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Scale up your online business

Online Shopping During Covid-19

First and foremost let me say that I researched and visited six out of the seven sites listed below. Here you will find honest and real facts about UK supermarkets supported by images, dates and some figures about shopping online around Europe.

Who are the fastest brands to deliver groceries?

Depending on the country you are living in, it is very difficult to answer this. I live in the UK so I am focussing this post on the United Kingdom’ online supermarket brands.

Online Shopping Searches by Brand Name Uk
Online Shopping Monthly Searches for the U.K During 2019

We have at least seven major supermarkets in the UK who have online grocery sites.

Online shopping during Covid-19

The seven are: Asda, Iceland, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose.

Whether they are good at getting people on site and through the checkout page quicker – is a question for today’s post.

I have tried these five sites (Asda, Morrison’s, Ocado Sainsbury’s and Waitrose) out of the seven major supermarkets and I could not place an order (this was towards the end of March) with any of them.

I decided to try again a few days later. At first, I noticed that some of the sites were really slow followed by some faster ones, yet, I couldn’t finalise my shopping on any. I despaired, but determined, I tried again. My list of choice got shorter as I had to exclude Tesco and Sainsbury’s who at this point said they were only delivering to vulnerable people, Waitrose was extremely difficult to access and Asda as it was slow and the navigation wasn’t great.

With the pandemic running wild, there is currently an up-to-three week waiting period (ongoing) to be able to get a delivery slot. At the time of writing, there are no time slots available for less than that.

Our two favorite grocery stores

Morrisons

I think Morrisons did not score ace when it comes to selling a large variety of groceries, fish, meat and household products. [ updated ]

Their motto is: Convenience, quality and value for money.

The retailer has recently introduced a new service called “Food Boxes”. These start at £30 and there are plenty to choose from – to include:

the Market Kitchen Meal;

Typical Morrisons Items Box
Offer grocery box from March 2020

Market box (includes four different curry and chilli dishes)

and the Meat Eaters Food Box (includes dairy products, rice, bread, vegetables and other essentials).

At time of publishing this post, Morrisons say that these boxes are available for same week delivery – but I am not sure if this is still the case.

Normally internet orders starts from £40 minimum with free delivery for the first month. “Delivery Passes” are part of new subscriber service, available to help regular customers save on dispatch costs, I guess. You can choose from either monthly @£8, the six month @ £40 or the annual pass @65 which saves you £137 according to them.

Morrisons Passes 2020
Morrisons Passes – New Subscription Service 2020

Our experience – After several attempts and fast forward to 12th of April we managed to get onto Morrison’s site, fill up a trolley with most needed items with a drop off date – the first available date was first of May 2020.

Insane right! Yes, not a joke, so imagine all the hospital/care workers, elderly, isolated families who can’t drive or find themselves miles and miles from the nearest supermarket.

And let’s not forget, courier people should also be included on that category as they are probably working even harder and longer hours these days.

Currently, there are limited delivery slots, due to high website traffic, but the website will show the time left before you can hop in.

Ocado

Few days later my other half managed to place an order on Ocado website and we were lucky enough to get a delivery slot after been on a waiting list for ( a bit) over 3 weeks. I should add here that we are regular Ocado customers and pay £4.99 for the monthly SMART pass.

The minimum order is £40 with a next-day dispatch with multiple one-hour time slots available by default. These days, the site is always in such high demand that they can’t deliver next day or the day after. Normal I guess, as these are allocated to vulnerable customers.

We noticed that Ocado has increased its capacity for shoppers without priority access, and will grant a home-delivery roughly in 10 to 12 days time.

Ocado offers and make its deliveries as environmentally-friendly as possible and that is why we like them. The company promote and delivers groceries in grey bags, labelled kitchen, cupboard, fridge and normally recycles all carrier bags for you (you need to hand them back to the driver next time round – although during the current crisis this has been suspended).

They also have green delivery slots, and have added many eco-friendly vans which helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Extra point here, is they donate supplies to food banks and charities.

As far I am concerned, the winner at this moment in time is #Ocado.

Are people stockpiling still?

I guess online you can’t actually do that – but I read that some individuals are physically going to refill their trolleys afraid that groceries will end or never reach the shelves again.

I am putting that down to an uncivilised, shabby behaviour.

What else could it be!?

Online shopping across Europe during Covid-19?

I was wondering what it’s like shopping across Europe. So I pulled some links for you to read and explore further.

I noticed that many supermarkets across the UK and Europe are working hard to satisfy and make our daily lives better and easier, whilst keep their employees safe at the same time.

As many countries across Europe have implemented social distancing and other isolation measures, millions of us turned to their computers or mobile devices to do our shopping and to accomodate these safety measures.

Highlights and most searched products accross UK and the rest of Europe

What Does Online Grocery Shopping Look Like in Western Europe During COVID-19?

European Online Shopping Data (percentages)
Source: Digitalcommerce360.com & Emarsys/GoodData – Online shopping stats across European countries

U.K.

Aldi is launching its online groceries for the first time in the UK to help itself, and/or make life a little easier for some of the country’s most needed customers.

Aldi launches first online grocery service in response to Covid-19

The five things supermakets want you to know
Source: Weforum.org / agenda 2020

France – The mairie de Paris created a interactive cart where people can find over 265 indépendant parisiens shops that are registered to help make home deliveries.

Source: www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/coronavirus-a-paris-ou-trouver-les-petits-commercants-qui-livrent-a-domicile-31-03-2020-8291460.php [French]

Italy – the grocery shopping habits during the Covid-19 lockdown

Source: www.statista.com/statistics/1103115/grocery-shopping-habits-during-covid-19-in-italy/

Netherlands – one site showing which shops are (still) open – nltimes.nl/2020/03/27/site-launched-show-amsterdam-stores-still-open

Portugal – is gradually preparing to lift lockdow as small shops and hairdressers get ready (almost) to reopen, while students summoned to the fields.
source: www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-portugal/hairdressers-small-shops-prepare-to-reopen-in-portugal-students-summoned-to-the-fields-idUSKBN21Z30Z

Where to buy pet food online?

