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The first habit mentioned in Stephen Covey’s book is about being Proactive. It is about taking control of your situation. Regardless of how hard things get, you still draw on your inner motivation to start and finish on time. As they say, ‘What starts well, ends well.’ PPC managers are faced with so much pressure that sometimes they vent out their anger on those working alongside them. To maintain a safe and healthy workplace environment, it is best to follow some rituals every morning which can help PPC managers relax their minds in the daily grind and help them come up with more successful campaigns. Every campaign aims to drive sales or channel traffic. If the campaign is not working out, they need to change their approach and try out something else. And the only way PPC managers can achieve this is by following the morning rituals mentioned below. Here are 9-morning to-dos which can help you become a successful manager and manage your campaigns without any losses to the company.

1. Insert Negative Keywords

When you have a huge amount of money at stake, you cannot afford to take things lightly. Every click will cost you money. Therefore, every morning, the first thing you should do is sort out negative keywords and remove them from your list. Normally, on average, it is seen that people lose a lot of money on junk keywords, which results in harming your reputation. Early morning negotiations would be the perfect addition to your cup of Joe.

2. Remove Unrelated Google Display Network Websites

The second ritual you need to do is to remove all the unrelated Google Display Network (GDN) websites which are costing you unsolicited dollars. Figure out if the website is bringing relevant traffic to your website or not. If not, remove it.

3. The Daily Ad Spend

This is actually a no-brainer. When you’re spending money, you need to keep track of the budget and check what you’re spending every single day. Make the necessary adjustments daily first thing in the morning to protect yourself from incurring any surprises down the road.

4. Track the Leads

How many leads did you manage to generate the previous day? Is there something you need to adjust? Branex teams conduct a 10-minute scrum in the mornings,  discussing the impact of ads and campaigns. It is a nice way to start your morning with this amazing ritual. You can count the wins and motivate the team to achieve more.

5. Get a Bird’s-eye View

If you spot any major inconsistency, simply looking back over the day won't cut the bill; you also need to take a trip down the lane to view the bigger picture. Viewing your long-term campaign performance would help you see where the conversions started dropping off and why.

6. Follow Up with the Performance

Check if the campaign is working for a certain region or not. How is it making an impact on the target audience? Is the audience relevant and how can you improve the ad performance? Analyze the performance of every ad in the morning and improve as you get some results.

7. Keep an Eye on AdWords Alerts

Look out for AdWords account alerts, such as negated keywords or an about-to-expire credit card that can be impeding traffic. While you must be tempted to overlook most silly alerts, make sure to give them a cursory glance, perhaps while setting up shop.

8. Identify the Modifications

A PPC manager isn’t aware of all that conspires within an organization. You need to keep your ears and eyes open and be ready to improvise in a jiffy. Seeing major unexpected fluctuations in ad spend should indicate that something is cooking internally. For instance, if a new page is added, you need to make a PPC campaign for the page and check out the response it gets every day.

9. Prepare Yourself for Surprises

For newly launched campaigns and keywords, the first few days are the most crucial to survival. Do check the Google AdWords update daily so you can respond on the go.

The Final Thoughts

No two PPC managers can yield the same output. Every PPC manager will start their morning with a mix of rituals. The most successful managers will be the ones who analyze, update, and learn from their past experiences. But when the PPC managers have this habit of checking and updating the campaigns daily, they will not face any problems. As for surprises, even if there is a surprise, the PPC manager will be able to handle it without creating a fuss over it.

If someone claims that they cannot master a certain subject or advance in their skill, they are simply foot-dragging. With overwhelming data around us, it is simply inefficient to say that we don’t have time to analyze that data and convert it into something meaningful. To gain a competitive edge, the brand must see beyond the box and learn how to take data and convert it into insights. Abraham Wald is a prime example of how to utilize data and convert it into insights. When we are on the topic of thinking outside the box, it will be a disgrace to humanity if I don’t mention ‘Abraham Wald’. Born in Austria-Hungary (now known as Romania), Wald was a mathematical prodigy. In primary school, he was correcting his teachers and in secondary school, he was rectifying mistakes in his textbooks. In World War II there were severe damage & wartime problems. The situation required someone to minimize the bomber's losses. Instead of working on the areas where the aircraft was hit, Wald suggested an alternate theory. Wald proposed the Navy reinforce the areas where the returning aircraft were unscathed since those were the areas that, if hit, would cause the plane to be lost. Abraham Wald had no idea about the war, but he was good at math, so he used the power of data to present a solution to the problem. The brands of today can learn a lot from Abraham Wald. There is a reason some brands are sustaining a competitive edge over other brands. Let’s look at some of the tactics that can help brands create a competitive edge over their competitors.

