Beginner’s Guide: Which is the Best Computer Course to Opt For?

Beginner’s Guide: Which is the Best Computer Course to Opt For?

The technological field is an ever-changing loop. Every other day, new technology or a fresh advancement comes to the market. Computer courses are in high demand, making it essential for working professionals or beginners to learn these new technologies to keep up with the market standards.

With the changing world, the learning process has also changed. Online courses and online classes are in high demand as it saves much time and can be attended whenever the person wants.

These days, many computer courses are available online that anyone can easily take up. They have to choose the best one to suit their time, come within the budget and have a preferred curriculum.

However, selecting the right course and institution might consume a considerable amount of time. To ease it out, below is a blog that answers most of the questions people usually have while opting for a computer course.

What are the types of computer courses?

The education system has seen an incredible leap, and all teaching methods have changed now. With new progress, presently, it all depends on the person taking the course and their flexibilities. However, computer courses are in demand nowadays. Below are the major computer course types:

  • Long-term offline course: This is a complete course or degree of 3 or 4 years. It involves courses such as:
    • B.Tech or B.E. in computer science
    • BCA (Bachelor of Computer Application)
    • B.Sc. in computer science
    • B.Sc. in software technology
    • Diploma in computer science and engineering
    • Diploma in software engineering

These are entirely classroom courses, for which the person has to go to the institute to attend the classes. Apart from this, the course materials are usually provided by the institute or buy them.

  • Long-term online course: This course is more flexible and accessible. Online courses are a new form of education. Many universities are providing long-term courses online. Mostly these courses can extend up to a year or more. They extensively cover everything that is there in an ordinary long-term course.

The classes happen through video calls, on-set timings every week. All the course material related to it will be provided through PDFs. Similarly, the tests also happen online, avoiding the trouble of going to the center and attending the exam physically.

  • Short-term offline course: These courses are famous across the country. Usually, coaching institutes provide a short-term course that is majorly for 3-4 months. These classes happen for an hour or two on weekdays or weekends. It depends on the time selected by the person who is willing to take the course. At the end of the course, the person is provided with a certification that speaks about the course.
  • Short-term online course: This is similar to an offline course and lasts the same amount of months, but classes will be held online. The classes usually happen through videos (the student can attend the live class or check the recorded class), and materials are provided as PDFs. This is the best option among all the courses, as it is for less period.

A short-term course can be completed at any time, anywhere as per the convenience of the person.

What are basic computer courses?

There is a phase in every student’s life where they have to decide which course they want to opt for. There are many career options available, like, if one wants to be in the fashion industry, they can choose to be a fashion designer. If one wants to be in the sales field, they can select the respective sales field. Similarly, suppose a student wants to pursue his/her career in the computer or technology-related field. In that case, they should know about the basic computer courses that are mentioned below:

Web Design

It includes different aspects of website maintenance and production. This explains different work sectors such as website graphics, user interface design (U.I.), user experience design (UX). It also includes other standardized codes such as authoring, proprietary software, and SEO. Knowing web designing will help an individual to build a complete website.

VFX and animation

VFX or Visual Effects is a way of mixing real film shoots with animated or false images. The animation is a basic art-technology that makes the image and pictures move or do whatever the creator wants them to do. This is a fascinating and exciting computer technological field. It is basically for the people who want to do challenging and diverse work.

Cybersecurity

market forecast for global cybersecurity. 2017 to 2023

Above is the market forecast for global cybersecurity. This showcases how cybersecurity will increase and how companies will invest in it.
It is a practice that helps to protect computers, servers, mobile phones, electronic devices, and networks from any malicious attacks. Different sectors have varying cybersecurity methods, such as:

  • network security that helps to protect the network from unwanted users and attacks,
  • application security helps protect the apps by continually testing and updating them and ensuring that they are secure.

Similarly, there is information security, operational security, and disaster recovery to safeguard the device and data. Each of these security makes sure that there are no malicious attacks.

Software and programming language

It is a formal language that comprises instructions entered into the system to produce desired outputs. A programming language is used to implement algorithms. These are a set of instructions that are different from the standard general programming language. It is a language that only a computer understands.

With these programming languages, a computer can analyze large and complex swaths of information in minutes.

Digital marketing

Gone are the days when traditional marketing (such as billboards, pamphlets, and hoardings) was necessary to reach people. Digital marketing is the new way of advertising through online platforms such as search engines, websites, social media, emails, and applications.

Most industries, brands, and companies these days rely on the online platform to increase their reach and engagement.

What computer courses are in demand?

In the era where competition is very high in every field, if a person is in an I.T. or software field, it is better to upscale the knowledge from time to time. 

At the forefront of the job market, computer-related skills are vital for almost every industry. Especially when the Internet is evolving, IoT or the Internet of Things is the new way to technological advancement. Below mentioned are the top computer courses that are in demand and will be helpful to upskill one’s knowledge:

Data Science infographic

It is a technological field that uses all the scientific methods, statistics, algorithms, and processes to extract the required data and insights from structured and unstructured data. This includes data mining, machine learning, and big data. In short, it unifies the statistics and data analysis to understand what is going on with the vast amount of data available or what can be done with such massive data.

Data science has heavy demand in the market, not just in India; every company worldwide requires data scientists for the information floating around in their company. If a person wants to get into the software field but doesn’t know what he/ she should be doing, then going for data science is the best option.

Big data analytics

This is a process of analyzing giant sets of data, such as hidden patterns, market trends, unknown correlations, customer preferences, and other useful data. All these data are beneficial. It can help build effective marketing campaigns, discover new revenue growth ways, understand customer requirements, and more. Big data helps companies to make informed decisions, so they are always on a hunt for prominent data analysts.

Artificial intelligence (A.I.)

It is the simulation of human intelligence in machines. The machines are programmed so that the devices can mimic every way that a human wants. These machines can also be able to exhibit traits similar to a human such as learning and problem-solving. The best example of A.I. is the Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri.
Below is the graphical representation of increased demand for Artificial intelligence.

asia pacific artificial intelligence market size

For people interested in creating such machines or going out of the box and building a unique device or machine, Artificial Intelligence is their thing.

SEO or Search engine optimization

When people search for something in the search engine, they might see some ads at the top, images, videos, or specific sites. All of this is achieved because of SEO.

Search engine optimization improves a website’s quality by enhancing the traffic and engaging people to the website. It targets traffic in different ways by using images, videos, content, links, and social media. SEO’s primary work is to look at the search engine’s algorithm, figure out how it works, and gain traffic.

This is mainly for someone interested in marketing and the ever-changing technology and its advancement.

Why should you go for a computer course?

Technological growth will always be there around the world. This makes, clear that having computer knowledge these days is very important. Below mentioned are few reasons for considering to take up computer courses:

  • Market growth: Being the second populated country globally, people and their technology needs are increasing. This gives rise to market growth and increased demand for technologically apt candidates for the related job roles.

I.T. companies are gaining much popularity. It is even expected that the I.T. sector in India will make profits worth $225 billion in the coming years. Thus, making the field more demandable in the crowd.

  • Increased scope: According to reports, India has the most talented I.T. candidates, and at least 30% of the staff of most of the I.T. companies are Indians. Most of the top I.T. industries contain Indians as their Vice presidents, CEOs, CMOs, and other high-profile positions.

This showcases the increased scope and requirement of learned I.T. people in the companies.

  • Job security: Learning computer courses always comes in handy. As the job market is vast, similarly, the talents out there are immense, creating heavy competition. To cut through the competition and stand in the market, it is essential to be at par with the industry and standards.

With considerable knowledge and grasp over highly demandable subjects, one will make sure that their job is secured. Increased qualification and expertise are always helpful to keep oneself intact with the industry.

Which computer classes should be taken in high school?

Suppose a student wants to pursue their career in the software field from the beginning. In such a case, it is always better to start immediately as it is already decided. High school is the perfect place to build a foundation for the desired career of the student. Following are the few computer courses that any high school student can take up:

  • Basics of programming languages such as C, C++, and Java
  • Computer literacy
  • Basics of Data structure
  • Basic of web and graphic designing

Which computer course is best to get a high salary?

Every day new technological advancement comes to market. To keep up with the demand, it is better to upskill with the latest computer courses. Not just the computer courses, these courses will even help in getting a high salary job. These courses might help to get a salary hike from 50% to 80%. Mentioned below are the few professional courses that will help upskill the knowledge and get a higher salary package.

  1. Data science: According to Glassdoor, the entry-level salary for a data scientist is somewhat starting from 6 Lakhs per annum. With growing experience and expertise in the field, it might go up to 18 lakhs per annum and even more.
  2. Big data analysis: A big data analyst is also paid a lot. The average package of a big data analyst in India starts from 6.5lakh per annum and can go up to 15lakh per annum. If the person has more data analysis expertise, the package can even go above 15lakhs per annum.