You’ve probably sorted your food but what about your furry friends?

I had to do online research to find proper dog food (with no additives, unnatural…) as we have a labrador and of course we couldn’t risk him having no food. He gets his three meals a day. He loves his food so much, that I can’t see myself explaining to him why he can’t get his meals. He would not understand it, but worst, imagine me saying that, it would literally break my heart to see his little face. So the first thing we did was to put an order for him.

If you have pets yourself you will be needing some extra food. Specially for those of you who can’t find a shop within a short walking or driving distance.

Here I can’t decide which is better for you, but what I can do is point you to the top sites where you can order your beloved pets food.

Here are the main brands who sell pet food.

  • https://www.pet-supermarket.co.uk/
  • https://fetch.co.uk/ (from Ocado) – they are experiencing longer lead times
  • https://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/
  • https://www.monsterpetsupplies.co.uk/
  • https://www.zooplus.co.uk/specials/dogs/trial_specials

Online shopping during Covid19 [Verdict]

Finally, I don’t know about you but I’ve asked myself this “have UK supermarkets failed to deliver?” In some ways yes, I think they have but let me reassure you.

I am not here to blame or point a finger at the ones who couldn’t really adapt to the consumer’s needs – we all find ourselves in unprecedented times, so we have to bear that in mind, however my first vote goes to Ocado for their prompt and speedy services (as we write this).

Our other vote goes to Morrison’s – we managed to get vegetarian Food Box – they are also good, effective, offering a fast delivery slots and still open and respecting the vulnerable and care workers.

I noticed that the majority of supermarkets have created a special timetable. Can’t really say who started it. Most open their doors at 7am to 8am to the senior and NHS/care workers. They took time to react to the events but it’s working well now.

Also I’d like to take this opportunity to say thanks to many key workers (shelf refillers, delivery, syppliers etc. #keyworkers #stayhealthly

I can see that they all have done customer segmentation planning, however, in my view the majority lacked tactical and marketing alignment.

Surprisingly, they haven’t evaluated (in- depth) the most needed or isolated regions but also didn’t look to create partnerships with let’s say local couriercompanies. For example the click & collect from Waitrose could work well, but none of the big names have adopt it. That is my only criticism as I can’t go down to ultra specifics due to lack of time and resources.

Oh, I almost forgot, I was really disappointed with Amazon Fresh services. You couldn’t count on them as there was no way to see a date on the calender until late May.. What a pointless (Fresh !?) service. Instead creating a new service and help supermarkets get their deliveries out, no they didn’t bother.

I hope you enjoyed the reading. Let us know about your recent experiences, and if you think this post could be useful to anyone you know feel free to share it.

Keep safe, calm in whatever you do! #besafe #stayhealthly

21 SaaS Marketing Tactics – Part 2

As a SaaS company, you need to capture but and above all captivate your audience in order to get those must needed new clients in to scale your business faster.

Reading time to finish the post is: ~4-5 minute

If you read 21 Saas marketing tactics part one you will noticed that we focused more on active ways to go about it. If you haven’t read it yet, I would recommend to do so.

Saas Marketing Tactics Business Model

In this post we’ll be focusing on “Saas content marketing tactics” and how to best use them in active and passive ways. However, these passive ways take time and energy to set up.

You’ve probably heard or read that Content marketing has been successfully used across thousands of SaaS companies across the globe.

For example – Startups publish and use many types and forms of content to:
a) educate,
b) inform,
c) attract to increase leads, (hadn’t you noticed?) yes, that’s their ulterior motive.

We learnt that our own leads originated from several other places such as:

Email marketing, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora and Twitter. My favorites LQR.

These are all excellent channel platforms to attract and educate people.

Let’s assume you own a startup or a SaaS

You already have good partners that send and share your best content, sending you relative good traffic. But your newly acquired investors will expect to see your content marketing/comms plan producing a growing A.R.R.

What does it mean to you?

This means that you need a framework to show how you should go about it and perform as quickly as possible.

Why? Because you have little knowledge and time to spare and your partners are not willing to wait for too long.

You need a documented content marketing strategy including Saas selling tactics

Yes. That is the first thing to get your hands on. This document will show you the steps and the resources needed for that period, along with marketing phases, financial forecast and how fast you can grow.

In short, let’s find out more about our content marketing strategy . Because, let’s be honest, your business is unique and you need a content structure to survive.

To get there, you’ll need to create an vibrant and effective content showing processes, people and phases.

All the above will take some strategic thinking, energy, dedication and investment.

So we recommend to start with the following.

Tactic 4: Persona mapping to help your content

You must have the personas document setup. It should also include the following questions:

  • What are the main characteristics of each of your personas?
  • How will you segment them initially?
  • What does the prospect’s initial search path look like?
  • What is the visitor’s pain points? Needs?
  • What type of content do you first need to create to engage and serve them better than the competition?
  • Where does this content fit in your sales funnel?
  • etc

If you get this right it will set you apart from your main competitors and will help you convert more clients.

Tactic 5: Create awesome content

We’ve mapped out the personas. Now from each persona select one keyword.
Start market research (use Google trends) to see how many monthly searches you have for those keywords.

Use available filters (Country, city..).
That is the beginning of the on-page optimisation – one big moving part of the SEO strategy process. Which is so important, but we talk about this more in part three.

If your keyword topic has anything above 200 + monthly searches you must put in basket.

Let’s see another good tactic.

1. Start your search on Google:
type very specific keywords such as: [ Saas pricing models ] + use define: operator to get some more ideas on the topic (like [define: consulting examples]).

Write it down.

Hint: You can search without bracketts.

You could  scroll down to the bottom Google results to get some more search ideas.

You’ll see “searches related to: “Saas model and pricing pages…” you could select or click the ones you think it would work better for you.

2) Now to expand your keywords: research further type ~ and *operators to include more results.

