Categories
Marketing

Making Persuasive and Engaging Customer Presentations

Customers today are distracted; the need to capture their attention and hold it is acute. There is a saying that describes the role of Marketing as being to “get all the ducks in a row”, and it’s Sales’ job to “shoot them.” Of course, we don’t want to shoot customers – quite the opposite – but we need to recognize the hard work it takes to get them there in the first place. When a customer is standing in your office, it’s the result of many hours of Marketing activities and careful nurturing of each potential lead. If we stumble at the last stretch before the finish line, then all that work is for nothing.

Once your customer has been ‘lined up’, the next step is often a persuasive presentation. The goal is not to exchange information, but to demonstrate the relevance of your products or solutions to their situation. Facts can be looked up or emailed at any time – your presentation has to offer a more complete experience that erases any doubt and confirms their trust in your company.

The key to achieving a persuasive presentation is to make it into an experience that’s sizzling with relevant storytelling and served with just the right level of emotion to trigger action. How do you do that?

 

Why are we here, exactly?

Ask this question before the audience does – not necessarily as part of the presentation, but rather to ensure that the point is clear for you. Once this is well-defined, make sure it’s also clear to the audience, so they stay attentive.

A customer presentation is an opportunity to meet, and look each other in the eye. While we find it hard to trust faceless entities such as corporations, it is much easier to trust a familiar face. Don’t forget this important human element in your presentation, because it’s often neglected.

When you can’t meet in person, remote presentations can use digital storytelling software to show digital stories as a critical component in your messaging. These can help overcome the gulf created by distance or lack of familiarity, and it can be both repeatable and customizable.

Use your Briefing Center for an exchange of ideas

When a customer comes to your briefing center, they are not there for you. They’re looking to exchange ideas and explore solutions that benefit them, so your presentation must center around them with relevant concepts.

Don’t try to overload the customer with facts. Even when they’re highly relevant, it’s better to be highly selective with facts and figures and only use them to anchor an ‘idea’. The difference between a fact and an idea is subtle, but by focusing on the latter you create an open discussion that can reflect the customer’s perspective better.

Be prepared to receive ideas as much as giving them out. If you pay too much attention telling them what you can do, this can become inadvertently restrictive. Listen to your customer as they describe their situation, and respond with stories that reflect a similar situation and how you solved it.

A digital story can be highly effective for this, but only if it doesn’t interrupt the flow of idea exchange. Good digital storytelling software should enable total flexibility in this regard, and allow you to flip between content in a non-linear way. This is a massive improvement compared to traditional presentation and slideshow software solutions.

When you can use your digital stories to show a range of possible solutions and how they impacted the people involved, you can then open the conversation to see if this looks like a good match for them, and what needs to be different for it to line-up perfectly.

Persuasion requires the judicious use of emotion, and this isn’t easy. However, with some carefully prepared digital stories you can produce the right combination of trust, empathy, and hope.

Digital storytelling software tools for killer presentations

Your customers will be most effectively persuaded by a customized presentation that includes a strong and interactive human element, supported by varied digital components. These should include digital stories that inspire, visual data, linked media assets, and 1-2 brief slideshows.

The goal of the visual support is to make the presentation attractive, but not confusing or cluttered. Many people try to include everything in the slideshow component, which is usually a mistake. Slideshows are intrinsically constrained in their capabilities and you lose the value of digital stories and media assets when they’re stuck in the PowerPoint deck instead offering an opportunity to shift perspective.

Some apps can help you to make a more visually pleasing slide deck, and this can help make it more appealing. These include Haiku Deck, Prezi, PowerPoint, Canva, and Google Slides. Microsoft’s PowerPoint, however, remains a leader in the field. There are also several online and cloud-based tools for making an attractive presentation. But a slideshow is ultimately just a slideshow – the format is somewhat limiting.

Digital storytelling software can become a versatile hub for any presentation. Enterprise-grade digital storytelling software such as Hyro can serve literally any kind of media asset (including a slideshow) using its cloud-based and web-friendly architecture. Software like this can also be used to make presentations accessible for remote audiences as well.

Want to persuade? Use storytelling.

There are many psychological tools and tricks that you can use to be more persuasive. These include the Bandwagon Effect, The Halo Effect, The Expert Effect, Social Proof, and the power of positive emotion.

