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Why NOT TO use AI-based logo-generator websites

Post author By Divyanshu Soni
Post date November 25, 2022
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Why NOT TO use AI-based logo-generator websites

Branding is one of the most vital aspects of a company’s ability to gain interest potential customers, which is why aspects such as logos, banners, and designs require SO much thought and care from the team in the preliminary stages. Can you expect the same quality from an AI logo generator? Let’s explore. Since it is the first thing people see about a brand, a logo is often referred to as the “face” of

the brand. A logo is more than just a symbol. A logo is a visual representation of your brand and a foundation for your business strategy.

There are several reasons why you should avoid using AI-based logo generators. Here are some of the most compelling ones:

1. They don’t understand your brand

A logo is much more than just a pretty picture. It’s an essential part of your brand identity and needs to communicate who you are, what you do, and what makes you different. An AI-based logo generator can’t understand your brand the same way a human does.

2. They don’t take context into account.

When designing a logo, it’s essential to consider the context in which it will be used. It should include your business, your products, your customer personas and other brand considerations. Will it be printed on business cards or displayed on a website? An AI-based logo generator can’t take context into account, which means that your logo may need to be revised in certain situations.

3. They don’t offer much customisation.

Most AI-based logo generators offer a limited amount of customisation, which means that you’re likely to end up with a logo that looks similar to those other people have created. If you want a unique logo, you’ll need to work with a human designer.

4. They’re not very user-friendly.

Creating a logo with an AI-based generator can be a frustrating experience as they have limitations in terms of testing the user friendliness. Plus, it can be a very time taking process and it will consume a lot of time to finalise the design. If you’re not a designer, you may find it difficult to understand how to use the tools and make the changes that you want.

5. The quality isn’t always great.

Because AI-based logo generators often use low-quality images and icons, the overall quality of the logos they create isn’t always great. If you’re looking for a high-quality logo, you’d be better off working with a professional designer. As with anything, you get what you pay for. It takes time and creativity to create something unique and specific to you, which a program will never be able to accomplish.

6. They don’t provide “finesse” or a “wow-factor”.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy logo, an AI generator is a great option. Considering that AI logo generators are just programs that produce output based on certain limited parameters, the output will therefore also be limited. They’re very affordable, and can generate a logo in minutes.

Why hire an actual person to design your logo then?

There are many reasons to hire a professional to design your logo. The creative human brain can come up with concepts and designs that you may never have thought of on your own. They also can take your ideas and turn them into a reality. Whether you’re unsure what you want or if you have a clear vision, working with a professional can help bring your ideas to life. Here are just a few reasons why it’s worth hiring a person to design your logo:

1. You will have someone to bounce ideas off in what will always be an iterative process.

If you’re not quite sure what kind of logo you want, working with a professional can be a great way to explore different options and get some feedback. They’ll be able to take your ideas and help turn them into a reality. Logo design is an iterative process because it involves constantly refining and improving the design in order to create a final product that perfectly represents the company or brand. This means that logo designers need to be patient and open to feedback in order to create a truly successful logo

2. You will get a logo that’s high quality, professional and timeless.

The brand recall is what generates traffic, conversions, sales and growth. When you work with a professional designer, you can be confident that you’re getting a high-quality, professional logo for your brand. This is something that’s important if you want to make a good first impression on potential customers or clients.

3. You may end up spending less than you think.

Many people assume that hiring a professional to design their logo will be expensive. But in reality, it may actually end up costing you less than if you try to do it yourself. When you factor in the time and effort required to get it right, as well as the cost of making mistakes and starting over, hiring a professional can actually be more cost-effective in the long run.

So if you’re considering designing your own logo, remember that there are some great reasons to hire a professional to do it for you. From unique and original designs to saving time and money, working with a professional can provide you with many benefits.

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Top SEO Tips to Improve Your Website’s Visitor Count

Post author By Divyanshu Soni
Post date November 8, 2022
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Top SEO Tips to Improve Your Website's Visitor Count

So you have your beautiful looking website and are raring to go! One of the key parameters of the success of your website would be how easily it can be found by someone wanting what you offer. In present times, staying above and ahead of the competition is not just a difficult task, it is also one that needs to be done constantly. Before we even proceed on sharing tips, our advice would be to take a moment and see if you’re up for a new challenge.

