Blog Category : Business

As per HubSpot, marketing automation can increase lead generation by up to 451%. Lead generation is one of the most important processes of any successful online business. However, it can also be one of the most time-consuming and tedious tasks manually. Lead generation automation offers a solution that leverages software to streamline many repetitive tasks. This guide will explore the importance of lead generation and marketing automation, how to implement it, and the best tools available in 2024 to enhance your lead generation strategy. What is Automated Lead Generation? Automated lead generation is a strategic approach that utilizes technology to streamline and optimize attracting and nurturing potential customers. By automating repetitive tasks, businesses can save time and resources while improving lead quality and enhancing customer experiences. Common automation tools and strategies include landing pages, chatbots, email marketing automation, social media automation, and CRM and marketing automation integration. Leveraging these tools can automate lead generation, allowing businesses to generate more leads, improve conversion rates, and drive sustainable growth. Why Automated Lead Generation is Important? Automated lead generation utilizes software and tools to automate tasks such as lead capture, scoring, and nurturing. This approach helps businesses generate a consistent flow of qualified leads with minimal manual effort through marketing automation services. Recent reports indicate that over half of companies already use some form of marketing automation, underscoring its importance in maintaining a competitive edge. Benefits of automation include: Improved Customer Analytics: Better insights into customer behavior and preferences. Increased Lead Volume: A higher number of leads generated, leading to improved ROI. Conversion Optimization of Landing Pages: Creating optimized landing pages to capture leads. It is easier to run A/B tests and optimize campaigns. Use of Chatbots: Using chatbots to engage with website visitors and collect information. Lead Nurturing with Email marketing automation: Sending targeted emails to nurture leads and drive conversions. Streamline Social media automation: Scheduling social media posts and engaging with followers. CRM integration: Integrating lead generation tools with a CRM system to manage and track leads effectively. How can you Automate Lead Generation? To implement effective automated lead generation, follow these steps: Identify Your Target Audience: Define who you want to reach. Create Compelling Content: Attract users to your website or landing pages. Use Lead Generation Forms: Capture visitor information efficiently. Score and Prioritize Leads: Assess leads based on their behavior and demographics. Nurture Leads: Engage with leads through targeted email campaigns, chatbots, and social media automation. Convert Leads into Customers: Personalize sales outreach to close deals. What is Lead Generation Automation Software? Lead generation automation tools or software are designed to automate and optimize attracting and capturing leads. These tools assist companies in lead generation, including creating landing pages, email marketing, social media monitoring, and campaign analytics. With the best marketing automation lead generation software, businesses can streamline their marketing efforts, reduce manual tasks, and focus on what truly matters – nurturing leads and closing deals. How Do Lead Generation Tools Help? Lead generation marketing automation tools are designed to attract and convert leads more efficiently and effectively. Here's how they can help your business: 1. Automation of Repetitive Tasks: Lead generation tools automate time-consuming tasks, such as sending email sequences, managing social media posts, and tracking leads. This lets you focus on more strategic activities, like crafting personalized messages and developing creative marketing campaigns. 2. Centralized Lead Management: Lead generation automation tools organize all your leads in one place, making tracking their progress through the sales funnel easier. It is easy to determine which leads are hot and cold, that is, ready to purchase and require more attention. 3. Data-Driven Insights: Lead generation tools provide valuable data and analytics, helping you understand what’s working and what’s not. This lets you fine-tune your approaches for improved outcomes and provide decisions grounded in actual data. 4. Enhanced Lead Capture: Many tools offer features like customizable forms, landing pages, and pop-ups that make it easy for visitors to provide their contact information. This ensures you capture more leads and have the necessary data to follow up effectively. 5. Improved Customer Engagement: Lead generation automation tools help you reach out to your audience more efficiently and effectively, thus strengthening the bond and increasing the chances of conversion. Want to reduce your CAC to half? Book a strategy call Top Lead Generation Automation Tools 1. Wisepops Wisepops is a powerful onsite marketing automation platform that helps businesses capture and convert more website traffic. With Wisepops, you can create highly targeted, personalized, automated lead generation campaigns using popups, sticky bars, embedded signup forms, and onsite notifications. Key features: Customizable popup and form designs Advanced visitor targeting and segmentation Integrated with popular CRMs and email marketing platforms Built-in A/B testing and analytics Dedicated Shopify features and integrations Wisepops is an ideal solution for ecommerce businesses looking to automate their lead-generation efforts on their website. By leveraging Wisepops' advanced targeting and personalization capabilities, you can capture more high-quality leads and nurture them through your sales funnel. 2. Unbounce Unbounce is a leading landing page builder that allows businesses to create and test high-converting pages without coding experience. With its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, you can quickly build custom landing pages for automated lead generation campaigns, such as those driven by PPC ads or social media outreach. Key features: Conversion-focused landing page templates A/B testing and dynamic text replacement Lead capture forms and integrations with CRM/marketing automation tools Detailed analytics and reporting Unbounce is a great choice for businesses that want to optimize their lead-generation efforts through targeted, high-converting landing pages. Its integration capabilities make connecting your lead capture efforts with your broader marketing and sales automation workflows easy. 3. OptinMonster OptinMonster is a lead generation automation tool specializing in email list building. It enables businesses to create highly targeted popups, slide-ins, and other signup forms to capture visitor information and grow their email subscriber base. Key features: Customizable popup and form designs Behavioral triggers (e.g., exit intent) for personalized targeting Integrations with various email marketing platforms A/B testing and optimization tools OptinMonster is particularly useful for businesses that want to retarget and re-engage visitors about to leave their website. Its advanced targeting and segmentation capabilities can help generate more high-quality leads and improve conversion rates. 4. HubSpot HubSpot is a marketing automation platform that offers a suite of tools for lead generation, customer relationship management (CRM), and sales. It enables business organizations to develop specific marketing initiatives, control leads and even automate marketing tasks. Key features: CRM for managing customer interactions Email marketing and automation tools Landing page builder Marketing analytics and A/B testing HubSpot is a great choice for businesses that want a complete marketing automation lead generation solution. Its freemium plan makes it accessible for smaller businesses, while its advanced features cater to the needs of larger enterprises. 5. Marketo Marketo is a cloud-based marketing automation platform that provides advanced tools for lead generation, lead management, email marketing, and analytics. It is beneficial for B2B businesses that require more time to close a deal and work with multiple touchpoints in their marketing campaigns. Key features: Lead management and scoring Email marketing and automation Landing page builder Real-time personalization CRM integration Marketo's powerful lead management and scoring capabilities make it a popular choice for businesses looking to streamline their lead generation and nurturing processes. Its integration with Adobe's suite of tools also makes it a compelling option for companies invested in the Adobe ecosystem. 6. Klaviyo Klaviyo is a specialized email and SMS marketing platform that caters primarily to ecommerce businesses. It offers advanced lead generation automation features, such as customizable templates, automated flows, and detailed analytics to track the success of your campaigns. Key features: Email and SMS marketing automation Segmentation and personalization Ecommerce integrations Abandoned cart and win-back flows Revenue and ROI tracking Klaviyo is an excellent choice for ecommerce businesses looking to automate their lead-nurturing processes and increase revenue. Being easily integrated with the most used ecommerce platforms, such as Shopify, it is a great tool for online stores. 7. Mailchimp Mailchimp is a well-known all-in-one marketing platform that offers various tools for generating leads and managing email marketing campaigns. Due to its simplicity and relatively low cost, it is ideal for small to medium-sized companies. Key features: Email marketing and lead automation tools Landing page builder Social media advertising features Marketing automation workflows Analytics and A/B testing Mailchimp is a great option for businesses setting up essential lead generation and email marketing automation workflows without a steep learning curve. Its wide range of integrations makes it versatile for companies with diverse marketing needs. 8. ActiveCampaign ActiveCampaign is an online marketing tool that enable businesses to deliver targeted messages to their customers through email and text. It also offers lead generation and lead nurturing capabilities. Key features: Automated email series with customizable templates Lead scoring based on engagement Dynamic content based on individual lead data Flexible integrations with other tools ActiveCampaign is a powerful tool (also used for SaaS Marketing Automation) for businesses that want to automate their lead generation and lead nurturing processes. Due to its enhanced automation processes and flexibility, it is suitable for organizations that want to maximize their sales processes. 9. Sprout Social Sprout Social is a social media management platform offering a range of lead-generation automation features. Its social listening capabilities allow you to track relevant mentions and engage with potential leads in real time. In contrast, its lead-generation bots can help you capture contact information directly from social media platforms. Key features: Social media management and scheduling Social listening and engagement Lead generation bots for social media Analytics and Reporting Thus, Sprout Social is perfect for businesses that use social media as a lead-generation platform. Its powerful social listening and engagement features can help you identify and nurture promising leads, while its automation tools can streamline the process. We can help you by providing marketing automation specialists who are experts in driving growth and customer acquisition for software-as-a-service companies. 10. Leadfeeder Leadfeeder is a lead generation tool that uses website visitor data to identify potential customers. It can reveal the names of companies visiting your website and provide insights into their behavior, allowing you to focus your efforts on the most promising leads. Key features: Identify companies visiting your website Reveal visitor behavior and engagement Lead scoring and qualification Integration with CRM and marketing automation lead generation tools Automated lead nurturing workflows Leadfeeder is particularly useful for B2B businesses that follow an account-based approach to lead generation. Leadfeeder can help you prioritize and nurture the most valuable leads by providing detailed insights into the companies interacting with your website. 11. Drift Drift is a conversational marketing platform that uses chatbots to automate lead generation and customer engagement. Its real-time chatbots can start conversations with website visitors and qualified leads and even schedule meetings with sales representatives. Key features: Automated chatbots for lead qualification and routing Customizable chatbot templates and flows Conversational landing pages Lead analytics and reporting Drift is a powerful tool for businesses using conversational marketing to capture leads and provide personalized experiences. Its advanced chatbot capabilities can help you engage with potential customers 24/7 and streamline the lead-generation process. 12. Intercom Intercom is a customer messaging platform that provides lead generation and customer support chatbots. Its suite of messaging tools can help businesses build real-time connections with customers and provide personalized support. Key features: Automated chatbots for lead generation and customer service Message tagging and filtering Advanced reporting and analytics Integrations with other sales and marketing tools Intercom is great for larger enterprises with complex automation and customer support needs. Its messaging features and analytical tools can enhance the business's lead generation and customer relations. Conclusion Lead generation and marketing automation have emerged as indispensable tools for any marketing automation strategy in the modern world. With the right software and tools, one can increase work efficiency, improve the quality of leads, and generate more revenue. If you want to take your lead generation efforts to the next level, consider trying one or more of these automation tools. Do not forget that the team of Saffron Edge is always ready to assist you in understanding the new tendencies in digital marketing and define the most effective strategies for your company.