All of these are hard to use in a traditional presentation, but very easy to wield effectively with digital stories. Storytelling is the perfect way to leverage these tactics.

Without needing to shell out on an enterprise grade digital storytelling software solution, there are some simple ways you can use the storytelling paradigm. For instance, consider ways you can reframe existing facts or figures as a story. Their 12% of unanswered calls can then become a story about frustration among staff and stress when they can’t meet their goals. You can talk about how managers struggle to find solutions, while their customers become increasingly dissatisfied before eventually hanging up. A simple story like this, even a verbal one, is much more tangible than “12% unanswered calls.” For larger companies however, it makes good sense to invest in a mature solution in the form of digital storytelling software. This can handle the challenge of hybrid meetings, complex media assets, and non-linear storytelling – all of these have huge benefits that reach far beyond making your presentations more persuasive. This kind of investment makes a company ready for an agile and digital future.

Categories
Marketing

Awesome Ways to Promote Your Bar And Help Boost Sales

A bar can benefit from an array of promotions. Whether you want to increase foot traffic, profits, or customer loyalty, there are many ways to promote your establishment. These include social media, blogs, influencers, and even a dog-friendly evening. 

Social media

Social media is a wonderful tool to promote your bar and attract new customers. You can post videos to your YouTube channel or use online business directories to create positive reviews for your bar. Social media advertising is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to promote your bar and reach new customers. However, choosing the right audience to increase your sales is important. This means targeting customers of legal drinking age who can travel to your bar easily. 

Blogs

Blogs are a great way to promote your bar online. You can share your recipes and experiences and create a newsletter and a dedicated email address for new subscribers. In addition to sharing valuable content, blogs can also help your bar rank higher in search engines.  

Influencers

One of the best ways to promote your bar is to get in touch with influencers. These individuals are the best at handling social profiles, and they can attract more followers. They also know what to say about a bar and can help decorate your social media wall. This way, you can get more followers and eventually more customers.

Social media is a great tool to promote your bar, but it is important to know when to post. The most effective time to post an image is during the weekend when most bars are packed with customers. 

Local events

Hosting a local event can boost your bar’s awareness and provide free publicity. Many people are likely to share the event with their social networks, and it can even get local press coverage. The type of event you host will depend on your audience and the type of promotion you want to achieve.

Hosting a local competition will help you increase your followers on social media. For example, you can organize a competition for the wackiest drink idea or the best redesign of a classic drink. The winner can be awarded a prize like a free week’s worth of drinks or even a feature on your bar’s website or social media pages. Another fun idea is to use local influencers to help promote your bar. 

Sponsoring local events

Local events are a great way to promote your bar and gain new customers. There are lots of free events that you can sponsor, from local charity auctions to church functions. Sponsoring one of these events can generate a lot of buzzes and increase sales. Some great ideas include a flip-a-coin penny night, in which customers flip a coin to decide if they want a penny beer or a full-priced drink. Sponsoring a new band or album is another great way to attract new customers.

Social media is also a great way to promote your bar. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are great ways to interact with your customers and build relationships. You can also find influential local accounts and request partnerships with them. These influencers can have thousands of followers, so it’s worth trying them out to see which ones will produce the best results.

Creating a competition

There are several resources online, like https://www.atmosphere.tv/blog/bar-atmosphere/, to help you come up with fun competitions that will bring your patrons together. For example, you could host a cocktail competition or a trivia night. This will bring customers in and help create a fun and inclusive atmosphere and build repeat customers. Creating a competition can also help you get your bar featured on social media by posting with the winners, showing off their prizes, and informing people of the next event.

Categories
Branding

Ensuring You Stand out From The Crowd: The Importance of Graphic Design in Business Branding

Whether you’re crafting a winning CV, building an unmissable business card, or designing an attention-grabbing presentation, today’s hyper-competitive landscape means that it’s essential to pull out all the stops in order to get noticed.

Whilst the creation of graphically alluring materials to support your individual or business needs and to market your personal or company’s brand on a larger scale can be an arduous task, it’s possible to reap the benefits in terms of increased exposure and engagement.

optimizing content

(Image: PixTeller)

As we can see above, a recent survey conducted by Software Advice and Adobe found that the use of images or photos are regarded as ‘very important’ by almost half of the respondents – with only a handful of those surveyed holding the belief that such graphics weren’t important at all.

