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You are here: Home / 2018 / Archives for July 2018

Archives for July 2018

5 Ways to Stay Focused Through When the Journey Gets Tough

July 30, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


Don’t miss the fourth point. It’s also the key to a happy life.


July 30, 2018

7 min read


This article is excerpted from Entrepreneur magazine editor in chief Jason Feifer’s monthly newsletter, The Feifer Five. Each month, he sends out five insights to help you think more entrepreneurially. Subscribe here.

It’s going to happen: Along your entrepreneurial journey, you will be frustrated. Derailed. Feel lost in the woods. But that’s normal. Good, even! Enduring these challenges will prepare you for the even great ones ahead, and will open your eyes to the many inspirations around you that you hadn’t previously considered.

That’s what this list is all about: The inspiration that can come from anywhere. We’re going to Maine for lobsters, Oregon for ice cream and more. Let’s go.


1. What Danica Patrick can teach you about change.

Image credit: Nigel Parry

 

Recently, I met an entrepreneur who’d built his own golden handcuffs. His ecommerce business does more than $1 million in sales every year, and makes him a handsome return. But he’s unhappy. The site is boring to operate. He wants to do something else. And yet, he doesn’t. Why? Because he’s unsure if he can be successful at anything else. What if, he fears, this is it? What if this is all he’s good at?

This is the downside of success, and I see it a lot. Once we’ve reached some level of achievement, many of us lose our appetite for risk. We groan at the idea of starting fresh, or of pushing beyond. We become trapped maintaining what we have, rather than building bigger, or better, or simply anew. And for everyone who’s ever faced this, I offer you our new cover profile of Danica Patrick. She just retired from racing, and we sent a reporter to Indianapolis to follow her during her final days. She admitted to us that, for quite a while, she’d stopped loving the sport of racing. But rather than fear those final days, she prepared for them — by methodically building new businesses, finding new interests and assembling the bridge she’d one day cross.

I love that approach. Let us celebrate success but not be trapped by it. Let us use our success as fuel, propelling us wherever we want to go. We entrepreneurs are doers and achievers. Nothing should hold us back — not even our good fortune.


2. What ice cream can teach you about failure.

My high school friend Chad runs a great ice cream shop in Portland called Fifty Licks, and has learned a lot from the ups and downs of the sweets biz. I really loved this video profile of him, and especially his insight on risk:

“You have to be able to accept risk. You have to be able to live with not knowing how things are going to unfold and what’s going to happen next, and be OK with that. I think that the best way to overcome fear is to have what you’re afraid of happen. I think to have calamity, to have disaster, to have failure — I think failure teaches you a lot. It teaches you that you have the strength to endure the worst that can happen.”

Exactly.


3. What “lobesters” can teach you about thinking creatively.

Image credit: Jason Feifer

 

Wait, you might say — does this Maine farmstand realize they misspelled lobster? I talked to the staff and the answer is: Yes, of course. It was originally a mistake, but they kept it because it was funny and memorable. They even sell T-shirts saying “Home of the lobester.”

I love this. In the land of lobster, how do you stand out? By selling lobester!

Every entrepreneur and business needs to think about what makes them memorable. What sticks in people’s minds? The answer might come from unexpected places. And if you’re willing to think creatively and embrace surprises, you’ll have something nobody else does.


4. What MailChimp can teach you about the people you don’t need to email.

Image credit: Courtesy of MailChimp

MailChimp, the service I use to send this newsletter, went through some serious growing pains. Its founder and CEO, Ben Chestnut (pictured above), was struggling to lead his suddenly booming company, and he had to undergo some major transformations in order to right the ship. I recently spoke with him for my podcast Problem Solvers (listen: iTunes, web), and he was full of great leadership advice.

But here, I want to pull out a particularly important, very personal thing he told me during the interview: He was once so stressed at work that it was harming his marriage. And he realized that a big part of the solution to his work troubles actually started at home.

Here, straight from our interview, is Ben:

“One of the things that I stumbled upon, and I’m so lucky that I did, I wish I could remember the name of this book, but the author said, ‘Talk to your spouse about everything.’ Because we have this habit of leaving work at the office. You come home and you turn that off and then when you come to work you kind of leave your personal stuff at home. And he says, ‘This is just ridiculous. A human being should be able to talk about all of it.’

“When I started to talk to my wife about everything — every bit of stress, anything that humiliated me — it finally got better. She had some great business advice for me. And she actually started to come to work sometimes, to some holiday parties, and she knew people by name because I would talk about them. She would thank them. Just having her as an ally was tremendously helpful for me getting through this.

“I don’t think that I hear that advice very much. Talk to your partner. I’d just kept it to myself. There was a while where my wife told me that she she didn’t know what was going on. She thought that I hated her. My behavior was just so weird. I was just so stressed all the time. And then she came up to me and said, ‘If it will make it easier, I can move out for a little while and take the kids.’ And then I thought, This is really bad. I didn’t know that I was this bad. And so I started to open up and talk to her about it, and then everything just changed. I think it probably would have been another two years [of struggles at work] if I hadn’t just started opening up and talking about this. So, partner, therapist, anybody — just talk.”


5. What a cat toy can teach you about perseverance.

Image credit: David Yellen

 

We all have our mountains to climb. We all wonder if we have enough energy to reach the finish, far off in the unseen distance. And so, for inspiration, I offer you this amazing tale.

Fred and Natasha Ruckel had invented a hit cat toy, but sales dropped when someone began counterfeiting it. Instead of giving up, the couple began doggedly pursuing the counterfeiter — hacking through layers of obfuscation until they finally found their culprit, sued them, got a load of documents that revealed how the counterfeit worked and then gave all those documents to us at Entrepreneur. The resulting story is one of my favorites ever: It reveals exactly how a counterfeit operation works, and how this couple stayed so focused. Worth your time, for sure.


That’s it for this edition of The Feifer Five! I’ll leave you with this parting thought: You do not have to take this journey alone. Turn to other people — to mentors! — to help you along the way. If you’re in need of a mentor, please read this. It’ll help you think differently about who your mentors can and should be.

Enjoy this newsletter? Don’t forget to subscribe!



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Filed Under: Entrepreneur

If you want to keep your best talent, here are top 11 reasons why employees stay

July 30, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


Retaining top talent and unicorn employees is key to long-term productivity and team-effectiveness.



Reasons Employees Stay

So knowing what makes people happy at work is important.

Benefits and Incentives

Some of the most effective benefits and incentives are greater working independence, development opportunities, healthcare, commuting assistance, and performance bonuses.

Satisfaction with the Environment

A clean and organized workplace with a lively atmosphere, ample space, and sufficient facilities is crucial to maintain employee morale.

People are also accounted for in the environment. Opportunity to socialize and collaborate is a big part of workplace synergy.

Financial Compensation

Payment for work rendered, with bonuses and incentives to supplement it, provides stability.

Being open to the possibility of pay raises in the future with long-term tenure and continued good performance is also a motivating factor.