Example: Main topic from the bottom of Google results page.

Repeat the process four to five times.

3) Expand your chances and try platforms such as:

Twitter search, LinkedIn search as these will display recently discussed articles within your topic.

Well done! Here you’ve plenty more content topic ideas.

Warning: As a tech person, you’re probably thinking “on my front page, I will display my product’s best features, but also why I like it and you should too.”

Wrong. Don’t go down that path.

Your homepage should emphasise the product’s benefits not its features. You can later on link to a 7-10 feature product page and explain or show off what and why your product does well. Then try to convert people with subscription trail.

The challenges you’ll face if you’re in business already:

How do I find the type of content my audience is actually searching for?

Obvious solutions:
a) Check if those keywords appear in your Google analytics vs Google trends. If they match, it is a good sign.
b) A combination of data-driven research brainstorming plus competitor analysis.

Use SEO tools: Such as Semrush, Ahrefs or Moz to identify new terms or keywords that you are missing out but your competitors are not.

Straight after grab your thoughts and ask questions such as:

  • How and why is my solution better than the competition?
  • How do I guide them to try our product/service?
  • How and when will we lead our audience into the conversion funnel?
  • Use the questions above to generate content ideas.
  • This is still the best way to go about it. But also create content that will answers and solves problems.

Tip: Visit (often) your persona’ needs, as mentioned above.

Pick your type of content and commit to publish relevant material on a consistent basis. Whether this is via podcasts, blog posts, videos, etc.

The key is to find the format type you also enjoy producing. It must be relevant and provide value. Also get into the habit of creating in advance because everything else builds on that.

I actually plan out my post topics in advance, by logging them into a Content Google Calendar. But there is plenty of other ways you can do it.

Find your own system and keep it up.

Tactic 6: Create (seductive) visual content

I would recommend working with these two.

1) draw.io  is great and free to use. A online diagram software that creates beautiful visual content in minutes.
Try it for all sorts of: flowcharts, process diagrams, org charts, UML, ER and network diagrams.

2) Install simple diagrams a desktop app for creating fast, clear and fun sketches. You are more likely to attract your readers by showing them how to solve a particular issue with a fun image.

Or simulate your client’s problems, demonstrate the processes they could use to improve their daily businesses, (workflows, sketches ideas…) in a fun way. Create value and emotions with simple but expressive sketches. There are plenty of nice features, and lots of shapes and images.

3) Create and display smart 1-2 minute videos in your content marketing to demonstrate your services or products. Initially you entice without going into deep details, just enough to get it viral and increase sales conversions.

Hint: The key is to be able to translate top complicated ideas into a very powerful and creative visual concept to make a huge impact.

Tactic 7: Guest blogger

This is a good content creation tactic. Show off your expertise, look for guest blogging opportunities. Perfect (smart ways) to help build natural links back to your site. It is also a great way to raise your profile within your industry.

Here is a good way to do this.

Search for: “write for us” or “Guest blog needed” and in seconds you will see a list of blogs or companies appear before your eyes.

Tip: This tactic is used by many to harness golden links. So use it carefully.

Then, just email these people with your most recent work. You should offer them 5-6 topic headers you think would work for them to accept. If you want to speed up the process (after doing some research) describe how you see the topics working.

You can also start a blog post straight away. But provide them with palatable content to read.

Also, if you have a small list of well-known people you can reference in your industry, use it. Email them and tell them you mentioned and give them credit .

Then promote it, promote it within your social media channels as long its industry related. The end goal here is to let your content attract and promote itself. That way, you’re showing expertise and building strong relationships/connections.

But remember this, you’re not “guest posting for the sake of getting links”. Very important. You are looking to add and show value, point of view on top of your expertise to every single website you write for.

Tactic 8: Answer how-to questions on (LQR) LinkedIn, Quora, Reddit

I love this one. Spot and select questions from people who own or manage Saas/Paas businesses. I am doing it and works very well (Quora and Reddit). But be honest and don’t do it for the traffic. You are in there to provide value to people first and foremost.

Because if you go there with the intention of getting traffic it won’t work, specially in reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/ category. You will be labelled with bad Karma and kicked off.

Not real ones, its the platform’ way of doing things – they rate people’s comments with positive or negative karma.

There is thousands of SaaS companies that aren’t using this tactic when building out their brand. Shame really as it works well.

I guess their main reason is down to (normally) lack of time or probably because the quick ROI is harder to get.
Though the traffic will come once you are known.

The main steps to take are:

a) answer questions that you know and are comfortable with
b) look for people who are starting a business and/or are in the initial research phase (awareness)
c) provide value for money (and your time)
d) take them down to the consideration stage and follow the steps of your sales funnel until the end.

I seriously hope you can put these to good use, be yourself (positive and happy) and profitable on the way.

Hope this helped you see what’s needed and if you like and think this post could be useful please share it around you.

Stay tuned as we may share another one or part three – I’ll be showing you how AI and cracking Content SEO hacks can catapult you very high.

21 Saas Marketing Tactics – Part 1

Saas-marketing-growth-tacticsHere you’ll find Saas marketing tactics for any Saas business size.

We’ve found that the Saas’s success rate is quite low in the U.K. market.

Why?

Because many Saas lose focus and forget to consult their customer mapping document,  and/or marketing tactics, sales.

This is your chance (sometimes unique) to use and apply the bait to get more users. Then think how you could improve the product to keep your customers in.

We will split this into a three-part blog post and we’ll will first look at some free growth tactics.

We’ll then go on to talk in part three with different revenue streams a SaaS business should be looking to add.

Remember nothing in life is totally free and this is even more true in modern marketing.

Only the best Saas businesses that create innovative strategies/tactics will survive and thrive.

The key to succeed:

a) put in place a good marketing/content strategy

b) be customer focussed/centric

c) be agile (redesign your marketing funnel quicker than the competitor).

d) Innovate, test, test and repeat.

Provide value before asking for money. We see quite a few big Saas names betting on this tactic. We’ll see later on which ones are being successful.