For individuals looking to incorporate graphics into their CVs or business cards, or for small businesses that are aiming to improve engagement through the distribution of brochures, product mockups, flyers, certificates, or invitation cards, it can be an extremely time-consuming task that may not always end in success.

Thankfully, websites like Powered Template excel in offering users a selection of free and premium quality graphic templates that can be easily downloaded and used for a range of business needs.

Tapping into the Benefits of Powered Templates

There’s no shortage of inspiration when it comes to the pre-designed graphics offered by Powered Template. In fact, there are more than 40,000 options throughout the website’s comprehensive menu of graphic templates.

The beauty of Powered Template’s menu, which updates in real-time based on a wide variety of different filters and categories, is that users are able to rate each design that they use – helping other browsers to understand which samples have the best designs and usability.

As users filter their selections, we can see that the results update in real-time. Furthermore, the selections are listed in order of popularity – meaning that users are treated to the best performing results first.

We can also see the number of times that a template has been downloaded – indicating just how often other individuals have chosen a specific design.

The results on show in the image above also tells us that many templates are created to suit a specific theme, with many of those showcased relating to eco-friendliness. Although these themes act as a solid guide, they don’t have to be strictly adhered to, because all templates can be fully edited as and where required.

Let’s take a deeper look at one of the results that has gained a high user rating. This template relates to home remodelling and interior design. As we can see from the attributed tags on the page, the creator of the template has linked their work to the fields of architecture, design, civil engineering, construction, and home remodelling.

Immediately, we can see some key information linked to the template. For instance, Powered Template makes it clear just what platforms the template can be compatible with – helping users to know quickly whether the file formats are suitable before they choose to download. With the likes of various Adobe and Microsoft Office suites being compatible with the file, our option is highly functional.

Furthermore, we can see that the template has gained an average rating of 4.5 stars from 52 reviews, whilst the file has been downloaded some 58 times since being created in 2012. In this case, we can immediately assume that the file is likely to be relatively scarce, meaning that you’re unlikely to stumble upon many similar materials elsewhere. The content is actually entirely free to download, meaning that individuals or businesses can access and modify the template without having to pay. However, all free downloads from Powered Template requires attribution within the content, which means that the company must be referenced in a visible space.

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Marketing Sales Strategies

3 Reasons Why A Social Selling Strategy Is The Key To Success

The social media landscape has continued to prosper post-pandemic. With 4.6 billion users worldwide, social media platforms are quickly becoming the place to be to communicate and consume.

Digital engagement has risen altogether as a result of Covid-19’s digital shift. Popular platforms such as TikTok and Instagram gained 490 million users in 2020 alone and that number constitutes to multiply as we step into 2022.

(Image Source: Hootsuite)

The question is, could the success of social media be a vital selling strategy for keen marketers in 2022?

As consumers continue to engage with new social trends, opinion leading influencers and paid social ads, sales experts are using these popular platforms to their advantage in an attempt to boost e-commerce engagement in a competitive landscape that continues to challenge small businesses.

Let’s have a closer look at the benefits of using socials to sell in 2022 and why your sales team needs to adopt a strong social selling strategy if they want to see post-pandemic success.

What Is Social Selling?

Social selling does what it says on the tin. Using a brand’s social platforms to connect with consumers and potential prospects is the key aim of this strategy. Instead of more traditional selling techniques such as cold calling and the use of creative copy, social selling aims to generate a genuine line of communication between the consumer and the brand that tends to be more conversational.

Whether this is through content creation, the use of immersive VR tools or simply social listening to gather insights on customer trends, using social media based selling techniques opens up a door to a billion engagement possibilities.

Social selling is vital when building B2C relationships in a digital environment. Slotting elements of conversational marketing and social listening into your social media strategy allows a customer to feel heard and a brand to feel confident when replicating demographic trends.

Dont just take our word for it though, stats show that business leaders who utilise a social selling space are 45% more likely to generate successful sales leads and engagement opportunities than brands that are not active across social media.

In fact, a whopping 78% of business leaders that use at least one form of social selling technique are likely to completely outsell their offline competitors.

Could It Be The Key In 2022?

Utilising social media within your business strategy in 2022 is the key to success amongst a new influx of e-commerce competitors.

