Machine Learning (ML) is what we call the ability to use a computer to process and analyze large amounts of data and then execute decisions based on that data. In the last couple of years, ML has improved by leaps and bounds to the point where it is now an extremely effective tool to use in businesses, especially when used in conjunction with AI. In fact, companies that aren’t already using ML in some capacity with their marketing strategies are quickly falling behind the competition. Fortunately, those who are behind can easily get a machine learning company in to get them set up right away. Here are just a few ways ML can benefit a marketing campaign.
ML in content marketing strategies
People used to make whole professions out of identifying an audience and how that specific audience best responds to the content being provided. It took teams of people to do the analysis, and even then, it was still a lot of guesswork. ML technology allows the people to focus on content creation instead of spending hours analyzing data. It will help identify when to publish, how often to publish, what topics to use, and even the type of language most likely to elicit a response from customers.
Online content is a huge deal because it plays into every part of the marketing process. It is on your website, in social media, in text, in emails, on chat, and even in any print ads you may be doing. Being able to have ML tell you exactly what type of communication your target audience expects and will respond best to is invaluable. It saves time and money avoiding advertisements and communications that customers won’t like.
Personalization in email and text marketing
Email marketing has surged once again as an effective method for communicating with customers. And while most companies have already found a way to automate emails and texts to their customers, personalization is missing much of the time. If you could send personalized messages to your customers instead of one email to all of them, you’ll get a much higher conversion rate. And the best part is that ML can automate these personalized messages, whether you are focusing on an email or text campaign.
Catch their attention
Attention spans are dropping, which means there is almost no time at all to grab your audience and sell your company. On top of that, sometimes there is a sense of urgency to your message, so you need to find a way to quickly get a point across to the audience. With ML, companies are able to create programs that identify when information needs to be sent out and then proceeds to send it in the most effective way possible. Often, quick news is sent through Twitter or on other social media platforms to get the word out quickly. The goal is to catch the attention of the audience easily and make sure the message gets out as fast as possible.
Determining the most effective platform
Sometimes, tweeting something will get the information out quickly, but it might not necessarily turn into sales like personalized social media location marketing might. One of the best way to reach your core audience is to determine what platform to advertise to them on and in which instances you should choose that platform. ML does the work for you in marketing making it easier than ever to ensure you are reaching your audience in the place most likely to get them interested in your company.
Making decisions - in real time
If you have artificial intelligence and machine learning at your disposal, making big decisions is easier than ever. The ML analyzes all the information available faster and more effectively than any human can, and then gives suggestions and recommendations to businesses. This makes it much easier to change methods immediately if they aren’t working and pursue other means of marketing with a competitive edge. Businesses can make the best decisions and incorporate them immediately.
While your company may have already be using machine learning in some aspects of the company, using it for marketing will only make things better. You’ll be able to more easily reach your audience and give them exactly what they want.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/11/15/how-machine-learning-can-maximize-the-success-of-marketing-campaigns/
ML in content marketing strategies
People used to make whole professions out of identifying an audience and how that specific audience best responds to the content being provided. It took teams of people to do the analysis, and even then, it was still a lot of guesswork. ML technology allows the people to focus on content creation instead of spending hours analyzing data. It will help identify when to publish, how often to publish, what topics to use, and even the type of language most likely to elicit a response from customers.
Online content is a huge deal because it plays into every part of the marketing process. It is on your website, in social media, in text, in emails, on chat, and even in any print ads you may be doing. Being able to have ML tell you exactly what type of communication your target audience expects and will respond best to is invaluable. It saves time and money avoiding advertisements and communications that customers won’t like.
Personalization in email and text marketing
Email marketing has surged once again as an effective method for communicating with customers. And while most companies have already found a way to automate emails and texts to their customers, personalization is missing much of the time. If you could send personalized messages to your customers instead of one email to all of them, you’ll get a much higher conversion rate. And the best part is that ML can automate these personalized messages, whether you are focusing on an email or text campaign.
Catch their attention
Attention spans are dropping, which means there is almost no time at all to grab your audience and sell your company. On top of that, sometimes there is a sense of urgency to your message, so you need to find a way to quickly get a point across to the audience. With ML, companies are able to create programs that identify when information needs to be sent out and then proceeds to send it in the most effective way possible. Often, quick news is sent through Twitter or on other social media platforms to get the word out quickly. The goal is to catch the attention of the audience easily and make sure the message gets out as fast as possible.
Determining the most effective platform
Sometimes, tweeting something will get the information out quickly, but it might not necessarily turn into sales like personalized social media location marketing might. One of the best way to reach your core audience is to determine what platform to advertise to them on and in which instances you should choose that platform. ML does the work for you in marketing making it easier than ever to ensure you are reaching your audience in the place most likely to get them interested in your company.
Making decisions - in real time
If you have artificial intelligence and machine learning at your disposal, making big decisions is easier than ever. The ML analyzes all the information available faster and more effectively than any human can, and then gives suggestions and recommendations to businesses. This makes it much easier to change methods immediately if they aren’t working and pursue other means of marketing with a competitive edge. Businesses can make the best decisions and incorporate them immediately.
While your company may have already be using machine learning in some aspects of the company, using it for marketing will only make things better. You’ll be able to more easily reach your audience and give them exactly what they want.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/11/15/how-machine-learning-can-maximize-the-success-of-marketing-campaigns/
Nine out of every ten businesses is using social media for marketing purposes. On Facebook alone, there are more than 50 million business pages. Social media marketing used to be something that put you ahead of the competition in and of itself but today you absolutely have to be doing it just to be relevant. Now if you want to stand out with social media marketing, you have to go above and beyond. Here are five tips that can help you stand out from the competition.
