection of the products, services, brands or company messages that you plan to promote
  • Performance measures for the social media strategy such as evaluation, data analytics, etc.

 

Social marketing
Social marketing

 

 

B2B Lead generation

B2B lead generation refers to the process of finding new business customers. It includes various stages such as determining suitable target companies, approaching new prospects and eventual conversion from lead to customers. However, you need to know that generating leads isn’t easy and trying to acquire leads in the B2B space makes it all that much more difficult. B2B lead generation inculcates the following terms:

B2B

Prospects: It is a marketing term used for describing a potential customer. In case of B2B a prospect is a company interested in your product, service or brand. A prospect may not necessarily be familiar with your company.

B2B prospects
B2B prospects

Lead:

It refers to a company which meets the criteria you define as being valuable to generate new business. Leads can be:

i) inbound – generated e.g. through form fills or direct calls made to inquiry about products.

ii) outbound – leads can be classified as ones which sales teams may categorize based on certain conversations they had.

 B2B leads
B2B leads

Customer: 

A customer is a lead that now uses your products or services.

Customers
Customers

Inbound marketing:

Inbound marketing is a technique for drawing customers to products and services with the help of content marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimization. Inbound marketing provides detailed information, an improved customer experience and builds trust by offering potential customers information they value through company sponsored newsletters, blogs and entries on social media platforms.

 Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing

Outbound Marketing:

Outbound marketing is a form of marketing where a company initiates the conversation and sends its message out to an audience. Rather than taking a passive approach, companies actively push their message to potential leads, whether or not these potential leads are actually looking for them at that time. Telemarketing is one such method whereby companies pro-actively call customers to offer their products or services.

Outbound marketing
Outbound marketing

Top factors that cause cart abandonment: II

1. Costly products:

Extremely high cost of products is also a reason for cart abandonment. If your products are costly, people will not buy them. In other words, if you are driving up the prices, the users may look elsewhere or consider buying it for less elsewhere.

High costs
High costs

2. Discount coupons

Discount coupons may not always lead to sales because when a website has discount coupons or promotional offers, the users go in search of the coupon code and come back only if they find one.

Discount coupon
Discount coupon

3. Forced registration:

It is true that the more information you have about a client, the better you can market and deliver your products to them. moreover, registered users are more likely to visit the site again and develop loyalty. However, many commerce stores try to get this information through a forced registration. Not all are willing to register, so, the sites that do not allow the users to buy goods as guest visitors see a high rate of shopping cart abandonment.

Forced registration
Forced registration

4. High or late listed shipping prices:

In today’s era, people buy online so that they can get the goods delivered at their doorstep and also get a discount at the same time. But high shipping costs increase the price and may even drive the customers away. In many cases, websites try and get the customers interested in a product and once they have placed a product in the shopping cart, they cleverly add the shipping cost to the total cost.

High shipping prices
High shipping prices

5. Complex checkout process and lack of payment options: 

As a matter of fact, the checkout process is required to be as simple, smooth and quick as possible. Making a user fill out too many forms will make him/ her abandon the cart and leave. On the other hand, there are customers who want to buy products but are forced to abandon the carts because the e-commerce website doesn’t make provisions for their convenient method of payment.

Simple vs complex checkout process
Simple vs complex checkout process

 

 

Top factors that cause cart abandonment: I

Cart abandonment refers to the process of a visitor on a web page leaving that page before completing the desired action. It points out to the visitors who add items to their online shopping cart, but exit without completing the purchase. Cart abandonment subjects an e-commerce site to a loss in terms of lead generation as well as sales. There are a number of factors responsible for cart abandonment. Some of them have been listed below:

1. The desire to explore more options:

People all over the world desire variety when it comes to purchasing or spending. Online buyers tend to visit a number of online stores in search of the products desired by them. They visit online stores to check out products and prices. Most of these visitors do not intend to buy, and there is nothing that can be done to stop them from abandoning the cart. A general assumption is that they may have the intention of buying at some time, so, you can actually try convincing them to purchase from you by sending automated emails reminding them to buy the products. This tactic can actually help to increase chances of conversions at a later point of time.