Don’t Hinge Upon Intuition

Wald was the ultimate genius of his time. But still, he didn’t rely solely on his intuition. Instead, he collected data, analyzed it, and gave his hypothesis. A research done by Newsworks investigated a problem. They surveyed 30 young media planners and asked them to finish the IPA Touchpoints diary for a week. This was done so the results could be compared with the broader population. The results were scattered. The young planners watched TV for half of the duration as compared to the total population. This led to confusion that often people assume that what they are thinking is right. To rely on intuition is dangerous – it may influence us but not the customers. Instead, every plan needs to be analyzed with data. Wald gave us the insight that data is meaningful only with analysis.

Collect Data with Simple Tools

When Wald collected the data he used a pen, paper, and numerate assistant. Which was basic even for the 1940s. Data Collection is important for marketing, and most of the agencies these days fall into the trap of complex methodologies to collect data. The machine learning, AI, econometrics, and so on. It feels like we have replaced the hard work thinking with high-cost measurement of value. But insights don’t require high budgets. In fact, there are free survey tools that can help, collect, and manage the data of users without even spending a dime. Email is the evergreen medium to collect data from clients and deliver them customized products. The key is to get good insights in the simplest of ways.

Just the Data Won’t Be Enough

"Numbers have an important story to tell. They rely on you to give them a clear and convincing voice." ~Stephen Few Data is nothing but a raw form of material out there. If the data is not analyzed for the insight it won’t do any good to the creator. If the agencies want to take the competitive edge they must take the data and study, it to strengthen human decision-making. This tells a lot about Survivorship bias. Survivorship bias is a tendency to only focus on the survivors rather than everybody. This can also mean that people tend to focus more on the winners rather than the losers. This can be due to their lack of visibility which can, in turn, lead to false conclusions. This affects consumer decision-making. The experience that Wald provides us leaves us with plenty of lessons. We can learn from Wald and other historical figures who didn’t have much with them, but they took the leap and gained a competitive edge over others. As Bill Bernbach said: “Human nature hasn’t changed for a million years. It won’t even change in the next million years. Only the superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about the changing man. A communicator must be concerned with the unchanging man with his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own.” Branex can transform the data into insights that will gain a competitive edge over anyone coming their way. Contact our dedicated professionals!

I don’t know if humans have indeed cultivated the fabled attention span of a goldfish. In fact, I don’t really care if it’s a myth or not. But what I do know is that in this 24/7-driven world out there, people expect to get information on demand really fast. And in an era where brands are beginning to realize the power of customer-centric products, it’s necessary to understand the intent of customers. In addition to hiring high-profile sales representatives or brand influencers who can bring traffic to your website, let us all bow down to Chatbots. Yes, Chatbots are here to answer the call for this demand. Brands are harnessing the power of Chatbots to provide customers with ease and at the same time, save tons of money for hiring customer service reps. Chatbots are helping customers find information fast. They can educate a customer regarding a product or a service, assist the customer while making the purchase, and, for the cherry on top, Chatbots are improving conversion rates massively. If you don’t have a clue what I am talking about, let's look at some of the ways you can drive traffic to your website with the help of Chatbots.

Focus on Customer’s Questions

The primary difference between a brick-and-mortar store and an ecommerce store is that in the former, customers solicit the help of a salesperson when they don’t find a product on the shelve. While in an ecommerce store, this responsibility falls on a customer service rep or in the modern age, a Chatbot. In a physical store, a customer asks a question, and they are directed to the desired section where they can buy the product. But with a Chatbot, a whole new set of possibilities unfolds. With every question from the customer, you can modify the script of the Chatbot and boost your sales. Just like when you find a salesperson and they suggest some additional products, a Chatbot can read the intent of the customer and offer valuable suggestions to them. Whenever customers ask a question, use this information to iterate the Chatbot for better communication with the customers. Use the phrases and words that were used by the customers in their questions to help them find quick answers to their queries.

Add a flavor of Advice to your Answers

No one minds good advice. Most website owners assume that since Chatbots are robots, no one will listen to them. But the good news is that Chatbots of today are smart. When customers visit your website to buy a product, they already know what they’re looking for. The Chatbot just needs to fill them up with some answers. Just like a great salesman doesn’t just sell the product that customers want, they refer some add-ons or updated versions of the product, the Chatbot can be programmed similarly. When people don’t mind getting advice from sales professionals. Why won’t they welcome advice from a Chatbot if it is doing them well?

Eliminate the Obstacles from A Buyer’s Cycle

At times, the questions that customers ask are a result of some problem that they’re facing while purchasing the product. It’s an obstacle that is hindering the sales process. By giving customer precise answers pertaining to their problems, you’ll better be able to alleviate shopping cart abandonment. For instance, a customer might ask, ‘Do you ship overseas?’, or ‘Do you offer a complete refund?’ These are ordinary questions which can help customers make the final decision to buy the product.

