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Jul21

Why keep your silence? Interact with your clients.

Posted by in Blog, Expertise

Are you our member? Do you want to be our member? All I need is your NRIC and mobile number, that’s all. 9 out of 10 Singaporeans will agree (for the extra discounts) and that is where companies gain information of our buying behaviors and our personal information. For what? To interact with you and get you to spend more money of course. Every now and then, we receive these annoying emails from stores that tempt us to spend money online. It’s your birthday, celebrate your birthday with a 20% voucher from us! Storewide sales, up to 50% off. We see it, we fall for it and kaching there goes our money.

All these falls under CRM. C-R-M stands for Customer Relationship Management. At its simplest, a CRM system allows businesses to manage business relationships and the data and information associated with them. Do not undermine the power of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). There are plenty of reasons why CRM gives businesses so much potential to grow and increase revenue. It is one of the useful customer service tool companies use to interact and engage with their existing clients and consumers.  It is a better way to manage so that you can be more organized and do more with less.

Realize which customers fetch you the most money

CRM allows businesses to understand the value of each client relationship. By analyzing the buying behavior and other customer data, it is easier to gain a better understanding of who are the best customers which allows segmentation into groups, differentiating customers with promising prospects and those with budget challenges differentiate, those who provide the highest profit margins and those that simply bring the most revenue. Resources are then prioritized to benefit the most profitable accounts. Therefore, these useful information provides a better type of tier customer service for better customers.

Increase Customer Retention
Sometimes, it is not about getting new customers, it is about retaining them. Yup, Brand Loyalty.

The e-commerce expert, Susannah Patton, said that one of the key CRM objectives is to help enterprises keep track of their customers and increase revenue by retaining them. Loyal customers is an important revenue source because they not only already buy what you are selling, but also provides an opportunity to up-sell and to further drive sales.

Coordinated Marketing and Sales Campaigns

Marketing department has a role in helping the Sales department to close more leads by working closely with them. However, one reason hindering this process is the lack of communication between the two departments. CRM can resolve this problem since one of its core features is the centralization of data. The advantage of having all customer information in one place is that front- and back-office operations run more smoothly due to everyone having access to the same information. Seamless communication between all departments will help both departments use their leads more effectively because they will be focused on achieving the same goals with the same strategy.

 

Nowadays, SMEs manage customer connections and information in a variety of ways. Some store information on their mobile phone while on the go. Some use Excel spreadsheets or Google documents. These may help in the short term when the team is still small and there are no plans on expanding the business. However for expansion, it is time to consider a CRM system to help consolidate the precious business data in one place, making it accessible via the cloud, allowing more time to focus on enticing customers, keeping them satisfied rather than letting valuable insights and information fall through the cracks.

Jul15

5 common myths about Search Engine Marketing (Pay per click marketing)

Posted by in Blog, SEM

More people use search on the internet, which means more exposure to ads. Search engine marketing also known as Pay per click (PPC) advertising is designed to drive traffic to your website. PPC is one of the most effective ways to grow a business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. With millions of businesses out there vying for a slice of the pie, it goes to show the importance of advertising online.

When people key in these specific keywords into the search engines, your advertisements appears in the search results. Advertisers bid on keywords that netizens might enter when looking for certain products or services in Google or Yahoo, which provides the advertiser an opportunity for their ads to appear alongside results for those search queries.
However, many still doubt the capability of PPC marketing. In this article, we will explore the myths and conceptions people usually have on PPC advertising campaigns.

1. People clicks on organic search. Nobody clicks on PPC ads.
Well hey, that’s a misconception. Google reportedly earned $14.11 billion in the second quarter of 2013 alone. Moreover, Google reports consistent increase in revenues. Money do not drop from the sky so where do Google get their money from? More than 97% of Google’s annual revenue come from paid advertising alone. Let’s think through this carefully, if nobody really clicks on ads, then why are thousands or maybe even millions of businesses spend billions of dollars in Google AdWords? This goes to show that businesses are getting their Return of Investment with paid advertising which explains why they are investing more and more as time passes.

Netizens usually click on organic ads when they are researching about a specific product. However, when searching for a product with the intention of buying, there is a higher tendency for people to click on text ads, knowing very well that they are ads. The reason? They believe that the ads would give them what they need. Organic searches usually direct them to information regarding the item rather than a place to purchase the item (which is what they need).