Without making the task sound too ominous, we need to state plainly that Optimising your website for search engines (SEO) requires strategies and techniques for the task, so that your website appears more in search results. Having said that, let’s get started:

1. Keyword density is essential to optimise your website for different search engines. What this means is use your list of keywords often enough so that your page pops up in a search. How much is too much though? Well, we suggest using a keyword about 18-20% of your content should be a good amount without coming across as spam.

2. So you don’t make stupid mistakes, learn more from SEO experts and from their experience. You must also be aware of the potential risks in order to make informed decisions and not penalise your website.

3. Use header tags. If they are too big, consider using CSS to change the size of your header tags. Search engines love headers and utilise them as a way to rank your website.

4. Check out competitor websites and read the source codes of their websites. This will help you understand how other websites use SEO and what keywords they use. Make sure however that the keywords they use are actually relevant to your business.

5. Using feeds from a product can draw more traffic and customers to your website. Feeds may contain information about your business, including descriptions, prices, and prices. Submit feeds to websites that evaluate prices and all these most popular search engines.

6. Blogs rank well because algorithms for search engines favour highly-structured information and new content. Backlinks are crucial to getting the highest ranking when it comes to SEO. So make sure you regularly publish new content on your website. If you need help creating content for your website then contact a creative content agency.

7. Your website must be designed for easy reading and navigation.

8. Make sure your website focuses on around a dozen or so primary terms and keywords that convey the essence of the content of your website. Analytical tools can help you determine the words and phrases that generate the most traffic.

9. Review the design and flow of your website every now and again and make navigation smooth. This can increase the efficiency of your website and attract more audience.

10. Make sure you use your keywords in all your social media handles and promotions. Hashtags with these can get more attention and people coming your way.

11. The first paragraph of your website should contain phrases that can also be used as HTML META descriptors. Search engines use this method rather than tags to inform the users what your site will be in the results. Poor content is detrimental to your SEO

12. Remember that most of your content is going to be read by people! So make it easy to understand and relevant. We mention this because targeting keywords to spiders and crawlers is just as crucial and content written by bots would work well for them but make it really off-putting for the rest.

13. Find out their experiences in your field, what they believe essential SEO techniques are, what they consider important SEO methods, how long it will take to begin to see results, and the cost they will charge. Get recommendations from past clients and prove that they’ve performed well before. A reputable and reliable company will be satisfied enough to abide by the rules.

14. Your page rank depends on your website’s performance at a particular point.

15. Encourage the person who is the face of the company to be active online. People are eager to hear from senior members of a business.

16. If your site has many videos, be aware that crawlers may have difficulty finding them, no matter how excellent the videos’ quality. To help website crawlers in recognising your videos, make an index of your site that lists the videos you have posted on your website to ensure that internet crawlers view the videos.

17. RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication) should be present on your website. RSS feed updates that are frequently refreshed and count as new content. If you cannot locate an RSS feed appropriate for your site, make your own and update it regularly with related topics. Encourage your audience to follow your RSS feed too.

18. On every page on your website, ensure that every title or heading is distinctive and engaging. The most important terms in the titles are the first two or three.

19. Server headers are a crucial element of the success of SEO. Server headers that are not set up correctly. Check to see if any redirects aren’t trying to redirect.

SEO is mostly a science but can also be an art.It is one that not only requires constant effort in action, one also needs to keep up with the ever changing trends and algorithms of search engines. Of course it can be done in house, but it would be best to get an SEO agency to do this for you as they tend to be focussed on this activity and always aware of the next trend. The possibility of a boost in website traffic is more accessible to you than you think!

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Building Relationships Through Email Marketing

Post author By Varun Dinesh
Post date October 11, 2022
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Building Relationships Through Email Marketing

One of the most important aspects of any business is building and maintaining relationships with customers and clients. Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your current audience, nurture relationships, as well as building new ones. Keeping regular and relevant communication with your clients almost always leads to more business.

Here are 10 ways you can use email marketing to build strong relationships with your contacts

1. Establish trust with your subscribers from the very beginning.

Make sure that your emails are coming from a reputable source, and include a physical address and contact information in every email. Be transparent about who you are and what your business is all about. People want to feel like they’re being communicated with by other real people… not just bots and automated messages like most emails are nowadays. To ensure that special, intimate relationship between you and your client, take some time to personalise any emails you’d want to send to the subscriber base so that they really see the value in what it is you have to say or offer.

2. Provide value in every email

Your subscribers should always have something to gain by opening and reading your emails. Whether it is a coupon, an exclusive offer, or valuable content, make sure there’s something in it for them. Nearly 85% of emails nowadays goes straight to the spam folder, never to be seen again. Don’t fall into that category by making standard, boring advertisements/offers… STAND OUT! And speaking of spam, see if your mail service provider can help you configure your mail box in such a way that your mails do not go to a spam folder in the first place!