So here we go.

Must offer free a 20 to 30 day trial period [Aka subscription model]

Tactic 1: The focus on value and free trials when launching a service/product – is a must. Study your audience inside-out. Then email or call them to suggest your services/product and if they want to try it for free.

This great technique works really well.

You can offer 20 days free trial period up to a full month.

Let me ask you this: What have you got to lose anyway? In my view nothing.

A free trial is your foot on the door, a small opening that will allow you to connect and build confidence and trust with new prospects. Let them play around during that period.

Step 1: Send a first email introduction explaining how it will work going forward.

Step 2: Few minutes later send them those magic video tutorials.

Step 3: Grab your best Faq page to clarify any questions/issues they may have – example:  how to fix or get this code/app installed in no time.

Step 4: 4-5 days later offer to come in or setup Zoom call to explain how to maximise the product before they start paying you. If they’re not ready, extend the offer to another week or two.

This is a four fold tactic.

Firstly, you’ve got their attention, secondly you showed professionalism, have them hooked (if they like it),  thirdly, a big opportunity to sign them and increase client base; and finally, if they are happy with the service provided they will be your best allies, fans and promoters/advocates.

Saas Customer Service /Support

Tactic 2: The very first thing you should do – write on your to-do list:

“improve customer satisfaction”.

Be clear/specific up front. From day one tell your clients that there is a business SLA in place with distinctive promise.

Example:

  • Software support response in under an hour.
  • App is 99% code error free.
  • Do not charge for extra usage.

Also, tell the client that updates and software speed are a priority and part of your business’s values.

This will increase your clients trust with the brand/product.

Create new tactical marketing channels

Tactic 3: it’s all about the numbers in business. The more users and/or visitors you get the better.

Get your small team to brainstorm and analyse the impact of a new marketing channel. This could be two to three channels. Keep one on standby ready to go once you are getting momentum.

Ensure you invest enough time in the new marketing channels. No need to invest lots of money in marketing to touch significant numbers. There are easy ways to go aboutthis, but we tackle those later on on part two and three.

Saas Marketing Growth hacking Tactic example:

Find and select your best ranking topics and repurpose or convert it into a fun animated video. Then post it on Youtube, Vimeo, etc.

You could also grab your best content and transform it into a colourful infographic.

By being present on these two platforms you could give your business a tremendous boost.

Note: Youtube is the world heavy-weight champion of search engines.

Have you try any of these? Not yet, the why are you waiting?

Go now and give it a try.

Ready for Saas marketing tactics part two?

Thanks for reading it and do share it with friends, coworkers etc.

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Image by Gerd Altmann

Lead Generation -10 Quick Steps Guide

Lead Generation Strategy Guide

Reading time: 4-5 minutes.

Lead generation has to be the honey’s bee of your Inbound marketing strategy. Whatever you do, you will be depending on content to reach out and get more leads, right?

If you agree that content is key and you’re serious about your online strategy continue reading this quick “Lead Generation Guide”.

Developing an effective lead generation plan of action is something that most companies struggle with. In this post, I will show how to get value for money with these actionable tips, ideas, plugins and processes to create your b2b lead generation.

But let’s see some important stats, first. Here is what we’ve learnt:

Content marketing stats

Content priorities plus three content marketing objectives:

  • a) Driving Sales and/or increasing Leads
  • b) Engage Customers/Buyers/Influencers
  • c) Boost Brand Awareness. ( Source: Curata)

Content strategy

Strategy documentation

  • 80% of B2B have a content marketing strategy. (32% documented, 48% not documented) Source: C.M.I
  • 70% of marketers lack a consistent or integrated content strategy. (Altimeter)
  • 32% of B2B marketers say they have a documented content marketing strategy. (Content Marketing Institute, 2015). Source: Hubspot

Blogging

  • 60% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority.
  • 74% of marketers say converting leads is their top priority in 2016-17.
  • 47% of buyers viewed 3 to 5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep.
    Source: Hubspot

Video marketing stats

  • 45% online visitors watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week. (HubSpot, 2016) Source: Hubspot

#Content marketing is key to fuel your channels but also is a top #inboundmarketing priority step. Click To Tweet

Email marketing automation

We all suffer from lack of traffic and time to generate leads during our business lifes. Email marketing automation is one of the key components within your online strategy. If you’re already using an email automation system you should probably consider integrate a complete marketing automate process.

What are the big marketing challenges for your business?

As discovered from the various market research stats above – here are the most important aspects for marketers to consider:

a) Engaging with online readers;

b) Increasing leads;

c) Boost brand awareness.

Did you noticed that these three are increasingly interdependent? I let you work this one out.

Marketing challenges - solution tip: Offer easy access to your #content, research/listen, and engage with relevant content. Click To Tweet

Lead generation quick steps

You can implement it today and see how to get your lead gen. approach working.

1. Draw your email strategy approach

Log onto mind42.com to design a birds-eye view of your strategy. You can also grab a pen and paper and jotdown what your business needs are, followed by your campaign goals.

Then go and check your personas pain points. Do a brainstorm and draw your first content draft. Develop your content as needed and always keep it simple. http://consultantstohelp.co.uk/resources/premium-resources/

2. Create punchy – relevant blog posts

Write great blog posts with relevant keywords and lead-magnet. Show your expertise and aid without fluffing around, this will pay off. Create useful content about your product or services.

This will increase your chances to engage, connect with your community and of course be found on search engines. Your website will be shared or bookmarked.

3. Insert attractive offers – Call-to-action (CTA)

Insert relevant offers within your page. You can and should insert a call-to-action at the middle and/or end of your page. Something like: “Sign Up for a free white-paper or research guide”.

This is a powerful way to get leads. By doing this you’ll also present them with an opportunity to get to know your business a bit better.

Optional: Hire a freelance web designer to create one to three call-to-action images/buttons.

4. Create lead magnets

One important step in your lead generation process is to create a lead magnet – aka “Opt-in bribe” – that offer value in exchange of an email address or when signing-up for a particular email list.