Big data analysis

  1. VFX training and character animation: A VFX artist or an animator also gets a competitive salary package in India. For any entry-level designers, it might start from 5 lakhs per annum. It can go to 10 lakhs per annum with increased experience.
  2. Computer hardware engineering and networking: Here, for an entry-level engineer, the salary offered might start from 4.5 lakhs per annum. It gradually with increasing experience it can go beyond ten lakhs per annum.

Which computer course is best for banking?

Yes, even people interested in going into the banking sector require to have particular basic computer knowledge. This computer course is essential for those who want to apply for clerical jobs. A computer course in a related field will help enhance one’s place in the banking sector. Below are the courses that will help in any banking job:

  • Computer Awareness and office automation
  • Oracle
  • SQL
  • Tally
  • Advanced excel

Which institutes offer these computer courses?

Now a person doesn’t have to go physically to any tutorial or course. Opting for these advanced and excellent courses can be done quickly by sitting at home. Many options are available in marketing that can be utilized effectively, starting from introductory courses to advanced ones. All one has to do is check for the courses, opt for them, and take the classes online. Below are the few institutes that provide advanced computer courses:

  • Upgrad: This is an online education-providing institution. These people are experts with structured programs for Data Science, Machine Learning, and Software Technology (full-stack, cybersecurity, and cloud computing.) They provide certification for every course that has been opted for, which is helpful during any job interview.
  • Udemy: This is a perfect platform. It provides all the major software courses starting from A to Z that are too reasonable. Like designing, marketing, I.T. and software, and photography, it provides all the courses in trending in the market. Udemy offers many other such courses that are descriptive and knowledgeable.
  • Simplilearn: It offers post-graduate programs in Digital Marketing, Data Science, Business Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning. Simplilearn provides these certifications with collaboration with some top universities, making learning easy and worthwhile through online classes.
  • White hat juniors: This is one of the sites that help kids get interested in coding or software courses. White hat junior provides beginner level or entry-level programming courses for kids between the age of 10 to 18. It helps build a foundation for coding for those interested and who want to pursue the same career.
  • Coursera: This is one of the sites providing online courses. It offers a wide range of courses prevailing from different fields. The courses start from bachelor’s degree, go till master’s degree and even provide a global MBA. It has courses related to Machine Learning, Digital Marketing, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Data Science, and many more. Learn more about Coursera here.

Wrapping up!

These are some of the major courses that any student, beginner, or expert can take to upskill their knowledge. Upskilling the skills always helps to keep oneself on the edge of the ever-changing technological advancements.

If you have issues, questions, or queries related to the computer courses, please ask us in the comments section or by contacting us.

 

How Consumer Product Goods (CPG) companies market after COVID-19?

How Consumer Product Goods (CPG) companies market after COVID-19?

The ongoing Pandemic has changed the way people buy products and retailers sell products. COVID 19 has reshaped the whole consumer marketing this 2020. Consumer goods manufacturers and retailers should ditch the old ways and get a new perspective about the entire operation.

As soon as the Pandemic hit, most people chose the online platform for purchasing the needs rather than risking to go out for essentials. This situation made most of the shoppers take their business to the web. Essentials mostly include hygiene-maintaining items and groceries. With this, we can assure you that the buying experience will not be the same as before.

The sales scenario in the market is completely changed; it is a sudden radical change. Covid-19 has given rise to many trends disrupting the industry. There is an increased surge in online marketing. The grocery penetration of e-commerce platforms has increased from 13 percent to 31 percent as people avoid going out and ordering everything using web apps.

However, it is even seen that those who went to stores found a different experience like maintaining physical distance, hygiene, mask usage, and significantly changed to Online shopping. Well, with these changes, if CPG companies want to survive in these situations, then they must nurture the capabilities and adopt new strategies.

In an analysis done by BCG, 40% of the consumers doing online shopping are first-timers. After restrictions easing-out, 35% of the consumers are still concerned and choosing an online platform to order essentials. It is predicted that by the end of the year 2022, the grocery category in the e-commerce platforms will be three times higher than the pre-COVID situation and two times higher than the pandemic forecast.

COVID-19 impact

Different CPG industries are facing varying disruptions to the demand and supply chain. Like the packaged food companies have seen a 54.2% increase in their sales in the Lockdown. On the other hand, royalty-based toys have reduced their sales due to postponed movie productions and sales.

The level of impact on the supply and demand of a few CPG industries are mentioned below:

  • Home & personal care: Due to the Corona outbreak, consumers started stocking essentials. There is a high demand for sanitization products, especially the bigger package size. Due to a shortage of workforce and centralized sourcing, the production was interrupted while coming to supply.
  • Food & beverages: Increased surge for online food and beverage orders. Majorly for dairy, ready to eat products, that too in bigger pack sizes. The supply of these demands was difficult as it raised sales required double the workforce and extra time for floor sanitization. Due to Lockdown, logistics delivery was also restricted.
  • Beauty & cosmetics: There is an increased demand for safe beauty & cosmetics. Online consultation and e-commerce sales increased. However, there was a temporary disruption in the supply chain due to restricted transportations, increased manufacturing demand from a single area; sales to on-trade channels were also disrupted.
  • Apparel & footwear: Steep decrease in consumer demand, as well as delay in new fashion launches, plus most of the people prioritized buying essentials than apparel & footwear. Due to Lockdown in major countries, the supply chain price increased, resulting in higher order cancellation.

CPG tipping point

According to a report from Deloitte, “Majority of the consumers are spending more on Convenience to meet all the requirements or their needs. Due to COVID-19, people are more likely citing contactless shopping, fulfillment on demand and easy inventory availability.” There are other key findings of the report as such :

  • As of April 2020, the year on year growth of the eCommerce industry increased, and reached to 68%, surpassing the previous 40% of the total sales. With the ongoing pandemic, and countries following strict guidelines it is expected to increase to 72%.
  • Convenience will continue to be king of the Market, more than half of the people have shown their willingness to spend more on what they want.
  • People now are more interested in private brands. Until 2019, only 40% were willing to pay for the same or private brands. Now during COVID 19, people being at home and more cautious about health and products they use, private label sales increased.
  • There is increased spending on hygiene, groceries, other sustainable products, and organic stuff, in these pandemic months. These brands will continue to play a key role in the market.

Where is the CPG industry today?

Consumer-goods roles are huge during this COVID crisis, meeting the increased demands of consumers and protecting the vulnerable. This sudden change may or may not be permanent. However, there will be a significant fundamental shift in the pattern of buying.

In the initial days of covid, the priorities were clear for the CPG sector: the safety and health essentials, ensure a strong balance sheet and maintain the availability of essential products with a resilient supply chain. The CPG manufacturers who are ahead in their supply curve drove increased enterprise agility, adapted cross-functional collaboration channels, and adjusted in the current scenarios.

However, now the case might be changing with an increased level of uncertainty; as the restrictions are slowly removed, many nonessential retailers who were forced to shut are re-opening their businesses. While it is uncertain as the Pandemic is not entirely gone, it can potentially spread and impact the economy.

Another concern is the changed buying pattern, and increased buying concerns may be carried forward to the future. While the CPG companies are the least affected than any other industry such as retail- the hospitality and traveling industry is the most affected sector.

The edible industry, such as food and beverages where growth is monitored concerning population and income, is seeing increased demand. This results in a massive surge in pantry loading and delivery.

A historical change is seen! The food & beverage sector usually lagged in other categories such as apparel & footwear, beauty & cosmetics has seen a steep fall in their sales. In contrast, the demand for food & beverage has increased. Choosing the online platform for buying than going to shops has increased. The CPG manufacturers can work with the retailers and lower the cost-to-serve to maintain their operations.

It will take significant time for the consumers to shift from current frugality and embrace the older ways. But the heightened uncertainty will be there for some time. The retailers and on-premise places should try all possible ways to win back customers’ trust. In this Pandemic, people face a financial crunch, forcing them to shift to buy products at lower prices and save money.

The ongoing pandemic has been a boon for the Consumer Packaged Goods industry. The demand for CPG increased from 10 percent to 12 percent in countries such as Italy, France, the UK, and the US.

Where is the CPG industry today?

Demand has also affected a lot and saw a market downfall, as consumption shifted from on-premise to home. It is likely to stay and persist. Most people are continuing to work at home, so companies have also taken a fresh look to strategize the workforce accordingly. It is better to change the plans according to the need of the hour and embrace new strategies.

Engage Consumers with CPG marketing

Ongoing Pandemic has increased the use of Digital Platforms by most of the Companies and customers. This situation has made the brands to look over and revise their marketing strategies to gain new opportunities and fulfill the changing consumer demand.

Some of the companies thought to take a dive and enter the direct-to-consumer market. For instance, a company launched a platform dedicated wholly to B2C. In contrast, most of the companies are still using the subscription order procedure.