2. PPC is very expensive
It is expensive if you do not handle it correctly. A poorly managed campaign can cost more than it brings in, but a well-managed campaign can keep your business in business. Many advertisers make consistent mistakes which incur extra costs. For example, the #1 spot is so attractive that many companies are vying for it. It is easy to win the #1 spot, just give me $10000 and I’ll dump it and bid for the keyword and I’ll win. However, will it really generate high ROI? I doubt so. Instead, your budget will run out quickly (unless you have plenty of cash to spend). Point 3 will illustrate more on my point and explain more on maximizing your budget for maximized results.

3. The higher you bid, the better you rank.
PPC is not all about bidding. Believe it or not, one of the most important concepts that you must understand when it comes to Google is that their standards for the quality of content are very high. The way Google keep check and determine where advertisers rank on the Search Engine Result Page and how much they pay is through this metric: Quality Score. Quality Score works to prevent businesses with lousy, irrelevant ads to bid their way to the top. Hence, Quality Score serves as a check against rule by budget alone, by requiring advertisers to prove their relevance.
Strong Quality Scores reduces both the cost per click and cost per conversion. A high Quality Score is Google’s way of acknowledging that your PPC ad meets your potential customer needs. Hence, by identifying inexpensive, long-tail keywords, you are able to run a longer campaign and achieve maximized results.

4. You don’t need to use PPC if you are already doing well in SEO.
SEO and SEM are not opposing forces. You do not need to choose one over the other. Instead, they complement each other to help boost your marketing strategy and increase brand exposure. Don’t deny it, we trust brands we are familiar with. Hence, seeing a brand appear both on organic and paid results on a Search Engine Result Page (SERP) will create more brand awareness and boost your brand’s credibility. It’s normal for anyone to choose a brand they are familiar with than one that is completely new to them. A study conducted by Nielsen Research showed that a brand that appeared in organic search received 60% of the clicks whereas a brand that appeared in organic and paid search results received 92% of the total clicks. Likewise, when paid listings are shown alongside organic, the click through rate (CTR) of paid ads increases.

5. The more the merrier. The more keywords you dump into your PPC campaign, the more traffic you get.
Being “Kiasu” isn’t wise here as this isn’t the case for PPC. To have a successful PPC campaign, it is crucial to value quality over quantity, less is more. Choosing the right keywords is the key to a successful PPC campaign. What we should apply is the Singapore’s “Kiam Siap” spirit where we find high quality, low-cost PPC keywords to generate high Return of Investments (ROI) in the marketing campaign.
Having too many keywords in an ad group makes search-to-ad message match difficult and almost impossible. Message match refers to the matching of the search the term with an ad. Accomplishing it means that Google bolds your ad copy to stand out and your ad becomes instantly more relevant. Many keywords per ad group prevents a 100% message match between the keyword you’re bidding on and the ad that is being triggered to display on the SERP which affects your AdWords performance as low relevancy = lower click through rate = lower Quality Score = higher cost per click = higher cost per conversion.
Moreover, with a fixed budget, more keywords will result in lesser clicks. In long run, your daily budget simply can’t support the demand from your keywords list and this is a problem.

Jul08

Hi Snapchat

Posted by in Blog, Trending

Digital media is taking the world by storm and you know it. Social media and applications are constantly evolving to captivate and retain their users. Recent news has shown that traditional social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are experiencing a decline in popularity in the younger generation as they are adopting ephemeral messaging applications such as Snapchat. (Ever seen people around you opening their mouths and sticking out their tongues, switching faces or puking rainbows? Yes, they are using Snapchat.)

Heard of Snapchat?

Do you remember seeing that cute little ghost in yellow background in the app store’s top charts? That’s the Snapchat logo. Well, Snapchat is similar to WhatsApp but users communicate through photos and videos more frequently instead. One of the most unique things about Snapchat is the “self-destruction timer” feature after the photos have been viewed.

You’ve probably observed that there has been a growing interest in Snapchat, and for good reason— Snapchat boasts over 100 million daily active users and over 10 billion daily video views. Comparing it to traditional media applications, Facebook has 8 billion daily video views and YouTube roughly 4 billion, I would say that’s pretty impressive. Moreover, the instant popularity of Snapchat has captured the attention of Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2011. Facebook reportedly tried to acquire Snapchat for $3 billion. However, one of the app’s cofounders declined the cash offer. Facebook later released a similar app (Slingshot), which failed.

Incorporate Snapchat in your Marketing Strategy.

Snapchat is one of the mainstream application nowadays and it is “absolutely loved” by the teenagers and young adults. Users are allowed to send a personalized message and speak in codes he/she understands. It has attained what advertising has been hungering for the past 100 years: one to one connections. Fresh content can be generated using pictures or 10-second video snaps that are self-destructed within a 24-hour timeframe.