Stimulate the Customer with Multiple Answers

We all prefer to buy from the experts. Leverage the power of Chatbots to portray yourself as an expert. Caught up in the throes of a problem, we all consider taking advice from an expert. An expert not only helps up discover solutions, but they also present us with many options to help us choose the right products for ourselves. This form of questioning cultivates trust among the customer and makes the customer listen to the expert without worrying about the quality of the product. For instance, if a customer asks a Chatbot, “Do you have engagement rings?" or “From where can I buy an engagement ring?”, you can take this information and feed it to the Chatbot to answer in a variety of ways. For instance, the chatbot may prompt,

• “What shape and cut are you looking for in an engagement ring?”
• “How many carats are you looking for?”, or perhaps pry a little deeper into your pocket and say,
• “How much are you willing to spend on the engagement ring? or speak your mind and utter,
• “Are you willing to go for a discounted engagement ring?"

These questions will not only open new opportunities for the brand, but they can also help the customer make an informed purchase since most people are more prone to respond to the queries of a chatbot, without dubbing them as nosy. Additionally, it will drive more traffic on your website.

Stick to Short & Professional Answers

No one likes being lectured upon. Some Chatbots can really rub you the wrong way in this regard. This will do the exact opposite of driving traffic to your website, it will increase the bounce rate of your customers. Excessive information might be okay with your blog or on your website, but when talking to a Chatbot, the customers want to solve their problems fast. They cannot wait for long-haul conversations. So, to drive traffic on your website, be short, professional, and helpful with your answers.

When you take some time out to read the conversations between your customers and the Chatbot, you’ll be able to devise a plan of action for it.

Look for Feedback in their Words

Feedback is the fuel that powers the brand. If there is no feedback, how will the company know what is working right and what isn’t? The Chatbot will be able to provide you with a lot of information on the words that customers are using in their conversation. A customer doesn’t need to be generous with their praises; sometimes, you have to read between the lines to learn what you wanted to hear. Get those statements and analyze them to improve customer interactions with the Chatbots. For example, try to read the conversations that end abruptly. Why did the customer leave without giving any review? Use this information to feed better data to your Chatbot.

The Next Step

Websites are using Chatbots to improve their retention and drive traffic to their websites. You can take the information that the customer is giving and use it to your advantage. If you are unable to find a genius app developer who can build a Chatbot for you,

You might be an entrepreneur at heart! When he was a toddler, he used to take a screwdriver and break apart his crib. Because he felt uncomfortable while sleeping on that crib. He was faced with a problem and so he devised a solution for it. At the ages between 4 – 16, he spends most of his time with his grandparents’ ranch in Texas. Repairing the windmills with a limited set of tools available at that time. As a kid, he was fascinated with space. Which later turned into a space company called Blue Origin. Some people might label him as a lucky guy, but with a net worth of $160 billion, Jeff Bezos showed an early sign of brilliance right from his childhood. “My mom thought that the best-suited job for me was to lay carpets because she was really concerned about my future. But I was a side hustler right from my childhood.” ~Mark Cuban When all the kids were busy playing on the ground, Mark was busy completing the rarest of stamps and organizing them. Since the stamps were unique Mark was able to charge anything, and kids paid for it. If you talk to successful Entrepreneurs they will tell you that success comes from their blood, sweat, and tears. And maybe some good luck. There is no formal education for Entrepreneurship that can guarantee success. But surely if you show some early signs of being an Entrepreneur, you just need to polish those skills. Here are 10 signs which will mark you as a genuine Entrepreneur and you must work a little to highlight those skills and understand yourself better.

1. You are a Risk Taker

Most humans love to stay in their comfort zone. Risk starts when people move from the comfort zone to the unpredictable area. Where there is no one way to succeed. People who love to take risks are true Entrepreneurs. Taking the risk when you don’t know if the paycheck will come or not is the true soul of Entrepreneurship. For Entrepreneurs, every opportunity is a risk. They see it as a challenge to work out on Plan B when failure is guaranteed. They might not have a safety net at the place, but when things go south, real Entrepreneurs learn how to handle a situation without any map.

2. Sheer Confidence

At the start of his career, he applied for a police job. 5 people applied. 4 of them passed and he failed. He then applied to KFC. There were 26 people. 24 of the people got the job, and again he failed to get the job. He made a business plan and showed it to his family. None of the family members supported the plan. But Jack Ma created Alibaba and succeeded because he believed in himself. Confidence isn’t learned. It’s by birth. If you’re born with it, you can be a good Entrepreneur. As an Entrepreneur, if you have confidence in your ability and skill, go launch your business. The successful Entrepreneurs have this high level of confidence in them. The positivity makes them see the glass half full in every situation.

3. You Find a Quick Solution to a Problem

As mentioned earlier when Jeff Bezos worked in his grandparent’s farm there were no tools to do the right job. At that time Jeff started figuring out things on his own. The ability to find a quick solution to a problem is rare among common people. People with an Entrepreneurial mindset focus on solutions rather than problems. If they face any problem, they try to devise a solution for it. Some of the Entrepreneurs ask themselves the difficult question. How can this problem be solved? They collaborate with website design & development agencies and mobile app development agencies to create a solution to the problem.

