Mediastreet
Author

editor

Browsing
In News

Upgrade Your CRM: 10 HubSpot Alternatives That Deliver Results

No Comments

By Rachel Dennis

These 10 options are the best HubSpot alternatives that offer a quality product that rivals or exceeds HubSpot in its functionality:

1. ActiveCampaign: Best Overall Hubspot Alternative

ActiveCampaign can help you streamline your email marketing campaigns with targeted emails based on customer behaviour, automated funnels, and even SMS marketing. Its CRM & sales tools offer hands-off management, a deals app, and seamless Gmail and Outlook integration.

ActiveCampaign is a powerhouse of automation features for small businesses, eCommerce ventures, bloggers, and even higher education institutions.

This email marketing platform comes packed with:

  • Predictive sending based on email behaviour
  • Templates for early customer journey stages
  • Automated segmentation, win probabilities, and lead scoring
  • Advanced reporting and goals tracking
  • Automated sign-up forms and site tracking

Impressively, unlike many Hubspot CRM alternatives, this platform includes support features in all packages. With its robust customer relationship management capabilities and drag-and-drop functionality, ActiveCampaign empowers marketing teams to save time, improve their business, and deliver compelling customer experiences.

Pricing: An ActiveCampaign account starts at $29 a month

2. AWeber: Best Email Marketing Alternative

Another one of our favourite powerful email marketing Hubspot alternatives is AWeber. Founded in 1998, this Pennsylvania-based email marketing platform has been helping businesses across verticals to scale their marketing campaigns for decades.

With AWeber, you can:

  • Craft personalized emails using the Smart Designer editor.
  • Embed interactive AMP carousels in emails without any coding.
  • Automate email marketing with a series builder and autoresponder.
  • Easily preview link content with the magic link option.

AWeber’s landing page builder can help grow your email list and sell products, offering 46 creative templates for diverse use cases like promoting special offers or growing newsletter subscriptions.

You can also create inline, pop-over, pop-up, or lightbox sign-up forms in various styles. Plus, AWeber’s email automation builder allows you to send one-time autoresponder emails or create email sequences based on triggers.

To help decide if this program is right for you, check out this ActiveCampaign vs AWeber breakdown.

Pricing: AWeber has a generous free plan and paid plans start at $12.50 per month

3. Systeme.io: Best All-In-One Marketing Alternative

If you’re seeking a practical, user-friendly marketing automation platform, consider Systeme.io. This tool, developed by Aurelien Amacker, offers a suite of features that can streamline your marketing efforts and save time.

Key features of this marketing automation tool include:

  • Sales funnel builder for tailored marketing campaigns.
  • Email marketing management to nurture leads.
  • Tools for creating and hosting online courses.
  • Affiliate program management capabilities.

Systeme.io’s drag-and-drop interface simplifies the creation of landing pages, and its CRM software aids in managing customer relationships. The platform supports third-party integrations like Stripe and PayPal and offers features like A/B testing, one-click upsell, and custom domains.

In short, Systeme.io is a solid alternative to Hubspot for sales and marketing teams needing a comprehensive yet straightforward set of marketing automation tools.

Learn more about this tool and Aurelien Amacker’s impressive story in our Systeme.io review.

Pricing: Systeme.io has a free plan that has plenty of features for getting started. Paid plans begin at $27 per month

4. Pipedrive: Best for Sales Teams

In the realm of CRM platforms, a standout alternative to HubSpot is Pipedrive. This sales-centric software, tailored for marketing and sales teams, offers an affordable solution to HubSpot, specifically focusing on the sales process.

Pipedrive’s appeal lies in its:

  • Visual sales pipeline for efficient lead management.
  • Customizable pipelines and fields for personalized strategy.
  • Deal management and rotting feature for tracking deal progress.
  • Activity management and 2-way email sync for productivity.

This tool includes an intelligent sales assistant for insights and advice and workflow automation to reduce manual work. Its reporting features provide activity, revenue reports, and visual dashboards for clear insights.

If you’re seeking a sales-focused tool to streamline your sales and marketing processes, optimize customer data handling, and improve your e-commerce business’s efficiency, Pipedrive is an excellent consideration among HubSpot competitors.

Pricing: Pipedrive plans start at $14 each month

5. Aritic: Best Analytics-Rich Software

If you’re a small or medium-sized business owner, Aritic can help streamline your tasks into a well-organized marketing hub. This all-in-one marketing automation software is designed to help you understand your customers better, streamline your sales process, and save time.

This marketing automation software offers:

  • Advanced automation for streamlined workflows.
  • Data-informed lead scoring for identifying valuable prospects.
  • Integrations with platforms like Salesforce and WordPress.

Aritic’s email marketing automation features allow you to track page visits, form completions, and interactions.

This in-depth customer data can be crucial for your inbound marketing strategy, helping your sales team close more deals.

For example, your sales reps can use Aritic’s contact management feature to prioritize leads based on their activities on your e-commerce business website.

Aritic is also a good choice if you’re looking for a high-quality customer service team. Users have reported that their questions are answered in a timely manner and that the team goes out of their way to help troubleshoot any issues.

Pricing: Aritic Lite’s monthly plans start at $49

6. Marketo: Best Enterprise Solution

If you’re an enterprise leader, you need robust tools to streamline your operations. Adobe Marketo, a powerful marketing automation platform, can be your solution.

It aligns marketing and sales teams, driving organizational revenue and growth efficiently. The platform integrates natively with Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and SugarCRM, providing clear visibility into lead pipelines for sales reps.

This sales automation tool offers

  • Cross-channel marketing capabilities.
  • AI-powered sales insights and account profiling.
  • Advanced inbound marketing analytics.

With Adobe Marketo, you can coordinate engagement across various channels, including social media and email. Its real-time behavior analysis allows for personalized campaigns that resonate with your audience.

The platform’s sales intelligence tools provide valuable insights for your sales and marketing teams, aiding in target account management.

Despite the high cost and limited analytics compared to other alternatives, its enterprise-grade features and security make it a viable alternative to HubSpot for larger businesses.

Pricing: Contact Marketo directly for custom pricing information

Salesforce is one of the best HubSpot alternatives because it offers plenty of the same features. Both platforms provide marketing solutions, management capabilities, CRM functionalities, predictive sales analytics, customer support options, contact ranking, VoIP, and various marketing tools.

There are some important distinctions to mention as well. HubSpot is commonly seen as an inbound marketing tool, whereas Salesforce is more geared towards sales automation, affecting everything from user interface to feature sets and pricing.

Salesforce allows for greater customization with its a-la-carte features, which could lead to complexity, but it also provides teams with scalability and the ability to better customize workflows.

This powerful HubSpot alternative also offers:

  • Sales automation
  • A customizable interface
  • Detailed sales reports
  • Forecasting capabilities

Salesforce’s advanced functionality comes with a higher price tag, pricier add-ons, and a steeper learning curve. But if you’re looking for a CRM platform designed for a big sales team, Salesforce may be one of the best HubSpot alternatives for your business.

Pricing: The SalesForce monthly plans begin at $25 a month

8. EngageBay

EngageBay is a viable alternative to HubSpot, designed specifically for startups and small businesses seeking comprehensive CRM software. It’s an all-in-one suite at a reasonable cost, offering a robust Pro plan subscription at a fraction of HubSpot’s onboarding cost.