Use SMS to build your social media following
You’ve already got a mobile following in the form of SMS subscribers. They’re loyal customers who’ve given you permission to text them so the chances are good many of them would like to follow your brand on social media as well. Loyal social media followers are a major key to success especially when you’re first starting out. They can help extend the reach of your posts by sharing them within their circles. Send out a text with a link to your Facebook page. An incentive in exchange for a new follower doesn’t hurt either.
Know what’s trending and when to comment on it
Social media needs to be about more than promoting your products and services. Your followers will expect you to be a participant in ongoing conversations relating to your industry. When something newsworthy happens in your industry, you should be aware and ready to contribute to the ensuing conversation. On the other hand, you don’t want to be one of those brands who shamelessly uses trending stories to promote themselves even when the story isn’t relevant to the brand.
Use a post scheduler and a bank full of content ideas
Consistency in sharing valuable content is another huge key to success in the world of social media marketing. The majority of your posts should not be self-promotional. A post scheduler tool can allow you to create a few posts in advance and schedule them to be released at times when they’ll be most effective. You should also be thinking about content ideas constantly. Have a designated place where you jot down ideas as you have them. Some content will be responding to specific current events but others will be timeless advice that you can repurpose for new content pieces down the road so hold onto those as well.
Look before you leap
If Twitter has taught us anything, it’s that while you can delete a tweet, you can’t erase all of the screenshots people take of it between the time you published it and the time you deleted it. Social media marketing can be dangerous because social media users are always on the lookout for anything that can be seen as offensive. A thoughtless post has been the downfall of many brands on social media so businesses need to be vigilant in looking at a post from every possible angle before publishing it. Once again, a post scheduler is useful here because it gives you time between creating the post and releasing it to the world to catch any potential problems with it.
Invest in good data
An estimated 50% of businesses don’t even look at their social media metrics. They have no idea what’s working and what isn’t. Simply using each platform’s built-in analysis tools will give you an edge and investing in a few third-party analysis tools can really help you take your social media strategy to the next level.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: business.com/articles/four-tips-bulletproof-social-media-plan/
Use SMS to build your social media following
You’ve already got a mobile following in the form of SMS subscribers. They’re loyal customers who’ve given you permission to text them so the chances are good many of them would like to follow your brand on social media as well. Loyal social media followers are a major key to success especially when you’re first starting out. They can help extend the reach of your posts by sharing them within their circles. Send out a text with a link to your Facebook page. An incentive in exchange for a new follower doesn’t hurt either.
Know what’s trending and when to comment on it
Social media needs to be about more than promoting your products and services. Your followers will expect you to be a participant in ongoing conversations relating to your industry. When something newsworthy happens in your industry, you should be aware and ready to contribute to the ensuing conversation. On the other hand, you don’t want to be one of those brands who shamelessly uses trending stories to promote themselves even when the story isn’t relevant to the brand.
Use a post scheduler and a bank full of content ideas
Consistency in sharing valuable content is another huge key to success in the world of social media marketing. The majority of your posts should not be self-promotional. A post scheduler tool can allow you to create a few posts in advance and schedule them to be released at times when they’ll be most effective. You should also be thinking about content ideas constantly. Have a designated place where you jot down ideas as you have them. Some content will be responding to specific current events but others will be timeless advice that you can repurpose for new content pieces down the road so hold onto those as well.
Look before you leap
If Twitter has taught us anything, it’s that while you can delete a tweet, you can’t erase all of the screenshots people take of it between the time you published it and the time you deleted it. Social media marketing can be dangerous because social media users are always on the lookout for anything that can be seen as offensive. A thoughtless post has been the downfall of many brands on social media so businesses need to be vigilant in looking at a post from every possible angle before publishing it. Once again, a post scheduler is useful here because it gives you time between creating the post and releasing it to the world to catch any potential problems with it.
Invest in good data
An estimated 50% of businesses don’t even look at their social media metrics. They have no idea what’s working and what isn’t. Simply using each platform’s built-in analysis tools will give you an edge and investing in a few third-party analysis tools can really help you take your social media strategy to the next level.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: business.com/articles/four-tips-bulletproof-social-media-plan/
One of the most challenging obstacles facing chatbot developers is getting chatbots to seem more personable and empathetic. When most people think of talking to a computer program, they imagine a cold and unfeeling AI. If brands what people to interact with their customer service chatbots, they’re going to need to be able to sympathize with customers, pick up on emotional cues and respond in an appropriate manner. Human customer service agents do this without thinking, for chatbots it’s much harder. A team of researchers at Northeastern University in Boston is working on a chatbot that is programmed to deal with one of the most emotionally sensitive topics of all: death. While their goal isn’t a more emotionally intelligent customer service chatbot, their work may have some implications for customer service bots in the future.
Filling a need
Professor Timothy Bickmore who heads the project said the idea was first conceived when he noticed a need. Many older, terminally ill patients are lonely and scared in their final days, weeks, and months. They don’t always have a loved one to guide them through many of the difficult decisions and preparations that need to be handled prior to death and so the concept of an end of life chatbot was conceived.
What it can do
The end of life chatbot can assist terminally ill patients in a number of different ways. It is programmed to walk people through information regarding power of attorney and creating a living will so that they understand what options they have should they become incapacitated and kept alive by medical apparatuses.
The chatbot can guide patients through meditation sessions to help keep them calm if they are feeling afraid. It can also discuss death and the beyond in philosophical or religious terms depending on the patient’s preference. It can even chat with patients about a wide range of topics with the purpose of keeping them company.
In order to create such a chatbot, Bickmore’s team consulted doctors, hospital chaplains, and AI researchers to develop a better understanding of what an end-of-life chatbot would need to be able to do for the people it converses with.
Implications
Further testing is still needed but in early trials, the majority of those who communicated with the end-of-life chatbot reported feeling more at ease and more prepared as they faced death.
