virtual assistants

How to Retain Customers in E-commerce

Online retailers are always looking at increasing their revenues; one of the best ways of doing it is to get repeat customers. Several studies say it costs between 4 and 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. As an E-commerce owner, are you aware that repeat customers are responsible for generating 40% of a store’s revenue? It might sound hard but is actually easy to accomplish. It is a tried and tested way to improve your sales, even if you are new to this business or are a seasoned ecommerce player anyone can take heed to these actionable tips, which are on offer in this article. Exclusive discounts for loyal customers Everyone likes to be treated special, in line with this thought, offer your customers exclusive access to the site for special discounts. You can give this exclusive access, 1 or 2 days before the discounts become available to the general public. This will truly mean a genuine advantage for being a loyal customer. You can also do this discount special by making available a special promo code for a limited time that will give special 20-30% discounts. This kind of exclusive discounts is one of the most popular loyalty perks for customers. Send emails reminding of abandoned cart Convey through emails to customers about items left behind in carts by customers. You can send visually appealing email (showing the product) to the customer, to show them exactly what they considered purchasing while browsing through the site last time around. A recent survey showed that email marketing helped 29% abandoned carts to be recovered. Suggest Products One of the most powerful ways of making a customer do a repurchase is to nudge them to buy a product. You could also remind them about something additional they need to purchase in going with their previous purchase. For example, if a customer has bought a pencil, remind them to buy a pencil sharpener. Offer Personalized products If you have demographic data about the customer, you can make a personalized offer to the customer based on his/her likeness. Suppose if you are targeting a customer who is 21 years old, you can send him back-to-college offer for clothing, backpacks, school supplies etc. A recent study suggested that personalized offers help increase click-through rates by an average of 14% and improves conversion rates by an average of 10%. “We miss you” emails One of the ways of re-targeting, follow-up email can be at the bargain hunter. There is no better way to stay on top of the mind than with a coupon. Knowing this, you can send an email stating that we have noticed you have not been coming to the website anymore, with the addition of a coupon. Starbucks is famous for sending such ‘we miss you’ emails to its customers. Show Social Proof People respond positively to social proof. In the sense, if you show people a pair of shoes, bought over by a 10,000 people they are likely to react positively. This is a fact and there are real psychological factors at play here. You can do this by tracking purchase data (or Facebook likes) for specific products or soliciting actual customers’ reviews and displaying it on the website and in the emails to many of your customers. This is one of the ways of finding repeat customers. Launch a Loyalty Program There needs to be financial incentive for the customer for having made the first purchase. In addition, there needs to be avenues for saving money on subsequent purchases. According to a study, 54% buy more from companies when they are rewarded for purchases. In another survey, it was found that loyalty programs help increase market share by 20%. Nordstrom is one such company that has benefitted tremendously from its loyalty program. They encourage customers to sign-up to receive special benefits, which include reward points that can be redeemed for products as well as early access to sales. Direct Mail still helps This kind of approach helps in earning repeat customers. If you have the physical address of the customer, you can send exclusive sales, discounts and special offers by snail mail. It is to be noted that a direct mail is a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the customer for their loyalty, so there should not be an overemphasis on pushing sales. The trick is to keep the sales part subtle. Overall it is always a good idea to target the existing customers. It is the proverbial ‘low hanging fruit’ that a company must exploit in order to succeed in increasing sales. Also, if your e-commerce firm is finding it cumbersome to handle all the tasks to run the company in a smooth manner. You can assign your errands to GetFriday. At GetFriday we take care of major tasks associated with e-commerce domain such as inventory management, order processing, order tracking and customer support.  

How to Retain Customers in E-commerce Read More »

Online retailers are always looking at increasing their revenues; one of the best ways of doing it is to get repeat customers. Several studies say it costs between 4 and 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. As an E-commerce owner, are you aware that repeat customers are responsible for generating 40% of a store’s revenue? It might sound hard but is actually easy to accomplish. It is a tried and tested way to improve your sales, even if you are new to this business or are a seasoned ecommerce player anyone can take heed to these actionable tips, which are on offer in this article. Exclusive discounts for loyal customers Everyone likes to be treated special, in line with this thought, offer your customers exclusive access to the site for special discounts. You can give this exclusive access, 1 or 2 days before the discounts become available to the general public. This will truly mean a genuine advantage for being a loyal customer. You can also do this discount special by making available a special promo code for a limited time that will give special 20-30% discounts. This kind of exclusive discounts is one of the most popular loyalty perks for customers. Send emails reminding of abandoned cart Convey through emails to customers about items left behind in carts by customers. You can send visually appealing email (showing the product) to the customer, to show them exactly what they considered purchasing while browsing through the site last time around. A recent survey showed that email marketing helped 29% abandoned carts to be recovered. Suggest Products One of the most powerful ways of making a customer do a repurchase is to nudge them to buy a product. You could also remind them about something additional they need to purchase in going with their previous purchase. For example, if a customer has bought a pencil, remind them to buy a pencil sharpener. Offer Personalized products If you have demographic data about the customer, you can make a personalized offer to the customer based on his/her likeness. Suppose if you are targeting a customer who is 21 years old, you can send him back-to-college offer for clothing, backpacks, school supplies etc. A recent study suggested that personalized offers help increase click-through rates by an average of 14% and improves conversion rates by an average of 10%. “We miss you” emails One of the ways of re-targeting, follow-up email can be at the bargain hunter. There is no better way to stay on top of the mind than with a coupon. Knowing this, you can send an email stating that we have noticed you have not been coming to the website anymore, with the addition of a coupon. Starbucks is famous for sending such ‘we miss you’ emails to its customers. Show Social Proof People respond positively to social proof. In the sense, if you show people a pair of shoes, bought over by a 10,000 people they are likely to react positively. This is a fact and there are real psychological factors at play here. You can do this by tracking purchase data (or Facebook likes) for specific products or soliciting actual customers’ reviews and displaying it on the website and in the emails to many of your customers. This is one of the ways of finding repeat customers. Launch a Loyalty Program There needs to be financial incentive for the customer for having made the first purchase. In addition, there needs to be avenues for saving money on subsequent purchases. According to a study, 54% buy more from companies when they are rewarded for purchases. In another survey, it was found that loyalty programs help increase market share by 20%. Nordstrom is one such company that has benefitted tremendously from its loyalty program. They encourage customers to sign-up to receive special benefits, which include reward points that can be redeemed for products as well as early access to sales. Direct Mail still helps This kind of approach helps in earning repeat customers. If you have the physical address of the customer, you can send exclusive sales, discounts and special offers by snail mail. It is to be noted that a direct mail is a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the customer for their loyalty, so there should not be an overemphasis on pushing sales. The trick is to keep the sales part subtle. Overall it is always a good idea to target the existing customers. It is the proverbial ‘low hanging fruit’ that a company must exploit in order to succeed in increasing sales. Also, if your e-commerce firm is finding it cumbersome to handle all the tasks to run the company in a smooth manner. You can assign your errands to GetFriday. At GetFriday we take care of major tasks associated with e-commerce domain such as inventory management, order processing, order tracking and customer support.  