Variety of products
Variety in products

2. Insufficient product description:

Not all the visitors visit your site to make a purchase. While some buyers are quite sure of what they want to buy, others are just there to find product information and comparisons on the store. If they feel that the product description is inappropriate or the information about the product is not sufficient, they decide not to buy or continue their search further.

Insufficient information
Insufficient information

3. Lack of security features on a site:

Lack of security is the major reason why people are hesitant to buy online. In the case of smaller, lesser known websites, they are afraid of all kinds of fraudulent activities.

Lack of security
Lack of security

Tips to increase conversion rate: VI

1.Add comparison pages to your website:

This is a clever strategy for increasing your conversion rate. According to a research, people compare among providers before purchasing. So, you can benefit your site by adding product comparison pages to it. This will help increase peoples’ attention span and keep people from leaving your website. The most common way of doing this is using comparison tables. Spec based comparisons can be made using these tables or by employing other creative ideas. In case some of the specs related to your products are lower than that of your competitors’, do not hesitate to admit it. It may be possible that your support is way better or you provide personal consulting or something else. Admitting your shortcomings makes it easy for the people to trust you.

Comparison page
Comparison page

2. Slow down the persuasion process:

The biggest mistake one can make to hinder the conversion rate is asking for the sale too fast. There is a possibility that people might be just browsing and won’t be in a hurry to buy right now. So, what you need to do is, slow down. You can offer value and results in advance, way before asking for the sale. Become their trusted advisor and give them a compelling reason to sign up to your email list.

Persuasion
Persuasion

3. Strive for risk reduction:

There’s always a risk related to a transaction and if the risk seems to be big, the purchase won’t take place. In order to eliminate the risk involved in a purchase, offer guarantees to your consumers. There are a number of ways risk reduction can be achieved. 30-day money-back guarantee is one of the industry standards that you should offer. You can even offer something better than that.

Risk reduction
Close up of a yellow pencil erasing the word, ‘Risk.’ Isolated on white.

 

Tips to increase conversion rate: V

1.Exemption of customer hesitation:

It is very important to exempt ay kind of consumer hesitation related to the offers you provide in order to increase your conversion rate. People will have conscious and subconscious objections to what you’re saying about your products and offers. You need to address all their concerns and convince them as to why they should avail your services or buy your products. The most suitable technique is to prevent all those hesitations by addressing all the possible issues in your sales copy right away. For this, you have to create a list of all the possible hesitations and objections your potential customers might have and then add information to your sales copy to eliminate those concerns. You can convince people to buy from you by explaining the problems solved by your products, showing off your credentials and proving the value your product offers.

Exemption of customer hesitation
Exemption of customer hesitation

2. Provide clarity in your content:

Your content should have clarity in the sense that it should be understandable not only to the people related to the marketplace you deal in but also to other people. The basic idea is that you shouldn’t aim to write for companies but for people. While creating content or explaining about the products and services that you provide, imagine that you are explaining it to your close friend. This is the best method to inculcate clarity in your content.

Content clarity
Content clarity

3. Craft proper value proposition:

A value proposition is the primary reason for a prospect buying from you. It actually requires you to showcase what is unique about your company, your products, and services. Moreover, it must be communicated effectively to achieve optimal results. All you need to do is to refine your value proposition until you can articulate it in a single, instantly credible sentence. Conversion rate optimization can be enhanced further by optimizing value proposition that involves identifying, expressing, and testing/measuring. This can be achieved using A/B testing.

Value proposition
Value proposition

 

 

 

Tips to increase conversion rate: IV

1. Provide proper product description:

A proper product description includes a bunch of bullet points with features along with the price. It means adding as much information about them as possible. The best kind of product descriptions includes adding pictures, videos, reviews to all of your products.