Bickmore’s work suggests that chatbots can, to some degree, connect with users on an emotional level and even bring about emotional responses in those they chat with. It’s an important development as more businesses try to create chatbots that can better simulate an interaction with a human customer service agent.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4906384/End-life-chatbot-helps-patients-make-tough-decisions.html
Filling a need
Professor Timothy Bickmore who heads the project said the idea was first conceived when he noticed a need. Many older, terminally ill patients are lonely and scared in their final days, weeks, and months. They don’t always have a loved one to guide them through many of the difficult decisions and preparations that need to be handled prior to death and so the concept of an end of life chatbot was conceived.
What it can do
The end of life chatbot can assist terminally ill patients in a number of different ways. It is programmed to walk people through information regarding power of attorney and creating a living will so that they understand what options they have should they become incapacitated and kept alive by medical apparatuses.
The chatbot can guide patients through meditation sessions to help keep them calm if they are feeling afraid. It can also discuss death and the beyond in philosophical or religious terms depending on the patient’s preference. It can even chat with patients about a wide range of topics with the purpose of keeping them company.
In order to create such a chatbot, Bickmore’s team consulted doctors, hospital chaplains, and AI researchers to develop a better understanding of what an end-of-life chatbot would need to be able to do for the people it converses with.
Implications
Further testing is still needed but in early trials, the majority of those who communicated with the end-of-life chatbot reported feeling more at ease and more prepared as they faced death.
Bickmore’s work suggests that chatbots can, to some degree, connect with users on an emotional level and even bring about emotional responses in those they chat with. It’s an important development as more businesses try to create chatbots that can better simulate an interaction with a human customer service agent.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4906384/End-life-chatbot-helps-patients-make-tough-decisions.html
The year 2017 was a big one for social media, and there’s still three months left. Facebook came up with Instagram Stories to compete with Snapchat and their copycat approach worked as Instagram users have surpassed Snapchat users. The United States got a new president who routinely uses social media to share official policy positions. Twitter shocked the world when they announced that they were doubling their character limit to 280, flying in the face of everything Twitter stands for. The year 2018 has the potential to be just as big for social media. Here are ten social media marketing trends we expect to see in the coming year.
The emergence of augmented reality
When Apple announced their smartphone lineup for the coming year, one of the most exciting features was a more advanced processor that is fast enough to allow users to enjoy augmented reality experiences within apps. In their on-stage demo they showed this off with gaming but the technology could also have implications for social media as well. Expect social media platforms to integrate AR features in 2018.
Instagram Stories users will increase dramatically
Instagram Stories just turned one year old, but it already has 200 million monthly users (50 million more than Snapchat which has been around for 6 years). If that growth rate continues--and we predict it will--half of all Instagram users will be using Instagram Stories by the end of 2018. That’s approximately 400 million monthly users. Brands that master Instagram Stories will have a huge advantage in 2018.
Brands will invest more in influencer marketing
One thing 2017 has taught the world of social media marketing is that traditional advertising doesn’t seem to work as well with this particular channel. People don’t like self-promotion from brands on social media. Enter influencer marketing. Brands can build relationships with influencers who can promote those brands instead in a way that feels more authentic.
Generation Z will become the most important target audience
For many years now, millennials have been the primary target audience for social media marketing campaigns. That has begun to shift already in 2017 and by the end of 2018, Generation Z will undoubtedly be the most important audience for social media marketers as more and more enter the workforce and their purchasing power grows.
Brands will interact more with customers through messaging platforms
More than two-and-a-half billion people use some kind of messaging platform outside of the standard SMS protocol. The growing popularity of these social media messaging platforms combined with the advanced features that you can’t get with SMS will translate to brands making more of an effort to connect with customers through these platforms. Expect to see a big increase in chatbot spending in 2018 since brands can automate much of the communication on these platforms with chatbots.
Livestreams will become a major part of brands’ content strategy
Live streaming was just a novel gimmick at first but major brands as well as smaller ones have discovered that there’s a demand for livestream content on social media. Expect brands to incorporating livestreams into their content strategy in 2018.
Twitter will make more big changes
Twitter was one of the few social media platforms that didn’t gain as many users as they were projected to in 2017. Because the platform has stagnated, they shook things up by experimenting with doubling the 140 character limit that has defined the social media platform all these years. But they won’t stop there. Some possible changes in 2018 include selling to private investors, experimenting with a subscription-based model, and revamping advertising options.
Digital hangouts will become mainstream
Houseparty is a new video hangout platform that has already amassed one million daily users in 2017. It’s a mixture between video chat and conference calling where people can hangout digitally in the form of a group video calling. A major platform like Facebook may buy out Houseparty and make it mainstream or platforms may create their own version of the video hangout platform.
Facebook Spaces will become mainstream
Facebook Spaces is a project the social media giant has been working on for a while now. It takes the concept of digital hangouts one step further and allows friends to hang out in a virtual reality setting. Facebook already owns Oculus, the current leader in VR headsets, so they have all the pieces to take Facebook Spaces mainstream in 2018.
Social media platforms will be rethinking governance policies
Facebook made headlines last week when they announced that they would be turning over thousands of ads that were suspected of being connected to Russian meddling in the presidential election so that they could be investigated by government intelligence agencies. While some praised the move others saw potential for a misuse of power and violations of privacy. Expect social media platforms to rethink the way they handle misconduct on their platforms and expect to see a more hands on approach to dealing with misconduct.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: entrepreneur.com/article/300813#
The emergence of augmented reality
When Apple announced their smartphone lineup for the coming year, one of the most exciting features was a more advanced processor that is fast enough to allow users to enjoy augmented reality experiences within apps. In their on-stage demo they showed this off with gaming but the technology could also have implications for social media as well. Expect social media platforms to integrate AR features in 2018.