Virtual assistance

Virtual Strategic Partner: The Secret behind the success of Start-ups and Small Businesses

Highly productive people do not have any secret sauce behind their success but rather they are very good at doing something which other people forget often. It’s delegating. In principle, delegating might sound like a fairly easy step but if you look closer, there is a fair amount of planning that goes into getting it done. This is especially true for heads of start-ups and small businesses. Why to Hire Virtual Assistants? In the beginning, it is understood that it is very difficult to let go control of the business at this early stage. Too much of multi-tasking is one of the reasons for burnout among first-time entrepreneurs. It must be understood that anything that does not help your growth directly can be delegated to someone else. You need to place your focus where it matters the most, and let others take care of tasks which are not critical to the business. Another challenge that start-ups and small businesses face is the problem of cash flow. As an entrepreneur even if you are financially getting help, you sometimes do not have the time, space and resources available to hire that additional employee that is really needed. This is the reason why many businesses turn to virtual assistants. A virtual assistant not only saves time and money but is a financially viable time tested investment for the growth of the company.   There are good reasons why the trend of virtual work is catching up. The first and the foremost is the penetration of technology which has enabled work force to function from almost any remote location. This helps businesses hire a wide range of talent pool readily available from across the globe. You could be hiring virtual assistants for one of the following reasons: You don’t need or cannot afford a full-time employee You find it troublesome to complete important tasks You need work to be done, but don’t have the luxury of office space Your frequent travel requires you to have someone work virtually Most of your time is spent in organizing than executing You know what tasks to be done, but don’t have anybody to do it As far as hiring an employee is concerned, it is about having a fit between the business goals and culture. However, if you only need help in doing administrative tasks and have the flexibility of hiring someone virtually, then you should definitely consider hiring a virtual assistant. Benefits that virtual assistants bring to start-ups and small businesses Earlier, it was believed that virtual assistants are only for executives. It is no longer the case, with start-ups and small businesses finding obvious benefits. VAs is a big time saver during the growth phase of the company where it doesn’t make fiscal sense to have full time employees. Today, small businesses and start-ups swear by the fact that virtual assistant has helped them in improving productivity, happiness and work-life balance. The scope of VAs are not limited to personal tasks – start-ups and small businesses use VA’s for tasks like order processing, customer support, bookkeeping, social media, web design and development, email management, marketing and administrative tasks. Guidance for the Virtual Employee You have to treat the virtual assistant just like a telecommuting employee. You need to still provide supervision on what kind of tasks need to be done and you need to understand the right fit for the job at hand. There is a need for some level of training, whether you start from small tasks and then give more responsibility or give more direction in the beginning and step back later. In any relationship, it is better to focus on the long term and build trust over time. Conclusion As the interaction with the virtual assistant increases you can provide honest feedback to the work being done. After all, the trust factor with the virtual employee is important as well. You can start by providing your password for social media accounts and ask them to manage the social media accounts. When the trust gets established you can follow it by making him/her book vacations using your credit card. The important thing is that your Virtual Assistant is just like any other employee in your office, who needs to be taken care of just like a normal employee and given the due courtesy. The virtual employee helps reduce your workload so that you can focus on the much important things.

Virtual Strategic Partner: The Secret behind the success of Start-ups and Small Businesses Read More »

Highly productive people do not have any secret sauce behind their success but rather they are very good at doing something which other people forget often. It’s delegating. In principle, delegating might sound like a fairly easy step but if you look closer, there is a fair amount of planning that goes into getting it done. This is especially true for heads of start-ups and small businesses. Why to Hire Virtual Assistants? In the beginning, it is understood that it is very difficult to let go control of the business at this early stage. Too much of multi-tasking is one of the reasons for burnout among first-time entrepreneurs. It must be understood that anything that does not help your growth directly can be delegated to someone else. You need to place your focus where it matters the most, and let others take care of tasks which are not critical to the business. Another challenge that start-ups and small businesses face is the problem of cash flow. As an entrepreneur even if you are financially getting help, you sometimes do not have the time, space and resources available to hire that additional employee that is really needed. This is the reason why many businesses turn to virtual assistants. A virtual assistant not only saves time and money but is a financially viable time tested investment for the growth of the company.   There are good reasons why the trend of virtual work is catching up. The first and the foremost is the penetration of technology which has enabled work force to function from almost any remote location. This helps businesses hire a wide range of talent pool readily available from across the globe. You could be hiring virtual assistants for one of the following reasons: You don’t need or cannot afford a full-time employee You find it troublesome to complete important tasks You need work to be done, but don’t have the luxury of office space Your frequent travel requires you to have someone work virtually Most of your time is spent in organizing than executing You know what tasks to be done, but don’t have anybody to do it As far as hiring an employee is concerned, it is about having a fit between the business goals and culture. However, if you only need help in doing administrative tasks and have the flexibility of hiring someone virtually, then you should definitely consider hiring a virtual assistant. Benefits that virtual assistants bring to start-ups and small businesses Earlier, it was believed that virtual assistants are only for executives. It is no longer the case, with start-ups and small businesses finding obvious benefits. VAs is a big time saver during the growth phase of the company where it doesn’t make fiscal sense to have full time employees. Today, small businesses and start-ups swear by the fact that virtual assistant has helped them in improving productivity, happiness and work-life balance. The scope of VAs are not limited to personal tasks – start-ups and small businesses use VA’s for tasks like order processing, customer support, bookkeeping, social media, web design and development, email management, marketing and administrative tasks. Guidance for the Virtual Employee You have to treat the virtual assistant just like a telecommuting employee. You need to still provide supervision on what kind of tasks need to be done and you need to understand the right fit for the job at hand. There is a need for some level of training, whether you start from small tasks and then give more responsibility or give more direction in the beginning and step back later. In any relationship, it is better to focus on the long term and build trust over time. Conclusion As the interaction with the virtual assistant increases you can provide honest feedback to the work being done. After all, the trust factor with the virtual employee is important as well. You can start by providing your password for social media accounts and ask them to manage the social media accounts. When the trust gets established you can follow it by making him/her book vacations using your credit card. The important thing is that your Virtual Assistant is just like any other employee in your office, who needs to be taken care of just like a normal employee and given the due courtesy. The virtual employee helps reduce your workload so that you can focus on the much important things.

GetFriday

GetFriday Making its Presence Felt

We have been in the outsourcing arena since 2005 and have served 15,000+ clients spanning 30 countries. We are an outsourcing firm in India, which was thrust into the limelight when “The Four Hour Work Week” hit the New York best seller list and the client numbers jumped substantially. We offer a wide range of virtual assistance services. We have been listed on various media and news outlets in the past and here is a quick overview about it. We were featured on ABC in 2005, and there was in detail explanation of how AJ Jacobs Esquire’s editor at large was able to outsource much of his life to us in Bangalore. The tasks ranged from answering e-mails, making calls on his behalf, ordering groceries and buying movie tickets. At one point we even read bed time stories to his son. Jacobs called his experience with outsourcing as inexpensive. Our assistants went above and beyond their assignments and even thought of new projects we could perform for Jacobs like taxes. We were on Kiplinger.com in July 2006. The author mentioned us as concierge services and used our help in doing numerous things including researching his stock investments, shopping for wireless routers and much more. All this he was able to do with a monthly investment of USD 300. He was pleased with the rates which we offered. Wall Street Journal also carried a news story in 2007 and talked about the actress Michele Greene who employed one of our virtual assistants to act as her personal assistant. Ms. Greene paid USD150 a month for 20 hours of service. The article mostly talked about how Asia is becoming the outsourcing hub and catering to works ranging from graphic design, math tutoring, web development, book keeping and more. CNN the popular American news outlet had featured us on their website in 2007 and stressed on “outsourcing of life” in their article. It tells about how outsourcing was considered suited only for the upscale office worker, now has come within the reach of the ordinary person on the street. It tells of the ease with which we can arrange for your laundry to be picked up and delivered at your doorstep at the click of a mouse. With GetFriday (Sister Concern of YMII), the customer can call or email their overseas virtual assistant (VA) and can get almost anything done, from helping to draft legal documents to more everyday tasks such as paying bills. We were featured in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2008, where the experiences of Mr.Hui with GetFriday are mentioned. It has quotes from a senior manager T T Venkatesh, about how the company does not take up anything illegal or work sounding bad in taste. P Sunder, the company’ s CEO quotes about how Indian start-up companies are handling business upwards of $200 million in the personal and small business services. USA today featured us in 2008, the article mentions about Tim Ferris and his book “The Four Hour Work Week” and how someone who earns more than $30,000 in the US can afford to hire a virtual assistant. The author mentions about the pay-as-you-go plans and monthly plans from GetFriday keeping in mind the needs of the customers. The Philadelphia weekly in 2011 featured us as a story on outsourcing with exclusive attention on GetFriday. The feature talks about the experiences of Norman Wilson with his virtual assistant at GetFriday – Atul. The article goes on to talk about how such a set up between customer and company seems to blur the lines between the employer and the employee. There are comparisons of the virtual assistant being like an advanced machine or an avatar from a video game altogether. It is an elaborative piece which poetically deals with the journey of outsourcing. Thomson Reuters featured us in a video on their site in 2013. The video gave an exclusive look into our offices at GetFriday in Bangalore, talked with assistants in their working space. It went on to talk about the virtues of outsourcing. PR Newswire featured us in three consecutive years – 2014, 2015 and 2016. Another place where we got featured was Arabianbusiness.com, where Thomas Shambler, a journalist, purchased a 10-hour package and hires a VA called Pallavika. Being a journalist he outsources the task of scheduling his interviews with us. He also asks her to do basic research for an article he was writing and asked for gifting ideas for his father. Overall, the client found the service to be good and meeting his expectations and compared the service to a real person ready at his beck and call. Just like these articles GetFriday is also featured on the website timedoctor.com, where we are among the top virtual assistant companies from across the world in 2017. Various other news platforms also speak about GetFriday’s outsourcing success stories. Outsourcing companies are being used by people for quite a long time now. But, now they are being used by people for innovative tasks. As time goes by we will see the industry maturing and more people using a virtual assistant with less novelty. With the difference in the exchange rate of currencies, it will become more attractive for individuals in the western world to outsource their errands to associates in the developing world.