This is one of the best HubSpot alternatives for your business due to its:

  • Marketing automation tools
  • Email marketing tools with automation features
  • A free drag-and-drop landing page builder
  • Segmentation capabilities
  • Tracking tools for performance metrics

This HubSpot alternative is segmented into three ‘Bays’: Marketing, Sales, and Customer Support.

The Marketing Bay houses email marketing, web forms, landing pages, and email sequences. The Sales Bay provides CRM, sales enablement tools, and appointment scheduling, while the Customer Support Bay features a powerful Help Desk and Live Chat tool.

EngageBay can help you target your audience effectively, automate your marketing efforts, and streamline your business operations, saving both time and money.

Pricing: EngageBay offers a free plan for up to 250 contacts and paid plans starting at $12.74 a month

9. Zendesk

As an enterprise company, if you’re seeking a customer service solution that can streamline your support operations, Zendesk is a value-packed HubSpot alternative. It’s an all-in-one lead-generation tool that is well-known and used by many notable businesses.

This award-winning software is a trusted HubSpot alternative, serving over 200K customers with its comprehensive suite of tools.

This HubSpot alternative offers:

  • Centralized communication via text, mobile, phone, email, live chat, and social media
  • Knowledge base, self-service platform, chat, and call centre software in one place
  • Advanced ticket management system
  • Customization options and integrations with third-party applications
  • Powerful advanced sales reporting and analytics

Zendesk’s ticket management feature lets you assign tickets based on agent expertise, creating efficient workflows.

The platform is rich in marketing features, including inbound tools and email marketing automation, beneficial for e-commerce businesses. It also fosters a collaborative environment with its active online community forums.

Pricing: A Zendesk plan starts at $55 each month

10. Help Scout

If you’re searching for a customer-focused HubSpot alternative, consider Help Scout. This CRM software is designed to optimize both agent and customer experiences.

Help Scout is one of the best HubSpot alternatives for the following features:

  • Intuitive interface for easy onboarding and storing of customer data
  • Comprehensive customer profiles for personalized support
  • Real-time, trigger-based Messages for proactive engagement
  • Centralized shared inboxes with saved replies and automated workflows
  • Beacon for live chat support and self-service knowledge base
  • Hassle-free data migration from other platforms

With Help Scout, you can view all customer data and previous interactions alongside each request, enabling personalized and efficient service. Its message feature allows real-time, proactive customer support.

Shared inboxes centralize all customer conversations, facilitating quick responses and effective team collaboration. Beacon offers live chat support and directs customers to relevant knowledge base articles.

Plus, migrating existing customers from another platform is easy with Help Scout, alleviating any roadblocks in transitioning to a new CRM platform.

Pricing: Help Scout plans start at $20 each month

Final Thoughts: 10 Hubspot Alternatives to Try

Choosing the right CRM isn’t just about features; it’s about finding a platform that resonates with your business ethos.

This list contains some of the most compelling HubSpot alternatives, offering solutions that can propel your customer service to new heights.

So, seize the opportunity and test out a HubSpot alternative so both your team and customers can enjoy a smooth, efficient experience.

By Rachel Dennis

Sourced from Niche Pursuits

Read More
By
In News

How to Split Time Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing

No Comments

By Deanna Ritchie

For most B2B companies, it’s important to focus on both inbound marketing and outbound marketing.

These distinctive approaches are complementary in many ways, so if you use both efficiently, you can maximize your brand visibility and ultimately reach more people.

However, splitting your time and resources between these differentiated approaches can be a difficult balancing act to practice.

How do you split your time effectively between inbound and outbound marketing?

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing for B2B Growth

First, let’s analyse the distinctive features of inbound and outbound marketing in a B2B context.

Inbound marketing is a set of different strategies all designed to naturally attract people to your business. These strategies work together synergistically, boosting the visibility of your brand, increasing the number of channels on which it appears, improving your reputation, and ultimately building consumer awareness and trust.

Among the most popular inbound marketing strategies are things like search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, and social media marketing. If you’re familiar with these strategies, you understand how effectively they support each other.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing strategies have unique advantages, including:

Cost-effective

Many marketers are drawn to the world of inbound marketing because it’s incredibly cost-effective. Producing content doesn’t cost much. Posting on social media doesn’t cost anything. And while you probably won’t see immediate results from these types of efforts, they have a permanent and accumulating effect; most of the assets you produce here are going to be indefinitely relevant and valuable to your brand, boosting its visibility and reputation for years to come. Overall, inbound marketing strategies are capable of attracting upwards of millions of people to your website for a relatively small amount of money.

Highly Scalable

People also appreciate how scalable inbound marketing is. Even if you work at a snail’s pace, producing only one new piece of content every week, as long as you’re consistent in your efforts, you’ll eventually have a gigantic archive of content to support your brand. And if you’re willing to spend a bit more money, you can accomplish a year’s worth of work in a week. Similarly, small startups and large enterprises alike can benefit from inbound marketing – as long as they know their niche.

Natural/Organic

Inbound marketing is also appealing to some because it’s a bit more natural and organic. Instead of calling a prospect and trying to convince them to buy a product they’ve never heard of before, you’ll be appealing to people who are already conducting organic searches for your type of product. It makes it much easier to build trust, establish rapport, and land sales – even if you can’t reach everyone this way.

Contextually Targeted

Most of your inbound marketing work is going to be contextually targeted. In other words, your materials are going to be relevant to the people seeing them. This isn’t necessarily the case with certain outbound marketing strategies like cold calling or cold emailing.

Tactically Diverse

Finally, inbound marketing strategies are tactically diverse. SEO isn’t the same as social media, and neither of these strategies is the same as content marketing. You can use one, some, or all inbound marketing strategies together, based on your needs.

In contrast, outbound marketing is a set of different strategies, all designed to reach people in your target demographics and deliberately market or sell to them. These strategies are capable of reaching total strangers, attempting to persuade them by showcasing your unique value or overcoming their key objections.

Among the most popular outbound marketing strategies are things like cold calling, cold emailing, and targeted advertising. These strategies can be used individually or as part of a bigger, more comprehensive sales funnel, designed to generate B2B leads over time.

Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing strategies also have unique advantages, including:

Fast

One of the most important drawbacks of inbound marketing is that it takes a long time to develop. But with outbound marketing, you can see results almost immediately. As long as you have a coherent strategy and a talented team of people to execute that strategy, tactics like cold calling can land you sales today.

Capable of Broader Reach

Inbound marketing benefits from being contextually relevant, but at the cost of alienating at least some other people. In contrast, outbound marketing is capable of a much broader reach. If you’re trying to grow your business, or simply reach as many people as possible, outbound marketing becomes a practical necessity.

Specifically Targeted

It’s possible to use inbound marketing materials to target groups of people based on past interest, search history, and other relevant details. But with outbound marketing, you can target people much more specifically. This is especially true if you cultivate your own lists and gather more data from your pool of prospects.

Easy to Analyse

The effectiveness of outbound marketing is surprisingly easy to measure and analyze. It provides you with a pool of data that’s much more concrete, numerical, and objective. You can figure out exactly how many of your sales calls result in sales, or calculate the difference between two different, contrasting emails. Equipped with more objective data from which you can form better conclusions, you can polish these strategies to perfection.

Tactically Diverse

Outbound marketing is home to a variety of strategies and tactics as well. Cold calling and cold emailing are just the beginning – you can also practice many forms of online advertising, attend tradeshows, send direct mail, and more.