Instagram Stories users will increase dramatically
Instagram Stories just turned one year old, but it already has 200 million monthly users (50 million more than Snapchat which has been around for 6 years). If that growth rate continues--and we predict it will--half of all Instagram users will be using Instagram Stories by the end of 2018. That’s approximately 400 million monthly users. Brands that master Instagram Stories will have a huge advantage in 2018.
Brands will invest more in influencer marketing
One thing 2017 has taught the world of social media marketing is that traditional advertising doesn’t seem to work as well with this particular channel. People don’t like self-promotion from brands on social media. Enter influencer marketing. Brands can build relationships with influencers who can promote those brands instead in a way that feels more authentic.
Generation Z will become the most important target audience
For many years now, millennials have been the primary target audience for social media marketing campaigns. That has begun to shift already in 2017 and by the end of 2018, Generation Z will undoubtedly be the most important audience for social media marketers as more and more enter the workforce and their purchasing power grows.
Brands will interact more with customers through messaging platforms
More than two-and-a-half billion people use some kind of messaging platform outside of the standard SMS protocol. The growing popularity of these social media messaging platforms combined with the advanced features that you can’t get with SMS will translate to brands making more of an effort to connect with customers through these platforms. Expect to see a big increase in chatbot spending in 2018 since brands can automate much of the communication on these platforms with chatbots.
Livestreams will become a major part of brands’ content strategy
Live streaming was just a novel gimmick at first but major brands as well as smaller ones have discovered that there’s a demand for livestream content on social media. Expect brands to incorporating livestreams into their content strategy in 2018.
Twitter will make more big changes
Twitter was one of the few social media platforms that didn’t gain as many users as they were projected to in 2017. Because the platform has stagnated, they shook things up by experimenting with doubling the 140 character limit that has defined the social media platform all these years. But they won’t stop there. Some possible changes in 2018 include selling to private investors, experimenting with a subscription-based model, and revamping advertising options.
Digital hangouts will become mainstream
Houseparty is a new video hangout platform that has already amassed one million daily users in 2017. It’s a mixture between video chat and conference calling where people can hangout digitally in the form of a group video calling. A major platform like Facebook may buy out Houseparty and make it mainstream or platforms may create their own version of the video hangout platform.
Facebook Spaces will become mainstream
Facebook Spaces is a project the social media giant has been working on for a while now. It takes the concept of digital hangouts one step further and allows friends to hang out in a virtual reality setting. Facebook already owns Oculus, the current leader in VR headsets, so they have all the pieces to take Facebook Spaces mainstream in 2018.
Social media platforms will be rethinking governance policies
Facebook made headlines last week when they announced that they would be turning over thousands of ads that were suspected of being connected to Russian meddling in the presidential election so that they could be investigated by government intelligence agencies. While some praised the move others saw potential for a misuse of power and violations of privacy. Expect social media platforms to rethink the way they handle misconduct on their platforms and expect to see a more hands on approach to dealing with misconduct.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: entrepreneur.com/article/300813#
The use of chatbots by brands for customer service purposes has really taken off in 2017 and it looks like the trend will continue in coming years as companies see the value in developing a chatbot capable of handling customer complaints and questions at all hours of the day and night. Unfortunately, a lot of brands are rushing into it and making mistakes as a result. Chatbots are complex computer programs that require extensive testing and lots of trial and error to make them effective. Before you invest the money, you need to have a plan for integrating it into your current customer service strategy. Here are a few things to consider.
Chatbots aren’t a replacement for human customer service agents
As with many new technologies, chatbots started out with an overhype phase with many claiming that chatbots would allow companies to get rid of customer service teams altogether. If you envision a chatbot that can perfectly resolve any and all customer service interactions alone, you’ll be disappointed. The fact is that the artificial intelligence that goes into chatbot programming simply isn’t capable of perfectly replicating human speech yet. No matter how hard you work to test your bot and correct errors, it will still keep making more of them because it’s impossible to predict every possible interaction it will ever have. A good chatbot can do things that your best live agent never could like remembering forever the relevant personal info of every single customer it chats with. But a live agent you hired yesterday will be able to understand many of the things that a customer says that a chatbot would not be able to understand.
So plan from the start to integrate your chatbot into an existing team and not to try and replace that team with a computer program.
Not every customer will want to talk to your chatbot
Chatbots are great at speeding up wait times because they can reduce call and chat session volume by taking care of some of the simpler matters unassisted. Brands understandably want to direct customers to their chatbot first and to a live agent only if the chatbot fails. But not everyone of your customers will welcome the experience. The Uncanny Valley is a known phenomenon in which people are unsettled by things that are humanlike but not quite human. Plus there will always be customers who prefer the human element in customer service interactions. Be mindful of this demographic by first of all making it clear to customers that they are talking to a bot and not a person up front so they aren’t made uncomfortable when it starts to become apparent. Also give customers an option early on in the interaction to wait for a live agent so that no one feels forced to converse with a bot if they don’t wish to.
Share information
Your chatbot could learn a lot from transcripts of customer service interactions between humans so make those available to your chatbot development team. Likewise, your customer service team will be more adept at catching errors in the way your chatbot is approaching customer service interactions and their access to chatbot-customer interactions can be helpful in catching and fixing these mistakes. The better your company is and sharing information between the human and computer elements of your customer service strategy, the better off you’ll be.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: entrepreneur.com/article/299398
Chatbots aren’t a replacement for human customer service agents
As with many new technologies, chatbots started out with an overhype phase with many claiming that chatbots would allow companies to get rid of customer service teams altogether. If you envision a chatbot that can perfectly resolve any and all customer service interactions alone, you’ll be disappointed. The fact is that the artificial intelligence that goes into chatbot programming simply isn’t capable of perfectly replicating human speech yet. No matter how hard you work to test your bot and correct errors, it will still keep making more of them because it’s impossible to predict every possible interaction it will ever have. A good chatbot can do things that your best live agent never could like remembering forever the relevant personal info of every single customer it chats with. But a live agent you hired yesterday will be able to understand many of the things that a customer says that a chatbot would not be able to understand.