In a landscape where a large majority of e-commerce consumers fall into the Millenial/Gen Z category, business leaders need to remain digitally savvy if they want to keep their consumer retention rates high.

Studies show that brands that communicate with their consumers on a regular basis are twice as likely to see positive prospect results. Using social channels to enhance that communication is a low cost, simple sales tactic that could significantly improve your ROI.

A Post-Covid Social Selling Boom

In a post-Covid digital space, social selling has soared in response to an increase in e-commerce based competitors and a call for high streets to close.

In fact, in the last half of 2020, a quarter of American shoppers claimed that they made at least one purchase through social media, after either clicking on an ad or engaging with branded or influencer based content.

(Image Source: Statista)

3 Reasons Why A Social Selling Strategy Is The Key To Success

There are a number of reasons why social selling is being named the selling strategy of the future. From improving consumer relationships to predicting demographic trends ahead of time, utilising the power and popularity of highly engaged channels such as Tiktok is proving to be vital if startups want to stay in the market.

Here are three reasons why you should improve your social selling strategy today:

You Create A Real Connection With Your Consumers

Social selling is all about creating conversational opportunities with your consumers. In an environment where your audience is already engaging in content driven conversations, it is easy for your brand to organically slide into an active discussion and build new relationships with potential prospects.

Better still, when engaging with a demographic using social platforms, you can target your approach and reach out to audiences that are already talking about your brand or consumer niche, rendering your outcome much more responsive.

You Blend In With Consumer Content

Utilising popular platforms such as TikTok with over 1 billion active users, it is easy to create original, on-trend content that can blend into your demographic’s conversation, while subtly promoting your products and services.

The key here is to start researching the trending topics within your niche. Use analytic tools to gather insight into social media best practices, so your content creation matches the style of your audience. The more organic your interactions appear, the more likely you’ll see increased audience interaction.

You Can Predict The Next Trend

One of the most important benefits of adopting a social selling strategy is your ability to predict oncoming social trends. The more time you spend within the social media realm, the quicker you’ll see viral trends cropping up amongst your demographic. Using a combination of social listening and competitor monitoring, smart sellers can jump onto viral content trends before they rise up in virality making the branded content more likely to slot itself within the mainstream and gain increased audience engagement.

Categories
Marketing

5 Benefits of Market Segmentation

Marketing segmentation in a business is vital as it allows the business owner to provide products and services to the right target market at the right time. It is an effective tool that any entrepreneur would benefit from as it offers a marketing edge.

Determine Market Opportunities

Market segmentation allows a business owner to identify market opportunities. The marketer studies the needs of every segment, analyzing the level of customer satisfaction. Once you find segments with low customer satisfaction levels, you can exploit this opportunity by launching a new product in the market that will satisfy customers.

Advertising Medium

There are many platforms you can use to market products and services, from billboards, plastic postcards, social media platforms, TV, and radio. Marketing segmentation allows you to choose the suitable means of advertising that will create the right impact on your target market.

Designing a Product and a Service

Giving customers the products and services they need is very important for the success of any business. Market segmentation can help a business design a product that meets the demand of the target customers. Products and services with a high market potential can be created and directed to satisfy the target market.

Helps in Fixing Prices

Another benefit of market segmentation is that it helps the marketing team set prices for products. Different market segmentations have different perceptions of prices. It is necessary to use different pricing strategies depending on the market. For instance, in lower-income groups, prices have to be low with more effort to promote a product.

Better Products and Services for Customers

Market segmentation allows a company to focus its marketing strategies on a specific area. When market research is done well, a company can focus on its target market and provide better products and services. Market segmentation is a great strategy, especially for small businesses. When done correctly and with the right resources, it can enhance customer satisfaction and increase sales.

Categories
SEO

Partner with a Reputable SEO Agency in Bangkok

seo

Many brands are in a rush to change their marketing strategy. They’ve learned the lessons the COVID-19 pandemic has taught the business world about the importance of having flexibility in your marketing capabilities. They’ve also realised that putting together a marketing strategy and a website capable of supporting all the activities they planned to try to gain lost ground can’t be done by themselves alone.

They need the help of an SEO agency to ensure their website is, and continues to be, ready to meet the challenges of this bold new step into the digital marketing world. But when they start looking around, they realise they don’t really know what an SEO agency does in the first place. So how are they supposed to know which one is the best at their job?