However, some CPG manufacturers want to maximize their platform reach in the market and engage retailers to grab a significant share with an increased e-commerce demand. In this case, the retailers are enabled to:

  • Placing orders online directly
  • Avoid or reduce the stockouts by implementing the real-time inventory management
  • Have the optimized SKU’s for digital channels
  • Assessing new disruptive routes to market by partnering with a logistic and delivery business

There are many challenges, and the CPG companies should overcome all these to succeed in online sales. Entering into e-commerce and utilizing technology that will engage consumers by keeping a note of their preferences and priorities isn’t that easy.

Priorities the CPG industry should implement to survive now and post-pandemic

As most of the consumer’s shift to e-commerce channels, the sales of food and beverage categories will increase to 70% approximately by the year 2022. This will be the gain of CPG companies, who can develop effective omnichannel capabilities to maintain their position in the market. Simultaneously maintaining an interactive and innovative presence in the social channels.

Below are the statistics showcasing increased CPG sales during the Lockdown. It is a representation of CPG sales by channels. The first one represents the increased sales of Grocery and the second graphic representation is for Multi-Outlet and Convenience. Amid this crisis, people are trying new brands, 50% of the consumers have tried new brands, however, 66% of them are likely to stick with these new brands.

CPG Demand index

As everything is turning from Pandemic to recovery, the CPG manufacturers must shift their focus to future plans. To make your mark in the market in such a situation, the below priorities should be focused on first.

Tailor all your capabilities to unique needs

As you will already have a standardized sales practice, it would be better to concentrate on approaching the consumers and targeting different channels and segments. This means customizing how to leverage data and other information to connect with retail consumers’ unique requirements. Analyze the collected data and check what the consumers want and also what they are interested in.

For instance, if a manufacturer wants to meet specific needs, they can reorganize its cross-functional sales team. For one retail consumer, there can be more data analytics experts in the team to facilitate the omnichannel strategy at work. However, there can be an addition of supply chain and operational experts for other retail customers, streamlining retail operations.

Making your sales model more flexible will help satisfy more customers and get a leading share in the market.

Partnership to improve omnichannel experience

Retailers have to serve hugely to customers in multiple channels; having a partner will help take care of the services, insights, and products. The job is not done just by moving in between stores, navigating mobiles, and e-commerce platforms. CPG companies should support the partner to do out-of-the-box things, grab people’s attention, and build even greater loyalty.

The consumer sales team should be clear about certain things before entering into it, such as, are they working the best with the online and in-store retail partners, is there another opportunity to increase it that they might have overlooked, are all the resource allocated in line with channel strategy, how to manage conflicts between retailers, e-commerce platforms and direct-to-consumer platforms. These are some important questions that must be analyzed before jumping in.

In an omnichannel experience, the more that data, the more accurate the result. A retailer knows what’s happening in his/ her region, while the manufacturers know how the products are performing in the market and different channels.

By having analyzed information, retailers can understand and optimize the omnichannel experience. If we take a step further, this analysis can innovate new ways to reach people.

Increase efficiency with Digital Tools

Now we are in such an era where contactless buying is preferred. With the outbreak of Coronavirus, people prefer less risky or contactless buying. Prioritizing the online process and minimizing human contact to avoid infections.

This situation arose a digital wave, where every business is trying to be on the online platform, mostly the product selling companies. Most aspects, such as taking the order, delivery, and customer service, are digitized.

This crisis forced the consumer goods industries to minimize human contact in the production and delivery department. In the same way, it forced the retailers to reduce human connection in distribution to stores.

However, digitization came as a savior in this crisis period. The three digitization process that came in handy are:

  • The route to market model digitization letting the customers know about your products,
  • automation of all in-store activities,
  • having advanced analytical experts by your side to get informed insights on shoppers’ patterns and product performance in the market.

The services such as telesales, messages, emails, e-commerce presence will, for sure, retain the market popularity of the product once the Pandemic passes.

Acting fast and adapting to an ever-changing market will always help the business. COVID-19 crisis has created a lot of challenges and changes in the market. It also discovered how important a retailer and manufacturer relation is.

In the Shutdown and panic buying situation, some recognized companies have stood still; well, on the other hand, few of the recognized brands are facing a steep fall in their sales. It all depends on how fast you grasp the changing market and shoppers’ interest and adapt to it.

The more resilient the company is, the less impact it has on its business. Simultaneously, it might take some time to wear-out the impact of COVID-19. This situation has reinforced the consumer-goods company’s values, providing the best chance to strengthen the retail partners’ marketplace.

Now it is time to be more analytical and plan to work uniquely and create increased value, presence, and engage people in their product.

Develop Ecommerce Consumer Involvement in 2020

Develop Ecommerce Consumer Involvement in 2020

As e-commerce involves majorly on the consumer, the relationship between the two should be well-built. It is one of the critical building blocks that you will have to add in your online business 2020. You have to understand how crucial a customer’s feedback can turn out to be. They help you shape up your business flaws, which works like constructive criticism. A simple thing like highlighting your loyal customers monthly on the company’s social media can be a big win.

Areas to Involve the Consumer

One of the areas that are still a challenge for online businesses is safety. As the opportunities to go global arises, assuring consumer’s safety while paying with their credit card is an issue that needs solving. Only then can you take its full advantage. Know the tools that you can use to protect your website. Luckily, you can find a WordPress website design company to have anti-spam tools added to your site. 

Now the internet is way easier to access. People can find and hack your information online. Help your customers to transact through the electronic marketplace comfortably.

Build Partnership

It is an important area, although overlooked. Usually, it costs nothing to offer excellent service to your customers but earns you big. When you delight them, they refer others to your company. Whenever you have an oncoming sale, let them know ahead of time. They feel valued.

Give them coupon vouchers that they can redeem in your store. For your existing customers, you can offer them loyalty cards that will earn them points that can later accumulate into substantial cash, which they can use and save money.

Based on the aggregate of referrals they have brought to your store, you can offer them some discount to encourage them to do so. The whole essence of saving your client’s acquisition is what will retain them. Transparency also plays a significant role in involving clients in your business in 2020.

Make Use of Common Platforms

When you are operating in e-commerce, it is paramount to find out where your clients spend more time for you to reach out. It is so apparent that you will find most of them on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Use them to interact with your clients. If there are questions that need answers, don’t take long to answer them. Clarify when required, and create a meaningful personal connection.

By taking full advantage of the platforms, you can create a community and start a conversation by seeking customer’s insights. Weigh in some exciting trends that will engage as many people as possible. To keep the fire burning, have an open dialogue.

Customers’ Reviews 

What kind of analysis are your customers giving? If you offer commendable service to your clients, then you don’t need to worry about the reports that you will find on your site. New customers will take a view of what previous ones had to say regarding their purchases and overall experience in your brand.

Remember, testimonies can give more weight to your brand, and the majority of people will only buy from you after watching videos of customer testimonials. To emphasize this, you can offer small incentives to your clients to participate in it.

Offer Exclusive Deals

Everyone loves deals. Especially when you mention that it is exclusive. Show a sneak peek of some unique content that you will release at a later date in your blog, to have your clients hooked. You can keep updating it on your site, or even send an email reminder, so your customers don’t miss out.

If you get a WordPress website design company to work on your site, these are things that can get sorted. Provide your email subscribers and those who have a premium membership a 5 to 10% coupon so that they can use it to purchase your products and probably spend more.

Be an Inspiration

We understand you are in business, but a little inspiration goes well with it. Develop a marketing initiative that draws people closer to your brand because it shows that you care for them. Some companies will advertise, “for every purchase, a dollar goes to help the needy.” While those in fashion will say something similar, “buying a pair of shoes from them will warrant one to a poor child.”

Your brand shows that you care and play a significant role in helping the marginalized.

Sharing your vision to the world also can inspire many customers out there. Assuming it carries a relevant message that depicts your care.

Do a Follow-up

customer followup

Most people do a fantastic job of bringing in a customer, and finally converting leads. Little do they realize that one of the other essential business deals of closing the loop is doing a client follow up. Call and check if your customers’ merchandise was according to their needs.

How was the service experience? Not only will this grow your clientele base, but it will bring back the customer for more. Orange Mud CEO Josh Sprague, suggests; “Remember to organize tasks of customer’s follow-up with an intent of executing.”

Since not everyone will appreciate a follow-up call, learn your customer’s behavior. When you do so, it will be way easier to understand their preferred means of communication. Most importantly, the right time to give them a call. If a customer says a call is a bother, it’s good to respect their request unless there is an urgent situation.

Take Them for a Tour

Since you cannot invite everyone to your company, select only the loyal ones. Take them on a tour guide as you explain more about your products. You should be more knowledgeable about your company, and everything that you have there. It is an efficient way of reaching out and involving clients about a brand that they love.

For the sake of those who did not make it, you can record the tour on video and place it on YouTube and all your active social media avenues. These are places that you are likely to attract a lot of views. Remember, there are companies like Animoto that have enabled you to turn your amateur video into a more professional type.