So plan from the start to integrate your chatbot into an existing team and not to try and replace that team with a computer program.
Not every customer will want to talk to your chatbot
Chatbots are great at speeding up wait times because they can reduce call and chat session volume by taking care of some of the simpler matters unassisted. Brands understandably want to direct customers to their chatbot first and to a live agent only if the chatbot fails. But not everyone of your customers will welcome the experience. The Uncanny Valley is a known phenomenon in which people are unsettled by things that are humanlike but not quite human. Plus there will always be customers who prefer the human element in customer service interactions. Be mindful of this demographic by first of all making it clear to customers that they are talking to a bot and not a person up front so they aren’t made uncomfortable when it starts to become apparent. Also give customers an option early on in the interaction to wait for a live agent so that no one feels forced to converse with a bot if they don’t wish to.
Share information
Your chatbot could learn a lot from transcripts of customer service interactions between humans so make those available to your chatbot development team. Likewise, your customer service team will be more adept at catching errors in the way your chatbot is approaching customer service interactions and their access to chatbot-customer interactions can be helpful in catching and fixing these mistakes. The better your company is and sharing information between the human and computer elements of your customer service strategy, the better off you’ll be.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: entrepreneur.com/article/299398
In most industries, the holiday season is the most profitable time of the year. Businesses work all year to have a holiday marketing strategy in place by November. Holiday marketing has changed quite a bit over the years and many businesses are still trying to use outdated tactics. If your business is part of an industry that depends on the holiday season for success, then the following tips can help you prepare your marketing strategy for the holidays.
Start now
The holiday shopping season has typically begun the day after Thanksgiving but in recent years many stores are opening their doors on the evening of Thanksgiving Day. It’s not uncommon to see businesses setting up their Christmas displays on the first of November immediately after Halloween has passed. By late summer early fall you should already be thinking ahead towards the holiday season. Make sure you’re stocking up on merchandise that’s sure to be a big seller and hire seasonal help if needed.
Target separate events
Don’t make the mistake of lumping all of the holidays into one. Christmas and New Years are the two big ones but Kwanzaa and Hanukkah might be big in your area as well depending on demographics. Don’t forget to take into account days that might be significant just locally like the last day of the semester for school kids. Each of these are separate days that can be used for special sales or events to get more foot traffic and boost sales. In addition to holding separate sales, approach each of them differently since they apply to different demographics with different interests.
Use mobile marketing
Mobile marketing is one of the most effective channels you have to reach customers during the holidays and throughout the year. If you don’t already have an SMS campaign, start one. It’s a great way to build a loyal customer base and reward them for being your customers. SMS is also ideal for time sensitive communications like flash sales or new stock of a popular item that has sold out during a big sale since 90% of text messages are opened and read within three minutes of being received. You can take advantage of geolocation technology built into every phone by sending push notifications to customers who get within a certain distance of your business.
Carry over into January
Sales don’t have to drop off completely after New Year’s day. If you have leftover stock from your holiday sales, you can use January as a month to sell of that extra stock at a steep discount. January is a time for New Year’s resolutions and back to school as well so think about how you can use these to your advantage to stay profitable even after the holiday season is officially over.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: huffingtonpost.com/entry/4-small-business-marketing-tips-for-a-successful-2017_us_59a6b3d9e4b05fa16286be78
Start now
The holiday shopping season has typically begun the day after Thanksgiving but in recent years many stores are opening their doors on the evening of Thanksgiving Day. It’s not uncommon to see businesses setting up their Christmas displays on the first of November immediately after Halloween has passed. By late summer early fall you should already be thinking ahead towards the holiday season. Make sure you’re stocking up on merchandise that’s sure to be a big seller and hire seasonal help if needed.
Target separate events
Don’t make the mistake of lumping all of the holidays into one. Christmas and New Years are the two big ones but Kwanzaa and Hanukkah might be big in your area as well depending on demographics. Don’t forget to take into account days that might be significant just locally like the last day of the semester for school kids. Each of these are separate days that can be used for special sales or events to get more foot traffic and boost sales. In addition to holding separate sales, approach each of them differently since they apply to different demographics with different interests.
Use mobile marketing
Mobile marketing is one of the most effective channels you have to reach customers during the holidays and throughout the year. If you don’t already have an SMS campaign, start one. It’s a great way to build a loyal customer base and reward them for being your customers. SMS is also ideal for time sensitive communications like flash sales or new stock of a popular item that has sold out during a big sale since 90% of text messages are opened and read within three minutes of being received. You can take advantage of geolocation technology built into every phone by sending push notifications to customers who get within a certain distance of your business.
Carry over into January
Sales don’t have to drop off completely after New Year’s day. If you have leftover stock from your holiday sales, you can use January as a month to sell of that extra stock at a steep discount. January is a time for New Year’s resolutions and back to school as well so think about how you can use these to your advantage to stay profitable even after the holiday season is officially over.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: huffingtonpost.com/entry/4-small-business-marketing-tips-for-a-successful-2017_us_59a6b3d9e4b05fa16286be78
Chatbots have come a long way in the short time they’ve been around thanks to advances in machine learning, natural language processing, and other branches of artificial intelligence that go into creating these incredible programs. Though they may not have initially lived up to the hype, chatbots have shown that they have real implications in the world of business. If you haven’t already looked into developing a chatbot for your small business, consider the following reasons that you may want to.