Explaining SEO

Of course, you could go on reputation alone in making your decision, and many companies often do. But in order to make your own contribution to the process and understand what it entails, we’ll give you a brief overview of how SEO and digital marketing activities act symbiotically to raise a brand’s product and services awareness, increase its conversion rate and raise its website ranking.

Most digital marketing companies offer both marketing and SEO services. They have to interact so often; it simply doesn’t make much sense to treat them as two separate businesses. The SEO team provides a stable platform (your website) to use as the ultimate destination for all the marketing activities and ads placed by the digital marketing team.

This means that the SEO team are generally some of the first people to take a look through your website and improve its function to the point that it’s robust enough to handle the activities planned by the digital marketing team.

They’ll start by doing an SEO audit of your website that will highlight all the flaws and errors of your site. They’ll fix any broken links that might’ve been frustrating prior visitors and ensure that the site is easy to navigate. They’ll also improve the site’s loading speed, so users don’t become discouraged from visiting.

The SEO team will also be the ones that improve the site’s content and introduce keywords to improve your site’s Google rankings.

Mechanics of Digital Marketing

The SEO team are the mechanics of digital marketing in preparing your site for the digital marketing activities to come. It may seem like this is a lot of effort to go through for what may be just a few enquiries, but a quality digital marketing agency will often have several ad and marketing campaigns operating at the same time over Google Ads and many social media platforms. Having an ecommerce platform on your site is also something that needs careful preparation.

What starts out small, can grow quickly and be a saving grace for your brand’s awareness and profitability both regionally and internationally.

Learn more about the role of SEO in providing your brand with a comprehensive digital marketing platform by contacting Primal, Bangkok’s award-winning digital marketing agency.

Categories
SEO

The Importance of Online Marketing in Malaysia

online traffic

Technology is a huge part of human lives all over the world. In the span of just a few decades mobile phone ownership increased dramatically and now a majority of adults are mobile phone users.

This widespread prevalence of technology makes online marketing absolutely necessary in many parts of the world. This article will examine how online marketing in Malaysia is an important concern for any businesses seeking to do business there.

Technology Use in Malaysia

Like most other modern nations, Malaysia’s economy has become very digitized and the Malaysian government actively promotes engagement in the digital economy. Digital technologies are pushing forward large scale economic growth through increasing efficiency and encouraging innovation.

In this forward-thinking business community, marketing also has to be done in the digital sphere. Online marketing in Malaysia is a key way to reach customers for a wide range of businesses. Even among consumer communities who primarily live outside of urban areas, digital marketing is a very effective way to build relationships and promote goods and services for these communities.

Marketing Trends in Malaysia

This year Malaysia saw some marked trends in the world of online marketing. There has been a sharp increase in mobile traffic, which is now more widespread than ever before. There are also growing numbers of influencers on Instagram and YouTube, which coincides with spikes in users on these platforms as well.

Marketing for customers in Malaysia is becoming more personalized. In addition, most digital platforms in Malaysia are looking toward omni-channel marketing, which promotes a business recurrently across many different digital channels. These key trends in online marketing in Malaysia are important to keep in mind for any companies looking to gain more business here.

Categories
Marketing SEO

How to Take Your Business Marketing Strategy Next-Level

Running a business is complex, requiring a great deal of flexibility. Growing your business is just as daunting, and your digital marketing strategy should be a top priority. In order for your business to thrive in a world so reliant on excellent digital marketing, your skills need to continuously evolve. Let’s explore a few important tips to boost your digital marketing capabilities.

Advance and Refine Your Skill Set

A good digital marketing strategy is critical to the growth of your business, and this includes developing both your hard skills, like analysis of the success or failure of your current strategies, and your soft skills, like creativity and innovation. Without the hard skills to determine how you are being perceived and received by customers, you will be unable to understand and act on the data you gather. Without soft skills like the ability to conceptualize and execute original content, you will find it difficult to connect on an emotional level with customers.

Change management is critical to your success. What is change management in project management and why is it important? An example of change management is a long-term project with a team of employees. While the project might get underway quickly, if you lose a critical team member, you must be able to pivot your tasks, timelines and goals to meet your deadline and still provide a quality product. Change management requires you to grasp how the change will affect the team, and communicate it effectively to your team. With good planning and communication, it should be easy to shift plans successfully. Businesses unable to deal with change management typically don’t last long in the quickly changing world of e-commerce.