4. You Hate 9-5 Job

Most of the 9-5 jobs these days don’t allow employees to move forward with their ideas. They force the employees to keep a fixed mindset and follow whatever is working for the company. The people with an Entrepreneurial mindset hate it when someone limits their creative thinking. The typical 9-5 job restricts employees, so they cannot work on new ideas. While Entrepreneurs turn their ideas into their own ventures. If you have this attitude to ignore the rules and innovate something new, pat yourself on the back. You’re an Entrepreneur!

5. You Can Sell Anything to Anyone

Being an Entrepreneur is like being a brand yourself. And if you have this natural ability to sell yourself. You can succeed as an Entrepreneur. You need to evolve your salesmanship skills so that you can sell your idea to anyone. From customers to investors, and people who are not willing to buy from you yet. If you don’t have this ability to sell your product, grab a book on sales and master the art of selling. Although you can start with a co-founder who is good at selling then you need to share the profit margin with them.

6. Being Persistent is the Ultimate Key

Talk to any successful Entrepreneur and they will brag about being consistent. Every successful Entrepreneur at some point in time felt like quitting and leaving the planet, but the genuine ones kept on going in the direction of their dreams. Some of the life challenges are more difficult than others. But Entrepreneurs are persistent. They don’t alienate themselves from failures. In fact, they move towards the storm and come out in one piece.

7. You Feel Uncomfortable with the Status Quo

While common people prefer to stick with a routine, Entrepreneurs aren’t happy with the status quo. They want to make things better with their inventions and ideas. When Richard Brandon was traveling to Puerto Rico with his wife, the flight got canceled. Instead of complaining about the airline, he picked up his phone, chartered a private plane, and gathered passengers to fly at $39 per passenger. As an Entrepreneur, you find ways to improve the process workflow. This can be a technology industry or any other industry. If you see everyday things and feel eager to fix them, you have the right spirit.

8. You Build Solutions as a Hobby

Entrepreneurs love building things. These things are mostly solutions to real-life problems. It starts with a hobby and scales to influence and improve the lives of people around them. This solution can be in the form of anything. Either a website, an app, or a digital marketing service that is aimed to generate traffic and increase leads for a brand.

9. You See Opportunity Everywhere

There is this old story. An international brand sent two salespeople to the same village and asked them about the opportunity that resides in the village. The brand was selling shoes. The first salesperson responded. ‘There is no point in going in that village, no one wears shoes there.’ And the second salesperson responded, ‘No one is wearing shoes in the village. There is unlimited opportunity for us.’ Entrepreneurs just don’t see life as positive, they see opportunity everywhere. This is what turns. This is what moves strong business owners to create a business around it.

10. You’re Always Competing

Entrepreneurs are usually competitive. Not just other brands but their own selves. They use ideas, confidence, and persistence to generate ideas and compete with themselves and others. This habit starts in childhood and never leaves people throughout their lives. Even if there are businesses already in the market, true Entrepreneurs focus on improving their brand and work on their selves to improve daily.

To Wrap it All Up

Owning a company won’t guarantee you love your job all the time, but it will increase overall satisfaction and morale. While most people could start a business at any time, it’s those with passion and a will to succeed that make things happen.

What do Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google have in common? All these ideas are insane, right? Wrong. So, these are simple ideas that evolved with time and created history. The amazing thing about these startups is that the founder found a problem and provided a solution in the simplest way. You might be thinking that it’s not easy to come up with exceptional ideas. Good ideas take time and a lot of brainstorming. Well, it’s not that hard to come up with a praise-worthy business idea. How to get startup ideas that will create a bend in the universe? I am a serial Entrepreneur and let me give one advice to all the young Entrepreneurs out there. The most insane ideas come from the most unimaginable sources. What you, as an Entrepreneur, need to do is work on those ideas to make them stick.

5 Sources To Get Startup Ideas:

Here are 5 sources to get startup ideas without selling your home:

1. Solve a Problem

This is by far the most popular way to create and run a business. I started my first venture by solving my own problem. I was out there in the USA, and I wanted to send gifts to my family at home. What did I do? I created a business out of it.  Where can you find problems? Look around you. There are a lot of people out there who are facing one common problem. Talk to people about their problems in your community. Pick a target market and solve that problem.

2. Find Someone with Your Passion and Start a Company

Amazon started like this. Google was founded because two students felt the need to organize data in one place. And look how that turned out to be. You can do the same. Go to conferences. Attend seminars. Talk to people about their interests. You can either start something that you’re passionate about or improve your idea to start a business out of it.