GetFriday Making its Presence Felt Read More »

We have been in the outsourcing arena since 2005 and have served 15,000+ clients spanning 30 countries. We are an outsourcing firm in India, which was thrust into the limelight when “The Four Hour Work Week” hit the New York best seller list and the client numbers jumped substantially. We offer a wide range of virtual assistance services. We have been listed on various media and news outlets in the past and here is a quick overview about it. We were featured on ABC in 2005, and there was in detail explanation of how AJ Jacobs Esquire’s editor at large was able to outsource much of his life to us in Bangalore. The tasks ranged from answering e-mails, making calls on his behalf, ordering groceries and buying movie tickets. At one point we even read bed time stories to his son. Jacobs called his experience with outsourcing as inexpensive. Our assistants went above and beyond their assignments and even thought of new projects we could perform for Jacobs like taxes. We were on Kiplinger.com in July 2006. The author mentioned us as concierge services and used our help in doing numerous things including researching his stock investments, shopping for wireless routers and much more. All this he was able to do with a monthly investment of USD 300. He was pleased with the rates which we offered. Wall Street Journal also carried a news story in 2007 and talked about the actress Michele Greene who employed one of our virtual assistants to act as her personal assistant. Ms. Greene paid USD150 a month for 20 hours of service. The article mostly talked about how Asia is becoming the outsourcing hub and catering to works ranging from graphic design, math tutoring, web development, book keeping and more. CNN the popular American news outlet had featured us on their website in 2007 and stressed on “outsourcing of life” in their article. It tells about how outsourcing was considered suited only for the upscale office worker, now has come within the reach of the ordinary person on the street. It tells of the ease with which we can arrange for your laundry to be picked up and delivered at your doorstep at the click of a mouse. With GetFriday (Sister Concern of YMII), the customer can call or email their overseas virtual assistant (VA) and can get almost anything done, from helping to draft legal documents to more everyday tasks such as paying bills. We were featured in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2008, where the experiences of Mr.Hui with GetFriday are mentioned. It has quotes from a senior manager T T Venkatesh, about how the company does not take up anything illegal or work sounding bad in taste. P Sunder, the company’ s CEO quotes about how Indian start-up companies are handling business upwards of $200 million in the personal and small business services. USA today featured us in 2008, the article mentions about Tim Ferris and his book “The Four Hour Work Week” and how someone who earns more than $30,000 in the US can afford to hire a virtual assistant. The author mentions about the pay-as-you-go plans and monthly plans from GetFriday keeping in mind the needs of the customers. The Philadelphia weekly in 2011 featured us as a story on outsourcing with exclusive attention on GetFriday. The feature talks about the experiences of Norman Wilson with his virtual assistant at GetFriday – Atul. The article goes on to talk about how such a set up between customer and company seems to blur the lines between the employer and the employee. There are comparisons of the virtual assistant being like an advanced machine or an avatar from a video game altogether. It is an elaborative piece which poetically deals with the journey of outsourcing. Thomson Reuters featured us in a video on their site in 2013. The video gave an exclusive look into our offices at GetFriday in Bangalore, talked with assistants in their working space. It went on to talk about the virtues of outsourcing. PR Newswire featured us in three consecutive years – 2014, 2015 and 2016. Another place where we got featured was Arabianbusiness.com, where Thomas Shambler, a journalist, purchased a 10-hour package and hires a VA called Pallavika. Being a journalist he outsources the task of scheduling his interviews with us. He also asks her to do basic research for an article he was writing and asked for gifting ideas for his father. Overall, the client found the service to be good and meeting his expectations and compared the service to a real person ready at his beck and call. Just like these articles GetFriday is also featured on the website timedoctor.com, where we are among the top virtual assistant companies from across the world in 2017. Various other news platforms also speak about GetFriday’s outsourcing success stories. Outsourcing companies are being used by people for quite a long time now. But, now they are being used by people for innovative tasks. As time goes by we will see the industry maturing and more people using a virtual assistant with less novelty. With the difference in the exchange rate of currencies, it will become more attractive for individuals in the western world to outsource their errands to associates in the developing world.

Trending Traffic Outside Restaurants

Food Delivery Industry Trends

In the western world, a home cooked meal is a luxury only a few can afford. The recent market research study in U.S. reveals, 82 percent of food delivery orders were placed from home, while only 16 percent were placed from the workplace. Added to this, there is a constant craving for new cuisines to have healthy and fresh foods delivered to their homes and office for a healthy living. Where do you think this Industry is heading now? It’s an interesting road map to read through to understand the current trends dominating the food delivery market.     Trending Traffic Outside Restaurants Future of online food delivery industry is in the hands of the Millennials says National Restaurant Association, US – that by 2020, 70% customers who look for off premises meal solutions are Millennials, 21-36 years. Exceptional Growth Prediction of Online Food delivery   There is an astronomical rise in the number of orders delivered. More people are catching on to the bandwagon. According to a study conducted by Morgan Stanley U.S. restaurant analysts, the food and delivery industry has the opportunity to grow 7 folds more than its current value of $30 billion, that’s a $210 billion, potential. Online food delivery giants in the different parts of the world are trying to position their services by acquiring new food players in the market such as chef made meals or Meal kit delivery startups. These mergers and acquisitions are indicative of how the food delivery industry market is empowering the global online space. The next evolution in this industry is not only attributed by rise in number of delivery companies which are enhanced by technology but also accompanied by new niches. Competition with New Niches and Technology The startups and highly funded companies are creating tremendous competition in the food delivery space. Everyday companies are finding new niches in the market like customized healthy and nutritious meal being prepared and delivered or the technology with the modern digital users which has fierce competition in the food delivery space. There is digital transformation in companies like Domino’s, robot named “DRU” (Domino’s Robotic Unit) is an autonomous delivery vehicle and is set to take the world of food delivery space by storm. Hence 2017 will be undoubtedly driven by more innovations through technologies. Inhouse or Third Party Delivery Lieutenants The traditional restaurants lean on either in-house or third party delivery lieutenants to face the online food delivery competitors. Take for example, UberEats which is allowing online delivery services for in-house restaurants. There is a trend that restaurants are starting their own delivery service models to reduce reliance on third party usage. If this trend grows, third party delivery services would need to re-think in future. Outsourcing Vs  Online Food Delivery Industry In this growing phase, these start ups face a lot of pain areas in their day to day operations, for which they reach out and knock the doors of outsourcing companies. Virtual assistant companies like us have experience in servicing food industry clients across the globe. We help these companies to monitor their logistics and delivery management, uploading product details to website, customer support (email, chat and phone), market analysis and business expansion, and other website support. In this industry, where technology and logistics has major say, it is a wise decision to employ a virtual business team to save on infrastructure and various actuals. New players capturing Online Food delivery market Times have changed; we see constant improvements in the food delivery market. At first, it was only pizza which dominated the food delivery market. Today, it accounts for 60% of the US market, with rest of the 40% shared by new players like start-ups and food apps. These are the major trends which are likely to shape up the second half of 2017. If you are in the food delivery business or know someone in the food delivery business this article can be shared with them.