Stay Up to Date on SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a great way to stay informed about what content your customers or potential customers find engaging. SEO styles and methods are designed to exist in flux, creating room for entrepreneurs to mold their content to the needs of the business, while maintaining good visibility on the internet and creating a voice for their brand. Read the highest ranking SEO articles online, take a free online course or download an app to help you track the success of your SEO strategy – and never stop learning! 

Explore the market

One of the best ways to enhance your digital marketing strategy is to stay tuned-into what is happening in your market space or vertical. Regularly perform searches for your competition or businesses you admire, and incorporate the elements of their strategy which enhance your skills and product. A thorough knowledge of the market you would like to dominate will give you the best chance of success. 

Be Aware of the Latest Trends

Don’t be afraid to take risks and try new things!  In a world where everyone has a digital marketing strategy, it’s critical to create original and compelling content to engage readers. 56% of global businesses have plans to invest heavily in content creation in the upcoming year, as statistics clearly show that 72% of companies confirm that their content marketing increases leads and customers. Look for gaps in your content creation, like a lack of videos or blog posts, and fill those gaps!  Worried about the quality of the content? The only way to learn is to try! 

Understand Analytics

Typically, some personality types gravitate toward statistics and analytics, and some toward creativity and creation. Excellent digital marketing requires a happy medium between both skills. If analytics is your jam, rock on!  If analytics is not your thing, try downloading an application that will do your analytics for you, or pull in a more experienced team member to show you the ropes. 

Enhance Content Writing Skills to Write a Compelling Message

One of the biggest marketing challenges in 2021 is creating content that generates leads. COVID forced many traditional businesses to close their physical doors and open new avenues of communication on the internet – making clear, concise and creative writing critical to their future success. Consumers are significantly more likely to choose a vendor with a well-organized and written, original and informative content, than they are to choose a business with poorly written material.

They simply want to know what they are getting, and who they are working with. Misspelled words or plagiarism indicates to customers that the quality of your work will be just as slip-shot as your marketing material. Working with a team to optimize your content before you post it will give you a broad range of varied experience, and a few sets of eyes committed to the success of your business.

Conclusion

The coolest thing about content marketing is how flexible it can be – and this is something you must embrace. If you want your business to be next-level successful, you must create a next-level successful digital marketing plan, and follow through!  Collect free or even paid resources to help you boost your digital marketing skills, and insist on your peers doing the same – and remember to be flexible!  Getting comfortable with change and ambiguity could be the difference between the success or failure of your business.

Categories
Marketing

The Future of Retail Marketing: What to Expect

Most people now shop online. You do not have to think too far back when asked about the last item you bought on the internet. Online sales continue to grow year by year. However, there is something about the experience of real-life shopping that customers still find attractive. There are certain ways in which the brick-and-mortar experience cannot be beaten. For example, you can try out new things with no shipping delays. Also, it is a social experience that gives you instant gratification. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the in-store shopping industry has been disrupted at a rapid rate.

Customers not only chose but were advised to stay home during the pandemic. This resulted in customers tending more towards eCommerce. Even if it was not for the pandemic, retail stores are losing pace in the US. Many of the changes the pandemic has bought are likely to stay. However, that does not mean that retail stores are going to die out. The most relevant question for both old and new retail stores is how they can best position their business for a prosperous year. Here are some expected trends for this year:

API Marketing

API means application programming interface. An API is the umbrella term for multiple applications interacting with and helping each other via data. APIs have become a vital tool for businesses in all sections. Simply put, an API ensures a most transparent and straightforward end-user experience. Businesses have sales forces, large paperwork, and so on, which can be automated with the help of APIs. It can aid advertisement-driven businesses as they can place their ads on external party apps and devices.

Multiple Payment Options

Smooth payment processing plays a key role in overall customer experience. Manual billing options and paper checks will soon become outdated. Not only that, they also put an extra burden on your system. An electric payment method can successfully streamline the cash flow experience. The trends are predicting invisible frictionless payment methods. Such software is created so that payments can be embedded into applications.

Mobile payment methods will also be a big trend in this and the coming year. Making your business’s payment method digitized is crucial. Millennials and Gen Z make up almost 40% of global consumers. They expect to provide minimal information about themselves and be able to pay digitally. They expect to pay anywhere and anytime without contact. Flexible payment options allowing you to not pay the full price of the product at the time of transaction are also expected to increase.