This modified the way we exploit social media and redefined the way we watch videos – now vertically and mobile. Hence, this is a huge opportunity for marketers and advertisers as Snapchat allows brands to interact and connect with their audience in a private and individualised way.

  • Huge Reach

Millennials make up a huge portion of Snapchat users. The application is tailored for mobile users and since the first language for the millennials is often mobile, the application is appealing and enticing to them. If you want to communicate and capture the attention of the Millennials, make sure that they are able to see you on Snapchat.

Snapchat provides live access to your brand’s events and activities. The popularity of Snapchat’s live stories is undoubtable, reaching a rough figure of 20 million people within 24hours. It offers your fans a “behind-the-scenes” look at the products your brand is working on, creates hot topics, buzz and anticipation around items you are about to launch.

  • Less Costly Advertising

Snapchat is a social media powerhouse. The ability to create geofilters (users can add specific art and labels that are designed by anyone, and connected to a particular location to anyone) is a major key to any company’s viral marketing campaign. The cost per impression is cheaper by a huge margin as compared to YouTube and other platforms. Consider Gatorade as an example, who created an animated filter got 160 million impressions during the Superbowl.

A new “Discover” section was implemented that runs original branded snaps, where brands can also purchase 10-second, 2 cents-per-view video ads that run in between the snaps; a huge difference from the original, sky-rocket price of 15 cents-per-view. Thus, this is more affordable for smaller brands, with a huge reach.

The lack of metrics and analytic tools kept brands away from Snapchat. However, we can expect to see more companies jumping on the Snapchat bandwagon in the future as they are able to reach out to more millennials at a reasonable cost.

Jul01

Are you Seen Easily Online (SEO)?

Posted by in Blog, Expertise · 1 Comment

When was the last time you “Googled” before making a purchase?
It is relatively effortless for everyone to acquire specific information on the internet right now. Consumers are often searching before making a purchase decision. Therefore, search engines are an important source of traffic to many websites nowadays. That traffic can be extremely powerful for a business not only because there is a lot of traffic, but because there is a lot of very specific, high-intent traffic. It is also important to note that Google is responsible for most of the search engine traffic in the world. Hence, if you are not seen easily online (on Google) and your online audience cannot find your website, the website is rather useless.

How does Google work its magic?

Google uses a software known as “web crawlers” to find web pages that are available for the mass public. The software has its own unique and complex algorithm (which we do not know exactly) to determine the pages to return in response to what people search for. However, there are basic rules the algorithm follow which we know.

  • Google wants web pages includes high-quality and relevant information about the searcher’s query. Google can’t possibly return you results on orange juice when you are searching about apple juice.
  • This is determined by “crawling” your web page’s content and classifying (using their specific algorithm) whether the content is relevant to the searcher’s query, usually based on the keywords it contain.
  • The word “quality” is rather subjective. However, Google determine the quality of your web pages by a couple of methods and the most prominent method is the number and quality of other third party web sites that link to your web page and your website as a whole. If the only websites that link person A’s company selling apple juice are dead blogs (blogs that no one else has links to), and person B’s company selling apple juice gets links from trusted websites like hungrygowhere, ladyironchef and etcetera, person B site will definitely be more trusted and assumed to be of higher quality than person A.

Google Helps Your Consumers Find You but First Help Google Find You

Search engines are powerful, period. High ranking in Search Engines Result Page (SERP) can have a significant impact on search-driven traffic. Approximately 62% of search engine users click on the result in the first page results, and 90% within the first three pages.

To put it simply, Search Engine Optimisation acts as an adaptor or wire, connecting your webpages to the search engine. It allows your company to be seen easily online by improving your search engine ranking in the unpaid results section. By understanding how search engines work, what consumers search for, SEO helps to generate robust and search-friendly web pages that rank higher in search engines, attracting more probable consumers to your website and ultimately increasing conversion rates. In this way, consumers who are looking for you online will have an easier time and this helps to generate leads, qualify prospects and bring in potential new customers, partners or investors.

May13

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Posted by in Expertise · No Comments

crm

CRM is one of the most important aspects of maintaining and building your business. Service quality is tracked every step of the sales process, beginning from phone calls and emails to the internal coordination efforts among your employees.

We help design your CRM solution to maximize flexibility and scale down on ownership costs, allowing easy adaptation to meet your unique business needs.

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