Food Delivery Industry Trends Read More »

In the western world, a home cooked meal is a luxury only a few can afford. The recent market research study in U.S. reveals, 82 percent of food delivery orders were placed from home, while only 16 percent were placed from the workplace. Added to this, there is a constant craving for new cuisines to have healthy and fresh foods delivered to their homes and office for a healthy living. Where do you think this Industry is heading now? It’s an interesting road map to read through to understand the current trends dominating the food delivery market.     Trending Traffic Outside Restaurants Future of online food delivery industry is in the hands of the Millennials says National Restaurant Association, US – that by 2020, 70% customers who look for off premises meal solutions are Millennials, 21-36 years. Exceptional Growth Prediction of Online Food delivery   There is an astronomical rise in the number of orders delivered. More people are catching on to the bandwagon. According to a study conducted by Morgan Stanley U.S. restaurant analysts, the food and delivery industry has the opportunity to grow 7 folds more than its current value of $30 billion, that’s a $210 billion, potential. Online food delivery giants in the different parts of the world are trying to position their services by acquiring new food players in the market such as chef made meals or Meal kit delivery startups. These mergers and acquisitions are indicative of how the food delivery industry market is empowering the global online space. The next evolution in this industry is not only attributed by rise in number of delivery companies which are enhanced by technology but also accompanied by new niches. Competition with New Niches and Technology The startups and highly funded companies are creating tremendous competition in the food delivery space. Everyday companies are finding new niches in the market like customized healthy and nutritious meal being prepared and delivered or the technology with the modern digital users which has fierce competition in the food delivery space. There is digital transformation in companies like Domino’s, robot named “DRU” (Domino’s Robotic Unit) is an autonomous delivery vehicle and is set to take the world of food delivery space by storm. Hence 2017 will be undoubtedly driven by more innovations through technologies. Inhouse or Third Party Delivery Lieutenants The traditional restaurants lean on either in-house or third party delivery lieutenants to face the online food delivery competitors. Take for example, UberEats which is allowing online delivery services for in-house restaurants. There is a trend that restaurants are starting their own delivery service models to reduce reliance on third party usage. If this trend grows, third party delivery services would need to re-think in future. Outsourcing Vs  Online Food Delivery Industry In this growing phase, these start ups face a lot of pain areas in their day to day operations, for which they reach out and knock the doors of outsourcing companies. Virtual assistant companies like us have experience in servicing food industry clients across the globe. We help these companies to monitor their logistics and delivery management, uploading product details to website, customer support (email, chat and phone), market analysis and business expansion, and other website support. In this industry, where technology and logistics has major say, it is a wise decision to employ a virtual business team to save on infrastructure and various actuals. New players capturing Online Food delivery market Times have changed; we see constant improvements in the food delivery market. At first, it was only pizza which dominated the food delivery market. Today, it accounts for 60% of the US market, with rest of the 40% shared by new players like start-ups and food apps. These are the major trends which are likely to shape up the second half of 2017. If you are in the food delivery business or know someone in the food delivery business this article can be shared with them.

Things to consider- Before Getting an Outside Blogger/ Writer

“Whether it is a blog or an e-commerce store, at the end of the day, it is the traffic that drives online business.” -Unknown A blog is a marketing tool that you can play around with, test and adapt to suit your needs and measure for effectiveness, as you go along, just like any other form of marketing. If you have a small business which plans to reach out to its audience using a blog, it is a good time to think whether you want to do it yourself or want to hand it over to someone, while you engage yourself in a supervisory role. There could be many reasons, why you would want to assign the responsibility of blog writing to someone else: It could be that your writing skills are just above average and you want some one better than you to manage it.   Your writing skills are good, but the time factor does not permit you to devote the amount of time required to churn out a decent blog.   It is cumbersome for you at this point of time to do all the research. So it is prudent to hire someone to do research and blog as well.   As said above, the intention behind writing the blog is to attract more traffic to your website. In such a case you have to make an important decision to make sure the blog ticks. These are some of the important pointers you might want to adhere to while selecting the blogger: Your rapport with your readers It is possible that over the years you have created a credible following for your blog among your readers. And as your business has scaled up, time has become a precious and a limited resource for you. In such a context you would want to think twice before you outsource your blog writing. The option available before you could be to reduce the number of posts of your blog. But, this could result in a loss of some of your readers. In such a scenario, it is better to hire a blog writer and weather the storm of losing some readers. And you would see, things stabilizing after a certain period of time. Overall, it is about you posting good content on the blog. As long as the content is good, your readers will hang in there, without bidding goodbye. The Type of Blogger You are entrusting your business reputation with the blogger, when you make the choice of hiring someone from outside for your website. It becomes equally important to see whether: a. The blogger has similar personality traits as yours b. His/ her writing style is in sync with yours c. The writing style fits the brand d. The blogger has knowledge of the job You are looking at someone, who can take it one notch up and enhance your reputation. The person needs to fire up your reader’s imagination and get them to talk about your business. By doing so, it leaves you with additional time on your hands and lets you focus on streamlining your business. Blog Marketing It becomes very obvious that the time you save from assigning your blog to someone outside, can be used by you in doing other strategic activities for your business. While the blogger can help you in blog marketing, it is seen that Google places special emphasis on good content. By hiring a blogger from outside who is proficient in SEO, your website will achieve a higher page rank on Google. This would apparently invite more traffic to your website than before. Fresh Perspective As a business owner, there are times when you could become oblivious to certain aspects of the business. These can be termed as blind spots, which get overlooked most times. However, getting help from outside brings in a fresh pair of eyes and perspective to the business because the outside blogger would associate with the brand differently than you. The fresh view can help bring out never before heard stories about your brand, which could popularise your brand. In due course of time, you will learn to appreciate and associate yourself with this fresh perspective. Access to Updated Knowledge This luxury of having a blogger from outside means you are dealing with a professional. Since his/her profession calls for updating knowledge every now and then, it comes by default that the blogs he/she writes is always up to date on knowledge and happenings in the stipulated domain. The final deliverable that you come across would always be updated on SEO, content standards and the trends in the industry. Poorly written Posts Hurt Your Brand In a world where Google ranking is very important it becomes tremendously important that your blog is well written. Google’s page ranking algorithm is seen to be positively inclined towards high quality content. Else, there are chances that a blog with grammatical errors and spammy links is not going to get you a higher page rank. There needs to be consistent effort from your side to succeed at Google page rank, every time you post a blog. A professional can bring about the consistency, then it is a good idea to assign your blog writing to some one outside the company. You could also hire a virtual assistant (VA) from GetFriday to write a blog and keep yourself free to do other things, which would help your business in the longer run. You can also hire a freelancer from Hubstaff Talent.Your brand and its growth among other blogs can be completely taken over by the VA, while you provide the macro view on how the blog post must be managed.

Things to consider- Before Getting an Outside Blogger/ Writer Read More »