A more personalized marketing approach
Imagine having an employee that can remember every single shopper’s personal preferences and was prepared to offer personalized suggestions to every single individual that walked through the door. Chatbots can do this. Unlike humans who have very limited storage in their brain for minute details, chatbots can remember every interaction they have with every single customer and can draw from that knowledge with each successive encounter with those same customers.
Proactive customer support
Customer support is by its very nature, reactive. Your customer service team can’t reach out to customers before they have a problem, they have to wait until called upon. Chatbots, however, can be proactive. You’ve probably already experienced this when you go to a website to find an answer to a question. Maybe you’re trying to see how many payments you have left on your phone or you’re wondering when you’re due for an upgrade. Perhaps you’re trying to set up automatic payments for a loan you just took out. When you get to the website and can’t find what you’re looking for, a chatbot can recognize you’re stuck based on how long you remain on a page (a long time on a single page or a very short time on several pages in quick succession) and initiate a conversation to get you the help you need.
24/7 service
The average small business doesn’t have the resources to pay a customer support team to be available around the clock. But a chatbot can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and can assist an unlimited number of people simultaneously. Customers will no longer have to wait until the next business day to get some form of assistance, even if it’s just an acknowledgement of the problem and a scheduled call back by a live person at a given time.
Gather and analyze customer info
As already mentioned, chatbots aren’t limited in the amount of memory they can store. This makes chatbots ideal for gathering and analyzing large amounts of data to obtain valuable information. Chatbots can be “fed” hundreds or even thousands of transcripts of actual customer service interactions and find patterns whether it’s common mistakes being made which, if avoided, cut reduce the average time for each interaction. They can also use this ability to become more efficient themselves.
Make customer service interactions fun
Chatbots are new enough that they are still a novelty for many consumers. In other words, people still get a kick out of talking to a computer program once they realize that’s what’s happening. Programming your bot with a little wit or some other personality trait adds a level of realism that customers will really appreciate.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: entrepreneur.com/article/299611#
A more personalized marketing approach
Imagine having an employee that can remember every single shopper’s personal preferences and was prepared to offer personalized suggestions to every single individual that walked through the door. Chatbots can do this. Unlike humans who have very limited storage in their brain for minute details, chatbots can remember every interaction they have with every single customer and can draw from that knowledge with each successive encounter with those same customers.
Proactive customer support
Customer support is by its very nature, reactive. Your customer service team can’t reach out to customers before they have a problem, they have to wait until called upon. Chatbots, however, can be proactive. You’ve probably already experienced this when you go to a website to find an answer to a question. Maybe you’re trying to see how many payments you have left on your phone or you’re wondering when you’re due for an upgrade. Perhaps you’re trying to set up automatic payments for a loan you just took out. When you get to the website and can’t find what you’re looking for, a chatbot can recognize you’re stuck based on how long you remain on a page (a long time on a single page or a very short time on several pages in quick succession) and initiate a conversation to get you the help you need.
24/7 service
The average small business doesn’t have the resources to pay a customer support team to be available around the clock. But a chatbot can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and can assist an unlimited number of people simultaneously. Customers will no longer have to wait until the next business day to get some form of assistance, even if it’s just an acknowledgement of the problem and a scheduled call back by a live person at a given time.
Gather and analyze customer info
As already mentioned, chatbots aren’t limited in the amount of memory they can store. This makes chatbots ideal for gathering and analyzing large amounts of data to obtain valuable information. Chatbots can be “fed” hundreds or even thousands of transcripts of actual customer service interactions and find patterns whether it’s common mistakes being made which, if avoided, cut reduce the average time for each interaction. They can also use this ability to become more efficient themselves.
Make customer service interactions fun
Chatbots are new enough that they are still a novelty for many consumers. In other words, people still get a kick out of talking to a computer program once they realize that’s what’s happening. Programming your bot with a little wit or some other personality trait adds a level of realism that customers will really appreciate.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: entrepreneur.com/article/299611#
When a marketing strategy isn’t giving you the results you want, you may be tempted to just scrap it and start over. While that may often be the best course of action, many failed marketing campaigns can be saved if you’re willing to go back to the drawing board and try some new things. Here are a few tips for salvaging a marketing strategy that has so far been failing you.
Be patient
Depending on the strategy (some should produce near-immediate results while strategies that involve content marketing can take much longer) you may just need to be patient. If you only just rolled out your new content marketing schedule and you aren’t seeing improved numbers, it may just need a few more weeks or even months to start producing the results you want.
Find ways to differentiate it
Depending on your company’s niche, you may be trying to market in an overly crowded marketplace. It could be that your message is too similar to other brands’. It may take a lot of thinking, but you can eventually come up with a brand message that’s different enough from everyone else’s to really stand out.
Sweeten the deal
If your marketing strategy entails some kind of special offer, it may be that the special offer isn’t special enough. This is a fine line of course because too good a deal can bankrupt you or lead to so much interest you can’t meet demand and upset your customers. Carefully consider if you can afford to make your deal better.
Narrow in on a more specific audience
A common marketing mistake is trying to target too wide an audience. It may seem counter-intuitive but you actually want to target a smaller audience with more relevant advertising than a wider audience with less relevant advertising. Everything from the channels you’re using to the tone you’re adopting can be adjusted to better fit your target audience.
Segment and test your strategy
It may be that just one aspect of your marketing strategy isn’t working. To find the source of your problems you’ll have to segment and AB test. You can stop all efforts on one social media platforms to see how the other stands up on it’s own. You can test one version of a landing page against another version.