Important Variables to Consider

When discussing the matter of balance between the time you spend on inbound versus outbound marketing, there are several important variables you need to consider. These include:

Budget: First, you’ll need to think about your budget. Outbound marketing can help your business out of the gate, but it’s also more expensive to start up. If you’re working with limited resources, inbound marketing could be a preferable alternative.

Timing: You’ll also need to think about your desired timing. If you simply want to build your company reputation over the course of years, inbound marketing is fine. But if you need to start generating sales, you’ll need to lean toward outbound marketing more.

Industry/competition: Certain industries preferentially choose inbound or outbound marketing, due to the needs of their customers or because of certain tactics that work especially well in this environment. Study your competitors to see what they’re doing.

Target demographics: Some people respond better to inbound marketing over outbound marketing, or vice versa. Consider the preferences and behavioural patterns of your target demographics when choosing how to balance your time.

Historical performance: If you’ve been practicing inbound and outbound marketing for some time, take a look at your historical performances. Whichever group of strategies has consistently performed better should get more of your time and attention (keeping in mind that inbound marketing takes time to build momentum).

Future plans: Finally, think about where you want your business to be in the future. If you don’t have much of an inbound marketing strategy in place, but you like the idea of having an inbound empire eventually, you should spend more time developing your inbound strategies.

Balancing Your Time Effectively

So how do you manage your time effectively?

We’ve established that inbound and outbound marketing are both important, for different reasons. Accordingly, you’ll need to spend at least some time and effort on both if you want your B2B business to succeed.

These are the time management and coordination strategies that can help you do it:

Focus efforts on developing a consistent philosophy.

Prioritizing time expenditure in marketing is much easier when you have a consistent marketing philosophy underlining both your inbound and outbound approaches. Are you aggressive? Or, are you passive? Are you more trustworthy or more available?

Appoint leaders in each department.

If your team is big enough to support this idea, appoint leaders in each department: a captain for your inbound marketing and a captain for your outbound marketing. These people can make it much easier for you to make decisions and balance resources, since they’ll be specialized experts in each field.

Prioritize permanent/evergreen assets.

In both areas, focus on creating permanent, evergreen assets that will continue providing value to your organization indefinitely. This way, you can practically guarantee that whatever time you spend will be a valuable investment.

Record and analyse data.

Always record and analyse data associated with these marketing strategies. If you’re just getting started, you won’t have any data to work with, so you’ll be relying on instincts and the advice of others to balance your time effectively. But once the objective data starts rolling in, you’ll have no more excuses; you’ll have numerical proof that you should be spending more of your time in one area over another.

Automate what you can.

In both inbound and outbound marketing, you should automate whatever you can. Automation spares you manual effort and greatly reduces the amount of time you need to spend. If employed at a large enough scale, it could dramatically reduce the hours demanded of you and allow you to balance your time more freely.

Trim the fat and optimize.

Be willing to trim the fat and optimize your efforts. The balance of your time expenditure isn’t going to matter much if the hours you’re spending aren’t generating results for your business – even if you’re dedicating those hours to the “better” of the two approaches.

Both inbound and outbound marketing are effective in helping B2B businesses promote themselves and find new customers. But splitting your time between these two fundamentally diverse strategy sets can be a headache.

With smarter prioritization and more effective time management, you can figure out the perfect balance between them.

This story originally appeared on Calendar

By Deanna Ritchie

Sourced from Entrepreneur

Read More
By
In News

How to Harness the Power of Personalization in B2B Marketing

No Comments
By Samuel Thimothy

Here’s what you can do to reach more business-to-business customers and make your campaigns more efficient through the power of personalization.

Featured Image Credit: Getty Images

By Samuel Thimothy

VP at OneIMS.com, an inbound marketing agency, and co-founder of Clickx.io, the digital marketing intelligence platform.

Sourced from Inc.

Read More
By
In News

25+ ChatGPT automations to improve your productivity and workflow

No Comments

By

If you are looking for ways to improve your productivity and workflows, by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence within the OpenAI ChatGPT chatbot You will be pleased to know there are plenty of automated solutions you can set up to help you with those daily mundane tasks that seem to eat away at your precious time.

Whether you’re managing a small team, running a large enterprise, or simply looking to streamline your personal projects, connections between ChatGPT and your daily software and applications are easy to set up and require no coding at all. In this guide, we provide a wealth of information and inspiration on how you can harness the capabilities of ChatGPT and combine them with no code systems such as Zapier  or Make to name just a few. Once learnt the simple automations  can transform your approach to work and personal productivity.

In the following sections, we’ll explore a versatile range of ChatGPT integrations offered by Make that promise to enhance your efficiency. From automating routine email responses to conducting in-depth sentiment analysis on customer feedback, these tools cater to a wide spectrum of needs. You will learn how to use ChatGPT for generating SEO-friendly content, translating messages in multiple languages, and even repurposing social media content across different platforms.

Additionally, we will investigate more advanced automation workflows such as transcribing audio files and categorizing support tickets based on agent expertise. Each automation is designed to not only save you time but also to ensure accuracy and creativity in your outputs. By the end of this article, you will have a comprehensive understanding of how to leverage these 27 ChatGPT automations to streamline both your professional and personal workflows.

Automate your work using AI

AI Andy has created a fantastic overview of how you can use the Make online automation service to carry out a wealth of automation improving your productivity and removing those annoying tedious tasks from your daily workflow.

  1. SEO Keyword Generation:
    • Function: This automation utilizes ChatGPT to generate SEO keywords whenever new rows are added to Google Sheets.
    • Application: Ideal for content creators and digital marketers, this tool simplifies the process of identifying relevant keywords for articles, blogs, and web content. By automating this step, it significantly reduces the time and effort spent on keyword research, allowing for a more streamlined content strategy.
    • Benefit: Ensures that your content is optimized for search engines, potentially increasing visibility and audience reach.
  2. Email Response Automation:
    • Function: ChatGPT, when integrated with Google Sheets, can automatically respond to business emails.
    • Application: This is particularly valuable for handling repetitive queries like sponsorship or partnership inquiries. It can be customized to respond based on specific triggers or keywords found in the emails.
    • Benefit: This automation saves time, reduces the workload on your team, and ensures timely responses to important emails, enhancing business communication efficiency.
  3. Customer Feedback Sentiment Analysis:
    • Function: ChatGPT can analyze the sentiment of customer feedback inputted into Google Sheets.
    • Application: This is a powerful tool for recruiters, surveyors, and data analysts, who can use it to gauge customer satisfaction, employee feedback, or market research responses.
    • Benefit: Provides valuable insights into customer opinions and experiences, helping businesses make informed decisions and improve customer satisfaction.
  4. Airtable for Advanced Automations:
    • Function: Similar to Google Sheets, Airtable rows can trigger ChatGPT to create new outputs.
    • Application: This can be used for a variety of tasks, such as content generation, data organization, and project management.
    • Benefit: Airtable’s versatile database structure coupled with ChatGPT’s language processing capabilities makes for powerful, customized automations across different business functions.
  5. Sales Analysis for Online Businesses:
    • Function: Businesses using e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce or Shopify can automate their sales analysis reports with OpenAI integration.
    • Application: This automation can compile sales data, analyze trends, and generate comprehensive reports.
    • Benefit: It provides businesses with detailed insights into their sales performance, helping them make data-driven decisions to boost sales and optimize their marketing strategies.
  6. Automated Slack Status Updates:
    • Function: Create new Slack statuses based on specified topics using OpenAI.
    • Application: This is particularly useful in remote or hybrid work setups, where team members can update their status to reflect their current tasks or availability automatically.
    • Benefit: Enhances communication and coordination within remote teams, ensuring everyone is aware of each other’s focus areas or availability.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Other articles we have written that you may find of interest on the  subject of ChatGPT automation  and workflow optimization :