Inspiration for Working Smarter

Encourage smart work instead of busy work. This is more productive and rewarding.

This approach needs to be alive in managers who supervise without micromanaging.

Great Relationships with Leadership

Those who strive to prove themselves every single day should be commended for their work ethic.

Those who may be falling behind should be consoled and sympathized with, which can be motivation to perform better

Connecting with employees and forming relationships is a factor in a harmonious workplace.

Challenge and Excitement

People want to be engaged with challenging work that piques their interest and makes the most of their technical and interpersonal skills.

Being able to complete projects with a dynamic and well-balanced team is motivating.

Mentorship

Learning from more experienced members of the company can make things easier for new and less experienced employees.

Mentorship is conducive to learning on the job with a more hands-on approach.

Recognition

It goes without saying. Everyone likes to be respected and recognized for their contributions.

Career Development

Most employees don’t want to be stuck in dead-end jobs with no prospects for advancement and doing the same thing for years.

Being engaged includes new challenges to overcome and new skills to learn in order to develop as employees and people.

Work-Life Balance

Too much overtime dampens productivity. A fair amount of sick leave and vacation time is motivation to take ample rest and recovery time.

This insures that employees go back to work with a renewed sense of purpose and excitement to perform.

Participating in Something Special

A company can retain employees when the culture is harmonious, the work is engaging, and everyone gets along.

Further, a company with a mission statement supports a workforce energized to fulfill it.

Possibly above all, people are motivated to be part of something that’s not only about making a profit, but also about providing a quality service or game-changing solution to the world.

Republished by permission. Original here.

Photo via Shutterstock

More in: Publisher Channel Content




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Could Trustpilot Be the Customer Review Program for Your Online Company?

July 30, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


Whether you’ve recently launched an online business or have been running one for a while, you surely know that reviews are important not only for attracting new customers, but also for building a strong brand reputation. However, have you ever stopped to consider that a methodical customer review program could boost your profits?

As a matter of fact, there are multiple benefits that come from consumer feedback. After all, 97% of online shoppers look at reviews when searching for a business. Furthermore, 93% report that reviews influence their decision to purchase. Additionally, customer feedback plays a significant role in SEO and search marketing. This means that the more reviews you have, the higher your business will rank when customers conduct organic searches.

Therefore, picking the right custom software solution for customer review management is a major decision. This is true not only because of their generally high price points. Moreover, because of so many options and promises, it can be difficult to determine whether or not a customer review program will even help your business.

 

RELATED ARTICLE: KNOWING WHEN IT’S TIME FOR A CUSTOM SOFTWARE SOLUTION

 

Trustpilot is a great option for many online businesses. That’s because it provides numerous features. Additionally, it also offers flexibility and customization options so it can fulfill your precise needs.

Here is a breakdown of what Trustpilot is and what it does. Let’s dive in.

 

1. Pricing Plans

There are lots of variables when it comes to online businesses and their budgets. Each has its own marketing strategies and service needs. This is why a flexible plan for a customer review program is a great option. This is especially so for smaller or new online companies that don’t have a lot of funds.

Trustpilot offers four different packages. These even include a free starter program that offers the basics to get new companies up and running. From there, the Lite platform offers some additional features. For instance, there are personalization options and a greater number of review invitations that you can send out each month.

The Pro and Enterprise plans offer even more options. These include customization and multiple integration options for a more comprehensive strategy.

Image Credit: Trustpilot

 

2. Review Collection Process

Collecting feedback can be tricky. However, customers are more likely to leave a review if the business asks them to. According to the Pew Research Center, only 10% of customers leave feedback regularly on the products or services they buy. However, when customers are specifically asked to leave a review, that number jumps up to 68%.

There are several strategies that Trustpilot offers for collecting feedback.

Trustpilot offers a simple and easy-to-use review collection form. This form asks customers to provide a star rating. It also requests an optional typed review.

Both of these features are important for a business’s feedback system. That’s because customers report that the overall star rating and the sentiment of the reviews are the most important factors they pay attention to.

customer review program 2

Image Credit: Trustpilot

The sooner you reach a customer after their purchase, the better. You can set up automatic review invitations through Trustpilot to be sent via email. In this way, you’ll capture customers’ attention while the experience is still fresh in their memory.

Feedback reviews provide valuable keywords that can connect future customers to your website. Further, listing reviews on your website allows you to optimize your SEO strategy for the RankBrain algorithm. This could help your website ranking over time.

RELATED ARTICLE: RANKBRAIN ALGORITHM FORCES TO DEVELOP NEW SEO STRATEGIES

The embedded review form feature means that each review you receive can be posted directly on your website. This will increase its visibility for both Googlebots and customers checking out your site.

If you are an ecommerce company, chances are that you have partnered with an online merchant platform to launch your site. Trustpilot offers several app integrations with big names like Magneto, WooCommerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce. Therefore, you’ll be able to post reviews on your website seamlessly with Trustpilot’s customer review program.

An API (Application Programming Interface) is a software-to-software interface that allows two programs to transfer data automatically. Trustpilot’s customer API works with other software tools you may already have, such as a CRM system. You’ll be able to organize the consumer data that it collects from these reviews and apply it to other databases.

 

3. Review Reminders

Of course, not all of your customers will fill out a review form as soon as they receive an invitation. However, it is important to gather this feedback fairly quickly after the purchase has been completed. This will ensure that the review is relevant and accurate. With a quality customer review program, you can automate this process.

Your team can set up automatic review reminder email messages to be sent out if a customer does not leave feedback within a certain amount of time. According to Trustpilot’s research, this little reminder is enough to increase feedback by 35%.

customer review program 3

Image Credit: Trustpilot

 

4. Editing Existing Reviews

While it is certainly tempting to remove or hide negative reviews, this can actually hurt your business and destroy consumer trust. According to this report, a mix of positive and negative reviews actually makes the majority of customers trust a business more.

customer review program 4

Image Credit: Source

Trustpilot is committed to offering an open review platform. This means that everyone—invited or not—has the option to leave a review. Fear not. This is a good thing!

A customer review program that allows businesses to selectively pick who gets to leave a review is not presenting genuine information to consumers. Essentially, this allows brands to cherry pick their feedback. What’s more, this is something that most consumers will see right through. For this reason and more, Trustpilot does not allow companies to hide, change, or remove negative reviews.

However, you can request Trustpilot’s compliance team to take a look to see if the content violates its feedback policy. You can also request a review if you have reason to believe the review is spam and/or fraudulent.

On the other hand, a customer who leaves a review can edit that same review. So if you receive a scathing review, you can reach out to the customer and attempt to resolve the issue. Perhaps you can even change the customer’s perception and persuade them to modify their review.

 

5. TrustBoxes

The TrustBox widget feature makes it easy to display all of your customer reviews on your website. This provides more content for search engines to read. Additionally, it makes customers more confident with their purchase decisions.

You can even customize these boxes to show reviews for specific tags or keywords. For example, you could tag your customer service department’s rating or the overall sentiment for a specific product.