3. If You Have a Skill or a Passion, Start a Business out of it

Spend an hour every day jotting down what you’re passionate about. Next, figure out how you can earn from that skill. If you are good at website designing, you can start a website design agency to help people turn their ideas into dreams. If you write well, you can start writing content for people. Just like ProBlogger did while he was doing a full-time job. Darren Rowse not only started a company, he made a six-digit income out of it.

4. Work in the industry & figure out a need in that

My friend worked in a digital agency for around 5 years. He figured out that apart from digital services, they were missing content writing services, which customers often inquire about. And he sat down with one friend one day, and the next day his basement was his new business. He worked his way up & still running a successful digital design agency doing wonders for others. And oh yeah. He is making more than a six-digit income right now.

5. Research an existing idea and improve on it

If you spend enough time in the market, you’ll eventually be able to find some ideas that you can improve. Google something you’re passionate about. Find the top 3 businesses in that niche. Now, spend a week figuring out how you can improve those ideas. For instance, you can start something like Uber, with the addition of Wifi and ride-sharing. Or you can start a gift delivery service with customer service that sends video testimonials to the receiver. There are billions of ideas out there. But the best ones are those whom you can pick and make something out of it. You can keep a diary with you all the time. Note down ideas. No matter how insane your idea might seem, just start with it and improve on the ideas later. Be a “wantrepreneur”. Take risks. Be bold. Talk to people. Connect with nature. Miraculously, nature can give you ideas that alone can help you win big in life. The only thing you need to make sure is that those ideas add value to the lives of people. Don’t just start anything because you believe it will work. Do some idea validation. How much is your idea worth? How many people have the same problem as you? Once you figure out the ‘why’ of anything. You’ll be able to find the business idea that will kick-start your career, your life, and your business.

You can create a powerful unique selling proposition that resonates with your target audience and drives business success. When I started my first business, I was super excited. It was a blessing to stay awake and work on something bigger than myself. For 6 months, life was wonderful. Stressful. But perfect. I was doing what I loved. Sales were on a growth curve. But things eventually started going south. Reason? We will get back to that later. Everything was on track. A brilliant team. Excellent website. An addictive app and an upbeat social media team. It took me some time to realize what I was doing wrong. Since my brand was new, customers were happy to try it. But then more brands realized what I was doing, jumped on the bandwagon, and my sales went down the dumps. A business without sales is nothing. The only thing that drives customers to buy from you is your Unique Selling Proposition, which is your company’s DNA, it’s being for existing. By having a clear USP, your branding and marketing are stronger because you have an unobstructed vision of the message you are aiming to deliver. This is what I lacked at that time, but on my second venture, I worked on my unique selling proposition and highlighted my strong points. These days, creating a unique selling proposition is necessary to attract the right customers & turn away the wrong ones. If you have a firm grip on how your ideal customer thinks, it will be easier for you to create a killer USP. If you don’t know where to start, keep reading and you’ll find out.

Steps to Creating a Promising Unique Selling Proposition

Your USP needs to be as promising as the headline that sells your product/service. Since you are willing to maximize your results, you need to follow these simple steps to highlight the core benefits of your product.

Step 1: Start with the Benefits

Take out a piece of paper and write the first three benefits that your brand offers. Let me be straight here. Your client doesn’t care if you offer the best price or high quality, if you’re not telling WHY your product is different from your competition, nothing will matter. “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand.”  The fact that the M&M candy shell prevents the chocolate core from oozing out and creating a mess is a definite plus for customers, and M&M made sure to make it their unique selling point. Think in terms of the end result. What is the one benefit that your customer will get by using your product? Now move towards the next step.

Step 2: Be Unique

The key is to be unique. A unique USP will set the buying criteria for your customers which will identify the logical choice for your customers. Figure out how your unique selling proposition is creating an urgency and desire. Your product should offer something valuable. Consider the following example:

• Product: “A unique baseball bat which will make you swing like a pro”
• Unique offering: “A simple technique which can help you learn to swing like a pro in 10 minutes.”
• Guarantee: “Either you’ll swing like a pro or we will return your money.”

Step 3: Solve a Pain Point

For instance, Domino Pizza started with a “Pizza delivered in 30 minutes or for free.” the USP became widely successful. The performance gap between the current and desired state should improve. When Mom and Dad come home after a long day they are unable to cook, but the kids are starving and now they want Pizza. Just call Dominos! “Everything you need in the bathroom—from razor blades to grooming products—automatically delivered to your door. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.” By offering a subscription-based service that delivers personal grooming products to customers by mail, the Dollar Shave Club eliminates the hassle of running out of a certain product when it is needed the most and having to rush to a store. This is problem-solving at its core. The pain point was “hunger” in the case of Dominoes, and convenience in the latter, and it was acknowledged in the respective USPs.

Step 4: Offer Some Social Proof

Consumers often feel skeptical about the false claims that brands make in their unique selling propositions. Don’t be an airbag and write anything that you’re not offering and then not live up to the expectations. Write ideas on paper and measure them with your company values.