In conclusion, when you develop a strong business relationship with your customers, you are headed to the top. Customers love to be treated special and appreciated. They value responsiveness. Ensure to have a mobile integration to nail this effectively. There are varieties of tools that you can get from the WordPress website design company that can be added to your site to involve customer interaction.

 

Martech 2020: An Expert Guide for Your Company on Future Market Trends

Martech 2020: An Expert Guide for Your Company on Future Market Trends

 

Insights into the marketing technology 2020 and beyond is an online survey conducted by WARC in association with BDO and the University of Bristol on more than 750 brands and agencies to understand their current and future marketing plans for martech tool use, budgets and barriers to growth. This research was conducted on brands and agencies located in North America, the UK, Europe, and APAC.

Moving on, let’s take a more in-depth look at what this 2020 Martech Insights? what are the marketing trends ? and what the future of Matech 2020 is?

You must be familiar with the concept that marketing usually focuses on developing a healthy relationship with customers and satisfying their needs.

Then you must also be knowing that this could not have been possible without technology.

Indeed, these marketing technology tools and needs in marketing are directly proportional to each other. The more the tools, the more their need.

However, due to the modernization of people’s language with time and this marketing technology word clubbed to form a portmanteau, MarTech.

Well, in simpler terms, MarTech is basically a short version of marketing technology. This mixed name concept can be witnessed in various other sectors, such as AdTech (Advertising Technology), a term used in the world of advertisement field.

Well, well, wait! Before hitting the numbers and data, let’s first try to understand the basic concepts of Martech.

What is MarTech?

martech law

Source: Chiefmatec

Like any other term used in the Software world, this Martech is also a term used by the software techies and marketers who plan, execute, and measure their business campaigns.

The planning, execution, and measurements are usually carried out with the help of Martech tools.

These tools help you in streamlining and analyzing your data and provide you with various methods or options to reach out to your target audience and keep them engaged.

What are the MarTech Tools?

Martech Tools ranges from content strategy tools designed for different media to data management tools, analytics, and attribution tools.

Some examples of tools are Photoshop, WordPress, MS- Excel, etc.. To sum up, there are about 7040 Marketing tools readily available for you on a global scale, according to Chief Market Technologies. And these vendors vary from start-up specialists to established providers.
Well, speaking of tools while browsing about this vast topic, did you ever come across the term Martech 5000 and wondered what it stands for?

Like, you and I know what I love you 3000 stands for but Martech 5000?

Well, in 2017, there were around 5000 solutions available globally for commercial purposes are these were nicknamed as “MartTech 5000”.

According to Growth, the top 10 market technology tools are:

martech tools

Source: Growth

Getting back to the basics, let’s understand what a stack is in the retail world.

What is meant by Martech Stack?

A marketing technology stack is an archive of all the technology tools that companies or marketers leverage for improving their retail activities or processes.

In simpler terms, this stack is a collection of the software used by the company for retailing purpose.

I guess you have brushed up your basics, let’s now get into details about insights into the marketing technology aka Martech.

In this article, you will find the current trend, state, use, and future expectations of the marketing technology industry.

Ages of Marketing technology

marketing age
Source: Chiefmartec

Our tech market’s first era began in the early 21st century and was in existence until 2012.

As you can see, 2012 saw the upleap in the tech market, and the era was called the early age of martech. This early age of martech saw the introduction of new marketing tools into the lives of businesses and companies.

Later till 2017, the graphs of software and tools usage hit an excellent steep, and that age was called the first golden age of martech.

But from the 2018 year, you can observe a bend in the graphs of tech usage.

2018 to 2020, a reckoning in the market is predicted. Therefore the era is called the reckoning age of martech.

However, past 2020, it is said that marketing technology will see a drastic change and will be higher than ever.

Martechs law:

martech law 2
Source: Chiefmartec

As you know, marketing is bizarrely complex and is evolving at a breakneck pace. Martec’s Law is a genuine dilemma for everyone in the corporate industry.

Hold on… Before I talk about how bizarre the market is. Let me tell you what the Law is.

What is Martech Law?

Martech’s Law is a graphical representation of the change in the market and change in the organizations.

martech law
Source: chiefmartec

According to this Law,” Technology changes exponentially, but organizations change logarithmically.”

That means the rate at which the technology is updating is faster when compared to the rate at which organizations are adopting the technology.

In other words, the rate at which the organizations are adapting to the new technology is slower than the rate of updation in technology.

Insight of MarTech 2020:

Technical software is developing over time. According to Marketing Technology 2020 Landscape Supergraphic reports by Chiefmartec, the number of solutions in 2011 was 150; from there, it boosted to 7,040 solutions according to  Landscape Supergraphic 2019.

The growth of the solutions from the past eight years can be seen in the image below

martech-landscape-2011-2019

Source Chiefmartec

The estimated market size of the Marketing Industry in North America and the United Kingdom’s (UK) is as follows:

Source: Martech 2020: and Beyond

From the above image, you can see How the market spending has doubled from $34.3 billion in 2017 up to $65.9 billion in 2019 just in a span of two years. The data is combined spending of North America and the UK exclusively.

However, you can observe a massive difference between the increased amount of spending for each individual annum. The increase in marketing size in 2018 is 18.1 BN, and for the current year, it is 13.5 BN.

This means the corporate spending on marketing software has decreased by 4.6 BN in comparison to 2017.

The percentage of overall retail budget spending on marketing technology:

market spend

Source: Martech 2020: and Beyond

The data, in the above image, is split by the proportion of companies spending on in-house and outsourced marketing technology.

As you can see, the results show a rapid growth rate in the spendings in North America
region while the UK has remained steady.

On average, all the brands in North America and the UK are spending approximately 26% of their budgets on software when compared to 23% last year.

That means there is a 13% increase in martech budgets since last year. However, in comparison to 2017 Martech values, there is slight evidence of a decline in the future of the market.

When coming to in-house sourcing and outsourcing by these companies, there has been substantial discussion in the industry regarding the usage of in-housing of tech and optimized utilization of services by brands from their agency partners over the years.

However, what the results suggest is, in the North America region, there has been an increase in both in-sourcing and outsourcing by the brands.

However, when you look at the data of the UK, there has been an evident drop in the outsourcing of resources but a 1% increase in the in-sourcing.

Marketing Technology budget change over 12 months:

The martech budget change of clients by 2020:

The 750 brands and agencies on who the research is done have two opinions on the client’s budget. On analyzing the combined results of these 750 brands, 43% of the brands feel there would be an increase in the client’s budget over 12 months by 2020, 53% of the brands feel there wouldn’t be any change as the clients will still keep their budgets fixed for the annum. However, only 4% of the brands feel there would be a slight drop in the set budgets of the clients.

client
Source: Martech 2020 and Beyond

When you try to look at the results of the analysis for individual regions, each region has its perspective.

Before moving on with the further analysis of the data, you should remember that the analysis reports of Europe excluding the UK while the others are of the whole region.

All other regions except for Europe strongly believe that most of the client’s budget would remain constant while in Europe, 53% of the brands believe there would be a significant increase in the budgets of the clients.

The martech budget increase of brands by 2020:

When the brands were questioned about their budget increase over the next 12 months, the results were somewhat like this:

brand
Source: Martech 2020: and beyond

As you can see, each percentage of brands has its proposals for the budget increase.

On average marketing technology, 2020 budgets by brands are:
  • 22% believe that their budgets might increase by 0-5%.
  • 26% estimate their budget increase between 6-10%.
  • 21% calculate their brand budget increase to range in between 11-15%.
  • 15% of the brands feel theirs might increase between 16-20%.
  • 9% of the brands say their budget will increase between 21-25%
  • 6% of all brands estimated their budgets to increase by more than 25%.

However, from the results, you can analyze that Europe, including the UK, has the highest percentage of brands, on average, 9.5%, which predicts their budgets to be more than 25% of the current budgets.

While North America has no companies which estimate to spend more than 25%, however, it has the highest number of brands calculating to increase in between 0-5% on their budgets.

How has increased investment in marketing technology affected the companies’ Media Spend?

With the development of Chatbots, Artificial Intelligence, SEO tools, and other corporate tools, it has become easier for marketers which media is most effective for their use and promotions.

In the last year’s survey, it was found that the marketers had decreased their market spend when they invested in software tools. But for 2019, marketing technology, the market trends have changed.

trends
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond

From the above data, you can understand how the market trends have changed in comparison to 2018.

Though for about 44% of the brands, their media spend has not been affected, for 32%, it has decreased whereas there was a 57% decrease in 2018.

That means there is a difference of 25% when compared. However, a significant increase of 8% is visible on the media spend from 2018 to 2019.

What do the marketing trends, marketing technology budgets and marketing sizes for 2020 suggest to…..

Brands?

On a global basis for brands the marketing technology, market trends and sizes suggest for the development of in-sourcing resources as well as to maintain good relations with outsourcers too.