Examples are: an eBook, white-paper, software product, report, tip sheet or video series.

Even though it’s free, you should still spend some time and effort writing the “header” which is normally a short description. Then, you’ll need a detailed description. This is the message you’re going to write/use to get your visitors to type their email address and subscribe to your list. Invest good time here as it will pay off in the long run.

TIP: An effective lead magnet will help your website visitors solve a problem/task and learn a specific skill by offering a free downloadable digital item.  Also, the lead magnet should be directly related with the content on the page or post.

Optional: add an attractive/relevant image to your magnet.

Read: beginners guide to email marketing beginners guide to email marketing.

5. Create a landing page (optional)

This step can be optional, depending on what you are trying to achieve. Use a landing page to show the particular benefits of one product or service.
This is a great way to move your audience onto a particular funnel.

If you decide to go with a landing page, you have a few options.

Option 1: Select your WP theme’s landing page Template. This is the quickest and cheapest option, but often not offering a great design.

Option 2: Create beautiful landing pages using tools such as: Thrive content builder or Leadpages.

Option 3: Learn how to create your landing pages.
Tip: Digital Marketer: recently wrote a great article on how to increase conversions.

6. Sign up with an Email Marketing Service

It’s time to choose an email marketing service (EMS) to create your campaigns, lead-magnets and email forms. You’ll be needing this type of service to gather and nurture your leads.

To stay competitive here are some of the most cost-effective email marketing solutions in 2019.

Here are some of the free email (EMS) services that I recommend.
MailChimp: This is among the most popular email marketing services. They offer quite a few features. These include many list management, autoresponders and drip campaigns.

Drip: Flexible and versatile, from email to contact management it allows you to automate the entire email service. Free for starters or businesses with little budget and/or between 1 and less than 100 susbscribers.

For those with more serious needs you can update to the next level – Prices will increase based on your subscriber’s numbers. This service also includes better options (email tracking capabilities, open and click rate…)

Note: They were recently acquired by Leadpages.

Paid Email Marketing service (EMS)

Active Campaign

They offer intelligent marketing automation features – it is a bit expensive, but it’s totally worth the monthly investment. Most companies are using marketing automation because it can help in marketing processes.

Example: when leads freeze over-time, marketing automation steps in as your marketer helper to get you other qualified  prospects.

Plus features:

  • Drag-and-Drop campaign builder to design your marketing campaigns,
  • CRM to link and manage all leads/ sales automation campaigns,
  • Various automation process to include SMS messages to your subscribers,
  • Create custom goals and reports,
  • Great for ecommerce mobile signup forms,
  • Beautiful email template editors.

Active Campaign allows you to request a quick demo beforehand.

Suitable for:  all small to medium-sized businesses, and enterprise.

Plans start from: 500 contacts =$9/month  – 1000 contacts =$17/month – (14 days free trial) – up to $149 for enterprise level.

Get Reponse

I haven’t tried this solution but it was initially on our top 5 list.

We selected because this solution is affordable unlike many other on the market. But we also liked the quality features versus money in this popular email marketing service.

Plus features:

  • Beautiful mobile responsive and landing pages,
  • Segment and track your contacts,
  • A/B testing, and autoresponders.
  • Integrates with major third party lead generation solutions (SalesForce, OptinMonster, Google Docs, etc.)
  • Online Surveys
  • Phone, chat and online support

Suitable for:  small to medium-sized businesses, and/or those just starting out. Plans start from: $15/month.

7. Create and grow your mailing list

Your next (important) step is-building a mailing list on the email marketing system of your choice. Pick any of the recommended below.Build and grow your emailing list Thrive Leads is the ultimate list building plugin machine for WordPress.

You’ll be able to easily build any opt-in form in order to streamline your site’s lead generation. It offers you every feature you’ll ever need to quickly grow your email list.

Some of its best features:

  • Get over 55 + opt-in form templates.
  • Insert opt-in forms anywhere you need.
  • Drag and drop editor for easy form customisation.
  • Advanced opt-in form targeting options.
  • A/B split testing functionalities.
  • Reporting system/statistics…

Price: $67 one-off payment – includes: one year support and lifetime updates.

OptinMonster: is great to run on one or multiple WordPress sites. It started as a plugin, but it’s now an complete online lead generation tool.

Price: Starts from $19/month, (or $9/month when paid annually) with more plans to unlock more features.

You probably like to get and/or try our free Cold Email Marketing Checklist before you start.

8. Personalise the email

The idea behind this is to only give readers/visitors access to your freebie, after they’ve confirmed their email. In other words, find out if it’s a legitimate email or not.

  • Headers: Pick and add a relevant keyword into your header to trigger the readers interest. They’ll be quick to confirm the email address and get their free ebook or whatever you decide to give away.
  • Subject line: Create controversial, educational or challenging subject lines.
  • Keep it simple: clear, concise, simple and engaging
  • Add Call-to-action in your email. “Download” -” Get your” etc. Remember the funnel principle, your email must advertise your CTA.
  • Remember to create a welcome and thank you page.

9. Opt-in forms, plugins and services

The plugin selection below also integrate with major email service providers (ESP). Meaning the new-sign-ups are automatically funneled to your ESP. The idea is to keep your sign-up form as simple as possible.

  • Inviting headline– Make sure your headline describes the benefits off your offer.
  • Clear description– Is your description brief, clear and to the point? Use bullet points to help the reader’s eye quickly scan what they will get.
  • Attractive visuals– Include an image of the lead magnet if you can (e.g. a mockup of your eBook). A photo of a person looking towards the opt-in form is also a great way to boost conversions.
  • Two fields– Don’t try to get more than a first name and email address. Asking for too much information will scare people and will reduce your conversions.

Here are some of the best opt-in form that I recommend:

Easy Opt-Ins for MailChimp: This is a nice plugin that gives you a simple but effective opt-in form that ties well into MailChimp. You just just need to enter your MailChimp API key, then the list to push to and the tool does the rest.