Step 5: Use Your USP across All Marketing Efforts

Use a variation of your unique selling proposition in every marketing collateral that you send to your customer, from advertising copy to business cards, brochures, and flyers. Your elevator pitch and the conversation starter that you do, need to revolve around your USP.

Step 6: Delivering the Promise

That’s the most challenging task. To live up to your USP. You need to ensure that you deliver your USP carefully. Reputation is hard to build and easy to lose. If you don’t work on delivering the value that your USP offered in the first place, it will ruin your reputation and burn you at the stake. For example, in the beginning, FedEx faced the problem of staying true to its USP of overnight delivery. But they established systems which allowed them to make good on their USP.

Conclusion

A powerful unique selling proposition is like an anchor that can save a dying ship. It’s a driving force that will establish the base of your success. Build your USP and leverage it to optimize your marketing materials for maximum results. Take these 6 steps and come up with a memorable, actionable, and unique selling proposition. Not just write it down; live your brand USP.

You’re all excited about your new website for business. The website is working like a charm. You’ve installed Google Analytics on your website. Now, customers will rush to your website while you sit back, and catch up on the games slouched on the couch, with a drink in hand. Wrong! Sure, an e-commerce store provides you with an opportunity to make money while you sleep but before you sleep, you need to do some things that can keep your business rolling. Whether you’re starting a blog, an e-commerce store, or a service, money will not come to you that easily, unless you read this blog until the end. Alternatively, you can always spend a heavy amount of money on your marketing & sales.

6 Ways You Can Get Your New Online Business

Here are 6 ways you can get your new online business noticed:

1. Stop Bragging & Start Creating Value

The clients don’t care how awesome your website is; if there is nothing of value to the visitors, they will close your website and move towards your competitor. All marketing efforts should be directed toward solving real-life problems of people. For instance, if you are providing e-commerce solutions, what you can do is complete the website days before the given date. In this way, your services will outclass your competitors. You will build a reputation for being a seamless, fast-paced agency. Time is the most important commodity and if you can save the time of your audience, you have won. Every service that you provide should be aimed towards something that the market needs or wants. And how will you benefit from it? A value will not only lead to sales, but it will help you get the word out and promote your business.

2. Why Settle for a Bucket When You Have an Ocean?

There is a good chance that most of your followers are on Twitter while you’re wasting time on Facebook. Maybe your audience prefers to receive emails rather than updates on Facebook. There is no one way to approach your audience. You can repurpose your content and post it on various social media platforms. For instance, if there is a how-to article on your blog, you can extract key points and make a good presentation out of it. Doing so will expand your reach and you’ll be sharing different stuff on various social media platforms. Just because you feel that you’ve hired people to do online marketing, you can ignore your offline audience. Print advertising, public speaking, and business cards are effortless ways to get to clients and inform them about your business. The end goal is to reach people who are interested in your business. But not everyone will be in the same place, so you must put some extra effort into rallying people around you.

3. The Influencers Can Help

It is my habit to share blogs to gain reach. Usually, my share generates a reach of 50 people. But then one day a friend read one of my posts and shared it on his Twitter account. He is kind of a big gun. From 50 people, the reach went up the root. Around 10,000 people read the blog in a single day. Yes, this is the power of social media influencers. If you want to reach out to more people – the best option is to reach out to influencers and request them to share or refer your services. One clever idea is to interview industry experts. The influencers will be happy to share your website and blogs. Share words of wisdom from famous influencers and tag them on social media. Thank the influencers and they might consider sharing your business with their followers.

4. Try Free Publicity

If you create good content, you can be featured by Neil Patel. Highlighting your values can help the media take notice of your brand. You can send newsletters to media personnel and ask them to help. A great option is to create e-books centered on trends or industry insights that can easily be picked up by the media.

5. Give Away Something for Free

People love it when they win. The exhilarating feeling makes them come back for more. And to win something for free, people can share your brand with potential customers. Don’t give away easily. Make the customers think a little, this will force them to solicit help from their friends; in turn, inadvertently sharing your content. Another thing you can do is to give away something when the customers buy from you. If you attach a small value-added gift with every purchase, this will greatly please the customers.

6. Be Authentic & Approachable

Transparency is a rare commodity. No brand can win big if they hide things from their customers. People of today are more in tune with the buying options that are available to them. If they find something fishy about your offering, they will switch the brand without even informing you. This means that you need to gain the trust of your customers. Ask them what they want via email. Survey them and learn how they feel about your brand. While these six tips take time to do and show results, they are invaluable in building a quality brand and loyal customers.

He came, saw, and conquered. This is not my quote, but it is relevant to my topic, so I stole it for you. The competition is lethal. If you want to scale your business, you need to start by creating robust digital marketing strategies. Every year, the digital marketing day is celebrated on the 16^th of December with gusto & enthusiasm across the globe. Everything that you do will add to and affect the digital presence of your brand. If you have nothing to do on the digital marketing day, you can stick to this blog and educate yourself with some tips that you can do to grow your online business.