Thought the budgets of companies by 2020 are predicted to increase, you can see how more than half of the budget is spent on resourcing.

Hence the companies should focus more on developing their in-source resources or train the pre-existing staff to integrate and upskill their methods and ideas of resourcing.

This doesn’t mean you tend to lose your relations with outsourcers. Incase if the insource resources crash, the only option you have to get your job done is through outsourcing. Hence it is equally important to maintain a balance between insourcing and outsourcing.

Agencies?

From the observations of inhouse and outsourcing future marketing trends, you can see that there is a little momentum in In-housing resources among the respondents.

Hence there is an excellent opportunity for you to grab. You can use this opportunity as an advantage and win back most of your clients, who are about to consider in-housing or have recently shifted to in-housing.

However, winning back is not as easy as you think.

It rarely happens that you go to your client, explain to him difficulties of in-housing, and boom he is impressed and gets back to you.

To impress your client and win him back, you should sell your values according to “COW.”

Now wondering what this COW is?

Well, COW stands for Creativity, Objectivity, and Wider perspective.

Hence, when you are explaining your resources to the client, always try to be creative, objective, and try to have a wider perspective of branding and culture.

Technology vendors?

As you can see, the possibility of an increase in budget spending, there is always a scope of improvement for your tech vendors.

All you have to do is to ensure that your goods and services can facilitate creativity, are easy to operate, and solve the concerns of both brands as well as agencies.

Media Owners?

If you are a media owner and are looking at the data analysis, I bet you must be feeling happy.

Compared to last year, data this year has a piece of positive news for all media owners because there last year had a great decrease in media spent while this year’s research says there is an increase.

For you, the key to making money out of this is by focusing on the importance of data of the brands and agencies as well as keeping yourself transparent.

Now, if you step ahead and prove your effectiveness and relevance to brands concerning the context of increasing usage of technology platforms, that’s it you get clicked just like that.

Now, let’s look at the current usage and capabilities of marketing tools.

Current Use and Capabilities of Marketing technology:

Marketing tools provided by established organizations are where the brands and agencies find their use.

The following are the marketing tools currently in use by most of the brands on a global level.

martech tools
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond

From the above data, you can analyze various categories of tools used by companies for marketing.

In 2018, the usage of tools was

  • Email – 85%
  • Social Media – 75%
  • CRM – 68%
  • Analytics – 64%
  • Content Strategy – 63%
  • Mobile – 58%
  • Data Management – 58%
  • Ad Tech – 57%
  • Commerce, Lead management, sales – 56%
  • SEO – 47%
  • Market Automation – 41%
  • Experience Optimization – 37%
  • Collaboration – 28%
  • None of the above – 9%

Source of the data: Martech 2019 survey by WARC and Moore Stephens

By comparing both 2018 and 2019 data, you can see that for some tools, there is a drop in their usage while some have picked up the graphs.

Though you can observe a negligible difference between the rise of Analytics, Measurements and Insights, Mobile, Data management, and Ad tech’s graph, you can find a significant rise of 3% among Market automation and SEO. A 5% rise in usage of experience optimization can also be seen. But, in the case of collaborations with other software, there is an increase of 9% in comparison to that of 2018.

However, you can see that, and there is a 3% downfall in the usage of Commerce, lead generation and sales, and Customer relationship management (CRM). While coming to Emails, there is a significant drop of 6% in the usage in 2019.

However, the future market trends also suggest that there might be a huge fall in the usage of Emails as only 14% of the population among the 750 brands plan to use it in the next 12 months. Comparatively collaboration usage can be seen to fall as 38% of the crowd have no plans in using the tools.

How can you develop the best MarTech Strategy?

When the Brand respondents of the Survey conducted by WARC in association with BDO, and University of Bristol were asked about the skills they look into while hiring the marketing function for their company the top priorities were somewhat like this:

qualities'
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond

As you can see, the most important criteria for the brands is creativity. On average, 49% of the brands prefer their marketing software to be creative. Later they look at the brand strategy and then the customer experience.

So similarly, even you should have a clear picture of what you need for your brand. Hence planning a martech strategy is very essential.

Here are some great tips for you to develop the best marketing strategy for the future market trends:

Analyze what you need:

Along with the growing market, new tools are launched every day. It is always tempting to get the best tool or a high-end tool. Every organization, just like yours, wants to have the best.

But what will you do with a tool which is of no use to you? It is just like a person with hearing aid buying a high-end version of headsets.

Hence, always sit with your team and analyze which tool is easy for them to work on and to give fantastic results.

Check for Upgradations of the tool:

Now, you know what you want and started to use it. It is giving the best results. But, with the change of time, tools also need to be upgraded for more optimization.

Hence, keep looking for up-gradation of the tool or alternative sources for tools that are easier to adapt and give optimized results for your brand.

You can save your time of research about new tools and use product hunt for the same.

Understand the role of the tool:

Why do you need a tool? Why can’t you do everything manually?

I know the answers, I was just playing around.

You usually need a tool because it serves several purposes that are important to your business team.

First, they help you in understanding your customers through data and analytics.

Second, they help you in automating processes so you can use that data to work more efficiently.

And third, they help you in making the customer experience even more personal and meaningful.

Hence when you are using tools, make sure that it serves at least one of the purposes. If your tool is not serving any of the purposes, I say ditch it and shift it to a useful tool.

Know what your clients look for:

Having a tool, analyzing the numbers or data will not fetch you anything until the client is satisfied. Hence when you are choosing a tool or planning a strategy, always keep clients persona in mind.

To know what your clients need to look for leads from the customer experience department and choose strategies accordingly.

Keep your data up to date:

Always remember, no matter whichever product services your companies provide, you must have your database. The database helps you understand more about the market; it’s functioning and customers’ persona, which helps you and your company develop to the next level.

How are marketing technology and customer experience related?

When the brands were asked about how important is customer experience optimization for their company? The results are:

customer exp
Source Martech 2020 and beyond

As you can see, 57% of the population feel customer experience is very important, and 39% feel it is important. Hence on average, 76.5% of the brands and agencies feel customer experience is somewhat important for them.

What is the customer experience?

Customer experience is nothing but the feedback from the customer. The feedback can be in any manner. It can be the impression on your brand, product, or your services.

For most customer-based companies, the customer is the king.

Technologies used by the brands to learn about customer experience:

According to the research, as you can see, Most of the brands use Customer relationship management and social media management the most to get customer experience.
It’s not always necessary that you should also use what the top brands use. Here are some customer experience tools you can use for your company for better results.

Customer experience tools are:

   1. Customer review suggestion box:

No one knows what is working and what is not better than your employees. So, first, start from your own office. You know, like charity begins at home, feedback also should start from your own office.

There might be a possibility that if you, the boss, is asking about a review, no one would dare tell negatives.

So drop a suggestion box where the employee’s name can be anonymous, and you get the genuine review.

   2. Customer surveys:

Well, well, yes, customer surveys. From your database, you can find out your brand loyals easily, and also you can find brand switchers.

Pick them up and send surveys via online mails, or if you are in the same area, try to meet them up. You can have a little chat about their experience with the brand and then conduct a survey.

   3. Social media listening tools:

If you feel that surveys, the suggestion box is too much, and you don’t wanna do it, then you can always turn to technology for help.

Social media listening tools help you monitor what your customers are looking for. It includes the top searched keywords, your brand products, their reviews or comments, your competitors, and many more.

Now you must be wondering where to get these tools? Don’t worry; we have a solution to every problem of yours.

There are an unlimited number of tools out there based on your preferences, for reference Hubspot, Hootsuite, Sprout Social are few tools from where you can start.

There are other Customer experience tools available in the market that fulfill your preferences, and they are IBM Tealeaf, Satmetrix, WalkMe, Khoros, Podium, Whatfix, and on and on.

By reading the above information about marketing technology and trends, I bet you must have understood what it is about and how are the current market trends.

Well, now let’s look at the future.

With 2019 almost coming to an end, it’s time we take our experiences from it and prepare for the future 2020.

Future of Marketing Technology 2020 :

The most used technology in the current marketing strategy these days is IOT- Internet of Things, 38% of the population among the brands use IOT as their technology in marketing strategy. 26% of them plan to use it in the next 12 months too.

Next, catching up technology is Virtual Reality, aka VR, 26% currently use it, and 24% plan to use in the coming 12 months.

The other analysis you can find in the figure below.

future martech 2020
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond.

As you might be aware of the fact that along with changing times, technology is also evolving.

So, What will happen in 2020?

This is probably going to be the future of Marketing technologies, aka martech:

  1. Companies will optimize to Voice Search
  2. Companies’ dependence on Google Analytics will decrease.
  3. IOT technologies will top the business
  4. Brands will look for alternative communication channels.
  5. Businesses will no longer be built on one channel
  6. Personalization will be the new market trend

#Voice Search Optimization:

Though the research states that the voice search usage in the next 12 months will not be more than 25%, another search, according to ComScore states, over 50% of the future searches in 2020 will be in the from voice search.