Thrive Leads: You can quickly grow your mailing list – versatile with great features to explore – it is in my view among the best, easy to use, but also is a very effective opt-in form. (See point 7 above)

Features included:

  • Email course series
  • Templates, themes (35+)
  • Tagging and targeting options
  • Email Automation triggers
  • Customisable
  • A/B Testing
  • Analytics

Optin Cat: Allows you to ad pop-ups, sidebars, widgets, post boxes, 2 step opt-in form for your website.

Pricing: is a one-off purchase for personal – business or Elite

Popup domination : is light-weight, superfast and mobile responsive.

Some of the best features:

  • Email themes
  • Geographical Targeting
  • PopUp Triggers
  • Customizable Designs
  • A/B Testing
  • Analytics
  • Geo targeting and more…

Price starting: £7/ $9 month – or pay annually and get 4 months free.

Freemium option

Ninja Forms:  is a fantastic double free plugin that allows you to create endless types of forms. They also offer multiple (paid) options and integrations to Stripe, CRM’s etc.
On a plus side – they will give you access to the major email service providers (EMS).

10. What’s the next step?

Now, you can start work out your plan, select the email service you think will work best for you and have a lead generation system running on your WordPress site.

The next step on your “To do list” should include:

a) Come up with various email campaigns ideas (reach local businesses)
b) Place lead generation widgets or lead magnets on the sides of blog posts
c) Write inspiring emails series (start with one or two)
d) Create an autoresponder to build trust – also called “Lead Nurturing”
e) Sharing yours and influencer’s content on social media – this will build a relationship and increase visibility along with brand recognition.
f) Email tracking performance of everything that you send.

If you have any questions about the content of this article or other related items, feel free to drop me an email.

Additional next steps:

You should check email market trends, and eventually, move up a gear by implementing a robust marketing automation  to help you boost and grow your business.

Sum up:

Growing your business requires time, money and resources, so I’d say, pick, test and learn more about the tools that I shared (above). Whether you’re a B2B or B2C, you’ll need a lead generation system/process to power-up and build brand awareness.

Use this lead generation post as your personal guide and start building your brand image, whilst improving your leads. Invest time sharing and/or advertising your content via platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, FB, Instagram these are excellent social platforms to help you increase e-newsletters subscribers, shares/views and ultimately sales.

I can say that these are a great combination of tools to start your marketing pipeline thatwill help you grow your audience.

Disclosure:
Be aware that this post has some affiliate links. This means we receive a commission if you click and make a purchase. We only recommend processes, books and plugins that we believe will genuinely help you improve your business.

9 Plus Essential Plugins To Help Your Content Marketing

Essential WordPress [WP] Plugins Which essential plugins to boost your content marketing strategy?

If you create and deliver content through a WP site you’ll need crucial WordPress plugins to customise your cms to perfection. I’d say as best as you can. With thousands of plugins to choose from, it quickly becomes impossible to find and select the great from the … not so great.

Keep reading and discover which plugins are essential for your WordPress site!

I did test and trial experiments with hundreds of different plugins, and I can now recommend which ones are helpful, safe, faster and secure. That’s all you need really. Forget the fancy ones, who will slow-down your website [content] and keep visitors away. You should always test it after uploading a new plugin – preferably test it off-line with a demo platform.

Before jumping into the best WordPress plugins to help you boost your content marketing, I’d like to tell a bit more about what WordPress is and isn’t all about.

For those of you who know WordPress, I’d suggest jumping to the of the essence WP plugins section. The rest of you should probably continue reading it.

WordPress is an open source content management system (CMS) coded in PHP. It was initially created in January 2003, by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little from the b2 codebase. They created a simple blog editing software. From December 2006 onwards WP became widely popular and surpassed Google Blogger, as people started to write more, they saw the simplicity of creating a blog and how quickly they could go live with their content.

As of 2009, WordPress has been the most popular blogging platform turned-CMS. I guess that the free and premium ready-to-install themes and plugins developed by 3rd party developers helped the wide-spread of WordPress.

As we speak, I am unable to say how many WordPress sites are live, but I guess over 80 million websites if not more. Among them there’s a significant number of corporate, SMBs and freelancers offering their product/services via the WordPress software. Its popularity is due to the easy integration, versatile use and affordable web hosting costs. As it has become more and more popular, WP designers/developers looked to offer businesses a plugin integration, that would:

  • Help define and optimise SEO
  • Structure and edit taxonomies
  • Tagging categories and systems
  • Metadata descriptions and much more

I believe that the main reason for this is, that not long ago it was costly to build and/or redesign a website from scratch, not to mention that people lacked coding and design skills. So, by offering to install (plug-and-play) plugins ready to accomplish these tasks without requiring any coding knowledge was a major promotional factor and the way to go forward.

Nowadays, we can find WordPress plugins for almost every single task. So, I thought I’d do a bit of leg work and put this list together and recommend the best or the must have plugins that can automatically add meta tags where is needed, generate internal links, recommend popular posts, secure your site and more.

Here, I’ll cover some of the essential plugins for your WordPress – this includes the most powerful and helpful plugins that will take your WordPress content marketing strategy to the next level.

Note: the plugins mentioned here are only available for self-hosted WordPress sites; therefore not available for WordPress.com websites.

We are going to share the top essential WordPress [ free and premium] plugins available to download.

Essential WordPress plugins to help your content marketing strategy

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEOYoast SEO plugin -Essential WP Plugin is one of the best in this industry – also known as the pioneer among its SEO plugins peers. Yoast SEO allows you to quickly go through the essentials of your optimisation process, starting with title and meta tag description.

These are ultra important tasks – even more today, as its the first thing search engines bots will visit. I’d say, it is like grooming your pages/blog posts. You can even adds open graph code to your pages and posts.

Pros: Very easy to install, offering a simple navigational tab system. The Yoast plugin has over 20 million downloads – making it the most widely used SEO plugin ever.