AI and AR

AI and AR are said to have a huge impact on retail marketing in the coming future. Most of the businesses have moved online. This implies that the online shopping experience is not a personalized one necessarily. However, users would prefer a personalized experience. AI can help with this. Similarly to how you have an in-store assistant helping you and guiding you through your shopping, an AI can serve as your online personal assistant.

The AI learns from your customers and makes them feel that they are recognized and cared for. That is why AI will become an important trend in retail. It will add a human experience to online shopping. AR or augmented reality is another great product of technology that is set to revolutionize fashion retail. Be it shoes, sunglasses, or a new dress, people would want to try them on before purchasing them. AR will make it possible for them virtually. Apart from this, AI and AR can be utilized in the shipping process workflow as well as the custom shipping labels all the way to home delivery.

Social Media

When it comes to marketing, the importance of social media cannot be emphasized enough. You can tell people about your business on various social media platforms. Influencer marketing through social media is a trend that will take on a swing. Posting about your business on Facebook, posting pictures on Instagram, and telling people about your services on Twitter can all be a part of your sales campaigns. Half of US customers use social media to ask questions about products. Any business planning to be around in the long-run is highly recommended to have a strong social media presence.

Conclusion

Online sales will continue to grow. There will be a bounce-back of retail stores after the pandemic ends. The survivors in retail will be determined by how well they can match the demands of Millenials and Gen Z. Incorporating AI and AR into your business while using social media to its fullest is the trend that almost everyone will follow.

 

Categories
Marketing

10 rules for creating a minimalist website

When it comes to designing, minimalism always wins, whether it’s on a website or elsewhere. No one is ever appealed to cluttered pages with lines full of content. A classic and sleek design pleasures the eye and ultimately compels the user to dig a little more.

People usually believe that adding elements equate to adding value, but that isn’t the mentality that works when designing a website. It is where the phrase “less is more” suits ideally. Calmness and clarity are always more visually appealing than a superfluous design.

Why choose a minimalistic design?

Minimalism is a word that is commonly confused with simplicity. The entire concept of minimalism does not entail dullness but reduces the design elements that genuinely add value to it. The unnecessary details play the role of obstruction in focus as they distract the user from concentrating on the primary message.

A minimalist design helps convey the message directly and effectively to the user without any distractions in between. It has embedded its roots in painting, sculptures, interior designing, web design, and product design with utmost conviction.

It’s not just the visual appeal that makes it worth all the hype but also the bonus of user-friendliness, which aligns with its fundamental goal of retaining customers.

Taking minimalism to the company’s website

A web design is the company’s face. This is where your customers initially land to get to know what your business is all about. If this information is hurdled by slow loading, cluttered pages, or poor usability, your company will be losing a profusion of potential customers.

For a website to serve its purpose, the customer needs to stick for a longer time to know what you do and what you have to offer. If any of these factors are difficult to understand, you need to focus on your principles of functionality.

A minimalist design is all about organizing your webspace in such a manner that all the elements connected to one another remain close while the others stay far away. This keeps your website relevant and objective. Components that are critical for navigating the customers around the website must be bold and attractive. Similarly, one needs to pay attention to substantial facets such as typography, spacing, and overcrowding.

When you keep all of this in your mind to design a website, you’ll only feature information that attracts the user’s attention and attends to all their issues.

So, in this era of online businesses, here are 10 rules for creating a minimalist website.

  1. Content is the priority

The main objective of the website is to provide value, and that is delivered through relevant content. Therefore, the focus of the design must remain on the effective communication of the content.

An attractive design can never be enough to do the job of appealing to customers. It must have enticing writing, a call to action, and information that delivers the message that must reach the target audience.

The design should be the backbone of rendering effective information. You can either display it in a bulleted form or a pictorial manner, keeping it simple and clean. At the same time, while we’re objectifying giving the content the spotlight, you shouldn’t be overdoing it. Instead of writing for the SEO solely, exhibit informative, engaging content and serve a real purpose. Anything that compromises the integrity of the website must be tossed aside.

  1. Focus on usability

A beautiful-looking website that serves poor functionality is literally of no use at all. So, while designing a website, you must pay attention to its usability. A customer who gets lost in the design and finds the layout supremely complicated to find a piece of information that he is looking for can doubt the website’s performance.