“Whether it is a blog or an e-commerce store, at the end of the day, it is the traffic that drives online business.” -Unknown A blog is a marketing tool that you can play around with, test and adapt to suit your needs and measure for effectiveness, as you go along, just like any other form of marketing. If you have a small business which plans to reach out to its audience using a blog, it is a good time to think whether you want to do it yourself or want to hand it over to someone, while you engage yourself in a supervisory role. There could be many reasons, why you would want to assign the responsibility of blog writing to someone else: It could be that your writing skills are just above average and you want some one better than you to manage it.   Your writing skills are good, but the time factor does not permit you to devote the amount of time required to churn out a decent blog.   It is cumbersome for you at this point of time to do all the research. So it is prudent to hire someone to do research and blog as well.   As said above, the intention behind writing the blog is to attract more traffic to your website. In such a case you have to make an important decision to make sure the blog ticks. These are some of the important pointers you might want to adhere to while selecting the blogger: Your rapport with your readers It is possible that over the years you have created a credible following for your blog among your readers. And as your business has scaled up, time has become a precious and a limited resource for you. In such a context you would want to think twice before you outsource your blog writing. The option available before you could be to reduce the number of posts of your blog. But, this could result in a loss of some of your readers. In such a scenario, it is better to hire a blog writer and weather the storm of losing some readers. And you would see, things stabilizing after a certain period of time. Overall, it is about you posting good content on the blog. As long as the content is good, your readers will hang in there, without bidding goodbye. The Type of Blogger You are entrusting your business reputation with the blogger, when you make the choice of hiring someone from outside for your website. It becomes equally important to see whether: a. The blogger has similar personality traits as yours b. His/ her writing style is in sync with yours c. The writing style fits the brand d. The blogger has knowledge of the job You are looking at someone, who can take it one notch up and enhance your reputation. The person needs to fire up your reader’s imagination and get them to talk about your business. By doing so, it leaves you with additional time on your hands and lets you focus on streamlining your business. Blog Marketing It becomes very obvious that the time you save from assigning your blog to someone outside, can be used by you in doing other strategic activities for your business. While the blogger can help you in blog marketing, it is seen that Google places special emphasis on good content. By hiring a blogger from outside who is proficient in SEO, your website will achieve a higher page rank on Google. This would apparently invite more traffic to your website than before. Fresh Perspective As a business owner, there are times when you could become oblivious to certain aspects of the business. These can be termed as blind spots, which get overlooked most times. However, getting help from outside brings in a fresh pair of eyes and perspective to the business because the outside blogger would associate with the brand differently than you. The fresh view can help bring out never before heard stories about your brand, which could popularise your brand. In due course of time, you will learn to appreciate and associate yourself with this fresh perspective. Access to Updated Knowledge This luxury of having a blogger from outside means you are dealing with a professional. Since his/her profession calls for updating knowledge every now and then, it comes by default that the blogs he/she writes is always up to date on knowledge and happenings in the stipulated domain. The final deliverable that you come across would always be updated on SEO, content standards and the trends in the industry. Poorly written Posts Hurt Your Brand In a world where Google ranking is very important it becomes tremendously important that your blog is well written. Google’s page ranking algorithm is seen to be positively inclined towards high quality content. Else, there are chances that a blog with grammatical errors and spammy links is not going to get you a higher page rank. There needs to be consistent effort from your side to succeed at Google page rank, every time you post a blog. A professional can bring about the consistency, then it is a good idea to assign your blog writing to some one outside the company. You could also hire a virtual assistant (VA) from GetFriday to write a blog and keep yourself free to do other things, which would help your business in the longer run. You can also hire a freelancer from Hubstaff Talent.Your brand and its growth among other blogs can be completely taken over by the VA, while you provide the macro view on how the blog post must be managed.

Tips to convert your web traffic

Every business website should be able to attract enough traffic and also be able to convert the traffic into potential customers. There are several ways to do it. This article talks about a few key tips for converting the web traffic into potential customers: High quality content Having high quality content means updated information and authentic material about the business & services offered in the form of About Us, Contact Us or Customer Service Information. It is important for a business website to create a sense of trustworthiness and be regarded as an expert in a particular domain among its visitors and potential customers. This ensures that the website maintains a high recall value. It also ensures that more visitors get converted into customers. Create a good landing page Having a high quality landing page (s) is one of the key strategies companies can adopt to get more traffic on the site. High quality landing pages will have clear and concise headlines, sub-headlines, high quality images, high-value proposition, live-chat support to attract more visitors. At times, when one page does not do the trick, websites can have multiple landing pages to get their different type of visitors to stay on the website. Have a blog A blog can ensure that the website is up-to-date on current events on the specific subject. If the website has a consistent stream of visitors who receive solutions to their problems through the blog. These people will have enough reasons to come back to the blog again. And considering the blogs succeeds at a reader’s level, it can ensure that the visitors register for the blog for regular updates. Call to Action (Create a prominent call to action) Anybody who comes to the website needs to be asked to commit to an action on having reached the website. On having reached the homepage, the visitor needs to be guided to a call to action (CTA).It could be as simple as “Sign-up for Free” or “7-Day Trial”. This will ensure the visitor takes the required action on the website. Without a call for action, the website might be popular but the bounce rate would remain high. Testimonials and customer reviews Word of mouth is an important phenomenon in the marketing domain. Testimonials and customer reviews are to be taken very seriously by the website owner. Having them on the site immediately establishes trust and authenticates the purpose of the company. This in turn, improves the chances of turning a visitor into a customer. Unique, interesting and persuasive content Apart from high quality content, the website should boast of well-researched content that is unique. It is also good, if the writing style is persuasive so that it serves as a key tool in converting the visitors. The aim here is to increase the stickiness and decrease the bounce rate of the site. Keep forms only to the essential Nowadays, every website has a set of forms to be filled-in. Some of these forms could be quite long and cumbersome which could be a turn off. The ideal form should be short, not exceeding 4-5 fields. If it exceeds this limit, it is seen that the visitor tends to abandon the site altogether. Keeping it to a bare minimum is the trick to make him register on the site. Offer a toll free number and make it visible With landing page and call to action in place, it is important to follow up on these steps with a provision for a toll free number. This will ensure that the visitor gets in touch with the website owner if required. The phone call will also help identify that the visitor as serious and with a potential to becoming a customer. Allow visitors to reach for the products in fewer clicks as possible Whatever your product may be, it is essential that the visitor on the site reaches the product or the topic of interest easily without having to sift through too many pages. The more the visitor struggles to reach the actual product, the greater is the chance of him leaving the website. Hence, it is amply important that he reaches the product and service with minimum number of clicks as possible. Collateral materials (Ebook, whitepapers, case study) Even if a customer is not interested in a site, it is always a good idea to gift the visitor with something when he comes to the site. This could be an E-book, whitepapers or a case study for free. This could significantly improve the chances of the visitor coming back to the site to get converted a customer in the future. Implementing all the above mentioned tips for winning more conversions is time demanding. So, outsourcing some of the above tasks to a Virtual Assistant may reduce your work stress as well as enrich your inputs.

Tips to convert your web traffic Read More »

Every business website should be able to attract enough traffic and also be able to convert the traffic into potential customers. There are several ways to do it. This article talks about a few key tips for converting the web traffic into potential customers: High quality content Having high quality content means updated information and authentic material about the business & services offered in the form of About Us, Contact Us or Customer Service Information. It is important for a business website to create a sense of trustworthiness and be regarded as an expert in a particular domain among its visitors and potential customers. This ensures that the website maintains a high recall value. It also ensures that more visitors get converted into customers. Create a good landing page Having a high quality landing page (s) is one of the key strategies companies can adopt to get more traffic on the site. High quality landing pages will have clear and concise headlines, sub-headlines, high quality images, high-value proposition, live-chat support to attract more visitors. At times, when one page does not do the trick, websites can have multiple landing pages to get their different type of visitors to stay on the website. Have a blog A blog can ensure that the website is up-to-date on current events on the specific subject. If the website has a consistent stream of visitors who receive solutions to their problems through the blog. These people will have enough reasons to come back to the blog again. And considering the blogs succeeds at a reader’s level, it can ensure that the visitors register for the blog for regular updates. Call to Action (Create a prominent call to action) Anybody who comes to the website needs to be asked to commit to an action on having reached the website. On having reached the homepage, the visitor needs to be guided to a call to action (CTA).It could be as simple as “Sign-up for Free” or “7-Day Trial”. This will ensure the visitor takes the required action on the website. Without a call for action, the website might be popular but the bounce rate would remain high. Testimonials and customer reviews Word of mouth is an important phenomenon in the marketing domain. Testimonials and customer reviews are to be taken very seriously by the website owner. Having them on the site immediately establishes trust and authenticates the purpose of the company. This in turn, improves the chances of turning a visitor into a customer. Unique, interesting and persuasive content Apart from high quality content, the website should boast of well-researched content that is unique. It is also good, if the writing style is persuasive so that it serves as a key tool in converting the visitors. The aim here is to increase the stickiness and decrease the bounce rate of the site. Keep forms only to the essential Nowadays, every website has a set of forms to be filled-in. Some of these forms could be quite long and cumbersome which could be a turn off. The ideal form should be short, not exceeding 4-5 fields. If it exceeds this limit, it is seen that the visitor tends to abandon the site altogether. Keeping it to a bare minimum is the trick to make him register on the site. Offer a toll free number and make it visible With landing page and call to action in place, it is important to follow up on these steps with a provision for a toll free number. This will ensure that the visitor gets in touch with the website owner if required. The phone call will also help identify that the visitor as serious and with a potential to becoming a customer. Allow visitors to reach for the products in fewer clicks as possible Whatever your product may be, it is essential that the visitor on the site reaches the product or the topic of interest easily without having to sift through too many pages. The more the visitor struggles to reach the actual product, the greater is the chance of him leaving the website. Hence, it is amply important that he reaches the product and service with minimum number of clicks as possible. Collateral materials (Ebook, whitepapers, case study) Even if a customer is not interested in a site, it is always a good idea to gift the visitor with something when he comes to the site. This could be an E-book, whitepapers or a case study for free. This could significantly improve the chances of the visitor coming back to the site to get converted a customer in the future. Implementing all the above mentioned tips for winning more conversions is time demanding. So, outsourcing some of the above tasks to a Virtual Assistant may reduce your work stress as well as enrich your inputs.