3. Personalise your emails whenever possible.

Your brand voice should be carefully tailored to appeal to your target audience. By using the right tone and language, you can make long-lasting connections with your customers and build trust and loyalty.

4. Keep your emails short and to the point.

No one wants to read a long, rambling email. Get to the point quickly and be concise in your writing. However, don’t let this be at the cost of the important things you’d like to say; make sure you find the right compromise between relevance and quantity.

5. Use a call to action.

Tell your subscribers what you want them to do, whether it’s clicking through to your website or taking advantage of an exclusive offer. Make it easy for them to take action by including links and clear instructions. It is a good idea to keep this call to action as visually consistent as possible so that your subscribers know exactly what to look for when your email’s come through to their inboxes.

6. Timing is everything.

Send your emails at a time when your subscribers are most likely to be checking their inboxes. Avoid sending on weekends or late at night when people are less likely to be reading their emails. This may involve doing a bit of research into your actual subscriber demographic and other relevant statistics to help decide on the most optimal time for your emails.

7. Test, test, test

Always test your emails before you send them out to your entire list. This includes testing the subject line, the email content, and the call to action. Send a test email to yourself first to make sure everything looks right and that all the links work. Nothing looks more unprofessional and off-putting than following up a technically flawed email with multiple more which finally provide the information necessary.

8. Keep an eye on your metrics.

Pay attention to your open and click-through rates so that you can gauge how successful your email marketing campaign is. Make changes as needed to improve your results over time. Make analytics your best friend as if you can master the mechanics of that, then you will really start to see growth in your business as you implement the right changes

9. Don’t forget about mobile users.

With over 47% of the population reading their emails on their smartphones, it’s important to make sure your emails are optimised for mobile. This includes using a responsive design and keeping the email content short and to the point. Other parameters such as font size, relevance, aesthetics etc. play a big part in it as well.

10. Always strive to improve.

There’s always room for improvement when it comes to email marketing. Keep testing new ideas and making changes to see what works best for your business. Email marketing can be a great way to build relationships with your subscribers. By following these tips, you can create emails that will engage and convert your readers into customers and clients.

Get in touch with us if you’d like us to make a branded email template and set up an email campaign that uses eye catching images and impactful content.

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How to Develop a Unique Style for Your Brand

Post author By Divyanshu Soni
Post date September 29, 2022
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How to Develop a Unique Style for Your Brand

Your personal brand is what sets you apart from the competition. It’s what makes you unique and

memorable, and it’s an essential part of any marketing strategy. When thinking of and designing

things like logos and banners that portray your brand to the public , you need to consider a range of

different factors such as: relevance, aesthetics (including general design as well as colour schemes)),

legibility of any text, etc.

But how do you develop a personal brand that accurately reflects who you are and what you do? In

this article, we’ll explore how to find your voice and create a personal brand that resonates with

your audience.

What is Brand Voice?

Your brand’s voice is the personality and tone that you use when communicating with your customers. It should be consistent across all of your channels, from your website to your social media posts, and it should reflect the values and persona of your brand. It is vital that you really know your brand/company inside out in order to know the perfect way to present yourself to the public with regards to the voice

Why is Having a Strong Brand Voice Important?

There are several reasons why having a strong brand voice is important:

1. It sets you apart from your competitors.

In a crowded marketplace, it’s important to have a unique selling proposition. Your brand voice can help you stand out from the competition and make your brand more memorable.

2. It helps you connect with your target audience.

3. It makes your communications more effective.

When your brand has a consistent voice, your communications will be more cohesive and easier for your customers to understand. A strong brand voice can also make your marketing more effective, as it will be better able to connect with your target audience.

4. It helps you build a stronger emotional connection with your customers.

A strong brand voice can help you create an emotional connection with your customers. When people feel a personal connection to your brand, they are more likely to become loyal, long-term fans.

5. It can make your business more efficient.

Having a strong brand voice can help you streamline your communications and save time and resources. If you know what tone and language to use, you won’t have to waste time brainstorming or editing every message before it goes out. This can free up valuable time and energy that you can invest in other areas of your business.