Cons: The setup can be long if you don’t know what to pick within the settings. Until now the tutorials were incomplete, however, I checked [ 28 Jan.2018] and they’ve greatly updated the tutorials. There is a bit of a learning curve with Yoast SEO.

You can also upload Yoast SEO plugin free version from your WP Dashboard.  Go to “plugins“- click “Add new” and type Yoast SEO.

Free and Premium subscription.

 

2. Thrive Content Builder

Thrive Content Builder is a 3-in-1 plugin that offers: professional landing, sales pages, opt-in forms and many other great useful templates to improve content conversions.
A big concern for many business people is how to create and deliver marketing communications topics that involve the creation of persuasive web content pages and/or how to effectively publish it. TCB plugin can help do just that. Yes, seems impossible but it is true.

Whether you want to create sales pages or just create content that will stand out – Content Builder is like having a developper and a designer at your side.  Perfect plugin to help create landing and squeeze pages, sales pages and more – it’s versatile, fast and efficient.

Before, I never realised how much time I was spending building and waiting for page reloads – I used to get annoyed. With this essential plugin you can seriously create professional webinars, landing or sales pages in under 15 minutes. This plugin will save you huge amounts of time. See pic below.

Thrive landing pages templates

Pros: Easy to use, comes with over 120 landing pages; Light weight opt-in forms – Offers a drag and drop page builder system that gives you the ability to see exactly how your content will look like while you’re building it.
Cons: Can’t see any. You must create new content or you must edit the older content.

After seeing what this plugin does, I don’t think I could ever work without it. Year ago I didn’t even know it was possible to have this kind of a completely visual editor, but there it is (check the link below for a demo video).

You need to watch the video to see it’s capabilities and features.

Premium subscription – single site: $69 or £53

 

3. Google XML Sitemaps

A great simple free plugin – Google XML friendly Sitemaps for WordPress websites and blogs. Sitemap is a friendly file that lists all web pages and blog posts on your site, then will simply inform Google and (of course) other search engines about your website content. Works as a informer.

Note: I am sure about having two. If you have any doubts about this go to Yoast SEO > “XML Sitemaps” and unable it. The only thing that matters here is what you have inserted in Google Webmaster. You can also install XML sitemaps for mobile, videos etc. After testing it, Yoast has less  granular control over the list of content. In my view Google XML Sitemaps does offer you more options.

Free version

4. Google Analytics

Google Analytics plugin enables you to track your website’s visitors/pages using the G.A tracking code allowing you to view essential key data. Here you can follow their tutorial How to connect your GA.

Pros: easy to install – doesn’t require long settings manipulation.  Cons: N/A

Free subscription.

 

5. W3 Total Cache

Among all the plugins W3 Total Cache plugin is one of the kind you can’t afford to ignore either. It will  optimise your WordPress cache by organising and taking the heavy traffic on your server away – by storing static HTML files for the pages on your website and only showing them when needed. In other words – W3 total Cache will help speed up the load time and put less pressure on your Web server. As you may know, Google has no mercy for websites that are slow at loading a page, so don’t allow search engines to penalise your site.

Note: I tried both WP Super Cache and W3 total Cache and the last one is better. Why? becasue its lighter than any other. Especially if you have a lot of different plugins running on your website, because each plugin initiates another script that must run each time your site loads, increasing the website load time. Also remember to disable W3 total Cache when making making design changes to your website, so you can see your design changes in real time, rather than seeing a cached version of your old pages.

Pros: Very effective plugin – integrates well with any other plugin.

Cons: Setting up W3 total is a little complex. However, you can google “How to best setting w3total” and you’ll find a post.

Free and Premium subscription.

 

6. Akismet or Disqus

This is a must-have plugin for your WordPress website or blog. Akismet is a spam protection plugin that checks your comments against the Akismet Web service to see if they look like spam or not. Akismet spam protection plugin has been downloaded over 18 million times – that’s amazing. Other excellent free option you should consider is Disqus.

Free for personal blogs – Paid version for businesses.

7. Click to Tweet

Click to Tweet plugin will enable you to create tweetable content phrases directly from the blog posts – by adding “Click to Tweet” within your post, you will increase engagement and drive potential traffic to your content marketing. All it takes is a single click to add a Click to Tweet box after a noteworthy quote, message or statistic.

Click to Tweet

Free subscription.

 

8. Pretty Link Lite

Pretty Link is the make-up artist when it comes to transform ugly links into clean ones. You can shrink, track and share any URL on the Internet from your WordPress website! In addition to creating clean links, Pretty Link also tracks every single hit on your newly written URL and provides a detailed report of where the hit came from, IP and page.

This is a great plugin for those who want to clean up their affiliate links, track clicks from emails, or simply increase the traffic of their website by spreading these links on forums or comments on other blogs.

Free subscription.

Did you know that #cybersecurity plugins are #content marketing greatest ally? Click To Tweet

Cyber security plugins are content marketing greatest ally.

Cyber security consultants like to talk about how easy WordPress is to hack. Yes. This because they know that the WP platform does allow, in some plugin configurations, an unethical hacker to gain access to a website.

This post focus on WordPress websites only. So, I’ll concentrate on how to make it more content effective, user friendly and more secure. The only problem you may face is that WordPress’s security also depends on the way the user sets up the core files and plugins. Obviously, this makes it an easier target for hackers who know that WordPress are often prone to potential security issues.

Here is how to fix that.

9. Wordfence

I recommend Wordfence – among the best security plugins at this moment in time – offer great features and will keep your WordPress more secure.

It blocks brute-force attacks and offers you the option to add two authentication via an SMS. It also includes a firewall to block fake traffic, scanners and botnets. Offers a free (good enough) and premium version – the paid version adds multiple layers of protection.

Pros: Includes Firewall, malware scanner, and live traffic. They’ve improved major features, offering dozens of security settings – from scanning core files for suspicious changes, to blocking countries or individual IPs.
Cons: It will take you some time to master and/or get it set up correctly.