Remember, while you cannot edit a review, openly displaying it on your website can potentially boost customer confidence. Customers spend 31% more on purchases if a company lists reviews. What’s more, 68% say that reviews make them trust the business more, too.

customer review program 5

Image Credit: Source

 

6. Marketing Assets

Customer feedback is a great source of user-generated content (UGC) that you can integrate into your marketing program. According to this report, 80% of customers believe that when brands use UGC regularly, it makes their content more authentic and trustworthy.

customer review program 6

Image Credit: SocialMediaToday.com

By using a customer review program to gather lots of feedback, your marketing team will have far more content to work with. This will help them to create UGC-focused materials that can help your business grow.

 

7. Social Media Integration

Social media continues to have a significant effect on day-to-day life. This is especially evident in how it influences our shopping habits. For example, nearly three-fourths of online shoppers use social media to check out reviews and comments. They then use this information to determine whether or not they should buy. As a result, 52% of online and offline purchases are now influenced by an ad or a post seen on Facebook.

You can take advantage of this trend by transferring your Trustpilot customer feedback right into your Facebook page. Or create customized Tweets and Instagram-worthy content to share with Trustbot’s image generator. You can create these posts manually. However, if you go with the Enterprise plan, Trustpilot will automatically update your Facebook feedback for you.

customer review program 7

Image Credit: Trustpilot

It is always wise to learn about the product through the eyes of its consumer. That’s because customers who have used the product can offer valuable insights about their experience. Go through Trustpilot Customer Reviews to know what Trustpilot’s verified customers have to share about this valuable customer review program.

 

Let a Quality Customer Review Program Take Your Business to the Next Level

A quality customer review program can help your business to collect quality reviews. It can also help you to integrate those reviews into your business strategies successfully.

When it comes to choosing a customer review program, Trustpilot has a lot of great features to offer. Further, those features will bring your brand’s marketing strategy and customer experience to the next level.



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Filed Under: Biz Opportunities

18 Tips to Help Your Resume Stand Out From the Rest (Infographic)

July 29, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


These quick tips can help you get your foot in the door at the company of your dreams.


July 29, 2018

2 min read


Landing a job — or even a job interview — isn’t easy. One of the most important components of a successful job search is having a stellar resume. In fact, having a resume that makes you stand out from the rest of the applicant pool is usually the first step to getting your foot in the door. So, how can better your chances?

Related: 10 Tips for Landing a Job in a New City

If you have your eye on a specific job listing, run the listing through a cloud generator, which will pull out the most prominent words that you should include on your resume. These words can help act as a guide for tailoring your resume to certain jobs or companies. Next, be sure to format your resume in reverse chronological order, starting with your most recent experience at the top. Typically, recruiters take six seconds scanning an applicant’s resume, so it’s important to make it relevant, easy to read and to the point.

Related: 3 Questions Every Resume Should Answer

Don’t include a photo on your resume unless it’s specifically requested — hiring managers reject a whopping 88 percent of candidates who do so. Instead, add a link to your portfolio, LinkedIn or Twitter. Seventy-one percent of hiring managers think this is an attractive feature to have on a resume. You should also include a summary statement and a list of your skills as these help recruiters and HR professionals easily find and learn certain information about you. In addition, remember to always illustrate your skills with numbers to show proof of your accomplishments, and limit yourself to six bullet points per job.

Related: How to Stand Out During a Job Interview

To learn more ways to improve your resume, check out Net Credit’s infographic below.



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Filed Under: Entrepreneur

The Art and Science of Delegation (Infographic)

July 28, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


To spare your time and sanity, sometimes you have to let others take the wheel.


July 28, 2018

2 min read


Entrepreneurship means wearing a lot of hats. At times, you might find yourself playing accountant, hiring manager, marketer and CEO all at the same time. Not only that, but in addition to the time commitment, starting a business can also require lots of money. However, as an entrepreneur, these are the types of sacrifices you have to make in order to follow your dreams.

Related: 7 Rules for Entrepreneurs to Delegate Effectively

According to research from ScaleTime, nearly half of all small-business owners said they used their personal savings to fund parts of their business. When it comes to time, entrepreneurs are always on the clock. In fact, a whopping 86 percent admitted to working on the weekends, and 53 percent said they worked on major holidays.

All this time and money spent can become exhausting. That’s why it’s incredibly important to delegate. When you’re not delegating enough, leaving all the hard decision-making in your own hands, you might find yourself experience “decision fatigue.” When the brain’s decision-making powers are overworked, making rational decisions becomes harder and harder.

Related: 5 Keys to Inspiring Leadership, No Matter Your Style

Of course, delegating important tasks is not always easy. But the truth is, you can’t do it all and sometimes you’ve got to let others take the wheel. To make yourself comfortable with delegation, there are certain steps you can take.

For starters, effective delegation starts with hiring employees who you trust and can rely on. It’s also important to codify your business and make sure it’s prepared for anything that comes its way. This means making sure all of your operations are consistent and transparent, and that every decision doesn’t depend on one person’s know-how. Creating a company overview, systems processes and a training handbook are good ways to do this.

Related: Follow-up Is the Secret to Effective Delegation

To learn more, check out ScaleTime’s infographic below.



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Filed Under: Entrepreneur

How to Launch Your First Email Marketing Campaign and Get the Results You Want

July 27, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


Email isn’t going anywhere. There are 3.7 billion global email users. Wouldn’t you like all of them to be your customers?


July 27, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


Email isn’t going anywhere. There are 3.7 billion global email users, and that number is expected to grow to 4.1 billion by 2021. What’s more, this communication channel is supremely popular: People check their emails multiple times a day, and when you’re trying to market your company, you can get your name into thousands of inboxes just by launching an email marketing campaign.

Related: How to Boost Deliverability and Win at Email Marketing

The cost? Email marketing is also super-affordable, which makes it great for small businesses.

But just sending an email message promoting your business isn’t enough. People are inundated with a ton of promotional emails every day, and many get deleted without ever being read. That’s why you need to make sure your emails will stand out through the noise.  

So, where do you start and what can you do to be successful with your first email campaign? Let’s jump into it: Here’s how to launch your first email marketing campaign, which will boost engagement for your company and its sales.  

Build your email list.

In order to have a successful email marketing campaign, you’ll need people to email. That’s why you have to build up your email list to be a moneymaker for your business. Having an email list allows you to have a ton of qualified leads at your fingertips, and you can email them any time you want to promote your business. But how do you get people signed up?

Shinesty uses this attention-grabbing pop-up to encourage visitors to sign up for its email list.

Email List Pop-up from Shinesty. http://www.workbetternotharder.com/2015/

Using a nonintrusive, exit-intent popup on your site is a great, attention-grabbing tactic to get more email subscribers. Offering an incentive in your pop-up will convince users to hit that subscribe button, so consider offering a discount or another freebie in exchange for a prospective customer’s email address. Building a substantial email list is the backbone of any successful email campaign.