ChatGPT automations

  1. Language Translation for Telegram Bot:
    • Function: This feature allows for the translation of Telegram bot messages into multiple languages using ChatGPT.
    • Application: It’s particularly useful for businesses and individuals who communicate with a global audience. Whether it’s customer support, information dissemination, or casual conversations, this tool breaks the language barrier.
    • Benefit: Enhances global communication and engagement, ensuring messages reach a broader audience in their preferred language.
  2. Interactive Telegram Bot Responses:
    • Function: ChatGPT enables the Telegram bot to provide automated responses to direct questions asked in the app.
    • Application: This can be used for a variety of purposes such as customer service, information queries, or interactive engagements.
    • Benefit: Speeds up information access and improves user interaction, offering real-time, accurate responses to queries.
  3. Social Media Content Generation:
    • Function: Automatically converts published articles into social media posts.
    • Application: Ideal for content marketers and social media managers, this tool helps in repurposing blog posts or articles for platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
    • Benefit: Saves time in content creation and ensures consistent online presence, expanding the reach of existing content.
  4. Google Drive Audio File Transcription:
    • Function: Utilizes OpenAI Whisper to transcribe audio files from Google Drive, with the option to send summaries via email.
    • Application: Perfect for businesses and teams that record meetings, interviews, or lectures and need them transcribed for record-keeping or follow-ups.
    • Benefit: Streamlines the process of converting spoken words to text, facilitating easy access and review of audio content.
  5. LinkedIn Content from TikTok Videos:
    • Function: ChatGPT assists in repurposing TikTok video content for LinkedIn posts.
    • Application: Useful for content creators and marketers aiming to leverage their TikTok content in a professional context on LinkedIn.
    • Benefit: Maximizes the utility of video content across different platforms, enhancing social media presence and engagement.
  6. Zoom Meeting Summaries:
    • Function: Transcribe and summarize Zoom meeting recordings efficiently.
    • Application: Beneficial for businesses and educational institutions to keep records of meetings, lectures, or discussions.
    • Benefit: Ensures important details and decisions from meetings are captured and made easily accessible for future reference.
  7. E-commerce Product Description Creation:
    • Function: Generates high-converting product descriptions for e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify.
    • Application: This is a boon for e-commerce businesses looking to enhance their product listings with compelling descriptions.
    • Benefit: Improves SEO and the potential for organic traffic, leading to better conversion rates and sales.
  8. Support Ticket Categorization:
    • Function: ChatGPT helps in categorizing support tickets and matching them with the most suitable customer service agents based on their expertise.
    • Application: This is particularly beneficial for customer support teams in managing a large volume of inquiries and ensuring that each ticket is addressed by the right agent.
    • Benefit: Enhances the efficiency of customer service, leading to quicker resolution times and improved customer satisfaction.

Watch this video on YouTube.

 

  1. Direct Social Media Posting from Blogs:
    • Function: This feature enables direct posting of content on social media platforms from blog articles using ChatGPT.
    • Application: It’s useful for bloggers, content creators, and digital marketers looking to maximize their online presence without additional effort in content creation for social media.
    • Benefit: Saves time and ensures a consistent and broadened digital footprint, increasing audience engagement.
  2. Automated Competitor Analysis:
    • Function: Analyse competitor strategies from Gong calls and store the insights in Airtable.
    • Application: Sales and marketing teams can use this feature to stay informed about competitors’ tactics and strategies.
    • Benefit: Provides valuable intelligence for refining sales approaches and marketing strategies, keeping businesses competitive.
  3. Follow-up Question Responses:
    • Function: OpenAI GPT-3 offers the capability to provide quick and accurate responses to follow-up questions.
    • Application: Ideal for customer service, help desks, and interactive platforms where prompt responses are crucial.
    • Benefit: Enhances customer service efficiency, ensuring that users receive timely and relevant information.
  4. Custom Messaging Workflows:
    • Function: Personalize messaging workflows using OpenAI’s ‘write me’ feature based on specific prompts.
    • Application: This can be used by businesses for customized marketing messages, personalized emails, or unique content creation.
    • Benefit: Allows for greater flexibility and creativity in communications, tailored to specific audiences or purposes.
  5. Meeting Summaries with Audio Files:
    • Function: Generate concise audio summaries of meetings, making them accessible for reference and team updates.
    • Application: Useful for corporate teams, project groups, and educational settings where meeting recaps are essential.
    • Benefit: Saves time in revisiting meeting content and ensures key points and decisions are effectively communicated.
  6. Product Satisfaction Survey Analysis:
    • Function: Perform sentiment analysis on product satisfaction surveys to gauge customer opinions and experiences.
    • Application: Essential for businesses seeking to understand customer feedback in depth and improve their products or services.
    • Benefit: Offers valuable insights into customer satisfaction, aiding in product development and customer relationship management.

Make online automation service

Watch this video on YouTube.

  1. Efficient Audio Notifications:
    • Function: Utilize Eden AI to send audio files generated by ChatGPT in Telegram for effective audio notifications.
    • Application: Can be used for reminders, updates, or alerts in a more engaging and accessible format than traditional text notifications.
    • Benefit: Enhances the effectiveness of communication, particularly in scenarios where quick information dissemination is critical.
  2. Sales Insights from Gong Call Summaries:
    • Function: Summarize Gong calls using OpenAI for in-depth sales insights and strategy development.
    • Application: Sales teams can use this feature to analyse call recordings for understanding customer interactions, objections, and responses.
    • Benefit: Provides a concise overview of sales calls, helping in identifying successful tactics and areas for improvement.
  3. Workflow Customization with Airtable:
    • Function: Similar to Google Sheets, this integration allows for automating responses and data analysis with Airtable.
    • Application: Suitable for a variety of business processes including project management, CRM updates, and content planning.
    • Benefit: Offers a more flexible and robust system for managing complex workflows, enhancing productivity and data organization.
  4. Blog Content Repurposing Across Platforms:
    • Function: ChatGPT aids in adapting blog content for use across multiple social media platforms.
    • Application: Content creators and digital marketers can extend the reach of their blog posts by converting them into format-specific content for platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
    • Benefit: Maximizes the value of existing content, ensuring wider dissemination and engagement without additional content creation efforts.
  5. Streamlined Customer Service:
    • Function: Automate the allocation of support tickets to customer service agents based on their expertise.
    • Application: Ideal for customer support centres dealing with a range of inquiries requiring different levels of expertise.
    • Benefit: Ensures that customer queries are handled by the most qualified agents, improving resolution time and customer satisfaction.
  6. Multilingual Telegram Bot Interactions:
    • Function: Automatically translate Telegram bot messages into various languages.
    • Application: Useful for businesses and communities that interact with a diverse, global audience.
    • Benefit: Breaks down language barriers, enabling more inclusive and effective communication with international users.
  7. Creative Content Generation:
    • Function: ChatGPT is used to generate a variety of creative content, from social media posts to complete blog articles.
    • Application: Valuable for marketers, bloggers, and content creators who need regular, high-quality content.
    • Benefit: Streamlines the content creation process, providing fresh, engaging, and tailored content while saving time and resources.
  8. Automated Social Media Analytics:
    • Function: ChatGPT can analyse social media metrics and generate comprehensive reports.
    • Application: Ideal for social media managers and marketers who need to track the performance of their campaigns across various platforms.
    • Benefit: Provides detailed insights into engagement rates, audience growth, and content performance, enabling more informed social media strategies.
  9. Project Management Optimization:
    • Function: Utilize ChatGPT to streamline project management tasks such as updating project statuses, generating progress reports, and automating task assignments.
    • Application: Useful for project managers and teams in both small-scale and large-scale projects.
    • Benefit: Improves project tracking and team coordination, ensuring timely completion of tasks and efficient resource allocation.
  10. Automated Market Research Summaries:
    • Function: ChatGPT can summarize extensive market research data and provide key insights.
    • Application: Valuable for businesses and market analysts looking to quickly understand market trends, consumer behaviour, and industry changes.
    • Benefit: Offers a swift and comprehensive overview of complex market data, aiding in strategic decision-making and business planning.