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Using semantic keywords is one of the most powerful SEO strategies to improve your search engine rankings in 2024. Semantic keywords help make your content more relevant and valuable to users and establish your expertise on a subject by addressing a broader range of related search queries. This blog post will discover the importance of semantic keywords in SEO and how to integrate them into your content to improve authority and search visibility, leading to better engagement. What are semantic keywords? Semantic keywords are words and phrases conceptually related to your main target keyword or topic. Unlike traditional keywords that focus on exact matches, semantic keywords help create a web of related concepts that provide context and depth to your content. For example, if your primary target keyword is "digital marketing strategies," then its semantic keywords could be "online marketing tactics," "internet advertising techniques," or "social media campaign ideas." It's important to note that semantic keywords are not synonyms or variations of your primary keyword. Instead, they are terms that contribute to the overall topic and help you discuss the complete picture of the subject matter, emphasizing the role of semantic SEO. The difference between semantic keywords and traditional keywords To further clarify the concept, let's explore the key differences between semantic keywords and traditional keywords: Intent vs. Exact Match: Traditional keywords are centered around exact matches, whereas semantic keywords are designed to capture the user's intent and the context of their search. Breadth vs. Specificity: Semantic keywords cover a broader range of related concepts, whereas traditional keywords are often more specific and narrowly focused. Natural Language vs. Keyword Density: Semantic SEO encourages using natural language and varied terminology, moving away from the outdated practice of focusing on keyword density. Topic Modeling vs. Individual Terms: Semantic keywords contribute to overall topic modeling, helping search engines understand the depth and breadth of your content rather than just identifying individual terms. In conclusion, understanding the distinctions between semantic and traditional keywords is crucial for effective keyword research. Why did Google shift to semantic keywords? Google's shift towards semantic search and the importance of semantic keywords is driven by its goal to deliver users the most relevant and top-notch search results. This shift can be attributed to several factors, including: Improved Natural Language Processing With advancements in AI and ML, Google has enhanced its ability to understand the context and intent behind user queries. Rise of Voice Search With the increasing popularity of voice-activated devices, users are now searching more conversationally, requiring a deeper understanding of natural language. Focus on User Intent Google focuses on providing results that align with the user's intent rather than merely matching keywords, enhancing the overall search experience. Combating Keyword Stuffing The semantic approach helps prevent the manipulation of search results through excessive keyword usage, encouraging more natural and valuable content creation. Knowledge Graph Integration Google's Knowledge Graph connects related concepts and entities and relies heavily on semantic relationships to provide more relevant search results. The evolution of Google's algorithms To better understand this shift, let's briefly look at the evolution of Google's algorithms. These updates have contributed to Google's increasing emphasis on semantics and context in search: 2011 - Panda Update: Focused on content quality, penalizing thin or low-quality content. 2012 - Venice Update: Improved local search results, emphasizing the importance of location-based context. 2013 - Hummingbird Update: A significant update that improved Google's understanding of natural language and context. 2015 - RankBrain: Introduced machine learning to better interpret user queries and their intent. 2018 - BERT: Enhanced natural language processing capabilities enable a more nuanced understanding of search queries. 2021 - MUM (Multitask Unified Model): Further enhancements have improved Google's ability to understand complex queries and deliver comprehensive answers. Keywords are pivotal in understanding Google's algorithmic evolution towards semantic search. Utilize SEMrush and Ahrefs to find the best keywords. Why use semantic keywords in SEO? Integrating semantic keywords into your semantic SEO strategy offers numerous advantages: 1. Improved Search Engine Understanding By using a variety of related terms, you help search engines grasp the full scope and context of your content, potentially leading to better rankings for relevant queries. 2. User Experience Content that covers a topic thoroughly and touches on various related aspects tends to be more valuable and engaging for readers. 3. Increased Topical Authority Using semantic keywords to demonstrate a deep understanding of a subject can help establish your site as an authority in your niche. 4. Better Long-Tail Keyword Coverage Semantic keywords often naturally include long-tail variations, enabling you to capture a broader spectrum of search queries. 5. Reduced Risk of Over-Optimization Using various related terms instead of repeating the same keyword helps your content sound more natural and avoids potential penalties for keyword stuffing. 6. Alignment with Voice Search As voice searches tend to be more conversational, semantic keywords help you align your content with these natural language queries. 7. Improved Featured Snippet Opportunities Comprehensive content that addresses various aspects of a topic has a better chance of being selected for featured snippets. Want to reduce your CAC to half? Book a strategy call How to find semantic keywords? Discovering relevant semantic keywords is a crucial step in optimizing your content. Here are several effective methods to find semantic keywords: Use Google's "People Also Ask" Feature: This SERP feature provides questions related to your main topic, offering insights into semantic relationships and user intent. Explore Google's Related Searches: At the bottom of search results pages, Google displays related searches that can inspire semantic keyword ideas. Leverage SEO Tools: Platforms like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz offer keyword research tools to help identify semantically related terms. Analyze Competitor Content: Study the content of top-ranking pages for your target keywords to discover the semantic terms they're using. Utilize Google Trends: This tool can help you discover related topics and queries that are gaining popularity. Explore Wikipedia: The structure and content of Wikipedia pages often provide a wealth of semantically related terms and concepts. Conduct User Surveys: Engage with your target audience to understand their language and terms when discussing your topic. Analyze Social Media Conversations: Platforms like X and Reddit can provide insights into how people naturally discuss topics related to your content. Utilize Amazon's Search Suggestions: If your content is product-related, Amazon's search bar can offer valuable semantic keyword ideas. Use Natural Language Processing Tools: Tools like IBM Watson's Natural Language Understanding can analyze text to identify related concepts and entities. 8 steps to optimize your content with semantic keywords Now that you understand  the significance of semantic keywords and how to find them, let's explore how to integrate them into your content effectively: Start with Thorough Research: Before writing, conduct proper research on your topic to identify key concepts, subtopics, and related terms. Create a Semantic Keyword Cluster: Organize your findings into a cluster of related terms and concepts you want to cover in your content. Develop a Detailed Outline: Use your semantic keyword cluster to create a detailed outline that covers various aspects of your topic. Write Naturally: Focus on creating valuable, informative content rather than forcing keywords. Many semantic terms will naturally find their way into well-written, comprehensive content. Use Semantic Keywords in Headers: Use related terms in your H2, H3, and H4 headers to provide structure and context to your content. Optimize Meta Elements: Include semantic keywords in your title tag, meta description, and URL where appropriate and natural. Create Internal Links: Use semantically relevant anchor text to connect to other pertinent pages on your site, thereby strengthening topical relationships. Regularly Update Your Content: As language and search trends evolve, periodically review and update your content with new semantic keywords to maintain relevance. Want to reduce your CAC to half? Book a strategy call Best practices for semantic keyword implementation To make sure you are maximizing your semantic keyword strategy, keep these best practices in mind: Prioritize User Experience: Always put your readers first. Use semantic keywords to enhance the value and readability of your content, not to game the system. Maintain Natural Language Flow: Avoid forcing semantic keywords that don't fit naturally. The goal is to sound human, not robotic. Use Variations and Synonyms: Don't be afraid to use different forms of words or synonyms to keep your content engaging and avoid repetition. Create Topic Clusters: Develop a network of interlinked content pieces that cover various aspects of a broader topic, reinforcing your semantic SEO efforts. Leverage Schema Markup: Structured data provides search engines with additional context about your content's topic and relationships. Monitor Performance: Regularly analyze your content's performance to identify which semantic approaches yield the best results. Conclusion Semantic keywords are about making your content rich and valuable by covering different parts of a topic well. This helps your website appear better in search results and makes readers happy because they get relevant information.  It is not about stuffing your articles with lots of keywords but about naturally including various related terms. As search engines improve their understanding of how we talk, semantic SEO becomes even more important. If you want maximum search visibility, the importance of semantic keywords in SEO cannot be overlooked. At Saffron Edge, we elevate your content's ranking and improve its search visibility, making sure it remains relevant to your audience's needs for an extended duration. Contact us today to ensure your content ranks higher and truly resonates with your audience. 