Related: 7 Statistics That Prove Email Marketing Isn’t Dead

Choose an email marketing service provider.

Once you’ve built up your email list and gotten tons of users ready for you to send a message, it’s time to get your email campaign in motion. Using Gmail or Outlook is strongly discouraged for sending bulk emails. That’s why you need to choose an email marketing service provider. Some great options are Constant Contact, MailChimp or ConvertKit.

By using an email service provider, you’ll get a number of benefits, including the ability to send bulk emails and manage your email database, campaign-management services and customizable email templates. You’ll also be able to ensure you’re compliant with CAN-SPAM laws.

Define the goal of your campaign.

Before you send out any emails, you have to figure out why you’re sending out the emails in the first place. Not defining a focus for your email marketing campaign will make that campaign appear all over the place, and confuse readers. So what is the goal of your campaign? Typical goals include:

  • Educating users about your product/niche

  • Promoting products or announcing a sale

  • Upselling customers

  • Increasing engagement on your blog/social media

Pinkberry’s goal with the following email campaign was to target its “inactive” users with a surprise incentive to return:

Pinkberry Email Campaign. https://mailbakery.com/blog/email-marketing-campaign-examples/

Remember: Not only do you have to decide “why?” but also “whom?” Will you be sending this campaign to customers who have already purchased, users who have never purchased or everyone on your email list? How you design your emails depends on what you want out of your campaign, so determine your goal and plan your campaign around it.

Craft your email.

After deciding what type of email marketing campaign you’re going to launch, start crafting your email. The first tip is to create a catchy subject line that will grab attention and make people want to open up your email. You can use a free tool like CoSchedule’s Email Subject Line Tester to see if your subject line makes the grade.

Other tips that will get your emails opened include personalizing them to each user; people will pay closer attention if you say their name. Designing an eye-catching email with a good mixture of text and images is also important. Design experts often recommend that emails employ a 60/40 text-to-image ratio.

Finally, when writing copy for your email campaign, keep it short and snappy and show some personality. You want to get your point across without boring readers by making them scroll through a long email to find out what you’re actually talking about. You should focus on content that shows readers how they will benefit, instead of just telling them how great you are.

Related: 5 Ways You Can Earn a Better ROI with Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Now you’re ready to launch your first email marketing campaign. Don’t forget that once you hit “send,” you can start to measure your results, like your open rate and your number of orders or registrations, for example. When you measure your results, you’ll be able to see what’s working and what’s not; and the next time you send out a campaign, you’ll get even better results than the first time around.



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Filed Under: Entrepreneur

His Deep Fear of Desk Toys Stemmed from a Terrible Childhood Incident

July 27, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


My office is filled with all manner of tchotchke.

I’ve got spacehips and superheroes, cars and stuffed animals, robots, monsters, and Lego versions of all of the above. The one office toy I’ve never considered, however, is that swinging ball thingy, better known as Newton’s Cradle.

It’s neat and all, but, frankly, it’s a bit overdone. What office doesn’t have at least one?

Anyway, one day I was thinking about it and this weird little cartoon came to me. So I guess technically I have one in my office now, but only kind of.

This article, “His Deep Fear of Desk Toys Stemmed from a Terrible Childhood Incident” was first published on Small Business Trends





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Filed Under: Strategy

Digital Champions

July 26, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


Most manufacturers, energy companies, and raw materials providers know they face a strategic challenge. Industry 4.0 is coming. Dubbed the “fourth industrial revolution” by World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab, this orchestrated system of digital advancement has also been referred to as an industrial renaissance (see “A Strategist’s Guide to Industry 4.0,” by Reinhard Geissbauer, Jesper Vedsø, and Stefan Schrauf, s+b, May 9, 2016). It is emerging from a number of different companies and government initiatives, most notably in Germany, the United States, and China.

In all cases, the promise is the same. The last industrial revolution (known as Industry 3.0) involved the automation of single machines and processes. This new wave of operations integrates every aspect of the value chain in one end-to-end digital platform, using sensors and analytics throughout, incorporating the Internet of Things (IoT), with cloud-based software driving the entire process. Companies can use this new shared smart infrastructure to make their manufacturing and logistics more efficient, to offer innovative products and services, and to keep improving their production on the fly, responding in unprecedented ways to customer and consumer demand.

The benefits are immense, and impressive examples of Industry 4.0 have begun to emerge. The connected industry platform at Bosch Rexroth, a global electronics and engineering company, has set a goal of realizing €1 billion (US$1.2 billion) in savings by 2020 and offering similar sensor- and software-based solutions to its customers. GE Digital, the enterprise that oversees GE’s industrial Internet platform, set a similar target in 2015, aiming to realize US$1 billion in productivity goals by 2020 — a target it reached in 2017. Daimler credits its “smart production” Industry 4.0 initiative with helping it set seven consecutive annual production records for its Mercedes-Benz cars, with all its vehicle models and drive types rolling off the same fully flexible production lines. Li & Fung, which provides logistics and supply chain services to the consumer products and apparel industries, has dramatically reduced time-to-market. For example, its apparel manufacturing clients use the company’s virtual reality environments to see how garments would look on purchasers and rapidly adjust designs. French aerospace and defense components manufacturer Safran, with its “factory of the future” initiative, is approaching growth rates for its four-year-old LEAP turbofan jet engine that the engine’s predecessor, the CFM56, never reached in 20 years of volume production.

Cases like these are noteworthy for two reasons. First, they demonstrate the advantages that manufacturers can enjoy from Industry 4.0: improved pathways for revenue and profit growth, greater customer satisfaction and loyalty, increased operational efficiency, reduced product development cycles, faster scalability, and more gainful supplier relationships (see “Expected Benefits of Being a Digital Champion”). Second, they illustrate the challenges involved in realizing those gains. Industry 4.0 is not a group of technological platforms that can easily be adopted as a purely operational upgrade. It requires a clear strategy and top management commitment; the transformation of key operational activities; and a deep understanding of collaboration, across internal company boundaries and likely with other companies that share the same platforms and technologies.

Many business-to-business enterprises claim to have already adopted this concept. Indeed, in the industrialized world, Industry 4.0 is becoming as essential as lean strategy: If you can’t claim to have mastered it, you may be out of the game. But of companies in the most relevant sectors — makers of automobiles, consumer goods, electronics, and industrial equipment, along with engineering and process industries — only about 10 percent have mastered the strategic, operational, and cultural changes necessary to make Industry 4.0 succeed. We call these companies Digital Champions. By their account, they have used the technologies of Industry 4.0 in a comprehensive way, to consistently and significantly improve their results.

We saw the power of these champions of the industrial renaissance in the last quarter of 2017, when we surveyed more than 1,100 executives at global manufacturing companies, asking them about their digital operations. By awarding points for specific digital capabilities and strategies — a maximum of 40 points for digital ecosystems, 40 points for implementation of new technologies, and 20 points for fostering a digital culture — we were able to place each company on a digital maturity scale, representing the degree to which they had implemented Industry 4.0 and related technologies.