Here are some tips for developing a unique brand voice for your business:

1. Define Your Target Audience

The first step in developing your personal brand is to define your target audience. Who are you trying to reach with your message? What are their needs and wants? What are their pain points?Answering these questions will help you narrow down your focus and determine the best way to reach your target audience. It will also make it easier to create content that resonates with them.Once you know who you’re trying to reach, you can begin to craft a message that speaks to their needs. Keep in mind, however, that your message should be larger than just a sales pitch. It should be something that resonates on a deeper level and helps your audience see you as a trusted resource.

2. Find Your Voice

Now that you know who you’re talking to, it’s time to find your voice. What is it about your message that will resonate with your audience? What are you passionate about? What do you want to be known for?Your voice should be authentic and unique. It should reflect who you are as a person and what you stand for. And it should be consistent across all of your communications, from your website to your social media posts

3. Know your competition.

What are other brands in your industry doing? How can you set yourself apart with your voice? It is highly recommended to research the competition inside and out, so that you can find any gaps in your own brand that you can fill with your newly inspired ideas. Keep up to date on trends that they follow so that you can see if they could also benefit your company

4. Develop Your Platform

Once you’ve found your voice, it’s time to start sharing it with the world. But before you do that, you need to develop a platform. A platform is simply a way to share your message with a wider audience.There are many ways to develop a platform, but the most important thing is to choose the method that best suits your needs and goals. If you’re a writer, for example, you might want to start a blog or write for other publications. If you’re a speaker, you might want to give talks at conferences or create a podcast.The important thing is to find a way to share your message with as many people as possible. The more people you reach, the greater the chance that your personal brand will take off.

5. Use simple language.

Don’t use jargon or overly technical language that your audience might not understand. Keep it simple and easy to read.

6. Be Consistent

Once you’ve developed your platform and started sharing your message, it’s important to be consistent. Consistency is key to any successful marketing strategy, and it’s especially important when you’re trying to build a personal brand.That means posting regularly, engaging with your audience, and being true to your voice. It might seem like a lot of work, but the payoff can be huge. A strong personal brand can do wonders for your career, so it’s worth the effort.

Developing a personal brand can be a daunting task, but it’s worth the effort. By finding your voice and sharing it with the world, you can set yourself apart from the competition and build a successful career. Just remember to be consistent with your message and engage with your audience regularly. If you do that, you’ll be well on your way to building a strong personal brand.

Uncategorized Blog

How to Use Creativity to Stand Out in Content Marketing

Post author By Divyanshu Soni
Post date September 21, 2022
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How to Use Creativity to Stand Out in Content Marketing

When it comes to content marketing, creativity is key. In a vast sea of blog posts, articles, and social media updates, it can be difficult to make your content stand out. But, with the right guidance and tools, you can tap into your creative side to produce content that is relevant, unique and impactful. Here are some tips to help you get started:

1. Be authentic

The first step to being creative is being authentic. Your content should reflect your brand’s voice and values. While it may be easy to follow trends, make sure you steer clear of replicating what another brand may be doing. Focus on creating content that is true to your own identity.

2. Think outside the box

To truly stand out, you need to think outside the box. Approach your content with a fresh perspective – an innovative way of getting your message across. For example, instead of a traditional blog post, you could create an infographic or a video. Or, you could take a unique take on a popular topic.

3. Add value

Any content you publish, in any format has to be value adding to your audience. Whatever category of content you have, make sure that it has been well thought through and is useful and relevant to your readers. Remember, quality over quantity, because while volume can be good, it can be pointless if there is no substance to the content.

4. Be engaging

In addition to being value adding, your content should also be engaging. After all, people are more likely to share and engage with content that is fun and interesting. Wit and a sense of humour go a long way in making content interesting, engaging and impactful.

5. Use visuals

Visuals are a great way to make your content more engaging. In addition to traditional photos and videos, you can also use infographics, GIFs, and other types of visual content. It is highly recommended to create your own images to ensure originality of content.

6. Be timely

Timeliness is important in content marketing. Maintaining a calendar of events that you can connect your content with could be very useful in capturing your audience’s attention. By creating content that ties into current events or trends, you’re more likely to capture your audience’s attention. This is often the best way for organic growth of your business.

7. Promote your content

Once you have got content that is creative, engaging and impactful, it is absolutely vital to promote your content! Make sure that your target audience knows about your latest blog post or video by sharing it on social media or sending out an email newsletter. Make sure you use relevant hashtags to be included in conversations. Encourage your followers to share your content and tag you in their posts.

By following these tips, you can start creating content that is more creative and effective. So get started today and see the results for yourself!