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Are analytics showing a spike in the number of viewers/visitors on your website? Amazing, isn’t it? But this is just the first step to a cyclic journey that never ends. After all, the marketing world runs on the systematic approach to attract, engage, convert, and retain. And while attracting them with judicious strategies is a challenging task, going further uphill from there to engage and nurture the audience is as essential as it is even more difficult.&nbsp; Why do you ask? Because your audience will take a microsecond to move to your competitor if your website is not able to engage them with the right information and services that add value to their lives.&nbsp; Did you know engagement is the driving force behind a 23% share of profit, revenues, and maintaining the relationship between business and customer? Yes, the right engagement strategy can take your business to greater heights! But before we dive into our tips that will boost your ability and empower you to engage and nurture prospects going forward, lets touch upon the basics, shall we? So, how would you define customer engagement and nurturing? Engagement and nurturing are two aspects of marketing that are responsible for forging and fostering trust and building long-term relationships with consumers.&nbsp; With the aim to enrich customers’ experience, engagement in the simplest form can be defined as the process of interacting with the customer, keeping two visions in mind- one of fulfilling customer’s needs and second, yours, of checking the list of the unique set of goals. Why is customer engagement important? The unique interaction between the customer and the brand, which lays the foundation of a relationship is important in the long run. It goes beyond just communicating and using tailored and customized processes to serve the audience and convince them to move towards the buying and retention end of the sales funnel.&nbsp; The touchpoints at which engagement goes beyond communication are marketing, shopping, and purchasing, and this is where you can make the difference. How your business and brand is perceived is what makes the targeted audience choose you over others and build loyalty.&nbsp; Price(81%), quality(80%), and convenience(55%) drive engagement while loyalty is ensured by likeability(86%) and trust (83%). It is necessary to keep the customers interested and show them how committed you are to deliver to their personalized needs and how every product and service is aligned to resolve their issue and add value to their purchasing cycle.&nbsp; Proactive and personalized communication through email, messaging helps both ways- the consumers can better understand your business. With regular communication, your business can devise strategies that hit the bull’s eye. This ensures customer loyalty.&nbsp; If put in the right manner, customer engagement strategies with defined and periodically tracked metrics can continuously grow and improve. The defined metrics will help your team, work towards dedicated factors for customer satisfaction.&nbsp; So what should you practice? Don’t overlook the impact of feedback. Not gathering and implementing feedback will become a roadblock in your business’s growth and development.&nbsp; Be clear with your message, make it readable, easy to understand, and even easier to retain. This will guarantee retention marketing is done right.&nbsp; Connect with the audience with a personal tone. Take, for instance, address customers by their first name, or go for app-style chats, which give off the personal vibes.&nbsp; What you should avoid? Businesses often lack or don’t make enough effort to establish a human connection with consumers. We understand bots have made the work efficient, but nothing can replace the human touch.&nbsp; If your business does not have a case-by-case flexible solution and system that resolves issues, then the standard one-size approach will ruin the customer experience and affect the loyalty of your customer base in the long run.&nbsp; Having covered the basics, now let us move to some effective customer engagement tips that will help you maintain and grow a loyal customer base in 2020: What are some of the customer engagement strategies that will drive your business in 2020? Let us look at them: Conduct Surveys: Surveys are an effective form of communication that will not only engage your audience but also devise and implement strategies based on these surveys to improve your business’s brand engagement and loyalty. This will help you identify what process or system is the audience most satisfied with and want changes in.&nbsp; Utilize multiple channels: Keep your brand active on every possible channel where your target audience is. This will broaden the scope of awareness amongst your followers and widen the loyalty base. But it is essential to keep in mind that you need a different strategy to engage the audience on the respective channel. What would attract the Instagram audience might not be likeable to the Twitter crowd.&nbsp; Omnichannel engagement strategies have proven effective in retaining an average of 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for companies not utilizing engagement seriously? <!-- --> Keep Customers Updated: To keep your customer base engaged, it is essential that you keep them well informed about any new service that is being launched or if you are coming up with a new update of a product. Pre-renewal communication and offering personal discounts will keep your customer base stay loyal to your brand.&nbsp; Now that you know the what, why, and how of customer engagement, let's move on to nurturing. So, what is lead nurturing?&nbsp; While many businesses can generate leads and begin through the first step of the sales funnel, they find themselves stuck with how to convince those who visit but do not buy. This is where nurture marketing comes to rescue.&nbsp; Nurturing goes one step ahead, which taps on the consumer's experience to understand better and devise effective strategies that can build a loyal base of customers who will become advocates of your products and services while they are moving through the sales funnel.&nbsp; Why is nurturing important? This nurturing marketing through effective communication empowers your brand's standing as the authority after the consumer is done with the researching across the channels for the product that desire to invest.&nbsp; Some of the common examples that effectively used nurture marketing to convert prospects into buyers are Nike Run Club, Amazon, Helix, etc. Amazon, take, for instance, sends emails to remind you of the products you have added to cart or a wish list but didn't go through the purchase.&nbsp; While it takes time to deliver results, incorporating nurturing in your sales and marketing strategy will result in an exponential increase in return on investment.&nbsp; Effective nurture marketing increases the number of opportunities that enter the pipeline and further enhances response to the campaign.&nbsp; When incorporated right, nurture marketing plays a crucial role in improving prospect segmentation and push the conversion rate to a higher level.&nbsp; The Annuitas Group reported a 47 % increase in the purchase made by leads that were nurtured throughout the sales funnel compared to those that weren't.&nbsp; With nurtured leads, companies can shorten their sales cycle by 23% and generate 50% more sales leads at a 33% low cost per lead.&nbsp; As the marketing landscape gets competitive, research shows that compared to before, 48% of businesses now need a more comprehensive cycle for nurturing their leads before they convert. What should you practice? Make use of marketing resources to pique interest in the users and how your product/service will add to the customer's life.&nbsp; Keep track of the step where your consumer is in the buying process so that you can confidently send relevant, targeted content. Take a cue from Apple with the way in which it asks people to create free content which enhances the personalized buying process. This drills the company's name in the consumer's mind, affecting their purchase decision.&nbsp; What shouldn't you do? Don't skip the research. It is important that you know that thorough research of the prospect is important, not just in capturing them but also in building long term relationships. Don't go all sales-ey the minute you receive a lead’s contact information and overwhelmed with information about your products and service.&nbsp; Never overlook email campaigns in the lead nurturing. Take Amazon, for example, which makes use of captivating email reminders if the consumers have shown interest in certain products but didn't, but it or have abandoned their cart.&nbsp; Now that you are aware of the basics, allow us to help you with the tips to create an effective lead nurturing process that will deliver in the long term:&nbsp; Segment the audience:&nbsp; Do you know what is a good way to lose your customer? Trying to sell your product and service without keeping into consideration the stage of which the audience is, in the buying process. This is why you should first segment your audience on the basis of their buying behaviour, which can include the blogs they read, the material they downloaded, or the video they watched. The audience segmentation will lay the foundation for a strong nurturing campaign. Go Multichannel:&nbsp; Consumers now spent more than half of their time online. It only makes sense to be present to get the maximum return on investment from the nurturing campaign. Retargeting, social media monitoring, website content are just some of the ways which will help you build brand awareness and reach out to a broader spectrum of prospects. Automate email marketing:&nbsp; Invest in an automated email marketing system to boost the impact of your nurturing campaign impact. You can opt for drip-feed or event-based trigger email campaigns. When compared to standard marketing rates, automated email messages generate 70.5% of enhanced open rates and an increase in the number of clicks by 152%.&nbsp; The aim should be to make consumers feel valued, especially in this testing times of COVID, by devising strategies to approach with the products and solutions in a way that culminates into a long term relationship. The aforementioned strategies should help influence retention marketing and convince consumers to repeat the purchases.&nbsp; You can always reach out to a team of digital marketing specialist of Saffron Edge for effectively engaging and nurturing your prospects with the maximum possibility of a higher return on investment.&nbsp;