Unify your efforts
Regardless of how many channels you’re using, you need certain uniform elements to tie them together. If all of the smaller parts aren’t contributing to a greater whole, you need to revisit those parts individually to see how you can get them to work better together. A foolproof way to do this is to make sure you’re integrating various channels. Your text messages should link recipients to your mobile site and your social media pages, your mobile site should direct people to your social media profiles and tell visitors how to sign up to receive text messages and your social media pages should encourage people to opt-in to your SMS loyalty program and to visit your mobile site.
Last resort
A new strategy is always an option you can go to as a last resort. If you’ve given it time and tried the other tips mentioned above, it may be time to find a new angle, a new channel, or an entirely new brand message.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: entrepreneur.com/article/298641
Be patient
Depending on the strategy (some should produce near-immediate results while strategies that involve content marketing can take much longer) you may just need to be patient. If you only just rolled out your new content marketing schedule and you aren’t seeing improved numbers, it may just need a few more weeks or even months to start producing the results you want.
Find ways to differentiate it
Depending on your company’s niche, you may be trying to market in an overly crowded marketplace. It could be that your message is too similar to other brands’. It may take a lot of thinking, but you can eventually come up with a brand message that’s different enough from everyone else’s to really stand out.
Sweeten the deal
If your marketing strategy entails some kind of special offer, it may be that the special offer isn’t special enough. This is a fine line of course because too good a deal can bankrupt you or lead to so much interest you can’t meet demand and upset your customers. Carefully consider if you can afford to make your deal better.
Narrow in on a more specific audience
A common marketing mistake is trying to target too wide an audience. It may seem counter-intuitive but you actually want to target a smaller audience with more relevant advertising than a wider audience with less relevant advertising. Everything from the channels you’re using to the tone you’re adopting can be adjusted to better fit your target audience.
Segment and test your strategy
It may be that just one aspect of your marketing strategy isn’t working. To find the source of your problems you’ll have to segment and AB test. You can stop all efforts on one social media platforms to see how the other stands up on it’s own. You can test one version of a landing page against another version.
Unify your efforts
Regardless of how many channels you’re using, you need certain uniform elements to tie them together. If all of the smaller parts aren’t contributing to a greater whole, you need to revisit those parts individually to see how you can get them to work better together. A foolproof way to do this is to make sure you’re integrating various channels. Your text messages should link recipients to your mobile site and your social media pages, your mobile site should direct people to your social media profiles and tell visitors how to sign up to receive text messages and your social media pages should encourage people to opt-in to your SMS loyalty program and to visit your mobile site.
Last resort
A new strategy is always an option you can go to as a last resort. If you’ve given it time and tried the other tips mentioned above, it may be time to find a new angle, a new channel, or an entirely new brand message.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: entrepreneur.com/article/298641
In this day and age, a strong social media presence is crucial for any brand that hopes to stay relevant. But social media is a crowded place, to succeed in creating a strong social media presence, you need to be aware of the following eight keys to success.
Quality over quantity
Quality over quantity applies to a couple of different things as it pertains to social media. The first is that you need to focus on making quality posts using quality images or quality video content rather than posting average stuff every couple of hours. The second is that you need to attract quality followers, people who will actively participate in conversations in the comments section of your posts and share your posts with their friends, not people who will give your page a “like” and never do anything else.
Success requires patience
Building a strong base of followers and establishing a real presence on any social media platform will take time. Go in with realistic expectations and be prepared to work very hard for a very long time to get the results you want.
Good content does the heavy lifting for you
One of the great things about social media is that you don’t have to do all the marketing yourself. Your followers will help make your content reach more people but only if you’re taking the time to craft quality content that makes people excited to share it with their friends.
Connect with influencers
Influencers are people with a much wider audience than the typical social media user. These are people with an established social media presence with a strong following that consists of the type of people who would really like your brand. You need to spend time on social media listening to conversation before adding to it to find out who these contributors are.
Don’t self-promote
People encounter enough advertising on social media as it is thanks to sponsored posts that intrude on their newsfeeds or video ads that play during the video content they’re trying to view. People who follow your brand on social media don’t do so because they want to be marketed to. They want to stay connected, see what things your brand is working on, and follow the conversations you’re engaging in. So focus on providing value to followers and not on promoting your own brand.
Be quick to respond
People like to feel acknowledged, so whether people are asking questions, adding insights to something you’ve posted, complementing your brand, or airing a grievance, you need to be quick to respond. If you don’t have the time to keep up with this yourself, then it’s worth paying someone who does to do it for you.
Return the favor
As you connect with influencers and followers online, it’s important to do for them what you hope they’ll do for you. Don’t just start conversations; add to existing ones. Follow influencers and share their content; help drive traffic their way. The more you do this, the more likely they are to do it for you. It also benefits you when social media users who aren’t aware of your brand see you interacting with people they do follow.
If you build it, they won’t come
Don’t expect your customers or people in your target audience to seek you out on social media. Just because you create a page for a social media platform doesn’t mean users of that platform will flock to it. You need to make use of your existing marketing channels to create awareness of your social media profiles. Prominently display links on your website that will connect people to various social media profiles. Use SMS to reach out to your most loyal customers and offer incentives to those who “like” your page or share your posts. These are the people who are most likely to be your first followers and they’ll kickstart your strong social media presence.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218160
Quality over quantity
Quality over quantity applies to a couple of different things as it pertains to social media. The first is that you need to focus on making quality posts using quality images or quality video content rather than posting average stuff every couple of hours. The second is that you need to attract quality followers, people who will actively participate in conversations in the comments section of your posts and share your posts with their friends, not people who will give your page a “like” and never do anything else.
Success requires patience
Building a strong base of followers and establishing a real presence on any social media platform will take time. Go in with realistic expectations and be prepared to work very hard for a very long time to get the results you want.