The world of automation, especially with tools like ChatGPT, opens up a realm of possibilities for enhancing productivity and streamlining workflows. By automating repetitive tasks, from managing emails and social media posts to analysing complex data, you free up valuable time and resources. This allows you and your team to focus on more creative and strategic endeavours.

The key advantage of these automations lies in their ability to handle a wide array of tasks efficiently and accurately. Whether it’s generating content, summarizing meetings, or analysing customer feedback, these tools not only save time but also bring a level of consistency and precision that is hard to achieve manually. In essence, embracing these automation solutions can lead to a more organized, efficient, and productive work environment, ultimately driving success and growth in your personal and professional life.

By 

Sourced from Geek Gadget

Read More
By
In News

The Four Most Effective Types of Social Media Content [Infographic]

No Comments

By

Seeking content inspiration for your holiday schedule? Maybe you’re planning for 2024?

Whatever you’re targeting, this new overview of four effective content types, from the team at Giraffe Social Media, may help.

The Giraffe team have put together an overview of some of the best, most responsive content options for your posts, which could help to get you thinking about your marketing plan.

A combination of these approaches could be a great way to boost brand awareness, and grow your following. My only additional note of advice is that you don’t just go and slap these idea prompts into ChatGPT, and end up pumping out generic rubbish.

You can check out Giraffe Social’s full tips here.

Four types of content infographic

 

By

Sourced from SocialMediaToday

Read More
By
In News

Mindful Website Design: How To Avoid User Cognitive Strain

No Comments

By Goran Paun

Technology is advancing, changing how users navigate websites, digital products, apps and interfaces. The user experience has become more enjoyable and much more efficient than it used to be.

Although these changes have become widely accepted by users and the teams that design them, there are still hurdles that can impact your website. There are design elements that have the power to enhance user experience, but if overused or not used correctly, they can cause your users to feel cognitive strain in order to get what they are seeking. Cognitive strain occurs when users have to go through hurdles when they are navigating complicated interfaces, leading to difficulty enjoying an experience or making decisions. Cognitive strain becomes distracting and can cause your users to leave your website.

Let’s explore a few digital design advancements, and how to use them just right.

Use Your Animations Purposefully

Interactive web animations are one of the many common ways designers create visually appealing web experiences that feel immersive. Web animations add a delightful extra layer to a design. However, it is key to ensure that they are not overused, as then they can lose their appeal and overstimulate your users. The best way to incorporate animation in a meaningful way is by analysing how to use them. Is the animation propelling the user forward in their journey in any way through a transition to another webpage? Is the loading time of the animation interrupting the flow of the overall experience—potentially causing increased bounce rates? These are elements to consider when incorporating animations into your website.

Subtle but powerful ways to include animations can be hover animations that grow or pulse, scroll animations that offer a dynamic transition to the next part of a website without too much motion, or even a moving graphical element that offers visual interest without getting in the way of any content. Fast-moving animations or animations that overtake the page can overstimulate your audience if overused; therefore, minimal movement is usually the better choice.

Consider Your Chatbot

Chatbots have been around for a while. They are used mainly to help with the automation of customer support, answering questions and more. Chatbots are integrated into e-commerce websites for product recommendations or streamlining questions for customer support, while service websites often use them for tasks such as scheduling appointments. Although they are handy when it comes to enabling businesses to handle larger quantities of user interactions, do you really need them on your website if it extends beyond e-commerce purposes?

Depending on your target audience and demographic, chatbots can be hit or miss. According to a study that surveyed different generations on their thoughts about chatbots, 20% of Gen Zers prefer to start customer service interactions with a chatbot, compared to only 4% of baby boomers. The latter are particularly unaccepting of chatbots that pop up on websites automatically: “53% of Boomer respondents indicated that uninitiated chatbots ‘annoyed’ them, compared to only 28% of millennials and 24% of Gen Z consumers.”

To create an overall enjoyable user experience for all, make sure that all of your users can easily and painlessly use your website to do the things they need to do. If your brand caters more to older generations, consider alternative communication and calls-to-actions that lead to fillable contact forms or email and phone number options. If your audience is a mixed bag, including chatbots can be helpful, as long as they don’t completely overtake the screen or are presented as a pop-up. Therefore, consider whether your website benefits from having a chatbot, or whether you can opt out with alternative options.

Optimize Your Assets

Grabbing your users’ attention is one of the main goals for robust web design; your visuals can impact that. Regarding the photography and other visual assets across your website, ensure that they are optimized for the web. Images that are too large can impact the loading time it takes for users to see them—furthering the chance of users experiencing cognitive strain and ultimately leaving your website. Forty percent of people will leave a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. To decrease the loading time of your photo assets, make sure they are no more than around 150 kilobytes, and that you resize original photos down closer to that resolution.

Images that have not been properly optimized also might not fit well within the design of your site. They might be too large or too small, or their resolution might not match the display capabilities of the device users are on. These inconsistencies can be distracting, making it harder for users to concentrate on the main content.

Optimizing your assets can also mean what kinds of images you’re using and how you’re using them. Using stock imagery, for example, can be a great way to incorporate elements that help tell the visual story of a website, but including photos of your actual company or brand can help elevate your user-centric approach and carry out your brand ethos further. Users are more likely to trust and feel the authenticity of your brand if you include photos that are company-related versus stock photography.

Using photos in the right context is also important. If a stock image isn’t directly related to the content it’s paired with, it can confuse users. They might exert unnecessary mental effort trying to connect the image with the content, causing cognitive strain.

As you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of digital design, it is imperative to make thoughtful and purposeful design decisions to avoid causing unnecessary cognitive acrobatics for your users. By fostering an environment of simplicity, user-centricity and contextual relevance, you can ensure that your website not only captivates and engages users but also that it facilitates a seamless and intuitive journey.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Goran Paun

Creative Director of ArtVersion, a Chicago design consultancy. We craft ideal user experiences for the world’s most innovative companies. Read Goran Paun’s full executive profile here.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

7 Steps to Writing and Designing Emails That Convert

No Comments

By Michelena Howl 

The key to success depends on these dos and don’ts.

A blank email canvas can be an exciting project, but also potentially an intimidating place to start. Your resources to conceptualize, strategize, write, design and deliver your campaigns can greatly impact your ability to succeed efficiently and understand the effectiveness of your program.

But email messaging is an important tactic to get right, given the impact it has on building customer relationships. According to our 2023 Consumer Trends Index, email remains the No. 1 format for driving sales, with 52% of consumers reporting making a purchase directly from an email. What’s more, email outperformed banner ads and SMS by 108%. With that said, email is a proven channel that shouldn’t be overlooked in any effective relationship marketing campaign.