Give your business a winning edge with effective content marketing strategy

Content marketing is an aspect of marketing which focuses on creating, distributing and analyzing content for target audience. In fact, content marketing is a cyclic process which includes the broad steps of content creation, content distribution, evaluation, analysis and content optimization. Nowadays content marketing is usually driven online but it is not limited to online activities. Billboard ads, TV ads, FM ads, jingles and the like are all various forms of content and their effects are augmented with content marketing. Content marketing is usually objectified to draw in more customers but nowadays the use of content has moved beyond merely attracting prospects. Nowadays content marketing is used even for sales conversion and closing. Thus, content marketing has evolved to be a broad field with deep influence in multiple aspects of the overall marketing. Content is an umbrella word with its significance in every step of marketing, whether it is in introducing a new brand in the market or closing sales with a customer of the brand. In fact, the process of fan building for a brand starts with the making of good content. Thus, content is important in every step of a marketing process and so is content marketing. A mere content marketing is not enough to fetch the best benefits. The results you reap from your content marketing depend on the quality of your content marketing. But it is also very important to strategize the marketing of the generated content. A good way to begin this would be to align it with the fundamentals of your business – the basic objectives of the business, the customer value proposition, brand value et al. Strategizing content marketing is an expansive term to be explained in this blog. A lot depends on the present state of your business, its target audience, it short and long term goals. So, content marketing strategies would differ according to these factors. Yet, a few standard rules must be followed by every content marketer and they are stated as below. The entire content marketing includes broadly the steps of creation, distribution, evaluation and analysis. Each of these steps must be fortified with some rules as follows: Rules for the making of great content: Understand your target audience: Understand your target audience in terms of their lifestyle, behavior, demographics and similar relevant parameters. Once you understand your target audience, analyze and list out their needs and how they react to their needs, what information they seek in regards to their needs and what information might excite them. Make your content easily understandable: Make your content easily understandable for your audience by avoiding jargons, using a reader friendly language, including infographics, etc. Enrich your content with information: Customize your content with relevant information by understanding where your audiences stand in the buyer’s journey. This will help to create useful content. For instance, if your audience is in the state of comparing you with your competitors for making the purchase decision your content must assist the decision making by reflecting how your service or product is differentiated from your competitors. And if your audience is interested in making the purchase, make it easier by using simple easy to navigate payment options and call to action buttons. Tips for content distribution: Reflect and decide: As you start with your content distribution you must reflect upon the following questions: Why do you want your audience to use your content? Where do your audiences mostly consume content? How frequently do they use content? The answers of these questions will set the guidelines for your content distribution. For instance, if you want your content to boost engagement and talk about your brand, a social media platform like Facebook is a good bet for you. Otherwise, if you want a large reach, you should opt for a paid search advertising network. If you want high returns with reach to niche audience, you should stress on SEO or organic marketing of your content in a media like LinkedIn. Optimize for Social Media: Optimize your social media distribution strategy by posting your content at the optimum frequency, using share buttons, using visuals, sharing bite-sized succinct and attractive content. Distribute your content uniformly: You may distribute your content in multiple media yet there must be a uniformity of your content throughout all media. The essence of your content like the value proposition, unique selling proposition should be the same in all the media. It will enhance your brand equity in your audiences. Measuring ROI: The right parameters reflect right ROI: If you want to measure the success of your content marketing, select the right parameters to measure it. Selection of parameters for measuring ROI depends on your content marketing objectives. If your want more fans for your brand then engagement rate and rate of shares found are two parameters which will give you the right ROI. Analyze and improve: Once you measure ROI for your content marketing, start analyzing to close the gaps and opportunities. Make a SWOT matrix and utilize the scope for improvement. This way, you will step up your content marketing strategy towards perfection at every cycle. The above discussed rules of content will help you meet the expectations of your audience, it enhances the success of your business. Content marketing is often a time consuming task. It requires regularity, dedication and most importantly professionalism. Specially, if you are already occupied with other tasks, content might become an unmanageable burden for you. A worthier way of managing content marketing is to outsource it to content expert virtual assistants, may be a content expert from GetFriday.

Give your business a winning edge with effective content marketing strategy Read More »

Content marketing is an aspect of marketing which focuses on creating, distributing and analyzing content for target audience. In fact, content marketing is a cyclic process which includes the broad steps of content creation, content distribution, evaluation, analysis and content optimization. Nowadays content marketing is usually driven online but it is not limited to online activities. Billboard ads, TV ads, FM ads, jingles and the like are all various forms of content and their effects are augmented with content marketing. Content marketing is usually objectified to draw in more customers but nowadays the use of content has moved beyond merely attracting prospects. Nowadays content marketing is used even for sales conversion and closing. Thus, content marketing has evolved to be a broad field with deep influence in multiple aspects of the overall marketing. Content is an umbrella word with its significance in every step of marketing, whether it is in introducing a new brand in the market or closing sales with a customer of the brand. In fact, the process of fan building for a brand starts with the making of good content. Thus, content is important in every step of a marketing process and so is content marketing. A mere content marketing is not enough to fetch the best benefits. The results you reap from your content marketing depend on the quality of your content marketing. But it is also very important to strategize the marketing of the generated content. A good way to begin this would be to align it with the fundamentals of your business – the basic objectives of the business, the customer value proposition, brand value et al. Strategizing content marketing is an expansive term to be explained in this blog. A lot depends on the present state of your business, its target audience, it short and long term goals. So, content marketing strategies would differ according to these factors. Yet, a few standard rules must be followed by every content marketer and they are stated as below. The entire content marketing includes broadly the steps of creation, distribution, evaluation and analysis. Each of these steps must be fortified with some rules as follows: Rules for the making of great content: Understand your target audience: Understand your target audience in terms of their lifestyle, behavior, demographics and similar relevant parameters. Once you understand your target audience, analyze and list out their needs and how they react to their needs, what information they seek in regards to their needs and what information might excite them. Make your content easily understandable: Make your content easily understandable for your audience by avoiding jargons, using a reader friendly language, including infographics, etc. Enrich your content with information: Customize your content with relevant information by understanding where your audiences stand in the buyer’s journey. This will help to create useful content. For instance, if your audience is in the state of comparing you with your competitors for making the purchase decision your content must assist the decision making by reflecting how your service or product is differentiated from your competitors. And if your audience is interested in making the purchase, make it easier by using simple easy to navigate payment options and call to action buttons. Tips for content distribution: Reflect and decide: As you start with your content distribution you must reflect upon the following questions: Why do you want your audience to use your content? Where do your audiences mostly consume content? How frequently do they use content? The answers of these questions will set the guidelines for your content distribution. For instance, if you want your content to boost engagement and talk about your brand, a social media platform like Facebook is a good bet for you. Otherwise, if you want a large reach, you should opt for a paid search advertising network. If you want high returns with reach to niche audience, you should stress on SEO or organic marketing of your content in a media like LinkedIn. Optimize for Social Media: Optimize your social media distribution strategy by posting your content at the optimum frequency, using share buttons, using visuals, sharing bite-sized succinct and attractive content. Distribute your content uniformly: You may distribute your content in multiple media yet there must be a uniformity of your content throughout all media. The essence of your content like the value proposition, unique selling proposition should be the same in all the media. It will enhance your brand equity in your audiences. Measuring ROI: The right parameters reflect right ROI: If you want to measure the success of your content marketing, select the right parameters to measure it. Selection of parameters for measuring ROI depends on your content marketing objectives. If your want more fans for your brand then engagement rate and rate of shares found are two parameters which will give you the right ROI. Analyze and improve: Once you measure ROI for your content marketing, start analyzing to close the gaps and opportunities. Make a SWOT matrix and utilize the scope for improvement. This way, you will step up your content marketing strategy towards perfection at every cycle. The above discussed rules of content will help you meet the expectations of your audience, it enhances the success of your business. Content marketing is often a time consuming task. It requires regularity, dedication and most importantly professionalism. Specially, if you are already occupied with other tasks, content might become an unmanageable burden for you. A worthier way of managing content marketing is to outsource it to content expert virtual assistants, may be a content expert from GetFriday.