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What is the first measure marketers use when evaluating the performance of an eCommerce ad campaign? Return on advertising expenditure, or ROAS. It is a marketing term that has become the most important KPI for growth marketing. Today, we are here to explain why relying entirely on ROAS is a myopic vision of success that will hinder your DTC eCommerce performance! There is nothing inherently wrong with ROAS as a statistic. It is essential to monitor your return on ad investment (conversion value divided by ad budget). Incorporating ROAS as a metric is pretty obvious in a D2C Marketing strategy. However, this is only part of the equation. If we are discussing marketing (specifically growth marketing), it is harmful to the firm to focus just on ROAS. In this post, we will demonstrate a new method for measuring the performance of your sponsored advertisements and provide three steps for shifting your attention from ROAS to CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), which is the key to your business's long-term success. First: Why ROAS Does not Work for Paid Ads Your sponsored advertising is not responsible for generating ROAS. Shocked?! Certainly, this is the truth. Only you can determine whether or not your sponsored adverts are effective at generating website visitors. This phenomenon applies to all forms of marketing, including traditional forms. The commercials serve a little influence in converting a sale. Numerous elements, including your website, product, branding strategy, source credibility, and price point, have a significant impact. Even with the best-paid advertising plan and professionals worldwide, your return on ad spend (ROAS) will be low if your D2C eCommerce store is flawed. You can only optimize your efforts when you have total control over something. This may contradict what Facebook specialists and growth hackers say, but it is the reality. Remember ROAS, but your key metrics for analyzing sponsored adverts should be CTR (click-through rate) &amp; CPC (cost per click). Why ROAS is Only Part of Your eCommerce Business's Equation? Growth marketers should present a comprehensive plan that fosters scalable, long-term business growth. However, growth marketers are more often than not media purchasers in disguise. They may be excellent media buyers who can assist you get a high CTR and CPC, as well as a 2 to 4 times return on ad expenditure (although this is beyond their control). However, media buyers lack a comprehensive approach to growth and the corresponding plan. That is the distinction. Due to this, so many businesses are solely focused on ROAS, especially new client acquisition, while no one considers the wider picture. Long-standing, successful companies understand the value of attracting consumers and the importance of retaining and optimizing client relationships beyond the sale. If you want your DTC eCommerce brand to expand, you must consider the bigger picture, which necessitates establishing a relationship with your customers rather than simply making a transaction. This does not imply that a continuously low ROI on your sponsored advertising is acceptable. Consider where and how you are purchasing advertisements. To recruit clients, you will need to invest, especially if you're a new brand - this is a fact of beginning a business. In DTC eCommerce, you cannot expect to pay $10 one day and receive $20 back immediately. Sometimes you will have to invest more money to educate the public about your brand and products and establish credibility. The younger your brand and the more competitive your market, the greater your investment in this will be required. Understanding this reality and developing a business plan that can gain a consumer and turn them into a fan - a client that keeps coming back and distributes your message to the globe – is the key to success. The brands that can expand consistently and healthily are the ones who execute this tactic wisely. What Should eCommerce firms and marketers prioritize? The creator of a high-growth business we were mentoring remarked, "We're incredibly good at "Rev'ing," but terrible at "Netting." It's common: a brand appears to be doing well in terms of new sales, but they're losing money in the end! To succeed, such brands must move their primary focus from ROI to client lifetime value (CLV). ROAS is a component of customer lifetime value since customer relationships begin with a sale. However, it does not end there. After a transaction is completed, you must cultivate a connection with the customer to convert them into a true brand advocate. The objective is to generate a customer who returns to purchase again (therefore increasing their CLV). They claim that marketing to a new consumer costs five times as much as marketing to an existing customer. Most digital companies purchase traffic from Facebook, Google, YouTube, and other ad networks. This requires ability, but it only focuses on one aspect of the equation: making sale after sale. This is much more expensive and inefficient than communicating with your current consumers. This is why you must adopt a more comprehensive D2C marketing strategy and why our organization exists to assist brands in doing so. To build and expand, a firm needs to coordinate several moving pieces. It requires increasing CLV and scaling in healthy ways. Increase Customer Lifetime Value Consequently, what strategies should you employ to enhance (CLV)? We outline the process in three sections below. 1. Establish a customer expansion plan. To ultimately rely on customer lifetime value and develop a healthy business, you must have a strategy. You must have a "formula" for providing value to customers and generating ongoing profits from them. We are all aware of this; however, there is frequently no plan for increasing the customer's lifetime value. This is not a marketing formula! This directly relates to the core aspects of your company concept. You may ask yourself, "How does your product line look?" Have you considered expanding this product line into other product categories? Do your product margins sustain your business? Will certain merchandise have greater margins than others? Are you capable of bundling items to increase the average order value? Are you building a voice and brand narrative and then communicating in a manner that relates to your consumers' narratives? 2. Establish objectives for your major metrics. Depending on your D2C marketing strategy, you should have a reasonable goal for client lifetime value and growth. In addition to establishing targets for return on advertising spend (ROAS),&nbsp; cost per acquisition (CPA), average order value (AOV), and conversion rate, you must also develop objectives for cost per acquisition, AOV, and conversion rate.&nbsp; Ultimately, creating reasonable goals for each key indication based on a formula you've established beforehand will unify your efforts toward achieving them and relieve the anxiety associated with uncertainty. We understand that it may appear simple, yet they are all interdependent. If you know that a client's lifetime value is $100, but your average order value is just $25, you must decide. You may choose to spend $50 on acquiring a new client while still earning $50. Your ROAS won't be outstanding, but your company will be profitable. However, you must consider when you can attain the $100 CLV, but that is a subject for another day. 3. Implement a comprehensive strategy.&nbsp; You may create a thorough marketing campaign after determining your product strategy and key metric objectives. This needs expertise in three fundamental areas: Acquisition and Visitors: Includes paid google, Facebook, and YouTube advertisements. Optimization and Navigation of the Site: Superior site navigation, visual improvements, and conversion rate optimization Maximizing Customer Value: Maximize customer value through engaging consumers with efficient loyalty programs, email marketing campaigns, and customer service, among other strategies. Integrating these three components into a winning plan is the only way to produce sustainable, long-term company growth. Focusing on a particular area in isolation may provide short-term success but not long-term success. Final Thoughts To thrive, your firm must prioritize customer lifetime value, and your business plan is how you do this. Once you recognize this, you can stop worrying about achieving a ROAS of 3–4x every month simply because every Facebook marketer advises you to. Ultimately, client lifetime value will be the key to your company's sustainable success. Get in touch with our experts to know more!