So, it’s important to dig into email stats beyond campaign performance to see which subject lines, email copy, design and CTAs performed well … and understand why. There are a few key strategies every smart marketer should employ, based on the psychology behind what grabs readers’ attention — and the factors leading up to it.

Here are the dos and don’ts of email design and copywriting:

Do — Make branding a priority

It’s easy to overlook one of the most critical elements of design — your branding. Whether you’re a startup, a small business or a rapidly growing company, brand consistency is vital. If you don’t yet have formal brand guidelines, including key branding areas like colours, fonts, logos and tone-of-voice aligned with your brand, it’s time to make some.

Aligning and maintaining brand consistency in your email strategy alongside other media channels is important for readers to be able to easily identify your brand at first glance.

Don’t — Forget about good copywriting

Some people will try to tell you no one reads anymore, and with poorly written copy, that could be the case. The best marketing campaigns have clear and concise copy that grabs the attention of the reader and ignites a desire to take the action you have framed up.

If you fall into copywriting pitfalls like using passive voice in place of active, or compounding wordy sentences, you can create a disconnect between what you’re talking about and what you’re offering. Focus on the problem you’re solving for your audience and maintain your brand tone of voice in email marketing.

Do — Leverage psychology to influence action

Our subconscious mind is deeply involved in information processing and affects everything we think, say and do. Tapping into the subconscious mind with your email and marketing campaigns can have a big impact on your conversion rates.

Leveraging psychology to increase conversions and nudge your audience in a specific direction can pay off in a big way. A few impactful examples are:

  • Fear of missing out: Including offers that expire can motivate someone to do something immediately. For example, saying something like, “You only have 30 days!” makes the reader feel like they might miss out. However, communicating the same 30-day deadline as “You still have 30 days,” makes the expiration date seem further away.
  • Colour theory: The right colour contrast plays an important role in attracting attention — as long as it maintains readability. Make sure the colours in your email campaigns reflect your brand and drive urgency, but consider the accessibility of different colour combinations when making choices.
  • Emotional imagery: Select pictures that tell a story. Imagery helps crystalize concepts for customers. Email banners, icons and product images can positively reinforce your stories and break up blocks of text.

Don’t — Bury the lede

When you bury the lede, or, the most newsworthy part of the story, your reader misses critical information. As a result, they can easily lose interest completely. If you have something important to say or an action you want someone to take, don’t leave it for the end of your email.

Surface the most important information at the beginning of your email. Echo it in the subject line, the heading and introductory text. This doesn’t mean you need to build a big CTA button underneath your first sentence, however. Find a way to strike a nice balance between calling out the most important information, in a reasonable and appealing way for your readers.

Do — Use email templates to your advantage

The layout of your email should be easy on the eyes and optimized for desktops, mobile phones and tablets — which can be easier said than done if you’re a small team with limited resources.

A great first step is creating a set of email templates specific to your brand. These templates should be designed with the conversion you want to happen in mind. Sometimes the simplest design can be the most impactful. A one-or-two-column email that contains a branded graphic, copy sections that break up the content and a clear CTA button typically render well on any device.

Do — Practice dynamic personalization

Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen an email personalization go wrong. Maybe it was the classic personalization tag error where the intended first name displays as “{first name}” or a beautifully tailored email offer sent to the completely wrong person.

When incorrect, personalization can have the opposite effect of what you intended. A good email marketing platform will enable you to extend personalization beyond the typical mail merge fields we all grew to love 15 years ago. Dynamic personalization allows you to use data and insights to send the right message to the right person at the right time.

Don’t — Use typography the wrong way

There is an actual art and science to typography. Good typography enhances the experience, draws attention to the information you want to highlight and entices the consumer to learn more. Bad typography gives people headaches.

You don’t need to be a trained graphic designer to apply some typography strategies to your email designs. Make sure you stick with your brand fonts. A good rule of thumb is two, maybe three, fonts per email, in a font size that follows accessibility guidelines.

The best email marketing campaigns communicate offers clearly, with a consistent brand look and feel, and a snappy call to action draws readers in. As marketers, we want to make sure our outreach is accessible, relevant and created efficiently. Employing these key strategies will ensure your email marketing campaigns help convert readers to customers and will help you better understand the right levers to pull, and when.

By Michelena Howl 

Sourced from Entrepreneur

Read More
By
In News

Why Brands Still Belong on Social Media Despite the Changing Landscape (and How They Can Leverage It for Greater Success)

No Comments

By Bryanne DeGoede

The digital landscape has shifted significantly, but your brand can still thrive on social media in today’s world. Here’s how.

In the dynamic digital landscape, the role of social media is continually evolving. Today, an estimated 4.9 million people globally are on social media platforms, but the way we consume content, plus the content itself, has shifted significantly since the boom of these platforms in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Today, some argue that with the surge of influencers, brands may no longer hold their once-celebrated place on platforms like Instagram, Twitter or TikTok. Going a step further, with the substantial increase in advertising and sponsored content, many users have learned to tune out brands selling their products or services through social media.

I’ve been helping my clients leverage social media for the past 15 years and have seen first-hand the shift in what kind of content performs well and what strategies and metrics actually translate to a higher ROI.

Ultimately, in this multifaceted digital playground, there’s no denying that it’s becoming harder and harder to capture an audience’s attention. However, when brands can understand the platforms and how each user base reacts — and create authentic, relatable content — they can maximize their reach, improve brand awareness and perception, and build a consumer base that not only trusts your content but is excited to see it.

Metrics that matter: Going beyond follower count

To optimize your content, you first need to understand your objectives and what metrics are important for evaluating the success of your strategy. In the early days of social media, follower count was the main — if not, only — metric that brands cared about and agencies tracked consistently. Even just a few years ago, despite the rise of bot followers and purchased likes, a brand’s clout could still be relatively gauged by its follower count.

Today, however, this metric is becoming increasingly obsolete. Since TikTok came onto the scene with its personalized approach to user “For You” feeds, other platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have followed suit, integrating similar features into its platforms and mimicking TikTok’s algorithm. With this shift, users no longer needed to be following an account to see its content — instead, the platform itself sorted through millions of posts to present a perfectly curated page of content for each user. These discovery pages often now have the highest user traffic and have ultimately reduced the user’s need to “follow” individual pages.

With the rise of these personalized recommended feeds, other metrics like views, engagement and reach have become better measures for audience resonance and brand perception overall. While followers will always be a relatively important measure of a brand’s clout, understanding how your users are finding your content will help you tailor your posts for both new and existing followers.

Creating your home base

Consider this: If someone hears about a brand, where’s the first place they’re likely to look? More often than not, they go to social media. A strong, consistent presence can legitimize a brand, enhancing its credibility. It’s where customers come to “window-shop” — to learn more about the brand, its ethos and its offerings.

In a 2021 survey by Sprout Social, they found that 68% of consumers have actually purchased at least one product directly from social media. With the shift to “for you” pages as previously mentioned, social media is also becoming increasingly effective at introducing new products and brands to shoppers who otherwise wouldn’t know about it. Plus, with the rise of affiliate marketing and social media shop features, a brand’s social media profile has become an actual digital storefront, as your audience can purchase products directly through the app.