User Experience

Instead of whiling away your life daydreaming, get up and study neuromarketing techniques. User experience is something that can reduce your marketing cost and generate leads without entailing much effort on your part. Humans make decisions when they’re triggered. These psychological triggers can be used to affect the buying decisions of people. The digital marketing strategies should be designed to appeal to the audience. On this digital marketing day, delve into research and understand the customer’s intent behind their buying decisions. Establish customer interest by providing a seamless user experience. Your brand recognition will increase if you’re able to engage visitors and turn them into customers. The user experience is all about making your customers feel special. If the customers must do all the thinking, your user experience needs a redesign. "We see our customers as guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better." ~Jeff Bezos What is the loading speed of your website? Can you reduce it to provide a seamless user experience? Use Pingdom to figure out the loading speed of your website accurately. Simplify your navigating menus, use chatbots when possible, and tone down your search box to know the intent of the user and give them smart suggestions. If the users find their product on the main page, they’ll surely visit again. You’ll know what customers are thinking about when they’re visiting your website. Moreover, if there are repeated questions, you can utilize the FAQs section to educate users on all the possible questions that they can ask. This digital marketing day, read the best digital marketing blogs that can help you captivate users and capture their attention.

How to Create Attention-grabbing Content

You need to spend some time revising your content marketing strategy. The content on your website should act as a magnet. If it is not attracting people, it means that there is some problem with the content. Good content can engage customers, send a brand message, and educate your potential users on how your brand can help customers. Great content can increase the organic traffic on your website & improve your search engine rankings. Your audience is looking forward to content that easily communicates your brand value. As per Jeff Bullas, follow the 80/20 rule to create content that customers love. 80% of the content should be informational and educational, while only 20% of the content should be about your product/brand. Messaging is one way to gain the attention of your customers. If you message customers, there is a greater chance that the link will be opened if the message is convincing enough. Use emails to create awareness of your brand and grow your business without nailing your customers with irksome messages.

Secrets of Growing Your Business with Social Media

Your online presence begins when you start valuing your social media strategy. Engage the audience, communicate a message, and deliver a powerful intent with the help of social media platforms. As a startup, one thing that you need to do is to devise a social media strategy leveraging your brand value to create brand awareness. Instagram surpassed Snapchat this year, which makes both the social media platforms perfect candidates for social media marketing. A good social media strategy starts with maximizing your growth, generating leads, and converting customers. Here are some killer tips to skyrocket your social media traffic:

• Target influencers to share your content. Give them a valuable piece to share and they’ll be happy to do so.
• Share behind-the-scenes videos on Instagram and Snapchat. Let your audience know how your product is made.
• Repurpose your top-performing content in a different form. For instance, take a blog and convert it into an infographic. Or make a presentation out of it.
• Create a sense of urgency to boost your sales.
• Use minimalist marketing to generate more leads.
• Keep an eye on social media trends and follow these trends vigorously.

Social Media Optimization

Most importantly, invest in a good social media marketing strategy. Don’t just spend money on social media optimization. Monitor the results and see how it affects your brand. Once you understand the outreach and impact of your brand, you can redefine the digital marketing strategy accordingly. Understand how SEO works. On digital marketing day, go through some blogs and learn as much as you can. A good digital media strategy can act as a catalyst and help you grow your business. If the conversation rates are improving, it's great news. If not, it's time to change the strategy and try something different.

Most people see LinkedIn as a job-seeking platform. They create a profile and start searching for jobs. On the other hand, recruiters use it to find the right candidates for job openings. LinkedIn can do much more than that. LinkedIn is a powerful tool for generating leads and converting those leads into paying customers. Many C-level executives and decision-makers use LinkedIn, so you can get your content in front of them by sharing it on LinkedIn. If you want to succeed at LinkedIn marketing, you need a well-thought-out strategy. How can you create a winning LinkedIn marketing strategy? Here is an infographic that highlights the 5 E’s of a successful LinkedIn marketing strategy, so you can create one for your business.

Before I share some valuable tips for boosting your traffic on social media, let me start with a real-life example. I took on TaskQue – a free task management tool as a client. When I started the project with my team, the traffic on their website was around 5,000 visits per day. After 6 months, with the things-to-do mentioned in this blog, the traffic burgeoned to 30,000 visits per day. Getting traffic on social media is not rocket science. If you stay consistent, you do the impossible, like cutting through a mountain as Manjhi -The Mountain Man - did. But the shocking news is that social media is getting harder day by day. Nowadays, it requires a lot of challenging work, skill, and innovative tactics to target the right customers and bring traffic to the website. If you Google ‘how to drive traffic on social media’, you’ll get thousands of results but most of these strategies are either outdated or tried and tested again and again. What you need is something that is new & works like a charm on your customers. Time is a virtue. No one wants to listen to an idle talk. People want something practical. So, here, I’m sharing the gold pearls with you. Nuggets of wisdom that helped me drive tons of traffic on our client’s website. Oh yes, don’t worry my boss already knows that I’m sharing these valuable tips with you, so, there is no need to worry about my job.