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Are you spending a lot of (hard-earned) money on Facebook Ads or Google Adwords to get more traffic to your website but not generating any revenue? If this sounds like you, you most likely have a leaking bucket. To put it another way, no matter how much water you put in the bucket, it will not hold it all since it is leaking somewhere. It's happened to all of us: you are casually browsing the products on an online store, putting some items in your cart, and right before you complete a purchase, boom! You close the app, leaving those items in your shopping basket. If you don't believe it, look through your online shopping carts; something is most likely waiting to be purchased. Shopping cart abandonment is a significant leak in most eCommerce businesses' sales and marketing funnel . A lot of money was invested in attracting these customers, and they have already shown considerable interest in acquiring your product. It is not, however, an unusual occurrence. Approximately three-quarters of consumers abandon their shopping carts at checkout, and this number has been gradually increasing in recent years. Creating an email marketing campaign to combat the phenomenon of abandoned shopping carts might be as simple as that. You will be able to reclaim more of the revenue you previously lost and boost the number of website visitors who become clients. But, as you may know, email marketing can solve almost anything. So, today, we will go over the fundamentals of cart abandonment emails and see how a successful email marketing plan can help your eCommerce business turn the tables (or carts, in this case.) So, let's get started. What Is An Abandoned Cart Email? eCommerce relies heavily on abandoned shopping cart emails. Depending on the retailer’s policies, shoppers who add an item to their online cart but do not complete a transaction will receive an abandoned cart email or a collection of abandoned cart notifications. Customers who have not purchased anything in five hours, for example, are unlikely to shop for the item in their cart actively. Visitors to your site may leave after placing an item in their shopping cart but not purchase it for various reasons. With an abandoned cart email, you may remind them of their interest in your products and push them to make a purchase. Most of your abandoned cart emails are probably automatic, which means they are sent to customers based on predefined triggers set up by you or another member of your staff. Cart abandonment automation is available from many contemporary Email Service Providers (ESPs) and even some eCommerce platforms, with pre-made templates available in many cases. How Does Abandoned Cart Email Work? An abandoned cart email is sent to the visitors who leave items in their shopping cart but do not complete their transaction. It is usually prompted by this activity and provided at three different times: one after the triggered action, the second 12 hours after the prompt action, and lastly, 24 hours after the started action. Abandoned cart emails serve as a gentle reminder to buyers who may require some extra motivation to complete their purchase. Many customers treat their shopping carts as wish lists, putting them there for hours or days before deciding. Alternatively, they could have been distracted by any form of interruption. In this case, abandoned cart emails serve as a way to entice them back to finish their purchasing without adding to the friction. Moreover, abandoned cart emails are a great method to get feedback from your consumers and figure out why they chose your website over a competitor's and abandoned their carts. You can address buyers' problems while also improving the eCommerce experience. When quality products are discounted, it informs potential customers that they are losing out on a great offer. It softly reminds them to follow through after making up their minds. It sneaks up on them, instilling dread of losing out and increasing purchases by 64%. Instead of sounding like a sales pitch, send abandoned cart emails. So, what are the benefits of receiving those emails? Top Benefits Of Receiving Abandoned Cart Emails Increased Conversion Rates Whether your consumer forgot to finish their purchase, looked for alternatives from another company, or didn't have their credit card accessible, setting up a cart abandonment email can be the difference between completing the sale and losing it. The obvious benefits of recouping lost sales and improving income and conversion rates are the key motivations for using this strategy. The first advantage of employing automatically triggered emails rather than manual ones is saving time and money. You may use these emails to encourage clients to return to your site and make a purchase. The emails can remind customers of items, provide references to similar products, or even offer a reward for their purchase for price-sensitive clients' motivation, depending on their gap in memory. It allows you to keep your current customers while saving money on new ones. Customer Interactions Are Improved Via Cart Abandonment Emails You may re-engage abandoners, communicate with them, and build a cart of abandonment emails. When individuals receive personalized email messages and personalized product recommendations, they perceive your company as relevant and helpful. Giving your emails a distinct personality will help you stand out from others. More clients are likely to buy from you again due to their increased trust and loyalty to your brand. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction&nbsp; You might be able to figure out why a customer abandons an order if you send them an email. This information can improve your clients' experience by demonstrating care and providing a customized answer. By fixing this issue, you may be able to improve customer experience and prevent future cart abandonment. There are several methods for determining why a customer left their shopping cart empty. You can either ask the client directly what the problem is and how you can help, or ask them to fill out a short survey or provide them resources to contact you for help (email address, telephone number, and live chat.) Abandoned Cart Strategy: Conclusion Saffron Edge's abandoned cart email strategy is an ROI-driven strategy. They will help you create the best email campaigns for hot leads (potential customers who expressed interest in buying.) By following up with these potential customers and reminding them of the product they were interested in, you can improve your company's customer experience and generate sales. FAQ For What Reasons Are Abandoned Cart Emails So Essential? Abandoned cart emails serve as a reminder to buyers who might need a little extra encouragement to finish their purchase. Many shoppers use their shopping carts as wish lists, adding items for hours or days before deciding. Alternatively, any disturbance could have distracted them. It's a good sign that they are interested in what you are selling. What went wrong, then? Was there an issue with the checkout process? No, the consumer may have given themselves sufficient time to consider it. You have no idea what your client is up to. That is why you must remind him of his enthusiasm for the topic. Abandoned cart emails are an excellent method to boost purchases. When Should You Send An Email About An Abandoned Cart? The first abandoned cart email must be issued within one hour of the abandoned cart. It’s lengthy enough to iron out any issues with the checkout process but not long enough to forget about the item completely. Send a second and third abandoned cart email after a day or two, then wait another 2-3 days. How Many Emails Should You Send Out In Abandoned Cart Series? It all depends on you. Sending one to four emails is considered ordinary; sending more than that may fall into the spam category. Customers may still be hesitant to purchase an item if they just received a single email one hour after abandoning their cart.

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If you believe that automation means that large corporations will replace human employees with high-tech robots, you are mistaken. The chances are that you already use some kind of automation in both your professional and personal lives, which means that you're a business owner. Use of time-saving applications such as Google Suite, Zapier, IFTTT, Hootsuite, or other similar tools to save time and get more done is a good indication that you are already benefiting from the power of automation. Increased agility, lower costs, better productivity, fewer delays, fewer mistakes, and better customer satisfaction benefits from using automation technologies in your business. An automation strategy enables you to systematically implement the appropriate tools to maximize these technology solutions' value while simultaneously increasing your bottom line. So here, we will discuss how automation can help your business get better reviews. Benefits of Business Automation Utilizing automation in your company will necessitate an initial investment in information technology to set up the advanced technologies and standardize the processes. To successfully prioritize resources, you must first identify how automation can provide the greatest return on investment for your organization and help your business get better reviews. Market Adaptation As demand changes or order volume increases, you don't have to hire new workers. This gives you the ability and flexibility to deal with these changes as they happen. For example, in the cases of inventory management, order processing, and payment handling, automation can save you time and money by eliminating the need to recruit and train new employees to handle a spike in order volume, inventory levels, and process orders handle payments. Increase your ability to keep costs down and make sure customers get their orders as quickly as possible. Source: Unsplash Less Labour Cost Many small businesses spend a significant portion of their budgets hiring workers to fulfill tasks that need more labor and take more time while also adding little value to their overall operations and profitability. Lowering your overhead and increasing your profitability by automating these processes allows you to reduce the number of staff needed to complete these tasks, lowering your overhead. It also allows you to focus just on the quality of your employees instead of the quantity of them, allowing you to hire people with good skills to fuel your company's growth. Less Human Error Many business operations can be made more accurate through the use of automation. It is possible to eliminate costly errors associated with manual procedures, such as re-keying data from one system to the other. This applies to billing and accounting to order fulfillment and inventory management. Using shipping software, for example, can help ensure that you're printing the correct labels for delivery. In contrast, scheduling software can help reduce errors in people management, and an efficient inventory tool can eliminate the need to count items manually. Source: Unsplash More Happy Employees According to the company, automation helps streamline the employee experience while also ensuring that their needs and requests are met quickly. For example, it can help fill out forms for vacation requests, absence management, travel remuneration, expense repayment, and more. Additionally, one can use technology to expedite new hires' onboarding so that employees can become fully productive and so that you can have hiring expertise that will assist you in acquiring and retaining the most qualified candidates. Consistent Customer Experience Automation can help you provide a consistent buying experience that can elevate customer satisfaction and foster trust. It can help you standardize marketing, order fulfillment, shipment, and post-sale support procedures. The process also enables you to collect data and good processes by streamlining the customer experience and acquiring and retaining customers while driving more sales and profits. Customer Support Services that automate customer support, such as help desk software, a searchable knowledge base, and chatbots, can reduce response