Hence, companies to rank on top have to optimize to voice search.

Here we are not just talking about Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa. We are talking about voice searches beyond these.

One such personal best is Jetson.ai. Never heard about it?

Well, Jetson.ai is a voice assistant, which helps in voice shopping.

You don’t have to buy a device; all you need to do is simply connect it to your Amazon’s Alexa or Google Mini.

Then upload the menu and shop.

Voice Shopping in the U.S.is estimated to reach $40 Billion in and $5 Billion in the UK by 2022.”
-OC&C STRATEGY CONSULTANTS

Another wonderful thing about jetson.ai learns from the customers and customize it accordingly.

That means, If you are ordering a particular item from the same store over and over, it understands it, and for the next purchase, it makes it easy for you to order.

# Why will dependency on Google Analytics to decrease?

I am sure that every company at one point or the other must have used Google Analytics or is currently using it.

If you have used Google Analytics, you must be aware of how it functions.

If not, here is a brief intro to it. Google Analytics is basically a web analytics service. Google offers it. It helps you to track and report website traffic as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform brand.

If you ask me if this Google Analytics is not accurate for research? I would say No.

Now, if you ask m if there is something wrong? Still, it’s no.

I bet your next question will be, do people, not like it? Of Course, no, who wouldn’t like a free tool to check Website traffic.

Then why will it be replaced? Let me give you a living example of smartphones.

Nokia phones were considered the best. Even you must have used it at some point. But with time, smartphones came in and replaced it.

People like you and me preferred smartphones cause work got easy and optimized.

Similarly, with Google Analytics. Over time new updated tools and software are emerging, and Analytics has become the conventional method of data analysis.

Nowadays, there are things like repeat purchases, upsells, down sells, and checkout bumps are seen. On top of that, there are various ways in which you can generate revenue for your online business, like partnerships, or webinars.

As a result, it has caused companies to start using analytics solutions that match their database better, for example, Amplitude. Or something more convenient than that.

In the end, all you are seeing is a big push into business intelligence.

In 2020, you will get to see more and more companies adopting these business intelligence solutions. Due to budgets, they might as well shift from paid ones to free ones like Google Data Studio.

If you have no idea about Data Studio, then I suggest you start getting an idea now.

It is easy for you to pass in all of your business and corporate data into one place.

For example, you can pass in more complicated data from your Facebook ad campaigns into Data Studio with ease as it would be a bit difficult task to perform with Google Analytics.

#How IoT will top the businesses?

As mentioned earlier, 38% of the population among the brands use IOT as their technology in marketing strategy. 26% of them plan to use it in the next 12 months too.

According to a report by Statista, the Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices installed worldwide in 2020 will be 30.73 billion. Currently, in 2019, it is 26.66 Billion.

Which means there would be a rise of 4.07 billion in IoT.

If you have no idea about what IoT is then, The internet of things (IoT) is nothing but the data you share over an internet connection.

In technical terms, IoT is a growing set of technologies based on devices that could share data via an internet connection.

Hence, companies will have to look into this for better optimization, and it is estimated according to a report by Statista that by 2015, this IoT would reach 75.44 billion.

That means 48.78 billion rises from the current use.

#Why will brands look for alternative communication channels?

The most conventional communication channel used by corporates is Email. You and I also use it for our marketing purposes.

In fact, email marketing is one of the E-Commerce business ideas and SEO ideas.

The only problem with emails is conversion rates are low. Buyers, most of the time, do not check inboxes or only look for important ones and skip promotions. Hence it is becoming challenging for companies to only stick to emails.

Hence, companies are looking forward to alternative business channels for better conversion rates, which are effective in turning their leads into customers.

Some alternative communication channels are Chatbots, Customer call centers, toll-free centers, and push up notifications.

# Why will business no longer be built on one channel?

In previous years, a lot have companies have been built on a single channel, like facebook, quora, etc.

Facebook uses the email address book as its channel. Whenever you log in for the first time, you must have seen a pop up suggested friends or import email addresses from facebook.

Similarly, Quora is built on SEO channels. It helps companies ranking on search engines.

But, marketing these days is not unidirectional. It is heading fast towards marginal gains.

If you want to win the market, then you must use all the channels possible for business. Hence marketers will shift to use multiple channels to build their businesses or rank number one.

#Why personalization is important in the future?

Personalization is an SEO trick to grab the attention of your customers. There are two types of personalization to a website:

  • Themed personalization
  • User personalization

Themed personalization:

This is what you do to customize your website according to a festival. Like recently, we celebrated Halloween. So you must have customized your website to a Halloween theme.

Google always personalizes itself to such events. It makes the users happy and attracts them.

Well, if you do not know how to customize your website, you can use organized themes for helping you with customization.

User Personalization:

This is an important point, especially in the field of online marketing. Let it be your ads or products you sell. You should always know your demographics.

User personalization is what you can find Amazon or Flipkart doing. They observe your shopping trends or recent searches. Later, when you use their services, they will show you related items.

Based on your recent searches, here are some suggested products. A message appears, and we find all our related items.

Now, what will happen if this is not there? If personalization was not there, then you or I can get suggestions for baby clothes or dog food.

Well, if you have a baby or a dog, it will be useful, but I don’t have a baby or a dog, so its a spam to me.

But if you give me some search related to footwear- oh, I love browsing footwear and keep on buying them even if I don’t need new pairs- I will browse and definitely buy at least one pair.

So, personalization helps in business growth and attracts customers.

Now, if you ask me, why is it important? In future people will get so busy that they will not have time to look into anything. If you personalize your products according to buyer persona and showcase them on top of the websites or ads, the chances are high that they will end up purchasing some goods or the other.

You might have definitely been hearing about some of the above points or might feel they are irrelevant to you, but this is the future of marketing technology 2020.

Martech is not a piece of cake. You also must have been facing barriers in technology for marketing. However, here are a few topmost barriers for Marketing technology 2020.

Barriers for MarTech:

According to the report, MarTech 2020 and beyond, the brands and agencies have different views on the barriers of marketing.

According to the brands, 50% of them feel budgets will be the top constraint in 2020 marketing. Still, agencies have a different view; among them, 56% feel understanding the technology will be a constraint for marketing technology 2020.

Here is the data analysis of barriers for both brands and agencies

Image:
Source: Martech 2020 and beyond

Conclusion:

On a whole account, Marketing technology 2020 is going to see a lot of ups and downs. But for you, if you have confusion or dilemma about what to do, where to start, how to start, you can always contact us.

Most things mentioned above are either things that you have been hearing for a long time or have never heard about. But whatever it is, it is in the future, and if you want to survive, you should be prepared.

We would always love to hear your views on the marketing trends 2020 and what you think about your future. Do give your opinions in the comments section below or contact us.

We hope that this article was of excellent help to you in understanding marketing technology and 2020 trends.

Quick Halloween Marketing Ideas to Boost Sales This Holiday Season

Quick Halloween Marketing Ideas to Boost Sales This Holiday Season

Are you wondering what quick Halloween marketing ideas will boost your sales up this Holiday month? Don’t worry at all as you have just come to the right place for all your answers. Instead of jumping directly onto Marketing ideas for Halloween 2019, let us first take a quick look at last year’s marketing trends and predicted present trends.

In this article, you will find various solutions to all your queries about ecommerce marketing strategies and how to boost your sales during holiday seasons using social media marketing and current business trends.

What is Halloween?

Halloween is an annual ghostly holiday celebrated on October 31st every year. This 2019 it falls on Thursday, October 31. It came into observation along with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. On this day, people light bonfires and wear scary costumes to stall away ghosts.

Celebrating Halloween is an ancient practice, but with time it has become trending. According to a research in 2018 by the National Retail Federation (NRF), 175 Million American’s celebrated this scary time of the calendar. They, on average, spent 9 Million Dollars for celebration.

What They Buy for Halloween?

This quarter the estimated Trick or Treat holiday shopping trends are

  • 68 percent of Americans plan to celebrate Halloween this year. Top spending categories for 31st October 2019 are:
  • $3.2 billion on Halloween costumes,
  • $2.6 billion on Halloween candies
  • $2.7 billion on Halloween decorations, and
  • $390 million on Halloween greeting cards
  • What They Buy for Halloween:

This 2019 October edition holiday has gained popularity because it is an affordable holiday. Right from kids to adults, each and every person loves to celebrate this spookiest day of the year. Shoppers look forward to Spooky items that are bang for a buck.

90 percent of Americans buy candies for trick or treats, spending about $2.6 Billion. Around 75 percent buy decor, and not more than 70 percent spend on costumes.

Top five trending costumes for adults were:

A witch, vampire, zombie, pirate, and Avengers character.

While for children, the costumes were Princess, Superhero, Batman, Star Wars character, and Witch.