Good content does the heavy lifting for you
One of the great things about social media is that you don’t have to do all the marketing yourself. Your followers will help make your content reach more people but only if you’re taking the time to craft quality content that makes people excited to share it with their friends.
Connect with influencers
Influencers are people with a much wider audience than the typical social media user. These are people with an established social media presence with a strong following that consists of the type of people who would really like your brand. You need to spend time on social media listening to conversation before adding to it to find out who these contributors are.
Don’t self-promote
People encounter enough advertising on social media as it is thanks to sponsored posts that intrude on their newsfeeds or video ads that play during the video content they’re trying to view. People who follow your brand on social media don’t do so because they want to be marketed to. They want to stay connected, see what things your brand is working on, and follow the conversations you’re engaging in. So focus on providing value to followers and not on promoting your own brand.
Be quick to respond
People like to feel acknowledged, so whether people are asking questions, adding insights to something you’ve posted, complementing your brand, or airing a grievance, you need to be quick to respond. If you don’t have the time to keep up with this yourself, then it’s worth paying someone who does to do it for you.
Return the favor
As you connect with influencers and followers online, it’s important to do for them what you hope they’ll do for you. Don’t just start conversations; add to existing ones. Follow influencers and share their content; help drive traffic their way. The more you do this, the more likely they are to do it for you. It also benefits you when social media users who aren’t aware of your brand see you interacting with people they do follow.
If you build it, they won’t come
Don’t expect your customers or people in your target audience to seek you out on social media. Just because you create a page for a social media platform doesn’t mean users of that platform will flock to it. You need to make use of your existing marketing channels to create awareness of your social media profiles. Prominently display links on your website that will connect people to various social media profiles. Use SMS to reach out to your most loyal customers and offer incentives to those who “like” your page or share your posts. These are the people who are most likely to be your first followers and they’ll kickstart your strong social media presence.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218160
Chatbots are the big trend in customer service today and many experts predict that they’ll completely alter the way that people and brands interact going forward. Chatbots can not only ease the burden on customer service agents but they can in eliminate the need for costly mobile apps that many smaller businesses can’t afford. But before you invest time and money in developing and deploying a chatbot for your small business, here are three things you need to know first.
Who is your audience?
Your chatbot can’t interact effectively with your customer base if it doesn’t understand who they are and what makes them tick. And the only way your chatbot can be programmed to know your audience is if you already know them and make the effort to program your bot with that same knowledge. Some obvious places to start is with obvious demographics. Are they primarily male or female or an even mix? Are they younger or older or does their age vary widely? Do they come from wealthier or poorer backgrounds? Do they lean conservative or liberal? Chances are your customers will usually divide along these lines. Another thing to consider about your customer base is where they usually turn for customer service help. To they go to your website, call a customer service line or do they turn to social media for help?
What is your goal and how can you achieve it?
You need to have well-defined goals for your chatbot or it will be a complete failure. A surprising number of companies are just programming chatbots just to do it because everyone else is. To improve the customer service experience is a given but how specifically do you want to improve it? Are you trying to reduce wait times? If so, how can your chatbot help you accomplish that? Also recognize that your chatbot won’t be an overnight success. Chatbots learn by making mistakes. You will almost certainly need to go in and make adjustments to make it more effective and achieving the goals you’ve set for your bot.
How will you get customers to use it?
No matter how much time and effort you put into creating a useful chatbot, it will all be a waste if your customers don’t know about it or don’t wish to use it. Revisit the question of audience and where they turn to for customer assistance. If you have a customer service line they usually call, maybe you can provide instructions for reaching out to your chatbot in the automated phone answering system you use so customers waiting for a live agent might hang up and go to your chatbot. If they go to your website, you might have your chatbot initiate a conversation when it seems your customers are stuck on a webpage. You can use existing marketing channels whether that’s email, SMS, or something else to tell your frequent customers about your newest customer service agent. Give it a catchy name that people will remember and be excited about.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: smallbiztrends.com/2017/08/chatbots-for-customer-service.html
Who is your audience?
Your chatbot can’t interact effectively with your customer base if it doesn’t understand who they are and what makes them tick. And the only way your chatbot can be programmed to know your audience is if you already know them and make the effort to program your bot with that same knowledge. Some obvious places to start is with obvious demographics. Are they primarily male or female or an even mix? Are they younger or older or does their age vary widely? Do they come from wealthier or poorer backgrounds? Do they lean conservative or liberal? Chances are your customers will usually divide along these lines. Another thing to consider about your customer base is where they usually turn for customer service help. To they go to your website, call a customer service line or do they turn to social media for help?
What is your goal and how can you achieve it?
You need to have well-defined goals for your chatbot or it will be a complete failure. A surprising number of companies are just programming chatbots just to do it because everyone else is. To improve the customer service experience is a given but how specifically do you want to improve it? Are you trying to reduce wait times? If so, how can your chatbot help you accomplish that? Also recognize that your chatbot won’t be an overnight success. Chatbots learn by making mistakes. You will almost certainly need to go in and make adjustments to make it more effective and achieving the goals you’ve set for your bot.
How will you get customers to use it?
No matter how much time and effort you put into creating a useful chatbot, it will all be a waste if your customers don’t know about it or don’t wish to use it. Revisit the question of audience and where they turn to for customer assistance. If you have a customer service line they usually call, maybe you can provide instructions for reaching out to your chatbot in the automated phone answering system you use so customers waiting for a live agent might hang up and go to your chatbot. If they go to your website, you might have your chatbot initiate a conversation when it seems your customers are stuck on a webpage. You can use existing marketing channels whether that’s email, SMS, or something else to tell your frequent customers about your newest customer service agent. Give it a catchy name that people will remember and be excited about.
Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com
Source: smallbiztrends.com/2017/08/chatbots-for-customer-service.html