About 22 percent of the respondents’ companies were Digital Novices, employing isolated solutions and applications at the functional or department level only. The lion’s share — 42 percent — ranked as Digital Followers. They practiced vertical integration, a hallmark of Industry 3.0, linking internal functions such as sales, manufacturing, sourcing, and engineering. About 27 percent of the companies were Digital Innovators. They connected their operations to those of external partners and customers, using integrated platforms for collaboration and information exchange. The remaining 10 percent made up the Digital Champions category (see “Digital Maturity by Region and Industry”). One measure of their success is the future orientation in their product mix; Digital Champions already generate, on average, 56 percent of their revenues from digital or digitally enhanced products and services, compared with 35 percent for Innovators, 15 percent for Followers, and only 8 percent for Novices.

Some Digital Champions are household names, among the largest and most accomplished industrial manufacturers in the world. Others are innovative middle-market companies, or startups at the edge of manufacturing practice. They use advanced technologies to raise their levels of product development, production, supply chain management, logistics, and distribution. This gives them more interactive and intimate relationships with customers. Organizationally, they seek to master four business ecosystems: customer solutions, operations, technology, and people (see “Four Ecosystems for a Digital Champion to Master”).

An ecosystem, in this context, is a cluster of vital industrial activities, some inside the organization and some outside, tied together through common digital connections and practices. Each ecosystem is connected to the others through digital pathways that foster sophisticated multifunctional capabilities. Manufacturers that hope to climb the digital maturity ladder can achieve their competitive advantage by orchestrating and integrating these four ecosystems.

Each of the ecosystems is pivotal. None can be ignored. For example, a well-designed customer solutions ecosystem, oriented to understand and respond to market conditions, represents a good first step toward a digitally mature business model. But if that company’s operations ecosystem does not have the requisite capabilities, partnerships, and technology, and does not plan to propel efficiency and effectiveness, it won’t be able to produce its goods as profitably as its Digital Champion competitors do, and its business model will fall flat. If its technology ecosystem is outmoded, or its people ecosystem is unfocused, it will similarly be unable to deliver and compete.

Each Digital Champion has its own form of Industry 4.0 prowess. Some have highly effective go-to-market strategies. Others excel at implementing a transparent and integrated supply chain, or at attracting talented people. But on the whole, Digital Champions distinguish themselves by a continuous effort to improve their capabilities in all four ecosystems and by integrating and orchestrating them.

Customer Solutions: Meeting the Market

This is the ecosystem with the greatest visibility to the outside world. Its activities include defining digitally enabled product and service offerings, attracting customers, and maintaining relationships with customers, directly or through third parties (such as retailers or online channels). In the customer solutions ecosystem, insights about retail shopping behavior and preferences are linked (with software and data analytics) to the development of products tailored directly to customers. Digital Champions tend to have broad, sprawling customer solutions ecosystems, with links to a range of external companies as well as their own internal groups, which might have been connected in only limited ways before. Now they capture and share relevant customer data, gleaning insights that allow them to develop individualized products and services and offer them through a variety of routes to market, such as third-party vendor platforms, e-commerce, retail outlets, and apps.

Only about 10 percent of the companies we surveyed have mastered the strategic, operational, and cultural changes necessary to make Industry 4.0 succeed.

These joint ventures and informal partnerships with external companies distinguish a customer solutions ecosystem from a vertical, customer-centric product development function. By adding external expertise — often from other companies with deep experience in particular niche or technology arenas — Digital Champions can fill important gaps in their go-to-market strategies. Li & Fung, based in Hong Kong, maintains an Industry 4.0–oriented platform for apparel makers around the world, drawing regularly on its participating companies for data and expertise. On its customer portal, clothing makers and retailers enter designs of new fashions. Its vendor portal hosts suppliers and contract manufacturers, which can immediately produce new collections or replenish existing lines, depending on customer demand, for their customer-facing counterparts. Li & Fung’s customer solutions ecosystem provides dense digital connections among all the companies that use these two portals, generating real-time consumer purchasing and preferences data from stores and other apparel outlets and feeding it back into the supply chain. This enables designers to change product volume and features instantly, numerous times a season. In turn, manufacturers use this data to anticipate new production runs even before they are ordered.

Another customer solutions ecosystem play is the partnership between GE’s Predix — its industrial Internet platform — and Apple. Predix apps are available for iPhones and other iOS devices, allowing industrial customers to write asset tracking and maintenance programs for their handhelds and gain operational mobility. At DuPont, the customer solutions ecosystem enabled a joint venture with Chinese equipment company Hebei Nonghaha Agricultural Machinery Group, created to develop a device that plants one corn seed per mound. General Motors developed a customer solutions ecosystem play around autonomous vehicles and self-driving cars, prototyping a number of experiments with business offerings in this domain, including alliances with ride-sharing companies such as Lyft and fostering a new set of designs oriented toward shared or autonomous vehicles.

Some Digital Champions place themselves at the hub of a customer solutions–oriented platform; all participant organizations communicate directly with the Digital Champion rather than with one another. Apple fits this category, with its huge coterie of app developers creating products and components directly for iPhones and iPads. So does John Deere, which integrates technology and designs from third-party companies into its precision agriculture equipment to help farmers measure the use and performance of water systems, seeds, pesticides, and soil enhancement products. Other companies’ platforms, such as Siemens MindSphere and GE Predix, permit their participants to collaborate more easily.

To facilitate collaborative partnerships, drawing on the widest number of companies and individuals at low cost, Digital Champions deploy open platforms with low-friction networks that make it easy for participating companies to link in their own customer solutions ecosystems. For example, they might tailor products directly to one another’s customers, cross-branding as if they were one enterprise. These applications can generate huge revenue streams and capture customer loyalty. The survey found that 50 percent of Digital Champions have already implemented open, collaborative platforms, and 68 percent offer individualized products and services through portals with enhanced customer experience. It also found that 63 percent go even further with more intricate, data-enhanced integrated partner networks (see “Platform Business Models Used by Digital Champions”).

Operations: Rapid, Relevant Response

The operations ecosystem is the workhorse for Industry 4.0 activity. It includes the day-to-day inputs and outputs that support a Digital Champion in delivering value to customers. Among its functions are the supply chain, product development, innovation, production, logistics, distribution, and post-sales customer interaction. A highly functioning operations ecosystem can create benefits that have previously eluded manufacturers. For supply chain planning and execution, it can greatly improve efficiency and product customization by adjusting the pace of production to match real-time customer demand. For research and development, it coordinates a network of internal functions, suppliers, academia, researchers, and sourcing and logistics specialists. For manufacturing, this ecosystem vertically links and automates factories (owned by the Digital Champion or contracted out) and connects the shop floor directly to supply chain and customer demand activities.

