Will your start-up business be a success? Heed the voices of experience . . . here’s some top-level advice from a handful of expert entrepreneurs on how to avoid the pitfalls, cut through the criticisms, hurdle the competition and propel your new business to profitable heights.
Make sure your blogging strategies are promoting your website and pushing visitors your way. Don’t waste time and energy writing posts that don’t engage – check out the infographic that talks you through the state of the blog industry, from creation to the way forward. Josh Wardini uses the insight to show how to boost your blog’s performance.
Marketers love email because it works – researchers tell us that open rates, click rates and, most importantly, conversion rates are up and are driving ROI . . . proving that consumers also love it. Yet, surprisingly, some companies are not using this channel well enough to make the most of email campaign opportunities. Guy Hanson has a handful of ways to boost your brand’s email performance. Check them out:
You have written an article for your website and now you hope that blog you post will attract and engage visitors. Make sure it does by deploying the best SEO practices, says Jay Kang – who details how careful use of WordPress and search engine optimisation can boost your site’s rankings and ultimately drive more people to your e-shop window.
While e-commerce has levelled the selling field, artificial intelligence is propelling e-retail players forward, says Keren Zimmerman. Personalisation is the key to winning customer loyalty and repeat business and brands that leverage AI will turn that key. The technology is now becoming more affordable, so here’s how to compete with the bigger brands and use AI to power your audience data.
It’s a quandary currently causing anguish for American law-makers: Should the US government (aiming to track and rout terrorists and fraudsters) have the power to search email data that’s stored on a server in another country? Or would this open the floodgates for international ‘snooping’ and thus be a potential violation of personal data privacy? How seriously would global business be affected if data no longer feels secure and protected across borders? Robert Howells investigates the facts, weighs up the pros and cons and worries about the future . . .
For long-term business profitability, e-retailers aim to encourage repeat custom by providing visitors to their websites with a simple and efficient user experience (UX). But not all online strategies are completely ethical, says Hilary Stephenson – some deploy psychological persuasion techniques, such as scarcity ‘offers’ or unclear signposting. She cites e-commerce research that reveals some larger organisations – such as fashion brands – have used ‘dark UX’ website design patterns to prompt ‘fear of missing out’ impulse buys. It’s not a good look for the e-retailer, she says, and explains why.
Using the example of a food chain based in the north of England – that offers the hugely popular and now famous Yorkshire pudding wraps – Rob Meakin details how well personalised customer loyalty schemes can work and how shoppers expecting speed, efficiency and simplicity in every step of their retail experience can tap into a ‘membership economy’.
How many times have you sat behind someone at a major event whose mobile phone is aloft, masking your view, streaming the content to an absent audience? Live events – such as conferences, fashion shows and concerts – should ideally be a mix of physical and digital experiences, says Hannah Farrell – hugely aware of the value of social media for events promotion. But how would brands and events organisers balance the wider and welcome sharing of their content with a sympathetic social media switch-off for real-world events’ ticket-holders? It’s not a quandary, if applied in the right way…
The forthcoming GDPR is designed to help protect consumer data, not to hamper businesses and hog-tie them with red tape. Those businesses that adapt to the changing rules – that turn big data into smart data – will survive and thrive, says Julie Neilson, explaining how marketers in the retail, automotive and financial services sectors are surmounting the obstacles and reaping the opportunities . . . showing that it can be a case of new privacy rules OK!