1. Add a Flavor of Humor to Your Posts

It’s so easy to get lost in the mundane business updates. Share a picture from your recent trip. Share a fun fact about your team. And share a motivational quote. The point here is to humanize your brand in front of the customer. The goal of this post should be to spread a smile on your customer’s face. Not every post needs to sell something. Check out this amazingly good hiring post by Zomato. Although it’s just a hiring post, look at the level of creativity they’ve used. People will not just send their CVs because this post is sharable. It will be shared because it’s fun to read. Another brand that I follow vigorously to get my daily dose of inspiration is Taco Bell. Check out the following post. A simple post. Yet worth sharing with your friends & family. If you want customers to share your posts, you need to sit down with your team and come up with some creative ideas. Or if you’re unsure where to start, talk to us. Our social media marketing tips will guide you and help you stand out from the crowd.

2. Communicate with Your Followers

For startups, it’s impossible to drive traffic in the initial stages. One strategy that I’ve used with TaskQue followers is interacting with them. Listening to them. Helping them solve their problems. And once they considered me a friend, they were happy to check out the brand offering without needing a push. Here is Gary V on how to provide the best customer service: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKghCbrR_LU[/embed] Pick and choose your followers & see what they’re interested in. If they have a problem, solve it instantly. It will only take a little time to solve the problem, but the outcome will be fascinating and lucrative for your brand. Whoever comments on your product, start a conversation with them. Thank them for taking the time to appreciate your product and reply with a pinch of humor. Interact with your customers the way you talk to your friends. Once the customer starts realizing that you’re taking care of them, they’ll love to try out your product and brag about it on social media.

3. Make Good Use of Facebook Groups

The best way to learn is to learn from others. There are business-specific groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. Go and join them. You’ll get a chance to interact with people who are more successful than you. Watch what people are posting and what hashtags they’re using. You’ll have an idea about which keywords are performing best and the trending topics. Here are some tips which can help you communicate on a deeper level in Facebook groups: Here are some ways in which you can contribute to a higher level in your groups:

• Start with Live chat: This is a way to have a real-time conversation with your potential customers. You can listen to their grievances or offer them words of appreciation. Solve their problems and answer their queries.
• Communicate with Influencers: From time to time, you’ll meet influencers on the groups. Talk to them. Mention the influencers in your comments whenever there is something useful for them.
• Add Call to Action: While in the conversation, you can add a link to your posts or add to your service. Groups will bring an immense amount of genuine traffic. Use the CTA’s wisely.

4. Enliven Customers to Review on Facebook

Imagine this. It’s Saturday afternoon. You’re feeling hungry. You walk down the block to eat something. Out of ten restaurants, eight have customers in them and two are completely empty. Will you risk your lunch on two empty restaurants or will you drop in one of the thriving eight? If you’re like most people, you’ll head straight to a restaurant that seems to be teeming with customers. This is not just a coincidence. It’s social proof in action. Customers prefer to shop from stores with good Facebook reviews. How does the above review make you feel? Surely, if customers read such reviews for your product, they’ll either try the product or refer it to their friends. After every successful order, ask the customer to share their reviews on Facebook & Google.

5. Stand Out on Instagram

With 1 billion monthly users, Instagram can help brands generate enormous traffic on the website. Getting traffic on Instagram is easy if you learn the science behind hashtags. Every Instagram photo has a story behind it. If you caption that story, it will showcase the personality of your brand. And if you find an engaging caption, it means you’re on the right track. If you know the ins and outs of photography, this is a plus point for your brand. If not, hire a photographer. Check how Buffer shared this story from a user. Notice how personal it makes the customer feel. Buffer introduced #BufferStories to give users this opportunity to share stories which can engage more users.

6. Answering Questions on Quora

With 300,000 million monthly users and above 400,000 topics, Quora is a grand canyon to bring traffic to your website. People ask questions like ‘How can I increase my blog traffic?’ and experts answer those questions. Not just simple answers; sometimes, they’ll give witty answers, and at other times, they’ll give detailed answers. As an Entrepreneur, I’ve answered tons of questions and generated 90,000+ views on a single question. You can do the same. Become an expert in your field. Give a detailed answer and embed your services in the answer. If you provide a valuable answer, people will ask you more questions and you can increase traffic to your website.

The Closing Thoughts

It’s wrong to assume that only paid marketing can bring traffic. The tips mentioned above are tried and tested by me. I’ve used them on many clients and they worked like a magic spell. Try them all and if you have applied any other method to drive traffic to your website, do let me know in the comments box below.