Proper product description
Proper product description

2. Ease down your process of buying from you:

An easy buying process is very crucial to increase conversion rate.  The basic idea is to make sure that people should not try to figure out how to buy from you or where to click. It should include as few clicks as possible. Always guide the user towards the action you want them to take. In case you have a lot of products, build better filters, so your prospects could identify the right one for them without spending too much time. In order to ease down the process further, ask to fill as few fields as possible and avoid asking irrelevant questions. Most importantly, do not force users to sign up in order to buy. According to the story of the “300 million dollar button” the main point for increasing conversion rate is to avoid forcing people to sign up as a user in order to buy from you. Let them check out as a guest and you will notice that it will make a world of difference.

Easy buying process
Easy buying process

3. Make the most of videos:

As a matter of fact, videos can improve conversions when used properly. But you also need to know that not all site visitors will have access to your videos as certain video players are not licensed on Apple devices, so, Flash video content won’t normally load for users with an iPhone or iPad. Moreover, depending on your industry and target demographic, the exact number of visitors could be more or less, with increased mobile use among younger consumers.

Videos
Videos

 

Tips to increase conversion rate: III

1. Create urgency through scarcity:

You can employ a number of techniques in order to achieve a high conversion rate. Creating urgency through scarcity is an efficacious tactic of doing so. You can create scarcity in the following two ways:

i) quantity-related scarcity:

This type of scarcity is created by telling visitors that a particular number of seats are left at a mentioned price.

ii) time-related scarcity:

In this type of scarcity, there is a time constraint for buying a particular item, such as the ones titled as ” One day left” and more.

In case of endless product supply, you can give out time-sensitive bonuses, a free gift to first a particular number of buyers or a discount if they complete the purchase within a specified time frame. So, these are the ways of creating urgency through scarcity. All you need to keep in mind is that the reason for scarcity has to be authentic. People will know if it’s a fake scarcity. This can prove to be harmful your reputation.

Creating urgency
Creating urgency

2. Make your call to action prominently visible:

Call to action refers to something that asks users to convert. It may vary from a landing page for your product to a form for users to use to sign up for an email list. Your call to action can be present in any form but the only condition for its success is that it should be prominently visible. You need to make it stand out with an enticing design or use it as a relevant and engaging pop up after a user sits idle on your site. You may actually include it near the top of every page, or link to a call to action on nearly every page of your site.

Call to action
Call to action

3. Minimize everything that is irrelevant:

Once you have made your call to action prominent, you would want people to focus on a single action and not be distracted from it. As a matter of fact, the more visual inputs and action options your visitors has to process, the less likely they tend to convert. Therefore, you should consider minimizing distractions like unnecessary product options, links and extraneous information will increase the conversion rate.

 

Remove distractions
Remove distractions

 

Tips to increase conversion rate: II

1. Provide transparency:

Today’s consumers know when you’re being transparent and when you’re covering up for a defect with colorful or manipulative language. So, if you wish to increase your conversion rate, instead of trying to sugar coat things to sell your product, be straightforward about it. Mention precise, honest bullet points about the uniqueness and advantages of your product. The more honest and upfront you are, the better the transparency that you provide to your customers and higher the level of their trust in you.

Transparency
Transparency

2. Develop trust:

Once you provide transparency to your customers you have already developed some amount trust in your customers. Another means of increasing website credibility is by providing third-party support which includes citations, testimonials, articles in well-known publications, source material etc for the information you present, especially if you link to this evidence. This is a way of showing confidence in your material. Further listing a physical address, posting a photo of your offices or listing a membership with the chamber of commerce, making your contact information clear are some other techniques of increasing website credibility. Moreover, you can make your site easy to use by avoiding ads on your site. If you must have ads, clearly distinguish the sponsored content from your own. Also, try to keep your site fast, up and running.

Building trust
Building trust

3. Keep it simple and enticing at the same time:

Researchers have proved that sight is the strongest sense, so, instead of writing about your product, include a video or image-based demonstration of what it is and how it works. Visuals always make it easier to sell, so, leverage the power of visuals to increase your sales. But you need to avoid aggressive popup ads, flashing lights, or tons of exclamation points to make a good case for conversion. These things may drive the users away. You need to know that the simpler your design and offers are, the more likely your customers will be willing to convert.