Social Media: A nifty way for your business

Social media is a significant facet of this digital era. Its influence is reflected by the striking metrics like over a billion audiences in popular social media sites, the annual user increment of around 11%, the remarkable engagement rate and the like. With its evolution over the last decade, social media has eventually become a reliable medium of commercial information. 65% of social media users consider information which is shared on social media while making their purchase decision. No wonder, social media has come to be an effective weapon for business professionals, especially savvy marketers. Some specifics about social media which will encourage you to use social media for your business are sorted out as follows:   Social media offers you low – cost platform for advertising: Developing a social media strategy is the best way to decrease the marketing expenses in a business. While a 30 seconds TV ad pricing $350000 reaches a national audience a Facebook ad at a lesser cost reaches the global audience. So, social media gives you a better harvest for your marketing investments. Social media offers you a wide audience reach: If your aim is a wide reach then social media is your best bet. Facebook has over 1 billion active users across different demographics, geography and cultural parameters. Twitter which is logged in by over 100 million users daily is mostly used by the age ran. The twitter users aging above 60 are also increasing. Social media enables your faster reach to audience: There is hardly anyone who does not have a social media account. More than 60% of the social media account holders use their social media accounts daily. This justifies the fact and assures you that social media has a faster and ascertained reach to your target audience. Social media offers you an intense user engagement: User generated content in social media earns sincere attention of users. Apart from this, most of the content comes off in appealing forms like engaging games, queries, video ads and the like. Social media hikes brand loyalty of your fans: Most of the content in social media is user generated and it flows in from reliable sources. Moreover social media exposes your brand to a wide audience and it enables you to interact with the audience. It’s a three tier effect: it introduces your brand to your young prospective fans, invokes curiosity about your brand and emboldens the faith of your already existing fans. All these help you to earn brand loyalty from your fans. Social media offers you the scope of better customer service: Social media helps you in understanding the sentiment of your audience for your brand. By following the social buzz and analysing social sentiment of your target audience you understand the exact needs of your customers and follow them up with the required service. While the above stated advantages of social media gives you good returns, using social media for your brand is not free from risks. One of the risks arises from the fast reach of social media. So, if it’s a positive buzz your brand may become the king of the market while if it’s a negative buzz, you brand may get affected. So, using social media requires your vigilance all the time. You have to keep an eye on the reactions of your audiences to your marketing activities and keep the buzz about your brand under control. Giving prompt responses to your audience queries, regulating negative posts with an appeasing reply and pivoting audience attention to positive posts help you to regulate the reactions of your audience. If you are infusing social media in your business strategies you must not miss out on these tips:   Learn about the behaviour of your audience: Learning audience behaviour is a mixture of quantitative and qualitative process. It requires your intent observation, social sentiment analysis, search analysis etc. Learning about audience behaviour will help you to tune in your brand with your target audience. Do not beat the drum about your brand: Over promoting your brand will hamper your brand reputation. So, social media strategies must be objectified to win the heart of your audience rather than promoting your business. It should be customer oriented. Respond to messages and queries on time: Apt response to messages and queries from your audience helps you to earn new fans and maintain the relationship with already existing fans. Do not abuse the use of hash tags: The hash tags you use must be relevant to your business and must be popular at the time you make your post. Post at optimal frequencies: Posting at optimal frequencies increases the visibility of your brand in a social site. So, learn about the optimal frequency of posting in a particular site with real time posting as well as secondary research and post accordingly. Use the right parameters to measure the success of your brand: The ROI parameters tell you how effective have been your social media strategies and how you should proceed in the future. Choose the right parameters to evaluate your social media activities and earn rich returns. GetFriday (earlier YMII or YourManInIndia) is a service that was featured and used in the NYTimes best-selling productivity and lifestyle design book ‘The 4-Hour-Workweek’ by Timothy Ferris. Sign up now!

Social Media: A nifty way for your business Read More »

Social media is a significant facet of this digital era. Its influence is reflected by the striking metrics like over a billion audiences in popular social media sites, the annual user increment of around 11%, the remarkable engagement rate and the like. With its evolution over the last decade, social media has eventually become a reliable medium of commercial information. 65% of social media users consider information which is shared on social media while making their purchase decision. No wonder, social media has come to be an effective weapon for business professionals, especially savvy marketers. Some specifics about social media which will encourage you to use social media for your business are sorted out as follows:   Social media offers you low – cost platform for advertising: Developing a social media strategy is the best way to decrease the marketing expenses in a business. While a 30 seconds TV ad pricing $350000 reaches a national audience a Facebook ad at a lesser cost reaches the global audience. So, social media gives you a better harvest for your marketing investments. Social media offers you a wide audience reach: If your aim is a wide reach then social media is your best bet. Facebook has over 1 billion active users across different demographics, geography and cultural parameters. Twitter which is logged in by over 100 million users daily is mostly used by the age ran. The twitter users aging above 60 are also increasing. Social media enables your faster reach to audience: There is hardly anyone who does not have a social media account. More than 60% of the social media account holders use their social media accounts daily. This justifies the fact and assures you that social media has a faster and ascertained reach to your target audience. Social media offers you an intense user engagement: User generated content in social media earns sincere attention of users. Apart from this, most of the content comes off in appealing forms like engaging games, queries, video ads and the like. Social media hikes brand loyalty of your fans: Most of the content in social media is user generated and it flows in from reliable sources. Moreover social media exposes your brand to a wide audience and it enables you to interact with the audience. It’s a three tier effect: it introduces your brand to your young prospective fans, invokes curiosity about your brand and emboldens the faith of your already existing fans. All these help you to earn brand loyalty from your fans. Social media offers you the scope of better customer service: Social media helps you in understanding the sentiment of your audience for your brand. By following the social buzz and analysing social sentiment of your target audience you understand the exact needs of your customers and follow them up with the required service. While the above stated advantages of social media gives you good returns, using social media for your brand is not free from risks. One of the risks arises from the fast reach of social media. So, if it’s a positive buzz your brand may become the king of the market while if it’s a negative buzz, you brand may get affected. So, using social media requires your vigilance all the time. You have to keep an eye on the reactions of your audiences to your marketing activities and keep the buzz about your brand under control. Giving prompt responses to your audience queries, regulating negative posts with an appeasing reply and pivoting audience attention to positive posts help you to regulate the reactions of your audience. If you are infusing social media in your business strategies you must not miss out on these tips:   Learn about the behaviour of your audience: Learning audience behaviour is a mixture of quantitative and qualitative process. It requires your intent observation, social sentiment analysis, search analysis etc. Learning about audience behaviour will help you to tune in your brand with your target audience. Do not beat the drum about your brand: Over promoting your brand will hamper your brand reputation. So, social media strategies must be objectified to win the heart of your audience rather than promoting your business. It should be customer oriented. Respond to messages and queries on time: Apt response to messages and queries from your audience helps you to earn new fans and maintain the relationship with already existing fans. Do not abuse the use of hash tags: The hash tags you use must be relevant to your business and must be popular at the time you make your post. Post at optimal frequencies: Posting at optimal frequencies increases the visibility of your brand in a social site. So, learn about the optimal frequency of posting in a particular site with real time posting as well as secondary research and post accordingly. Use the right parameters to measure the success of your brand: The ROI parameters tell you how effective have been your social media strategies and how you should proceed in the future. Choose the right parameters to evaluate your social media activities and earn rich returns. GetFriday (earlier YMII or YourManInIndia) is a service that was featured and used in the NYTimes best-selling productivity and lifestyle design book ‘The 4-Hour-Workweek’ by Timothy Ferris. Sign up now!