In essence, social media profiles have become a brand’s digital home base. As such, a poorly managed profile or one with just a few low-quality posts can raise red flags for potential customers and actually de-incentivize a purchase. Ensuring your social media pages are well-branded, consistently managed and polished will improve your chances of attracting and retaining customers long-term.

The way forward: Authenticity and collaboration

Ultimately, a brand’s social media strategy should revolve around developing engaging content that provides a direct value to your target audience. These days, with hundreds of thousands of brands and creators all fighting for views, it can be difficult to know what to post. So, how should brands navigate this transformed landscape?

  • Storytell, don’t oversell: Traditional advertising monologues won’t cut it. While you can, of course, have posts about the benefits and details of your products, brands need to foster conversation and go beyond ad posts to build an actual persona that consumers want to connect with. Engage with followers, respond to comments, and be part of conversations that your audience is having.
  • Collaborate authentically: Partner with influencers who genuinely align with the brand. It’s not about getting the creator with the most followers, but about finding those whose audience will genuinely resonate with the brand’s message and who will create high-quality content that your audience will love.
  • Diversify content: Go beyond the up-close, photoshoot-quality product shots. Share genuine behind-the-scenes glimpses, customer testimonials or even relevant industry news with your brand’s perspective. The goal is to offer value and keep the audience engaged with a variety of on-brand content that won’t seem repetitive.
  • Harness user-generated content (UGC): In the same way as word-of-mouth marketing, UGC is a valuable tool to provide credibility for the brand. In fact, a report by Stackla found that consumers were 2.4 times more likely to view UGC as authentic compared to content created by brands. Reposting and encouraging UGC not only provides authentic testimonials but also fosters community and shows customers that they’re valued.

While the landscape has shifted, counting brands out of the social media equation would be premature. Instead, the onus is on brands to evolve, re-strategize and leverage the platforms in ways that align with today’s digital dynamics. By focusing on authenticity, building genuine collaborations and establishing a consistent digital presence, brands can not only remain relevant on social media but thrive.

By Bryanne DeGoede

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor. Founder & Managing Partner of BLND PR. Bryanne DeGoede is the Managing Partner of BLND PR. With 15+ years of experience in marketing & PR, Bryanne has managed media for hundreds of companies, including Fortune 500 brands. With a proven track record of delivering results, BLND PR is one of the most successful boutique firms in the US.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

Read More
By
In News

5 Retail Media & Marketplace Predictions For 2024

No Comments

By Kiri Masters

The pace of change in the retail marketplaces and retail media world seems to be increasing.

Among many more developments, 2023 notably saw the introduction of generative AI into the online shopping experience, foundational work on retail media measurement standardization, and the bankruptcy of the largest Amazon AMZN -0.1% aggregator.

But looking forward – what will 2024 bring to brands selling and advertising on retail marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart WMT +0.2%.com and Instacart? Here are my top five predictions as a retail media and marketplace practitioner.

1. Conversational AI Will Become How We Interact With Retailers, Rather Than The Search Bar.

Instacart gets the medal for “first to cross the finish line” here, as the shopping app launched this capability early in 2023.

Amazon dipped its toe into generative AI earlier in 2023, summarizing customer reviews for products. But 2024 will see more retailers introduce more intuitive chat-bots and ways to interact with retailers to surface brand content, product discovery and more.

Retailers will build experiences that facilitate better discovery and recommendations through a chat experience that allows for more nuance and personalization.

Instead of using a simple search query like “school lunchbox snacks” and sorting through thousands of search results, we will be able to interact with a clever shopping assistant who can first learn and remember that our child is celiac, the school they attend has a nut-free policy. Now, when we ask for snacks that are higher in protein, the chatbot will consider the previous context as well as organize results according to the new “high protein” parameter, and only display gluten-free, nut-free, high protein snacks – perhaps even offering to sort it by a protein content to price ratio.

What does this future mean for brands? In short, optimizing product content on retail sites that facilitates crawling by the retailer’s AI. Today I still see so many brands that don’t meet best practices for product content, and they are missing out on keyword search volume and conversion as a result. In a chat-based future, they will also lose out on being surfaced in product recommendations by the LLM. Brands must pay close attention to how retailers are building their AI models and be ready to adapt their content accordingly.

2. Walmart And TikTok Will Announce A Significant Advertising Or Commerce Partnership.

As they mature, social media platforms have developed a retail capability. TikTok, just like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest before it, launched a shop capability in 2023.

Likewise, as retailers mature, they have also tried to introduce a social media component.

Amazon made significant investments to this end in 2023 such as introducing Amazon Inspire and a raft of user experiences that echo social trends. Whether those will ultimately boost for customer engagement and product discovery significantly – the intention is clear.

Walmart is again left playing catch-up in this area, and TikTok is bound to experience significant growing pains in building a meaningful commerce business. I think a partnership here is a perfect match for a few reasons:

  1. A well-matched demographic. TikTok has a particularly strong presence among younger demographics. Cash-strapped youngsters is a prime audience for Walmart, and one that the retailer can deliver well on its promise of great value.
  2. Customer data sharing. TikTok’s main monetization engine is advertising; and this is also a highly profitable revenue stream for Walmart. Collaborating further on a joint ads capability would provide a compelling media value prop to advertisers. The companies introduced a pilot in 2022 that provides advertisers with the opportunity to serve in-feed ads on TikTok, leveraging the impact of TikTok’s sound-on full-screen video format together with Walmart Connect’s targeting and measurement. There’s so much potential for more.
  3. Tapping into personalization. Digital advertising of the future will require personalization, interactivity, and user-generated content—all areas where TikTok excels and Walmart needs a boost. This is a capability that even Amazon hasn’t yet nailed. Walmart has a rare opportunity to leapfrog Amazon here.
  4. TikTok gets to add 50M SKUs to its inventory. TikTok has so far only added 200,000 brands and merchants to its shop platform. But there’s so much more potential. Products that have gone viral on TikTok almost always see a huge spike in sales on Amazon. That’s unlikely to change, unless those same products are available to buy seamlessly within the TikTok environment. The best chance of consumers actually changing their buying habits away from the beloved “everything store” is to have enough inventory assortment and a trusted fulfilment partner like Walmart.

3. More Retailers Will In-House Their Retail Media.

Kroger KR +0.6% launched its own self-serve ad platform in ‘23, having long used Microsoft’s MSFT +0.3% PromoteIQ platform. This is a natural next step for scaled retailers who have run their networks using aggregators like CitrusAd, Criteo, and PromoteIQ. The benefits that Kroger shared from this journey are more flexibility, a better experience for the end-customer, and better value for advertisers. (Further reading: Kroger’s Cara Pratt Is On A Mission To End ‘Reckless’ Media Spend.) Not explicitly mentioned – but a big benefit to the retailer – is a presumably better profit margin on this business once you have built your own rails.

I have counted more than 50 retail media networks that have been launched in the past 10 years. Most of these networks rely on aggregators. As retail media matures, more retailers will choose to take control of their destiny.

4. Amazon’s Connected TV Ads Will Become Highly Personalized.

It seemed impressive at the time that Amazon would be serving three different types of ads for Bose products (ostensibly targeting different audience segments with different products) during 2023’s inaugural Black Friday Football game. But this is child’s play compared to what data and technology Amazon already has available. (Further reading: How The Ad Breaks Of Amazon’s Black Friday NFL Game Will Be Different.)