In recent times shoppers even buy weird costumes for their pets. The five most popular pet costumes were Pumpkin, hot dog, bumblebee, devil, and cat (for dogs).

When Should You be Ready for Halloween?

  • 6% of shoppers will start shopping before September.
  • 28% of shoppers will start their shopping during September.
  • 41% of shoppers are likely to get done with their shopping in the first week of October.
  • 25% of the shoppers wait until the latter half of the October month in search of more profiting offers.

If you have not yet started with ecommerce marketing, it is never too late. You can begin with it even now.

What channels you should use to sell your products?

Social Media channels are considered to be the most effective channel for marketing during holiday seasons every year. Most of the traffic for your business flows in through these online channels like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest.

We have included an image below, which helps you analyse how online media has influenced purchases and increased sales over a few years.

socialmediahalloween

Here are a few Halloween marketing ideas that would boost your sales this Scary season:

1. Customizing Your Website:

Customizing your Website is the best way to start your business strategy for this ghostly season. It is an excellent ecommerce strategy. You can customize your Website in various ways.

Here are the best customizing options for your Website:

It is the best way to attract customers, and be a part of this creepy Day celebrations. Even Google uses this method.

  Source: Google

  • Use a Spooky Favicon:

Favicon is nothing but a tiny icon that appears on the top of your browser’s tab for your Website. Though customizing favicon seems to be a small change, it has a significant impact on attracting the audience.

  • Add a Scary theme:

Apart from the logo and favicon, what gives your Website festive feel is the theme. If you are willing to get into the holiday theme, you must revamp your Website by giving it the holiday edition touch. This themed Website modification is for providing your visitors holiday season spirit.

Source: Walmart

Apart from these few customization’s, what could really attract customers to your websites are the use of Chatbots. Chatbots are conversational agents on your site. With the help of chatbots, you get a chance to wish all your customers who visit your website and create an emotional bond with them.

   2. Launch Limited Edition Products:

One Halloween business marketing idea used by many chocolate companies and other brands is they launch limited edition products. This practice of launching customized products keeps fans eager for your companies collections. This practice increasing brand value and trade.

There is an added advantage when the product also targets Christmas. Starbucks, in 2003, launched Pumpkin Spice Latte flavor. This product might not have been wholly linked with this scary day.

Source: Starbucks Coffee Company

However, this flavor is available only during the months of September to December. Along with many other limited-time products, it has become a trendy item. This product is selling more than 200 million units over the last 15 years.

Plan your limited edition products in such a way that they are unique and catchy.

   3. Bring back fun with Halloween contests:

User-Generated Content (UGC) is a successful way to attract customers. Running a themed Halloween social media contest for your Company or business is the best way to get UGC.
This scavenger hunt time is all about Halloween outfits, pranks, fun, and entertainment. By launching such themed festival contests, you can bring in a lot of organic traffic.

            Source: Mochi shoes

Social media algorithms are being modified over a period of time. The algorithms for Facebook are prioritised for posts with meaningful interactions i.e., post which has a greater people engagement (comments, likes, and shares) appears on top of your feed. For Instagram, the algorithm is set to feature new posts on the top.

Hence to avoid such risks of a failed campaign, promote the contest through paid media. This contest idea is to not only get UGC but also to generate brand awareness to a new audience.

For these spooky media campaigns, you can give corporate gifts to the top one to three entrants. Otherwise, you can have one main prize and provide coupons to all entrants to redeem at the store or online.

   4. Offer Spooky Deals or Discounts:

This creepy day is the time where 40 percent of the buyers start their holiday shopping.

When you club coupons, deals, or discounts with holidays, your customers, it encourages them to take up these luring offers. This 2019 Halloween is one that will not ‘trick your customer but will only ‘treat’ them.

 Source: Canva

You can give discount vouchers, coupons, or deals on the themed products of your Company. Else you could do the same for all commodities depending on your companies retail strategy.

Offering discounts or coupons just around the holiday season can lure customers into shopping for more than they would have.

   5. Customize your Social Media Pages:

You can create your vouchers, images, and other similar products in the same manner.

Just like your Website, try customizing your online pages into creepy themes. This ecommerce trick attracts customer’s attention to your establishment. Customizing social media sites is an essential ecommerce methodology. On the other hand, it is a great Halloween marketing idea 2019.

Customizing is necessary as the current trend is all about web networking. Most of the traffic flows through your online channels. When you add a little pinch of holiday touch to your social accounts is always welcomed by the customers.
You can customize your online pages using Dot Template.

 

   6. Launch theme-based Media Marketing Campaigns:

Source: Dominos

After customizing your online channels, you should tailor your social media posts too.

As trick or treat occasion is not as huge as Christmas, you need not have to customize all your online posts. Yet, you should have at least two Halloween posts a week during October and September.

Your themed campaign shouldn’t be only about these one or two themed posts. If any other thematic promotions of your organization are running, promoted them too. Use regular web posts and standard online advertising for promotions.

Online advertising can be done using Google, Amazon or other social media.

Generating Social media campaign templates is very easy.

  • Create an Edit account.
  • Choose professionally created templates from their library.
  • Upload your personalized photos or you can select from their images.
  • Add filter and text.
  • Save the template and share it with others.

   7. Run a Themed Email Marketing Campaign:

Source: media tumblr

Adding a small theme to your email campaign can boost sales, or bring in brand awareness for your firm. When you link festivals to industries such as health, security, or other services, it adds benefits.

Dentists and doctors can share emails about the risks of overeating candy, or the type of candy children should avoid.

A company selling security services could share tips on how to stay safe during trick-or-treating.

A restaurant can share details of exclusive food items and discounts at their place.

One email marketing tip is to include a sized image for sharing on social media. This image can feature one or two tips that allow people to share among their family or friends.

An essential point for you to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t change the frequency of your email marketing. Changing the frequency rate can turn the mails into Spam.

You must always aim at boosting your email conversion rate while you are doing email marketing.

   8. Link this spooky day to your business:

This holiday season can boost up sales for Realtors, Restaurants, and Real estate.

#1. Halloween marketing ideas for REAL ESTATES:

Like other ecommerce businesses, Real Estates can also use a few strategies.

  • You can run a themed email campaign sharing details of your market history, ongoing projects, and why you are unique.
  • Launch deals and special offers for 31st October.
  • Run online creepy home decor contests in the neighborhood.
  • Attach a business card to your trick or treat candies and pumpkins.
  • Send corporate gifts to both old and new clients and make them feel special.

You can use Edit to create your business card designs or flyers.

Top 10 Halloween corporate gift ideas are:
  • Mini Ghost candles
  • Carved Pumpkins stickers
  • Ghostly molded chocolates
  • Horror shot glass sets
  • Customized goody bags
  • Flickering fright lights
  • Personalized cards
  • Flavored box of ghost Cookies
  • Party flavored candies
  • Customized witch survival kits
    .

#2. Halloween marketing ideas for Realtors:

  • Customize cards and send them to the whole neighborhood.
  • Send wishes via email to all your potential customers as well as prospective customers.
  • Write blog posts linked to the ghostly theme Like How to decorate your home this Halloween?, How to celebrate Halloween? Or What to wear this Halloween?

Source: Passion For Savings

Top 10 Halloween party themes for decoration are:
  • Haunted House
  • Willy Wonka
  • Scary Carnival
  • Superhero
  • Graveyard
  • Scavenger Hunt
  • Vampires
  • Pumpkin blast
  • Monster gang

#3. Halloween Marketing Ideas for Restaurants:

The food industry is an evergreen business during all holiday seasons. For this Scavenger hunt time, here is what you can do.

Design a tasty menu using scary names or combinations.
Launch limited edition food items using Pumpkin as the main ingredient.

Top 10 Halloween food recipes are:

Halloween-CupcakesSource: Peppy Kitchen

  • Pumpkin Caramel cake
  • Eerie eyeball pops
  • Eyeball pasta
  • Pumpkin hummus
  • Spooky fruit punch
  • Maggoty Apples
  • Caramel Apples
  • Mac-o’-Lantern and Cheese Bowls
  • Mummy hand pies
  • Graveyard Cup Cakes

Decorate your whole restaurant in a scary theme.
Launch special offers, discounts, coupons, combo offers over food items.

Burger King, during this trick or treat season, launches a spooky campaign every year called, “Halloween Horror Nights.”

Burger-King-Halloween-WhopperSource: Burger King

   9. Host an Event

“What should we do for Halloween?” is the question everyone would have on their minds. Answer their call by hosting an event under your banner. Your event could be a simple Halloween theme contest or a blockbuster show.

One best idea of an event is the Pumpkin Carving Contest. The Carving can be about themes for your Company or Name of your firm. Hosting an event is an impactful ecommerce idea for small businesses.

But whatever you plan for, propagate the event as early as possible so people can block their dates for it.
Promote your event via emails, web channels, or any other media according to your budget.