Clash Of The Social Media Giants – Twitter Or FB, What Works Better For your Business?

The results you reap from your social media marketing depend a lot on the social platform you select. The social media sites you choose must satisfy your objectives of marketing. An astute marketer relates his social media marketing to the fundamentals of his business like branding, the value offered to customers, the target segment served etc. Before setting your foot in social media you have to reflect upon these fundamentals. There are a few questions which you must reflect upon mandatorily as you embark on your social media marketing. What type of content is compatible for your business marketing? Is the platform selected compatible with your content type? Is your target audience active in the social platform you have selected? How deep are the insights of ROI available in the social platform you use?   These questions help you justify your selection of the social media platform for marketing. When you select a social media platform you must ensure that your marketing activities are harmonious to the platform features. For instance, your advertisements must appeal to the active audiences; your post timings must match the time when a majority of your target audiences on the platform are active. Facebook and Twitter have been two most sought after social media platforms by a majority of the marketers worldwide for more than a decade. Despite the emergence of many new social media platforms such as Instagram, tumbler, facebook and twitter have managed to retain their positions of leadership as the ‘go-to’ platforms for most marketers. If you have to choose between facebook and twitter for marketing your business, it is good to find out the differences and benefits of each of these platforms. Whichever serves your business purpose, make it the focus of your social media presence. Here we take a quick look at the two giants:   Facebook     Twitter   Facebook started as a social site to reconnect with your school friends. Eventually facebook has started linking its users to experts and celebs apart from old friends. Twitter is a more formal networking site where the users express their opinions in crisp 140 characters. It’s still an informal social site for sharing information, personal and otherwise and creating noteworthy engagement of users. Every 1 million followers in facebook make 700 interactions while the same number of followers in twitter make 300 interactions. Twitter is very useful for spreading the word. Twitter tweets can be retweeted and shared. So, if you have great content that is likely to be shared, Twitter is a good bet. Facebook has a magnum audience of over 1.5 billion and the average age range of this crowd is 25-45. Twitter has a smaller audience of about 4 million and mostly in the age group of below 40. 60% of facebook users are female and 40% are male. Twitter is very mobile friendly. The user engagement in facebook is longer than Twitter. If you boost your facebook posts then the engagement lifespan increases even more. This is because facebook users spend more time on the site. It is a good platform for sharing news, running contests and seeking quick response from companies. Facebook indulges creativity. It allows multi-media content in the form of videos, images and graphics which is easily attracts audience. No wonder users stay intensely engaged in facebook. Twitter gives you the option of buying Twitter cards, which helps you to gather e-mail IDs and generate leads. This, in turn, helps you to track your ROI from your Twitter campaign. Facebook allows marketers the flexibility to choose from various advertising formats that are visually appealing. Twitter is slowly bringing in flexibility to its 140 character limit. Nowadays, Twitter allows vine videos and images which have enhanced the soulfulness of tweets. Based on the above facts, it might be safe to say that if your business is all about fashion, food, travel, film making or the like where visual imagery is important, then Facebook is more preferable. On the other hand, if your business is into services, twitter is a better site for you. It will associate you with the right industry professionals as well as your target audience. If you are a start-up, you can use twitter to generate leads at a low cost. Deciding upon your social marketing site needs some real-time learning. As you start with your social media activities you should make use of both twitter and facebook sites and make a note of the returns yielded by the sites. Whichever site yields you higher engagement and visibility; make it the crux of your social strategies to earn rich returns on your efforts. GetFriday is your personal virtual assistant helping you offload your time-consuming & mundane tasks. You just don’t get an assistant, but get access to an entire team with specialized skills to handle the entire spectrum of your business needs. GetFriday (earlier YMII or YourManInIndia) is a service that was featured and used in the NYTimes best-selling productivity and lifestyle design book ‘The 4-Hour-Workweek’ by Timothy Ferris. Sign up now!

Clash Of The Social Media Giants – Twitter Or FB, What Works Better For your Business? Read More »

The results you reap from your social media marketing depend a lot on the social platform you select. The social media sites you choose must satisfy your objectives of marketing. An astute marketer relates his social media marketing to the fundamentals of his business like branding, the value offered to customers, the target segment served etc. Before setting your foot in social media you have to reflect upon these fundamentals. There are a few questions which you must reflect upon mandatorily as you embark on your social media marketing. What type of content is compatible for your business marketing? Is the platform selected compatible with your content type? Is your target audience active in the social platform you have selected? How deep are the insights of ROI available in the social platform you use?   These questions help you justify your selection of the social media platform for marketing. When you select a social media platform you must ensure that your marketing activities are harmonious to the platform features. For instance, your advertisements must appeal to the active audiences; your post timings must match the time when a majority of your target audiences on the platform are active. Facebook and Twitter have been two most sought after social media platforms by a majority of the marketers worldwide for more than a decade. Despite the emergence of many new social media platforms such as Instagram, tumbler, facebook and twitter have managed to retain their positions of leadership as the ‘go-to’ platforms for most marketers. If you have to choose between facebook and twitter for marketing your business, it is good to find out the differences and benefits of each of these platforms. Whichever serves your business purpose, make it the focus of your social media presence. Here we take a quick look at the two giants:   Facebook     Twitter   Facebook started as a social site to reconnect with your school friends. Eventually facebook has started linking its users to experts and celebs apart from old friends. Twitter is a more formal networking site where the users express their opinions in crisp 140 characters. It’s still an informal social site for sharing information, personal and otherwise and creating noteworthy engagement of users. Every 1 million followers in facebook make 700 interactions while the same number of followers in twitter make 300 interactions. Twitter is very useful for spreading the word. Twitter tweets can be retweeted and shared. So, if you have great content that is likely to be shared, Twitter is a good bet. Facebook has a magnum audience of over 1.5 billion and the average age range of this crowd is 25-45. Twitter has a smaller audience of about 4 million and mostly in the age group of below 40. 60% of facebook users are female and 40% are male. Twitter is very mobile friendly. The user engagement in facebook is longer than Twitter. If you boost your facebook posts then the engagement lifespan increases even more. This is because facebook users spend more time on the site. It is a good platform for sharing news, running contests and seeking quick response from companies. Facebook indulges creativity. It allows multi-media content in the form of videos, images and graphics which is easily attracts audience. No wonder users stay intensely engaged in facebook. Twitter gives you the option of buying Twitter cards, which helps you to gather e-mail IDs and generate leads. This, in turn, helps you to track your ROI from your Twitter campaign. Facebook allows marketers the flexibility to choose from various advertising formats that are visually appealing. Twitter is slowly bringing in flexibility to its 140 character limit. Nowadays, Twitter allows vine videos and images which have enhanced the soulfulness of tweets. Based on the above facts, it might be safe to say that if your business is all about fashion, food, travel, film making or the like where visual imagery is important, then Facebook is more preferable. On the other hand, if your business is into services, twitter is a better site for you. It will associate you with the right industry professionals as well as your target audience. If you are a start-up, you can use twitter to generate leads at a low cost. Deciding upon your social marketing site needs some real-time learning. As you start with your social media activities you should make use of both twitter and facebook sites and make a note of the returns yielded by the sites. Whichever site yields you higher engagement and visibility; make it the crux of your social strategies to earn rich returns on your efforts. GetFriday is your personal virtual assistant helping you offload your time-consuming & mundane tasks. You just don’t get an assistant, but get access to an entire team with specialized skills to handle the entire spectrum of your business needs. GetFriday (earlier YMII or YourManInIndia) is a service that was featured and used in the NYTimes best-selling productivity and lifestyle design book ‘The 4-Hour-Workweek’ by Timothy Ferris. Sign up now!

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