Visual demonstration
Visual demonstration

 

 

 

Tips to increase conversion rate: I

In our previous post, we shared the importance of conversion rate optimization and how it affects your value for your partners and affiliates. So, now you know how beneficial CRO is for any business or site. So, here we are with some tips and tricks that can prove to be helpful in increasing your conversion rate:

1. Competitor analysis:

You need to literally monitor your competitors and every time you go to your competitors and you notice something different, memorize it. Simply explore what your competitors are doing that you are not, what strategies they are using that you are missing out. Consistent monitoring will give you some ideas that you can test on your site. In the most favorable condition, it might help you spot a weakness in their product or approach that you can capitalize on.

Competitor analysis
Competitor analysis

2. Target the right keywords:

It becomes quite annoying if people are searching for something and they land on a page that has got nothing to do with their search term. In order to avoid this, you need to make sure you are using support keywords within your content as well that help the search engines to be sure of what your content is about. You can utilize Google keyword tool for this. By setting up the right keywords at the top of your funnel, you ensure the success of your conversion rate optimization technique.

Keywords
Keywords

3. Employ A/B testing:

A/B testing refers to the process of comparing two versions of a web page to see which one performs better. In order to determine the tests, you should be doing, consider the potential revenue each test may bring, and rank tests accordingly. It’s important to test one hypothesis at a time in order to know which change made the difference. Main things to test include headlines, page layout, navigation, radical change and more. You can use tools such as Google Content Experiments, Optimizely etc for this purpose.

AB-Testing
AB-Testing

Tips for growing your personal brand: II

It takes time and effort to build and grow your personal brand but it’s worth it. It’s something that can follow you throughout your career. Moreover, it lets people know who you are and what you stand for. Here are some more tips to create a strong personal brand that you can always refer to when it comes to creating materials that support your brand:

1. Strive for perfection:

Once you are done with the identification of your uniqueness and strengths, strive for perfection. Never stop learning about your area of interest, not even if you become the expert in that area. So, all you need to do is read, absorb, and teach.

Learning
Learning

1. Share your knowledge with others:

Other than carrying on the process of learning, teach it and share your knowledge. You can do this through videos, social media, and also by writing both online and offline. This not only convinces people that you know your stuff but also provides exposure to your business.

Sharing knowledge
Sharing knowledge

2. Have a clear picture of your goals:

Prioritize your goals and use your values and priorities as an asset. These priorities and values will guide you both in action and your decision-making process and ensure that you stay on track.

Setting priorities
Setting priorities

3. Design your personal brand persona:

 Your persona can be created by:

i) Identifying your emotional appeal: 

It refers to identifying your personality features and other factors due to which people are attracted to your brand.

ii) Self-description:

It indicates telling who you are and why people enjoy working with you.

iii) Identifying your specialty:

It refers to the nature of your work such as what you do and how you stand out of the crowd. Moreover, what people want you to do also matters a lot in this case.

Creating your persona
Creating your persona

 

 

 

Tips for growing your personal brand: I

Building and growing your personal brand requires a lot of hard work and dedication. a strong personal brand is a valuable asset to every entrepreneur. Although brands and businesses might be built around ideas, they’re still ultimately represented by people.

1. Research:

This should be the first step of your personal brand building process. The basic idea is to figure out who you are as an individual, as well as a professional. It includes discovering things that inspire who you are as an individual and finding out what others think of you when they hear your name. Make a list of words that best describe your personality, values, and worth ethic. Now, narrow this list down into the words you want to be recognized by. Create a list of your likes and dislikes regarding your brand.  Pay close attention to what people say about your brand on social media platforms.

Research
Research

2. Identify and leverage your strengths:

Identify the characteristics that make you stand out of the crowd and then convince people why you are better than your counterparts. Know the areas of your expertise and leverage them to build your brand. You can even ask others for their views. They can help you discover that one thing which according to them you rock at.