If you feel that hosting an event is not a cup of your tea, you can always take the help of event managing companies. Top Event Management companies in the USA are Sensis Agency, Bigfish Communications, Blanc and Otus.

“It’s not Halloween unless you go to @horrornights at Universal! Thank you #UniversalHHN for the tricks & treats with some of my favorite people 🎃🖤👻 always a blast.”

source Instagram profile : ddlovato

10. Write Seasonal Blog Post:

Writing a Halloween theme content is an attractive way to grab customers’ attention. You can write about various topics like History behind this Spookiest year? What to wear, How to Celebrate and other related season topics.

Writing about the small articles, and publishing them online increases organic traffic. Along with the post, you can add about the ongoing Halloween 2019 ecommerce campaign or deals you are offering for 31st October. Use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tools for optimizing your blog.

Call to action is a necessary step when you are providing customers with such content. Most of the customers tend to look for a call to action once they feel the blog interesting. Hence you should always guide such leads to your merchandise page.

Blogging is an essential SEO (Search Engine Optimization) recommendation. When your SEO ranking improves, it makes your site rank higher. If you have no idea about how to do SEO or other digital marketing technical works, you need not worry; you can follow the easy SEO guidelines.

   11. Use Hashtags:

halloween hastags

Hashtags are the basics of all social media platforms. Hashtags organize similar events, ideas, and trends together. When you check for that particular hashtag, you can view all related posts at a single platform. Adding hashtags like linked with this creepy night like #happyHalloween, #trickortreat, #HalloweenCostume, add an advantage.

Social media channels are full of videos and photos for these specific hashtags.

A hashtag contest is the simplest way to gather user-generated content (UGC). It increases brand awareness and reaches a new target audience.

If you are facing a problem in creating hashtags or want to cut some time in creating hashtags you can generate trendy hashtags using: Seek metrix for Instagram and Facebook and Hashtagify for Twitter.

   12. Plan for Giveaways:

Free Giveaways are the best way to gather UGC. It is the human tendency to get anything that is FREE. Free Giveaways help in exposing your brand to other customers. When you implement such marketing ideas, people are most likely to participate.

When you plan for giveaways, include aspects such as share, tag, or like our social media pages. This helps in free promotions and increases organic traffic.

Source: Modcloth

Never do a bogus giveaway. When you announce a giveaway, there should always be some or the other item which would reach the winners. When false campaigns are run, customers lose trust in you and would not recommend buying from you in the future.

Giveaways gifts need not be costly. They can be anything related to that particular holiday and promote your brand. For giveaway ideas, you can refer to Give away monkey site.

Here are some of the easiest and effective Halloween social media contest ideas for giveaways:

#1. Run a photo contest:

Photo contests are among mostly loved contests on the web. These contests get your entrants involved in the contest themselves. Running a photo contest helps you in collecting user-generated content (UGC). This content you can use in your future for retail purposes.

Apart from these outfit photos, another vital aspect of this ghostly day is weird makeup photo updates.

halloween make up ideasSource: pinimg

Top 10 Halloween makeup ideas are:
  • Poison Ivy
  • Zombie
  • Vampire
  • Scare-Crow
  • Pennywise
  • Joker
  • Killer clown
  • Harley Quinn
  • Annabelle
  • Creepy Ghost

#2. Run a referral contest

A social media referral contest helps you generate social engagement. A referral is where your giveaway or company page is shared. When participants refer your Company with others, they help in promoting your brand. This is a fantastic way to build a social following and spread the word about your brand to others.

#3. Share entries

pepsi contestSource: Pepsi Nepal

Sharing Entries on Facebook and Instagram has been a best practice for giveaway campaigns. These share entries contests firstly involve the purchase of your Company’s goods. Secondly, they help in the free promotion of your brand on social media. It increases sales of your brand as well as brand awareness.

   13. Team Up with Similar Campaigns:

Teaming up with similar 2019 Halloween social media campaigns is a wonderful ecommerce idea for small organizations. You can create promotional materials that highlight what each Company is offering. This extends the target audience to large portions targeting both organizations. This idea can come to implementation at any point during the year. Yet, it works very well during significant promotional periods.

Conclusion:

So, these are a few tricks which you could put in place this quarter. Remember, these marketing strategies are not limited only to E-commerce. They can also be used for realtors, real estates, apartments, and restaurants. Also, the only mantra to boost your business sales is by planning it accurately.

We hope that these marketing ideas are of great help to you this holiday season. If you have other ideas of marketing, do share it with us.

We also would love listening to your stories about how this holiday season marketing. So, do write to us in the comment section below or contact us.

Best wishes to you and your Company this Spookiest day of October, Happy Halloween!!!

The Two-Way Messaging In B2B SMS Marketing Makes More Sense

The Two-Way Messaging In B2B SMS Marketing Makes More Sense

It seems like business owners and marketers have leveraged SMS beyond limits to make the most out of it for their business promotion and retention of customers. SMS has supported the B2C communications for decades now. This is the most favored channel for businesses and is preferred to all other channels of communication available. The reasons for it being:

  • High open and read rates
  • Concise messaging and
  • A robust and high return on investments.

All these facts and features make SMS the clear choice for marketers to ensure that the right message of the brand is sent to the right people at the right time most effectively, efficiently, and successfully.

  • However, this is only when you consider it from the B2C perspective. When you look at it from the business to business point of view, you will see that far too fewer marketers have taken advantage of this useful and practical platform.
  • If you consider it traditionally, SMS has been used primarily as a one-way marketing channel. In this, the users only receive the message but had no option to communicate or engage with the business or the brand that sent the message.

With the rise and use of two-way messaging, there has been a lot of change brought in messaging and SMS marketing strategy, making it all the more effective. It is naturally now at the lead of all types of brand and user communication needs.

The suitability factor

If you want to deploy the two-way SMS marketing strategy for your business with the intent to target your B2B audience, there are, however, a few considerations to make.

First, you will need to consider the suitability factor to find out whether or not the two-way SMS marketing strategy is right for your business. The benefits of two-way SMS marketing strategy will help you to make the final and proper decision.

  • Ideally, two-way messaging may help any marketing campaigns by providing it with further benefits than any traditional text messaging strategy.
  • It will also help you and your brand to start a conversation with your audience almost at the very instant when you sent the message.
  • These conversations will help you to ensure a higher level of engagement with the key decision makers that was unheard of previously.
  • All the actions and communications are personalized and are help real-time. This reflects the human side of any business and counters the standard ‘send it and forget it’ approach in another traditional form of business marketing.

Therefore, to successfully determine whether the two-way strategy to send text message invitations is right for your brand or business or not will largely depend on the kind of business you have, if not entirely rely on this factor. However, the current trend of people willing more to connect with the human aspect of a business rather than a corporate touch makes it a more likely and favored choice.

The right mobile partner

To leverage two-way messaging more productively, your existing marketing team members do not need to be IT experts. All that you will need is to know how to use a simple SMS API. This will give you as a marketer the proper tools and assist you in different ways such as:

  • Sending and receiving messages
  • Managing responses
  • Track KPIs and
  • Optimizing campaigns so that you can keep it within your predetermined budgets.

These are powerful tools that will help you to establish and manage all your business communications more effectively.

  • It will enable any app to relate to the SMS
  • This can facilitate the website or system to two-way messaging
  • It will help you to send thousands of messages in a matter of a second and
  • However, it will be fully scalable to all of your business needs.

Therefore, it is crucial that you match your business with the right type of mobile partner so that you get the best out of the two-way messaging campaigns.

B2B sms marketing

If you want to make your two-way messaging campaign work effectively, it is imperative that you ensure that your mobile partner can deliver your message to the right party without fail just like the way you want it to be delivered. Therefore, make sure that you choose the right mobile partner. For that, you can make a list of questions to ask that may include tough questions such as:

  • Can you manage large quantities of texts to be sent?
  • Do you have the infrastructure to support a global campaign?
  • Does the platform you use to support special characters?
  • Does it meet the specific regulations of SMS messaging around the world?
  • Do you offer large numbers and shortcodes?

If the answers to all these questions are a resounding ‘yes,’ then you can rest assured that you have found the right mobile partner for your two-way SMS marketing campaign.

Unlock user data

You can use the SMS to unlock your user data, which is another significant aspect of two-way messaging that will ensure better customer engagement. When it comes to B2B marketers, it is a precious resource and technology to collect more useful customer information and data.

If you implement it correctly, the two-way messaging system will help you to gain access to a wealth of customer information that you would not have otherwise. The most significant part of it is that the recipients of your messages will be able to respond to it using shortcode texts rather than drawn out questionnaires.

This will help you to gain the exact information that you are looking for about your customers. Once you have this personalized data and information about your customers, it will further help you to leverage the personalized content as well as the promotions further down the line.

Therefore, given that fact that just about everyone today has a smartphone, the two-way messaging is ideally the perfect addition to your existing business marketing strategy. Make the best use of it using a link to your e-commerce site or a new product to get more sales lead.