times, increase self-service capabilities, and increase customer satisfaction. Customer service chatbots, for example, can answer some basic questions and provide links to useful information without the need for a human agent to be available. As a bonus, they can screen questions and help customers find the right person or department to help them. Collaboration To guarantee the effectiveness of complex projects, you must keep track of each team member's responsibilities and ensure that information and communication have properly flowed throughout the project. Automatically tracking project progress, communicating key dates and milestones to team members, and keeping team members up-to-date with the latest data, files, or project status allows for more seamless collaboration and collaboration tools. Improve External Communication The ability to integrate the processes of external suppliers and partner organizations with your platform will allow you to streamline your distribution network and procurement, ensure prompt exchange of information, minimize delays, and lower the number of errors. Consider automating the purchasing and invoicing processes or integrating your inventory management system with the supplier's system so that new items are placed quickly. You don't run out of stock and cause important projects to be delayed. Source: Unsplash Leverage Remote Workers Many small businesses benefit from the growing use of remote workers, which allows them to access the talent and expertise they require while reducing their overhead. Also possible is the recruitment of the most qualified individuals to work on the projects at hand without incurring the expense of employing many full-time employees. Internal processes are made more efficient through automation, eliminating the need for employees to be in the same location to collaborate seamlessly. Some businesses can even operate entirely online, resulting in significant cost savings (e.g., rent, office equipment.) Increase Return on Investment Marketing automation can assist you in maximizing your budget while simultaneously improving results. There are numerous low-cost tools in email marketing, customer relationship management and sales, digital advertising buying, viewer targeting, and e-commerce solutions (e.g., product recommendations). Automating, collecting, analyzing, and organizing large amounts of customer data allows you to implement customization strategies, which will be critical in improving marketing and sales results over the next few years. So, these are some of the benefits of Business Automation. I hope you understand how Automation can help your business to get better reviews. Types of Business Automation Ecommerce Automation Automate your marketing and eCommerce operations by collecting and processing customer data. This will help you determine how to deliver the right information at the right place at the right time while also providing valuable assistance to improve customer retention. Email marketing software, customer relationship management, and chatbots are examples. Chatbots Low-cost solutions in the Rs. 2000 per month range is available for purchase. In addition, by implementing a chatbot, your business will be able to provide 24x7 customer support, access information instantly, increase efficiency, and, most importantly, provide the best customer experience to your customers. Inventory Management Product information transfer to your eCommerce website is made easier by integrating with your supplier's system to add automatically, edit, and delete products and transfer product information. It allows for good product data and availability updates, which helps to cut down on backorders and cancel orders and make the shopping experience better for everyone. Conclusion Numerous new tools are being introduced regularly. It is easy to fall prey to the "bright shiny object syndrome" if you don't have a clearly defined strategy to guide your execution. Make a clear distinction between your short-term and long-term business goals to identify the key areas in which you should concentrate your efforts and resources. We hope that this blog will help you understand how automation can help your business in various areas. For more details about business automation, reach out to our experts

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AI is no longer science fiction and a part of Hollywood movie scripts only as it is now being used extensively in a wide array of fields. By the look of things, AI still might look like in the infant stage, but according to a report, it has been found that 37% of the businesses are already using AI, and it is currently a $62 billion market. But for many marketers and sales professionals, AI comes with a caveat of failure, which is why they are using a cautious optimism towards it. Both doubt and lack of innovation are the two perpetrators that stop marketers from unlocking the power of AI for improving the customer journey and uplifting the conversion rate. Source: Unsplash Solutions AI-powered CRM and Customer Data Platform have even wiped out the high cost that was earlier associated with AI. That is why savvy marketers are no longer procrastinating the implementation of AI in their marketing plans. With AI becoming ubiquitous in the marketing realm, it has become essential to master this art. Therefore, in this article, we have discussed the top 5 ways through which AI is currently improving the customer experience. The AI revolution in marketing and sales Most companies are already enhancing customer experience through automation and data analytics, but AI enables machines to keep improving, and it goes beyond just automation and data analysis. The AI tools allow the computer to analyze a large volume of data, make complicated decisions, identify human speech and response, comprehend human behavior, and much more. The AI tool's capabilities can be precious for any company. They are always trying to shift between the changing market landscape while matching the pace with changes in technology, demand, and customer behavior. Source: Unsplash One of the best examples of AI implementation in marketing will be Amazon. A visit to the eCommerce site of Amazon quickly demonstrates how AI is being leveraged by Amazon to recommend products based on products you search, click and buy. And because of the success with AI, Amazon already invested $21.9 billion in AI in 2020 alone. Well, all this is just a glimpse of how companies are using AI. From SEO and searches to Ad targeting and chatbots, AI is being used in numerous ways, and it all comes down to enhancing the customer experience. Five ways AI is helping brands improve customer experience AI provides you with better insights related to your customer. Source: Unsplash With both AI and machine learning on an even keel, brands get the power of garnering and analyzing behavioral, social, and historical data, which allows the brands to understand their customers in a much better way. With AI by your side, you no longer have to be confined to the current limitation or ability of the coding of your analytical software as AI keeps on improving and learning from the data it probes. The new-age ability of AI helps companies crunch gigantic amounts of data, and the AI even does the heavy lifting on data cleansing and aggregation. This frees up the company's internal resources, which earlier was bogged down with data analysis, and both the marketing and sales team can narrow down their focus on customer behavior. Building profiles and models through AI helps make vital predictions regarding what the customer is going to buy, which type of image they are going to search for, and even what they are going to browse on the internet. Quick and improved customer service through AI-powered chatbots Gone are those days when customer service was limited to a tech team sitting behind the desk, answering queries over the phone, typing solutions in chat boxes, and replying to customers' issues through emails as the power of AI has helped us to flock to the era of chatbots. If you think chatbot is still a new kid on the block, then think again, as 40% of the companies are already using chatbots on their websites or apps. But this is not it, as even the ability of chatbots increases with time. Nowadays, chatbots can handle 68.9% of chats from start to finish. But how is it helping in improving the customer experience? Earlier, limited resources and budget thwarted companies from providing round-the-clock customer support, but now, such perpetrators of better customer service are being abandoned with the help of AI-powered chatbots. But round-the-clock support isn't just a good CX; it is a table stake in the current market. Most customers don't want to wait until you open your doors so that they can get questions, answers, and queries resolved. That is where AI is improving the way customers interact with a business. That is why 78.2% of the customers have a neutral or positive experience with chatbots. Building the trend of automated life assistance If you don't have an aversion to gadgets and if you love making your life easier, then you must have used Alexa, Google Home, Echo, or similar robotics AI to turn on your favorite music or dim the lights. But nowadays, companies are using these robotics AI for improving the customer experience. For example, many banks have already started using Alexa and Google Home to automate bill-payment and schedule transfers with just voice commands. Stores allow their customers to order products through the robotic AI, and movie theaters integrate with Alexa and Google Home to book movie tickets. Source: Unsplash An approach like this is promoting the culture of self-service among customers. It is being accepted with enthusiasm in every market. It makes processes quicker, and there is no need to always get in touch with a representative from the company. And with 20 million people in the U.S having more than one Echo, one doesn't need to worry about a slowdown in the robotic AI trend while investing in it.&nbsp; Making hyper-personalization easier for even SMEs Hyper personalization keeps real-time data and AI on an even keel to deliver content that is specifically relevant to a customer rather than rehashing the same content for every customer. Conversational AI is helping brands in providing hyper-personalized experience, and it is also a much more convenient and quicker way to interact with the business. In addition to making the conversation and content delivery more personalized, AI can help eliminate the pain points in the customer journey. Some of these pain points that customers want to shrug off are re-confirming the phone number explaining the same problem repeatedly to different representatives. AI connects with the entire history of conversation and previously stated inventions, and it then eliminates the chances of the customer griping about the service provided by the company. A sense of support for customers with assistance on each buying stage Both Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning promote and support natural language processing or NPL. The NPL is one of the branches of AI that equips computers to understand the text and spoken words in a similar way a human does. With such an ability in the system, brands can organize, optimize and generate content quicker than they did the entire thing with the traditional method. Such type of quick content generation helps customers by successfully guiding them throughout their journey with ease. A fragmented experience can deter customers from purchasing a product, which you can overcome with the help of AI while enhancing the customer experience. Takeaways Artificial intelligence is not a perpetrator planning to overtake the world, nor is it there to snatch jobs from employees, as this is also a big concern. AI opens many doors of opportunities for businesses and allows them to level up the playing field, especially when providing a world-class customer experience. From taking advantage of real-time data to equipping brands with the power of predictive analysis, there are so many things that one can achieve through AI that makes the possibilities limitless. Get in touch with our experts to know more!