 

Strengths
Strengths

3. Create a virtual platform:

Creating a virtual platform includes creating a website. You will also require social media accounts that represent your brand as these platforms will help you share your voice.

Building a platform
Building a platform

4. Do not fake your identity:

While building your personal brand you strictly need to avoid sugarcoating. Leverage your style and uniqueness to attract the jobs and clientele that you desire. Instead of faking your identity, discover your own style and create a new set of footprints for others to follow in.

Be yourself
Be yourself

 

 

Outbound marketing strategies to grow your business: II

1.Web syndication:

Web syndication is one of the many, highly effective outbound marketing strategies. It involves a website providing content to an arbitrary number of subscribing websites in order to redistribute it.  In case of subscribing sites, syndication is an effective way of adding greater depth and immediacy of information to their pages, making them more enticing and knowledgeable to users. On the other hand, for the providing site, syndication widens exposure, thus,  generating new traffic for the providing site. It further makes syndication an easy and reasonable form of advertisement. Web syndication is a highly efficacious outbound marketing tactic for promoting your product. as the prospective buyers won’t necessarily arrive at your website at the beginning of their buying journey.

Web syndication
Web syndication

2. Display advertising:

Display advertising refers to advertising on websites. This outbound marketing strategy involves many different formats and contains items such as text, images, flash, video, and audio. It can be leveraged to deliver general advertisements and brand messages to site visitors. When you want to target different demographic or behavioral actions, display advertising can prove to be extremely helpful. All you have to do is, select where you want the ads to be seen by identifying and selecting an online publication where your leads spend time. They are also effective at every stage of the funnel.

Example of display advertisement
Example of display advertisement

3. Re- targeting ads:

Retargeting is a term used for a cookie-based technology that uses a simple  Javascript code to anonymously follow your audience all over the web. Since it focuses your advertising spend on people who are already familiar with your brand and have recently demonstrated interest, so it exempts any sort of extra expense of advertising. Whenever a new visitor comes to your site, the code drops an anonymous browser cookie and when the same visitor browses the web, the cookie will let your retargeting provider know when to serve ads. Also, it ensures that your ads are served only to people who have previously visited your site.

Re- targeting ads
Re- targeting ads

Outbound marketing strategies to grow your business: I

Outbound marketing is a marketing methodology that tries to reach consumers through general media advertising as well as through in-person contact. Outbound marketing can be carried out in the form of TV advertising, face-to-face meetings, or cold- calling. Through each of these outbound methods, sales leads are generated and then followed up by internal sales representatives.

Outbound marketing
Outbound marketing

Some of the best outbound marketing strategies to grow your business are:

1. PPC ad campaigns:

PPC is a short form for pay per click that further refers to a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of driving traffic and buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to earn those visits organically. Your ads will appear as sponsored results at side or top of organic search rankings with PPC on search engines. PPC is the most efficacious way of drawing attention to the latest content or service offerings. Moreover, PPC ads are highly targeted, so, they can generate very high-quality leads.

Pay per click
Pay per click

2. Direct mail:

Direct mail consists of a wide variety of marketing materials, including brochures, catalogs, postcards, newsletters and sales letters. Direct-mail advertising is one of the most effective and profitable ways to reach out to new and existing clients. Direct mail is very effective when it comes to growing a business because it aims at targeted communications. You can actually grab the attention of your desired prospects by leveraging your creativity and the power of your message and presentation. Thus, direct mail is a very direct and powerful way to share your content asset.

Direct mail
Direct mail

3. Tradeshows and webinars:

Events such as tradeshows and webinars provide an opportunity to introduce and define your brand, clarify the solutions you provide and make personal connections with participants. Whether it’s an international trade show or an executive-level webinar, the two-way channel of interaction between customers, prospects, and your company is knowledgeable to them and beneficial for the businesses.

Tradeshow
Tradeshow