Companies with a high level of digital maturity can design their operations ecosystem to respond more rapidly and interactively to the customer solutions ecosystem. As demand changes for products or services, the operations ecosystem continually adjusts. Suppliers or factories may be needed in new regions; warehouses and parts management may require more flexibility to deliver on accelerated just-in-time schedules; and innovative logistics partners may be added. Even if much of this happens automatically, it is critical to regularly reevaluate the operations ecosystem against performance metrics and capability requirements, drawn from the customer solutions part of the business model.

The Digital Champion Bosch Rexroth has mastered the operations ecosystem for, among other product lines, its hydraulic valves used in agricultural equipment. In one of the company’s most advanced plants, in Homburg, Germany, customized orders are assigned to a manufacturing line with a special feature: Products guide themselves through the assembly stations with the help of RFID chips. The nine intelligent stations on the line recognize how the finished product has to be assembled and thus which operational steps are necessary. Displays show workers the corresponding instructions for any of the more than 200 versions of the component that is to be processed. The assembly line integrates the human, the product, and the machine in a system of flexible mass production.

An interactive cockpit oversees the Bosch Rexroth effort, tracking key performance indicators related to the manufacturing process, along with the quality of the assembly. The cockpit collects all relevant data from the connected production facilities, updates them dynamically, and makes them available in real time.

This approach allows the company to match products to customer specifications so that the products are tailored for use in particular agricultural environments, while maintaining the speed, scale, and cost efficiency of mass manufacturing.

With the launch of its Nexeed software and service portfolio for industrial Internet applications, Bosch has pooled all its Industry 4.0 activities to support customers in connecting the value chain from end to end and integrating it into an operations ecosystem. Nexeed represents an entry point into the connected factory, tailored to customers’ needs. It allows individual lines to be combined, and interconnects factories and plant networks, including their internal and external logistics. A variety of apps and software solutions support workers in their daily tasks. Relevant manufacturing data is more quickly accessible to employees through their mobile devices; this ultimately leads to greater machine availability in production. Internal transport processes and flows of goods outside the company can be seamlessly monitored and traced back. Workers are kept informed of the location, condition, and delivery time of goods. The result is increased productivity and agility, which boosts competitiveness.

With an operations ecosystem of this sort, a company can gain at least five significant benefits.

• Transparency: It has a complete end-to-end view of the value chain.

• Real-time data sharing: All the participating departments and companies can see the same information simultaneously.

• Extended collaboration: Operational links develop organically with trusted partners (such as suppliers), becoming deeper and more synergistic over time.

• Responsiveness and flexibility: Companies can respond instantly to changes in end-user demand; they can shift plans easily and execute those changes promptly.

• Connectivity: Product life-cycle management, supply chain management, and customer information are all integrated seamlessly.

We analyze how advanced a company’s operations ecosystem is in two ways. First, we assess the manufacturing process, emphasizing the degree to which production is automated and transparently connected across the company’s own plants, along with partnering manufacturers, suppliers, and logistics channels. Ideally, all of the ecosystem’s elements are exchanging data continually and acting on it in real time. This approach is so advanced that only 5 percent of the companies we interviewed, including only 33 percent of Digital Champions, had adopted it. Digital Champions score better when it comes to linking their factories with some form of integrated digital connection; almost half of them have done this, whereas most of the companies we interviewed — about two-thirds — have just selectively automated single factories.

The second way to assess operations ecosystem capabilities is by measuring supply chain integration. Digital Champions are well ahead of other companies in this respect. More than 80 percent of Digital Champions have at least near-real-time, end-to-end integrated networks with supply chain partners that offer full collaboration and visibility among the companies involved. This customer-driven supply chain lets participating companies quickly assess the impact of potential changes in demand and resolve any constraints that would hinder a rapid shift in production and distribution schedules. Among the companies surveyed, only 27 percent have reached this high level of digital supply chain mastery.

Technology: Incessant Innovation

Because the customer solutions ecosystem determines the company’s business model, and the operations ecosystem organizes its most complex capabilities, many business strategists seem to feel they have their hands full with just those two clusters. They tend to regard the technology ecosystem as being made up of more routine functions, to be delegated to service bureau–style departments. But that is a mistake. The technology ecosystem consists of activities embedded throughout the organization in every business entity, all linked together. They include established enterprise applications such as resource planning, customer relationship management, financial analytics, and cybersecurity, along with applications tailored to new platforms and revenue streams. Digital Champions gain a back-office performance edge from this ecosystem because they incorporate latest-generation technology: advances in cloud storage and collaboration, data analytics, human–machine interfaces, customer and employee experience, and hardware and software integration.

In designing and implementing this ecosystem, Digital Champions are risk takers with discipline. They insist that their business strategy should determine which technology they adopt, while continually keeping up with digital advances that have the potential to enhance strategy, particularly involving speed, flexibility, customization, and efficiency.

Rather than having a “not-invented-here” bias toward homegrown and stand-alone systems, Digital Champions readily form partnerships with outside companies, including vendors and other users of platforms, hardware, and software, to more quickly implement new digital applications without redesigning the wheel. These attributes undoubtedly play a role in their impressive track record as innovators: More than 90 percent of the Digital Champions among our survey respondents said they were planning, prototyping, or already implementing advanced technologies such as robotics, digital twins (real-time simulations of on-the-ground operations), and the industrial IoT. The comparative figures among Digital Novices were below 40 percent.

Intriguingly, Digital Innovators, the group just below Digital Champions on the digital maturity scale, foresee revenue gains of nearly 20 percent, outpacing Digital Champions. We suspect that this figure reflects the fact that Digital Champions have already enjoyed initial revenue bumps from technology investments, whereas Digital Innovators are a step behind and will probably reap these benefits over the next few years if they adopt Digital Champion strategies soon.

One company that has made its technology ecosystem a centerpiece of its business model is Austria’s Magna Steyr, which manufactures vehicles for other automakers, often when sales fluctuate and flexible manufacturing is needed. Its portfolio has included Mercedes G-Class, BMW 5 series, and the Jaguar E-PACE and I-PACE. With this product mix, Magna Steyr is the only vehicle contract manufacturer to produce the whole band of powertrain technologies — from the internal combustion engine to plug-in hybrids to pure electric vehicles. Because Magna essentially operates a dozen or so assembly schemes for different vehicles on a single line — an approach that many automakers are still struggling to perfect — the company has had to develop factories that are completely agile. Otherwise, profitability would be impossible, as some original OEMs have discovered with their low-volume models.

Magna has overcome this agility hurdle by introducing a steady stream of Industry 4.0 digital innovations, combining them to continuously upgrade the performance of its plants. Among the technologies is a digital cockpit that produces a digital twin simulation and monitors assembly-line performance for each vehicle. Adaptable robots with AI that can recognize each vehicle and determine assembly steps instantaneously guide the cars through the manufacturing lines. An in-line quality control function checks the assembly operations against real-world expectations in each step of the process so that quality isn’t weighed only at completion, when a great deal of time tends to be wasted in the auto manufacturing process. And manufacturing data analytics are adjudged by learning machines that can alter the assembly process on the basis of new conclusions culled from prior vehicle builds.