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Retaining loyal customers to sustain a profitable business becomes crucial with the changing marketing landscape. But sometimes, it gets difficult for retailers to manage their inventory, which affects their sales and brand reputation. If customers find that the product is out of stock in a retail store, the chances are that they might go further to a competitor's store, which is not a good sign. A report reveals that 7% of small businesses don't track their inventory. And that's why they are struggling to boost their sales. There might be many reasons why your physical inventory might not have the products your customers want, but asking them to wait for a few days is not viable. Are you also facing the same problem? Don't worry. There is a solution to this problem, i.e., Endless Aisle. It helps businesses provide more flexibility and room to showcase products that are usually not in inventory or out of stock but can be arranged to be delivered. It allows retailers to provide their customers an opportunity to browse through your entire offline and online inventory and purchase the products they want virtually. Read on to know how Endless Aisle can help you increase your inventory without actually spending lots of bucks on their purchase and storage. What is an endless aisle? Endless aisle is a strategy that many offline retail stores often use to expand their inventory without physically maintaining it. It combines virtual as well as offline inventory present in the store. Once a customer walks inside a store, they can browse through the physical inventory and virtual inventory using a kiosk or tablet, or a mobile device and choose what they want and order the merchandise presented in the form of virtual products. Source: Unsplash This way, instead of shopping bags in hand, customers would leave stores with delivery tracking details and receive the products from the stores! Endless aisle helps retailers enhance customer experience by delivering a hybrid of online and offline shopping experiences. It allows businesses to provide customers with the opportunity to purchase products that are currently not available in their stores. It offers an easy selection of products, and provides quick services to customers. Firms can also plan and schedule deliveries aptly and keep track of shopping trends through an endless aisle strategy. Also, it allows organizations and retailers to reduce their physical inventory to save floor space. Take an example of car showrooms: When you go to a car dealership to purchase a car, the customer assistant will show you a car through a virtual medium that is out of stock. And then they will ask you to book your car in advance. What are the advantages of the endless aisle? Source: Unsplash Enhance customer experience and service By incorporating Endless Aisle in your brick-and-mortar business, you can give your customers the freedom to choose from your entire product selection and catalog. This reduces the challenge of retaining customers and increases the possibility of purchase. If your customers find the product they are looking for in your store, they might always choose you for the same product line. With Endless Aisle, upselling and cross-selling get better. The Endless Aisle allows retailers to sell additional accessories to the primary intended purchase. You can give them an array of options virtually. Since the Endless Aisle strategy allows you to always have full shelves, you don't have to worry about in-store stock. This will make purchasing and selling tasks easier for you and your customers. Increase your inventory without increasing the floor space Usually, if you want to have a large inventory, you need to rent additional floor and shelf space to accommodate the stock. With Endless Aisle, you can expand your inventory by adding your products to digital platforms .That means no need for additional space and expenses. Give your better customers insights. One of the essential things that every retailer needs is customer data, which helps them know what their target audience likes and what new item is trending in the market. The data helps you understand your customer's requirements and gives you an edge over your competitors. Endless Aisle helps you capture real-time customer data as they scroll through your virtual platform. You can determine what your customers want to buy to arrange your virtual inventory accordingly. Also, it helps you provide a more improved customer experience. Implementing an Endless Aisle in your store The most common way of implementing endless aisles is Kiosks. You can also choose smartphones and tablets based on your daily customer traffic and business requirements. Add the entire product range of your store to your digital platform to showcase your customers. The kiosks should be handled by store reps and distributed across your store. Ensure that kiosks have a search bar and accessible listing of your products to provide your customers with a hassle-free shopping experience. With these kiosks, your customers are not overly dependent on in-store assistants to help them find what they are looking for. Since your customers can easily get all your products through kiosks, the possibility of purchase also increases. Use a powerful POS (point-of-sale) software that enables customers to browse through your catalog. The POS software is cloud-based that helps you centralize your inventory. It allows you to showcase your entire product-range on a single platform. It also helps the cashier keep a tab on the stock at other locations and place an order accordingly. Takeaway! Endless Aisle is an efficient marketing and sales technique that enables retailers to provide their customers with the option of purchasing products that are out of stock and not commonly found. This helps retailers save huge bucks, which they might spend on renting large warehouses. If you are also planning to incorporate an endless aisle strategy in your retail business, reach out to us. Our team will give you a glimpse of our services and help you combine offline and online inventory to maximize customer retention and revenue. Contact us now!

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With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, the eCommerce industry saw a massive rise in terms of sales. Since COVID-19 had shut down retail stores, the online eCommerce world saw a significant transformation. The global lockdown led to an increase in global retail sales. According to Statista, the expected eCommerce growth will reach an industry worth $26.7 trillion by 2022. Increase of $23.6 trillion from 2018! With more and more online shopping options, customers have found different channels to purchase products. Today, there are numerous devices they can shop from: mobile, computers, and intelligent devices. According to a study conducted by Microsoft, around 58% of the shoppers don't prefer buying from an online shop that offers a poor customer experience. Offering seamless, fast, and intuitive user experiences throughout the shopping process are challenging for many eCommerce businesses. Do you know that Headless commerce can create a significant impact on enhancing user experiences? Today, headless commerce is transforming the eCommerce world by offering customer-focused technology that enables online businesses to develop future-proof shopping experiences. If eCommerce brands and retailers want to scale their digital channels, they need a robust technology like headless commerce. Let's understand the concept of headless commerce and how it can offer a future-proof eCommerce solution to online businesses. What is Headless Commerce? Before we jump onto the concept of headless eCommerce, let's find out the features that traditional eCommerce platforms lack. Conventional eCommerce platforms like Magento are developed on a monolithic architecture. It is tightly coupled with the back-end and front-end. It allows businesses to sell their products via a web-based shopping experience. However, customer demands and behavior are changing. Shopping behaviors have changed drastically. With the growth of smartphone users worldwide, more customers tend to purchase or surf across the web through their smart devices. The demand for smartphones is quite evident if we see the figures. According to Gartner, the worldwide growth in sales for smartphones went up by 26% in the first quarter of 2021. Therefore, eCommerce businesses have a multi-channel approach. They need to provide personalized shopping experiences to match the prevailing level of customer satisfaction. If brands and retailers want to keep up with the evolving customer expectations, they'll need a flexible and agile eCommerce solution. The answer to that is headless eCommerce! An eCommerce business with a headless commerce setup will fully decouple the front-end and back-end. They communicate via APIs (the acronym for Application Programming Interface). Headless eCommerce has different features too. It utilizes headless CMS and a headless eCommerce platform to run various operations. These features enable eCommerce businesses to simplify product logistics, inventory management, marketing, etc. They can distribute content through APIs across various devices and channels with just a push button. These features allow businesses to streamline content easily. It will enable them to offer a seamless shopping experience across all devices. Why Should You Consider Headless Commerce? How Does It Make Them Future-Ready? Headless commerce can help eCommerce businesses meet modern market demands. They allow online companies to gain an omnichannel approach and offer personalized experiences. Many small businesses can quickly meet small customer demands through their small online shop and a website. However, the problems start rising when their business scales or expands to new platforms. Comparing headless CMS and traditional CMS The most significant advantage of headless commerce is that it allows businesses to create content once and utilize it across all channels. With traditional content management, eCommerce businesses were not allowed to do so. Headless eCommerce setup will enable enterprises to: Handle storefronts across multiple channels. Offer enticing UI and apply visual editing. Use technology to boost performance &amp; security. Develop flexible, customized storefronts. Focus on customer solutions The Key Benefits Of headless commerce 1. Improved user experiences As mentioned above, the headless setup allows eCommerce businesses to manage content using two critical components. These components enable your business to maximize users' experience and integrate a headless CMS with your eCommerce platform. Once you integrate your content with your headless CMS, you can quickly deliver the same content across multiple channels. Therefore, your brand will be able to provide an omnichannel experience. Source: Unsplash You also get a centralized content management system that is very helpful in creating multilingual content to internationalize your offerings. You get to modernize your CMS by adding social media services with an API. How does that benefit you? With an omnichannel approach, marketers use language as a marketing tool to engage new audiences from new markets without spending loads of money on a translation team. 2. E-commerce Personalization E-commerce personalization can help your eCommerce business to cater to individual needs. You can offer services that align with your customer's intent. It also allows companies to provide context to different customers from various other channels. 