Amazon knows much more about us than we care to admit. They know the type of pets we have, what music we listen to, if and how we exercise, and how often we actually replace our electric toothbrush heads. Through Amazon’s DSP (demand side advertising) platform, advertisers have long been able to serve ads when customers are due to replenish said toothbrush heads, or targeting consumers who typically purchase from another brand. We can target in-market segments, lifestyle audiences, and people who added a product to their wish list.

Beyond that – brands are even able to append their own customer data to Amazon’s, and purposefully either retarget them to prompt a re-purchase or exclude them from being shown the ad altogether.

Knowing that all these targeting capabilities are within the DSP, I was surprised to see very little personalization during the Football ad breaks in 2023. But I expect that to change very soon. This will make connected TV much more attractive to a wider group of advertisers, who can’t afford scatter-gun broadcast TV, but could afford a highly targeted media buy.

5. ‘Incrementality’ In Retail MediaWill Remain A Buzzword.

Brands want to understand how a dollar spent in a new retail media network or marketplace has helped to acquire new-to-brand customers, or at least unlocked a sale that wouldn’t have occurred if they hadn’t spent that dollar.

This has been a question for as long as I have been in the retail marketplaces space. In 2015, a similar question rang in my ears, “Why should we sell on Amazon if that customer could buy our product through existing channels?” Today, the answer is obvious: because Amazon is where a good chunk of consumers prefer to shop. And by not making it easy to transact there, you may be driving your customer into the arms of a competitor.

Now that there are more retail media networks than ever, all asking brands for funding, it’s understandable that brands want to know how much “new” revenue a given channel is unlocking.

Brands want proof that spending more on retail media and marketplaces will be incremental and not cannibalize other sales channels. However, it is unreasonable to expect retailers, who have no incentive to prove this, to provide accurate measurements of incrementality since they operate as closed systems or walled gardens. While some software companies are trying to estimate incrementality, their solutions can only provide directional insights at best.

Because retailers are not widely sharing their data, it’s unavoidable for there to be overlapping audiences across campaigns. One place that brands can actually do this is by importing their first-party customer data into Amazon’s Marketing Cloud and ensuring that the audience is negatively targeted. But in my conversations with brands, many are too skittish to tap into this capability, citing concerns about Amazon using this data to their advantage.

The path to purchase has become even more complicated, and that trend will continue. A customer will interact with a brand across numerous touchpoints before making a purchase. These can include search engines, conversational AI, social media interactions, email campaigns, store visits, and various forms of advertising. Disentangling the impact of each touchpoint and assigning proper credit to the specific advertising spend that led to the sale is fraught with complexity.

Finally, determining a precise baseline—what sales would have been without any advertising—is difficult. Historic sales data with advertising may not accurately predict future behavior without advertising.

While these predictions suggest a transformative leap forward, they come with their complexities and challenges, especially as brands continue grappling with the quest for incrementality and navigating walled retail garden ecosystems. Evidently, the brands that will emerge successfully are those that adapt swiftly to these technological advancements, invest in optimizing their interaction with AI, and keep a pulse on consumer data to tailor their strategies in the increasingly interconnected web of retail media.

Feature Image Credit: Acadia

By Kiri Masters

I am the Head of Retail Marketplace Strategy at Acadia. Specializing in operations, marketing and advertising on retail marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, and Instacart, I’m watching the profound shift that’s occurring for brands and retailers who are trying to adapt their business model in the Amazon age. I wrote the books “Instacart for CMOs” (2021), and “Amazon For CMOs” (2019) which offer a close-up view of generating predictable results for brands selling on these marketplaces. For readers of Forbes, I share the collective wisdom gathered through managing hundreds of brands’ accounts on online marketplaces.

Sourced from Forbes

Read More
By
In News

One year post-acquisition, X traffic and monthly active users are in decline, report claims

No Comments

By Sarah Perez

Despite proclamations from X CEO Linda Yaccarino that usage of the social network was at an all-time high this summer, a new report is throwing cold water on those claims, saying that X usage has actually declined on all fronts, across both web and mobile. According to data from market intelligence firm Similarweb, X’s global website traffic was down 14% year-over-year in September, and U.S. traffic was down by 19%. On mobile devices in the U.S., performance had also declined 17.8% year-over-year, based on monthly active users on iOS and Android.

Image Credits: Similarweb

Although the U.S. accounts for roughly a quarter of X’s web traffic, other countries also saw declines in web traffic, including the U.K. (-11.6%), France (-13.4%), Germany (-17.9%) and Australia (-17.5%).

The report notes that September was not just a fluke, either, as declines in usage were visible in long-term trends as well. When comparing the first nine months of 2023 with the same period in 2022, Simiarweb found X’s website traffic was down 11.6% year-over-year in the U.S. and down by 7% worldwide.  Mobile app usage in the U.S. was also down by 12.8% during that same period of time.

However, there is one bright spot for X…or rather its owner, Elon Musk. Traffic to Musk’s profile page on the site was up 96% year-over-year as of last month.

Image Credits: Similarweb

The firm’s estimates are determined by machine learning algorithms powered by millions of websites and apps’ first-party analytics, including through its own consumer products that measure device traffic data as well as through partnerships with other companies, including ISPs, other measurement firms and demand-side platforms. Its methodology on mobile devices relies heavily on Android data, however, because of the tighter restrictions Apple places on its App Store and data privacy.

Still, even with a glimpse into Android data, you can get a sense of how well X is faring. On that front, Similarweb notes that X mobile app usage worldwide was down by 14.8% on Android, compared with the -17.8% drop in the U.S. across iOS and Android.

The report also indicates that X’s declines are part of a broader shift, as web traffic to the top 100 social networks and online communities the firm tracks were also down by 3.7% in September, save TikTok, which grew 22.8% on a global basis. Facebook web traffic, for example, was down 10.4%.

Image Credits: Similarweb

Image Credits: Similarweb

On mobile, the same trend was true, but X’s monthly active users declined by 17.8% in September, compared with Facebook and Instagram, down by 8% and 3.7%, respectively.

Image Credits: Similarweb

In addition, Similarweb’s analysis touches on the declining importance of X in the news ecosystem, noting that three years ago, The New York Times would receive 3-4% of its traffic from Twitter, but that’s now down to less than 1%. Of course, X began throttling links to the Times in August, along with other competitors like Bluesky and Threads. This week, X was accused of throttling Patreon links as well.

But in reality, Twitter’s importance to news publishers has always been overstated. News may have broken on Twitter but it was never a significant traffic source. In fact, NPR left the platform six months ago after Musk began labeling it and other outlets as “state-affiliated media.” A recent report from Nieman indicates NPR’s loss of traffic from leaving X has been “negligible” — traffic only dropped by a single percentage point, where it used to account for just under 2% of overall traffic.

Though the report doesn’t include much good news for X, it did admit that the app seems to have staying power.

“…somehow the X / Twitter audience has eroded but not evaporated,” wrote Similarweb’s Senior Insights Manager David Carr.

That’s worth noting, given the increased competition from new competitors like Bluesky, Post, Pebble, Spill, Mastodon and Threads.

X would likely dispute Similarweb’s findings, as its execs have only touted traffic increases, not declines. The company recently told TechCrunch that X sees 500 million posts per day, including original content, replies and reposts, and noted that X generates 100 billion impressions per day. Yaccarino also shared other figures at an event in October, noting that people are spending 14% more time on X, with a 20% increase in consuming video, and that 1.5 million sign up for X daily, up 4% year-over-year.

X did not respond to requests for comment.

Feature Image Credit: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

By Sarah Perez

Sourced from TechCrunch

Read More
By
Load More