People: Culture of Competence

As the latest industrial renaissance unfolds, there will be an increasing need for skilled workers. Some will need to configure and operate complex equipment and others to program it. All will need to make quick decisions in response to shifts in product lines, designs, and input from a range of partners. Digital Champions thus invest heavily in training and on-the-job skill development. They have also succeeded in (or at least are moving toward) building a digital culture in which people throughout the hierarchy have a high level of competence. They have mastered not just the tools of Industry 4.0, but the judgment needed to deploy those tools effectively in the service of strategic business goals. They understand the ways in which their own efforts fit into the overarching goals of the customer solutions and operations ecosystems, and thus into the organization’s rapidly evolving strategy.

These facets of the business, involving recruitment, training, workplace design, incentives, and a context for collaborative effort, represent the core of the people ecosystem, which is essential to making sure that the other three ecosystems operate at peak levels. Organizations that employ their people ecosystem to the greatest benefit have traits in common in four key categories.

• Skills: Workers can handle diverse challenges. They can turn rapidly to new tasks, learning on the job. The organization has strong capabilities in data analytics, human–machine interaction, and technology-supported decision making. There are formal pathways for increasing the workforce’s digital IQ.

• Mind-set and behavior: The organization has a digital mind-set and vision; it welcomes entrepreneurship and new leadership styles; it is open to new technology; it learns from failure; it is creative, innovative, and generally curious; it embraces a nonhierarchical, “best idea counts” mentality; and it puts a premium on rapid decision making.

• Talent sources: The company relies on cross-functional teams to drive digitization and eliminate silos. These teams are highly integrated, made up of people who work for the company mixed with employees at partnering companies; with freelancers from hackathons and accelerators; and with people from digital agencies, research institutes, and universities.

• Career development: The organization supports its people ecosystem with a variety of unorthodox appraisal, incentive, and compensation schemes that reward innovative and smart digital ideas; flexible work arrangements and telecommuting when appropriate; free time to support continuous improvement of company operations; career models that reflect the value of digital expertise; and real-time employee feedback.

As the need for skilled labor increases, it will be crucial to develop new ways of acquiring talent — often individuals educated in science, technology, engineering, and math — as well as tailored training programs in digital concepts and capabilities. To some degree, this will result in higher salaries for people with the right skills; high pay provides an incentive for employees to continually refine and improve their skills throughout their career, taking advantage of Digital Champions’ strong support for lifelong learning.

Companies with effective people ecosystems embed the IT workforce into the customer solutions and operations ecosystems. This is a sharp departure from the traditional approach, in which IT is made up of a group of isolated specialists, separately owning all technology assets and delivering services, often inefficiently, to line businesses. The people ecosystem model enables the technology ecosystem to deliver IT solutions that address precisely what the business needs when it needs it. It also fosters data-driven decision making on all levels, because people understand how to incorporate sophisticated tools into their work practices.

In our survey, Digital Champions excelled at developing digital culture. Of the Champion respondents, 59 percent have invested heavily in training to upgrade staff for digital transformation; 52 percent regard failures as an accepted part of the development process (an attitude that encourages experimentation with new ideas); and 52 percent have flat hierarchies and quick decision-making processes.

Becoming a Digital Champion

The relatively small number of Digital Champions suggests how difficult it can be to master the four ecosystems, especially for an incumbent company without a digitally oriented culture. Start by moving in several directions at once: developing ecosystem-specific capabilities while driving integration across all four ecosystems. Here are six proven steps to accelerate your efforts.

1. Conduct an ecosystem assessment. This should look closely at the state of the company’s products and services, its customer satisfaction levels, its operational capabilities, the relative value of its technology, and the skills of its people. Assess each as if you were studying a competitor, which can help shine a light on your organization’s shortcomings. Consider your external challenges. How equipped are you to meet new market developments, competitors’ moves, shifting customer expectations, regulatory changes, and technological advances? Think about the art of the possible: digital strategies based not on past constraints but on new capabilities. What can you offer now that you couldn’t before, thanks to changes in technology, better understanding of consumer behavior, and opportunities for collaboration with external partners?

2. Define a vision of what the organization can become in this new world of Industry 4.0. Using the results of the first step, decide where to position your business, which value propositions to present to customers, and how to deliver your individualized products and services. What can you offer that can be tailored to individuals, or that competitors can’t match?

3. Develop an integrated operations model. It should span all four ecosystems and enable you to work effectively with external strategic partners. Focus first on the customer solutions ecosystem, identifying the best potential partners and the capabilities you will need (for example, in marketing analytics or product research and development). Determine which are already available internally, which to develop through partnerships, and whether to make or buy the rest. With these choices made, design the operations ecosystem. Then, build out your technology and people ecosystems to enable the first two ecosystems. In your design, specify the interfaces, interdependencies, connections, technology, and data links that will ensure seamless interaction among all the ecosystems.

4. Establish an ecosystem governance, investment, and decision board. This board should set priorities and key milestones, review and approve design and implementation outcomes, make investment decisions, and oversee results.

5. Continue to build out the ecosystems, starting with the strengths you already have. Design and implement ecosystem capabilities through rapid, fluid, project-based team efforts — similar to those used in agile software development. This step should include creating collaboration models for connecting and sharing operations among partners; vendors; organizations such as factories, logistics providers, or contract manufacturers; advisors; ad hoc workforces; permanent employees; and short-term and long-term relationships. These models can be implemented as prototypes and pilots, then adjusted before subsequent ecosystem elements are rolled out. After each successful rollout, link the element to relevant aspects of the other ecosystems.

6. Take full advantage of the new value chain. After the four ecosystems are in place, implement practices to make the most of the changes. These include close monitoring of the new approaches, focusing on the levels of growth, performance, productivity, and continuous improvement. As the ecosystems evolve, reinvest in the continued growth of the four ecosystems model.

These steps can represent a few years’ worth of activity in some companies. Even a Digital Champion typically has a lot of distance left to travel before the company can claim to be an Industry 4.0 leader. Indeed, only about half of the Digital Champions we surveyed said they had effective strategies for the full range of fundamental Industry 4.0–related activity. The depth of commitment required to become a Digital Champion can be daunting. But the consequent improvements in efficiency, speed, product development, creativity, customer response, and revenue show that achieving higher levels of digital maturity is worth it.

Author Profiles:

  • Reinhard Geissbauer is a partner with PwC Strategy& Germany, based in Munich. He is global head of the Digital Operations Impact Center and head of the digital operations EMEA leadership team.
  • Stefan Schrauf is a partner with PwC Strategy& Germany, based in Düsseldorf. He is the EMEA co-lead for digital operations and lead for global digital supply chain solutions.
  • Steve Pillsbury is a principal with PwC US, where he heads the PwC North America digital operations team and serves as the U.S. lead for the PwC Digital Operations Impact Center. He is based in Chicago.
  • Also contributing to this article from PwC Strategy& Germany were Evelyn Lübben, principal and project lead of the study; Phillipp Bertram, principal; Judith Schneider and Farboud Cheraghi, managers; and s+b contributing editor Jeffrey Rothfeder.