Free and Premium subscription.

Other strong candidates to consider: “All in One WP Security” & Firewall”, “Bulletproof”.

 

Note: You should take WordPress website security seriously by starting to take care of few basic things:

  • Preferably use/buy a Premium theme
  • Setting up secure FTP to upload files
  • Secure WordPress configuration
  • Choose a secure admin username (avoid things like – yourname1234)
  • Create long passwords (at least 12 characters) and change it every 4-6 months
  • Host your website in a secure managed web hosting server – ( avoid shared servers – to many open ports, but also if other sites don’t follow the same the basics secuirty steps you’ll be exposed.)
  • Create/configure a secure database prefix
  • Prevent Brute Force Attack by setting a Login limit to 5-6 attempts
  • And the most important of all…take daily backup’s

Malware scanning, exploit scanning and brute force protection are some of the features which you must have in your plugin.

Conclusion:

I’ve described the essential WordPress plugins everyone should have. I tested, know and trust all nine. When creating content marketing you’ll need ideas, processes, tools and resources. This is where the plugins described above will came handy to help you analyse, build and improve your content.

I hope you’ll also pick one of the great security plugins I mentioned – I know there is plenty more out there, but these are the ones I recommend. All will evolve based upon user recommendations, needs and adapt themselves to new hacking techniques. So, having security plugins is a must going forward, because they bring great protection to your precious content.

If you’re a small business I’d recommend to download all the plugins. Try more, but do not download unnecessary plugins – just the ones you need or fit your business. In the event you’re unhappy with your website loading pages – run a website speed performance, check which plugins are slowing site down and/or if the problem comes from your web hosting provider.

You will feel more confident and relaxed after having done these – but remember to check and update your plugins every 2-3 days. Plugins installed in your website that do not offer consistent updates, I’d suggest to deactivate and get rid off them.

Final thought, I am a firm believer going forward that “live protection” solutions are the way of the future.

Do share your comments and if possible the great plugins you’ve tried.

Thanks for reading my post

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Increase Website Revenue With These 10 Techniques

Improve Web Conversion & Increase Website Revenue
Funnel conversion

Looking to increase website revenue?

In this article, I’ll show some secret techniques mixed with straight forward advice that will help you improve your e-commerce site’s conversion rate as well as to grow its average order size

I guess it makes sense to include the options below specially when you’re a small medium business with low budgets.

When designing an online retail or an e-commerce site, it’s vital that you bear some key things in mind and start by asking yourself these questions. Is the new site fit for purpose?

Is the content clear, relevant and interesting? Will it’s design help you maximise your sales?

I owned an ecommerce site and I’ve been learning and testing so many different tactics, techniques to help increase my website revenue. I thought I’d share my own experience with you.

Firstly, a frequent mistake that e-commerce owners make is to focus on acquiring new visitors to increase revenue. Some people may say that you have to acquire new customers in order to survive, I partially disagree with that. You’ll learn the why later on.

Whilst that strategy can be helpful in the long-term, it can also become costly. I’ve learn that at my own expense. Trust me, when I say it’s often cheaper to focus on growing revenue from your existing shoppers. Create or update your content plan with a focus on: topic, worst seasonal commercial products, pages viewed but no purchases, bounce rates with <20 seconds,… But also add best products that need to improve conversion rates; and increasing the website average order size, plus do not forget to consult GSC and server logs, very helpful for pulling more punters in.

Note: these techniques or/and ideas are not new, they’ve already helped millions of businesses grow website revenue. (including my e-commerce site).

How do you improve conversion rates whilst saving money and time?

Here are some proven strategies:

  • Offer promotions in your shopping cart: Great incentives will get your visitors excited, I mean, who doesn’t love a bargain. Offering 35% off is very tempting and an impulsive purchase may occur earlier than you can imagine
  • Offer reward-points in your products page: Whilst promoting your products , make sure you show-case products with reward points. Let’s say that you can increase shopping conversion just telling your customer that you can offer them 30 points = 10 pound if he/she purchases that product
  • Make your shipping costs transparent: Obvious isn’t it. No one likes nasty surprises and if you make them wait until the checkout stage, you’re increasing the abandon rate. Instead show your visitors/shoppers the postage costs early. They’ll validate the sale as it a normal process, because they expect to see a postage cost, unless you funnel and tempt them to add another item to get free postage. Believe it or not if you provide your customers with as many options as possible and low shipping costs it can increase your conversion rates by 20-35%
  • Use guest checkout: Never force a visitor to create an account. A great number of buyers don’t want to create an account. New visitors want to accomplish their purchase in 3-4 clicks, as they’re generally busy. So, allow them to perform a one click-checkout and go on with their lifes
  • Test and optimize your checkout processes: You must perform A/B test pages. Try different button colors, sizes etc. Try a short cart page with what you think is essential, you may find that some colors and buttons work better than others
  • Provide with alternative payments:The majority of US and Europeans buyers like to pay with PayPal, Stripe and less pay by credit card. Tip: Offer card alternatives – based on your customers country
  • Offer free shipping based on average order: Find and take your customer’s (annual) average order and make it the base amount for your free shipping
  • Adopt and display a return policy:Be honest at all times. Tell your visitors what sort of information you’ll collect, what you will and not do with it. How secure it is, what will be displayed, what type of products can be returned and by what date.. Many consumers won’t place an order, unless they know they can return unwanted items. Also consider giving in between 15-20 days return policy
  • Provide value-added service: Some customers will ask you for: gift-wrapping, special messages, vouchers, newsletters and wish list service – can you help them?
  • Make your site fast and secure: Nowadays, site speed is crucial to keep customers browsing. Consumers have no tolerance for a slow website – especially if they’re on smartphones. An SSL sign will help identify and reassure them that your site is secure.

 

Remember, you’ll benefit from even the smallest improvement in conversion rates. So, today’s lesson – the sooner you start improving your page conversion the sooner you’ll increase your revenue – Its crucial to get started with checkout pages.

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