Be as creative with the designs as you like, but stay conscious of how the user will be interacting with them. Navigating through the website should almost come naturally to the customer; that’s the only way he’ll stick around and make a purchase. Make it easy for the customer to differentiate between the links and to go back to previous pages.

When it comes to usability, you must ensure effective readability as well. The customer must be able to read the written text on his laptop as well as his tablet or mobile phone without any difficulty.

  1. Keep some white space

Just because there is an empty space doesn’t mean you have to add something to it. Filling up every tiny room is precisely what clutters the space. Adding up an abundance of elements to a page of a design will only jumble everything up, leaving the user confused and distracted. This is the definition of ineffectiveness in web design.

White spaces help the user focus on exactly where the intention is and move around the design easily. Keep in mind that every design needs some room to breathe.

  1. Must serve a purpose

Evaluate if your elements in the design are serving a purpose. If they don’t, leave them out. Video content increases your sales and boost visibility, so add it according to your need and preference. Make sure your text and images align with the overall design of the web page and the company’s offerings. A web page needs to be engaging and fun for the customer to read, so instead of stacking it with wordiness, try to keep it short and precise.

People like to read things to the point and move on to the next. Presenting a clear picture in front of them makes your website readable and usable. One of the essential elements of a company that must serve a purpose is its logo. The face of your company must be diligently designed to connect with the customer.

  1. Be careful with color choices

Color choices can evoke a great response from the customers. A minimalistic design doesn’t mean the involvement of white and black colors only, but try to keep your palate soft. Make sure the color you choose has an intent behind it.

It should portray a particular emotion, feeling, or makea connectionwith your customer in a special way. The colors you select must reflect your brand and should blend in with the entire theme of the website. If you’re using a bold color to bring a certain element into prominence, make sure you have an intention behind it. Sticking to a combination of two to three colors remains a standard for almost all websites as a variety of shades can be confusing at first sight.

  1. Emphasis on typography

Typography needs to be profoundly focused on a minimalist design. Big and bold typography is what represents minimalism. The font you choose, textures, colors, positions, and other features hold significant importance in making your layout visually and textually appealing.

Your specific choices of typography can play a substantial role in evoking a response from the customers. Therefore, make a choice that tells your story.

  1. Keep refining

The first draft of your design can never turn out of the perfect replication of your thoughts. You’d have to work on multiple iterations to finally land on one that works. Evaluate your elements and get rid of the unnecessary ones.

Keep asking yourself if the specific design detail adds value to your website; if it doesn’t, it’s better to subtract it. These iterations won’t end with the launching, instead even after the launch; you can analyze the infrequently clicked elements and consider removing them from the design. This will keep enhancing the overall functionality of the website. So, for a professional look and feel, it is recommended to hire experts like the logo design valley to simplify the job for you.

  1. Take risks

There are no hard and fast rules to make a minimalist design work. You don’t have to strictly abide by the rules to ensure your website does the best job with respect to customer relations.

Take risks, try different things, and evaluate what works for your website and what doesn’t. It’s only when you keep making mistakes that you are able to understand the perfect way of creating a minimalist web design. You might also end up finding a fun combination of styles and techniques to create an attractive layout.

  1. Use grids

Using a grid to design a website can prove to be incredibly useful in helping your users in easy navigation. Whether it blends in with the overall design or looks prominent, it will serve the purpose of aligning all the elements together and establishing hierarchy. Grids can also help draw the customer’s eye around the main content.

  1. Avoid cluttering

Visual cluttering can be irritating and perplexing for the customer to find valuable information from amongst the load. If something’s not of value, eradicate it. Make your textual layout as simple as possible to make your website readable. This will enable you to grab the user’s attention to the place that genuinely holds meaning.

When there’s too much information, the user will remain confused with figuring which of it is important. It induces cognitive load on the memory, making it difficult to remember the critical information about your website. So, don’t overwhelm the user with images and texts.

Conclusion

In this internet age of business, it’s supremely important to ensure that the website effectively increases leads and drives sales. A minimalistic web design can deliver results through its classic, simple, and sleek design. The 10 rules mentioned above can be the working horse for your website’s optimal functionality.

If you know of any other things to add to the formula, kindly let us know in the comments section below.