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The Biggest Hurdles You Will Face in Content Marketing

July 25, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


If your small business has an online presence, content marketing has to be part of your overall online marketing strategy. But creating the content which resonates with your audience and marketing it so it can reach as many people as possible is a challenge.

A new infographic by Branex, titled “7 Biggest Challenges of Content Marketing That Every Content Marketer Should Be Aware of” highlights some of the most common challenges you have to overcome to benefit from the content you create.

For small business owners who create their own content, addressing the seven points in the infographic will go a long way to bringing better returns in their content marketing efforts.

On the official Branex blog, the company points out content marketing has become increasingly more important as the number of people who spend time online continues to grow. The post explains, “Content marketing is a powerful tool that helps you grow your brand awareness, brand loyalty, customers, and sales. From quality vs quantity to creativity vs SEO debate, there are many challenges for content marketers.”



What are the Content Marketing Challenges?

The first one on the list is producing content that resonates with your target audience. In order to guarantee content marketing success, you have to thoroughly research and find out what your users want to read. Based on your findings, you create the content.

When you are ready to create the content, you have to balance search engine optimization (SEO) with creativity. Finding the right balance is key to keep both your readers and the search engines happy.

The third challenge in the infographic is to understand the pain points of your audience. The content you create has to solve a problem for your readers and deliver value. And once you start solving their problems on a regular basis, you will establish credibility and become an authority in your field.

The Benefits of Using Content Marketing

According to the infographic, content marketing is cheaper. In fact, it is 62% cheaper than traditional methods of advertising while it generates three times the leads.

Businesses who use content marketing report six times the conversion rate compared to those who don’t use it. And the adoption rate is now almost the same for B2B and B2C businesses, with 91 and 86 percent respectively.

When it comes to consumers, 90% find the content they read useful and another 82% say they feel positive about a company after they read a tailored content.

Businesses feel content marketing is more effective and that it generates better results than advertising on TV (62%) and magazines (72%).

You can look at the rest of the top challenges of content marketing in the infographic below.


Image: Branex




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5 Simple Ways You Can Decrease Shopping-Cart Abandonment

July 25, 2018 by Asif Nazeer Leave a Comment


Don’t you hate it when customers leave without checking out those items in their carts? Here are some moves you can make.


July 25, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


Shoppers can be fickle, especially now that there’s an endless number of online shops to choose from. And, as a business owner, you surely find it discouraging when one of those shoppers — or a lot of them — add multiple items to a checkout cart, only to abandon it without purchasing anything.

Who knows, maybe those customers won’t ever return to buy those items.

Related: It’s Time We Ditched the Term ‘Cart’ in Online Shopping

There’s science behind that concern: In a 2017 survey, Statista asked digital shoppers what their primary reason was for abandoning their carts, and some 40 percent said the reason was that they were only browsing. So how do you reduce shopping-cart abandonment on your ecommerce site and increase conversions?

Luckily, there are simple ways to give a little nudge to users that will push them in the direction of the checkout and prevent you from losing out on those sales. Check out these five simple ways to decrease shopping cart abandonment, and get ready to hear that welcome “cha-ching” more often.

1. Use an exit-intent pop-up.

Imagine being able to read customers’ minds right when they’re about to leave your site, then to stop them and offer a great deal to change their decision from a “no” to a “yes.” Well, an exit-intent pop-up does just that. It can track when a customer is about to leave your site and send that would-be shopper a targeted message at exactly the right time.

Banana Republic does this really well. After you’ve clicked around the site a little bit and are about to hit the back arrow, the company offers you a discount in exchange for your email address.

 

Related: This Shopping Cart of the Future Creepily Follows You Around Stores

You can do something similar: Design your own pop-up to remind visitors that they have products left unpurchased in their cart and offer them a discount if they return to buy. Adding exit-intent pop-ups will stop users in their tracks and help them give a second thought to making that purchase after all.

2. Keep the cart visible.

Keeping the shopping cart always in view is a great way to remind customers to buy. People can be forgetful; if they spend a long time on your site browsing after they’ve added an item to their cart, they might forget it altogether if the cart isn’t visible.

For example, Pretty Little Thing includes the cart as part of its sticky header, which doesn’t disappear as visitors scroll down the site.

 

A shopping cart symbol that displays the number of items in the cart will be a useful addition to your site. You can also create a sticky floating navigation menu so that as the user scrolls down, the shopping cart will follow and always be in view. For WooCommerce users, you can install the WooCommerce Menu Cart plugin to easily customize a cart for your site.

3. Don’t surprise customers with extra costs.

If you don’t want to offer free shipping, don’t keep customers in the dark about shipping costs until the last second. According to an ecommerce survey conducted by VWO, 28 percent of shoppers will abandon their cart if presented with unexpected shipping costs. That number may not seem high, but it’s actually one of the top reasons for cart abandonment.

For example, Walmart has free shipping on orders costing $35-plus. The company tells you that up front so you can plan ahead, and it’s a good upselling opportunity. Someone who was planning on purchasing just $10 worth of merchandise gains an incentive to spend another $25.

 

Let your customers know about shipping charges up front. You can also provide them with a shipping calculator that will determine the cost of shipping to their location and let them choose their desired shipping method.  

4. Create the appearance of scarcity.

If you’re hungry and you know there’s only a couple of pizzas left at your favorite restaurant, you’re going to buy them up quickly before they’re gone, right? Using that feeling of scarcity on your online shopping site will create a feeling in your visitors that they have to buy now or they may miss out.

You can use scarcity by displaying a pop-up like the following example from Forever 21. You could also show how many units are left of each item. For example, when a customer adds a pair of shoes to his or her cart, you can show that only three pairs of that style remain.

 

Another great tactic is to display a countdown timer that shows how many days or hours are left until a particular sale is over. Any of these strategies will create FOMO (fear of missing out) in your visitors, and they’ll likely complete a purchase much faster.

5. Allow customers to save their carts.

If your visitors still aren’t sure about buying from your site, make it easier for them to come back when they do make up their minds. Saving carts is a must-have for users who shop around on the web and compare prices; this feature makes it more convenient for them to return to you when they don’t have to browse all over again to find the items they originally looked at.

Here, WooCommerce users can try a plugin like Recover Abandoned Cart. This plugin monitors when carts are abandoned and automatically sends an email reminder with a link to return to the cart.

Related: Shopping Cart Throw-down: Which Ecommerce Platform Reigns Supreme?

Other easy fixes to decrease shopping-cart abandonment include making sure your site is super fast, offering a variety of payment options and showing security badges, in order to gain the trust of visitors.

If you’re tired of losing sales to shopping-cart abandonment, start implementing these tactics on your website and you’ll be able to quickly boost your conversions.



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