3. Enhanced security and performance Stores developed on the top of a headless architecture tend to load faster than traditional architectures. They also offer a greater level of security. How do these things affect customer experience? A fast-loading website that is responsive to its viewers has a more significant influence on them. Source: Unsplash When a website loads quickly, it adds up to the user experience and boosts the organic and SEO performance of the website. Today, many eCommerce storefronts are developed using statically-generated sites. These websites have increased efficiency because a headless configuration works relentlessly to reduce the website's loading time and boost performance. As loading time decreases, businesses offer a better user experience that improves quality scores and decreases ad spend. 4. Flexibility and faster deployments The headless architecture offers high flexibility and complete control to front-end developers. Developers can curate user experiences from scratch as per their customer demands and help you meet your eCommerce store needs. Front-end developers working with headless don't have to worry about back-end limitations because they cab fetch enough data from an API call. When we talk about smaller-to-larger changes, a front-end developer can operate independently via any back-end system. How Does that help your business? It allows you to make efficient storefront updates. 5. Quick time to market Unlike the traditional architectures, a headless commerce setup is entirely indifferent to the kind of technology you are using. The headless commerce setup shall remain independent of any future changes too. Due to this reason, developers get a lot of freedom regarding their decisions related to technology. How will that benefit your team? When developers get the space to make decisions, your marketing team has more time to take new initiatives and create new marketing campaigns. Hence, your marketing team has more time to work across multiple channels across various devices. 6. How do you decide when to go headless? Many businesses struggle to find the best time to shift to headless. It can be difficult for your business to realize the best time. If you have a custom eCommerce platform or eCommerce solutions like Shopify, WooCommerce, or Adobe Experience Manager, having a headless architecture can make your business more manageable, efficient, and profitable. A CMS/eCommerce solution is very reliable compared to the above cases. There are a few questions that you must ask yourself before implementing your headless eCommerce architecture. What are your targeted devices? What technology do you want to use? Do you expect redesigning at some point in time? These questions are critical to ask before taking your first step towards headless commerce. Conclusion Do you think you want to implement headless eCommerce for accelerated growth? If you are planning to do so, wait no more! With the propelling rise of eCommerce adoption among customers, brands and retailers need to provide their shoppers with a notch higher online shopping experience. Headless commerce allows you to deliver an enhanced shopping experience and increase eCommerce efficiency at scale. At Saffron Edge, we can help your business adopt necessary technological changes. We have built over dozen custom-field types with headless eCommerce. Get in touch with our experts and initiate your practice towards a future-proof eCommerce business.

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Marketing is the blood of business- it decides how your customers react to your offered products and services, how long your business can survive, and what your customers expect from you. Whether you invest in a high-profile marketing campaign or sell out adverts in the local newspapers, marketing functions can apply in many ways for a small or a large-scale business. Moreover, with the introduction of technology into the business world, marketing tools have become wide open for you to secure and enhance the ever-growing relationship with your existing and prospective customers. Digital marketing has turned out to be a critical part of modern consumerism. Source: Pexels There is a rather beneficial concept for your business when we speak of technology, known as marketing automation. It significantly focuses on implementing technology and automation to function the marketing activities of your business. Digital media is booming! According to a recent survey, 77% of the CMOS say that they have experienced a massive rise in digital engagement. The same report also states that one in every five businesses drives 30-40% sales through the digital medium. For a small business, marketing automation is an essential aspect in enhancing the relevance of its customer base and transforming itself into a demand-specific entity. Marketing automation is a way to positively affect your sales and bring realistic campaigns with the help of online tools and high-tech marketing software. As it allows your business to be omnipresent at various channels, the purpose of targeting the right audience at the right time with the right products is achieved by marketing automation. As per the reports published on Business Insider, 59% of CMOs have infused marketing automation tools in their business. 20% of CMOs have said that they'll adopt them soon. The rest of the 11% CMOs shall adopt automation tools by end of this year. Source: Pexels Reasons Marketing Automation is imperative for small-scale businesses Per Salesforce's State Of Marketing Report, around 67% of marketing leaders are incredibly dependent on marketing automation. Almost 82% of the marketers agree that marketing automation has offered them a positive return on investment (ROI). Although every business has a different and unique strategy to handle its marketing functions, the automation tools are pretty helpful for small businesses to boost their return on investments, especially when they require it the most. Here are a few other reasons to justify that - Compounding Customer Data Under One Head Managing the vital information of your customer base is quite a task. When it comes to compiling that information for report analysis, nothing better than marketing automation tools can ease the process for you. With the latest software, you can overview the data of your entire business' customer base in a single view, which makes it easy for you to prepare detailed data reports. Moreover, marketing automation provides your business with a wide array of opportunities to study customer engagement and activity over your platform. by acquiring such user-driven information, you can get to the bottom of a customer's mind and what type of by-product interests them. ROI Is The Real Deal For every business, time and money are two crucial components that aim to save the most with the way they function their business operations. by making the most of marketing automation, your business can spend less time and effort on routine marketing chores that are repetitive and can be monitored via tech tools. It also minimizes several operational costs. It allows you to focus better on your business's core operations and contribute substantially to sales. Consolidate Sales and Marketing Functions When you start applying marketing automation tips to solidify your business operations, it becomes easy for your sales and marketing departments to work as one team towards the growth of your business. For instance, once the marketing team puts forward marketing automation strategies to generate quality leads, the sales team must pitch product or service sales to those leads. Also, lead generation attains lead score; sales pitch becomes much easier as the sales team understands lead prioritization. Fulfilling Customer Expectations With the customers' ever-growing expectations, your business must live up to them. One of the prime expectations of every customer is efficient communication- getting an immediate response for a product query is what they look forward to. And marketing automation, email communication, chatbots, and autoresponder tools can help nurture the lead and keep it engaged. because customers now can switch to your business rivals any minute, marketing automation enables you to focus on customer service, which is crucial in these times. Source: Pexels Four ways to eap advantages From marketing automation by deploying technology in fulfilling your marketing solutions, here are a few benefits that you can provide your business - Automated Greeting Program Most customers subscribe to the email newsletter of a business firm, and it then establishes a buyer-consumer relationship. For creating a lasting connection, your business must ensure a welcome program. It could include a simple email informing the customer about the brand's products/services and gaining details about its expectations from the brand. You can accomplish that with a welcome program that could introduce surveys about customer interests and basis the data. Your business can proceed with customized services and communication with the customer. Having that said, marketing automation can effectively act upon these programs, and with the help of data-driven tools, your initial greeting service can become a huge success. Retention Of Loyal Customers As marketing automation offers retention cues to your business in the form of transforming leads from abandoned carts or while they're on your website, it can be concluded as a critical element in increasing business profits. Increasing the rate of customer retention and lead generation can trigger the sales of any business. Along with that, marketing automation aims at communicating with your customers with product-relevant messaging strategies that can encourage customer engagement. Personalization According to Gartner, 63% of digital marketing leaders are struggling to provide personalized experiences to their consumers. Customers do not like to be considered merely as a headcount; they expect personalized recognition. Therefore, marketing automation provides you numerous ways to categorize priority customers based on their purchase and interests profiles to better target them with what they aspire to. Once a customer's profile is created with the help of automated software, your business can stay updated with the customers' needs and plan its marketing actions basis the reports. It also lessens the burden off your marketing team's shoulders as they are not confined to research and analyze such an awful lot of information. 84% of digital marketing leaders say that AI/ML tools can elevate their marketing abilities by allowing them to deliver real-time, personalized experiences. Optimize Marketing Actions Finally, one ideal way that marketing automation helps a small business is to provide quite a few opportunities to your business to alter and amend brand communications, email types, and marketing memorandums, depending upon the customer type. Instead of manually updating every bit of information, your business can optimize content and execute only the updated viewpoint effectively. Saffron Edge provides you with the opportunity to transform your business' marketing strategies by linking technology with them that positively affects your lead generation actions and customer retention. Our end-to-end, highly optimized marketing solutions enrich our clients with a professional experience. Email marketing and retargeting, advertisement analytics and research, launching marketing campaigns are a few services. To know more, give us a call now!

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