Content marketing is all about creating and sharing valuable content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into loyal fans and promoters of your business.
And while most people understand the basics of good content marketing, there’s one important element that’s often overlooked: creativity. With a little creativity, you can make your content truly stand out.

Here are three reasons why being creative in your content marketing can help you achieve greater success:

1) Creativity makes your content more memorable.

Let’s face it: Most people have short attention spans these days. That’s why it’s so important to make your content memorable, so that people will actually remember it after they’ve read or watched it. And one of the best ways to make your content more memorable is to be creative in how you present it. Whether you use images, infographics, videos, or some other format, make sure your content is eye-catching and easy to digest.

2) Creativity helps you stand out from the crowd.

In today’s noisy, cluttered world, it’s more important than ever to stand out from the competition. And one of the best ways to do that is to be creative in your content marketing. If all you do is regurgitate the same old information that everyone else is already sharing, you’re not going to get very far. But if you take the time to be creative and come up with fresh, unique ideas to differentiate yourself from the competition, you will surely stand out.

3) Creativity can help you achieve your content marketing goals.

Whether your goal is to generate leads, build brand awareness, or drive sales, being creative in your content marketing can help you achieve it. For instance, if your goal is to generate leads, you might create an infographic that’s designed to capture people’s attention and get them to sign up for your email list. Or if your goal is to build brand awareness, you might create a video series that showcases your products or services in a creative way. No matter what your content marketing goals are, being creative can help you achieve them.

Coming up with fresh ideas on a regular basis is not everyone’s cup of tea. So it would be wise to enlist help from a content agency to do your content marketing because they’re usually bunch of creative people and also because not being creative is not an option! If you need help with this check out Design Rush’s list of SEO companies in the UK.

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Why Explainer Videos are critical for small business success

Post author By atulaadmin
Post date October 13, 2021
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Why Explainer Videos are critical for small business succes

Introduction

Whether you are a startup or an established business, if you are looking to amp up your marketing, explainer videos are the way to go!

73% of users bought a product after watching an explainer video about them according to renowned statistical firm, Tubular insights. Not only that, video consumption is expected to increase from 187 million in 2019, to 205 million by 2022!

These numbers only point to one thing: in 2021, explainer videos are a smart choice to increase your brand’s awareness and acquire more customers.

What is an explainer video? How does it help your business grow? How many types of explainer videos are there? What are the key components of a good explainer video and how do you make one? Is spending the extra money on professionally made explainer videos worth it?

Read on to find the answers to these interesting question

What is an Explainer Video?

An explainer video is a short-form video that conveys a complex topic in a viewer-friendly format.

Explainer videos are used by businesses to quickly introduce their brand, explain their purpose, and tell potential buyers how their products or services can make their lives better. Explainer videos are a great opportunity for businesses to approach potential consumers efficiently.

In a nutshell, explainer videos are infographics on steroids!

Difference Between Product Demo Videos and Explainer Videos

There is a fine line between a product demo video and an explainer video. The primary objective of a product demo video is to focus on the demonstration of a single product or service offered by the brand.

Businesses use product demo videos to explain the features and benefits of their products. They are primarily useful in the later stages of conversion, or when closing a sale.

On the other hand, explainer videos aim to answer questions like, “what the brand has to offer” and “why it exists”. Brands use explainer videos to connect with the audience on an emotional level and build trust between the company and them.

Explainer videos are best suited to the early stages of conversion. For example — they are displayed on the landing pages of a brand’s website, in email marketing campaigns, blogs, and social media posts to increase early conversion rates.

Explainer videos have an edge over product demo videos because they drive customers to explore what your brand has in store for them. Explainer videos are more compelling and persuasive and they provide insight into your business

Advantages Of Explainer Videos

Psychological studies have shown that video is an ideal medium for providing any type of information because it engages both auditory as well as visual senses.

Here are some key benefits of integrating explainer videos into your business’ marketing strategy:

Videos speak louder than words: A minute of video is equivalent to about 1.8 million words, according to Forrester Research. Video is a great way to convey a lot of critical information in a limited amount of time. This is important given the diminishing attention spans that have led to an insane amount of competition for customers’ eyeballs.

Wider Reach through Social Media platforms:

Today, social media platforms are all about visual content. By having an explainer video in your tool kit you can reach wider audiences via social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram.

Greater Engagement:

Explainer videos appeal to customers’ emotions. Emotional appeal is important because people take action and engage not because of facts, but because of the emotional connection that they feel.

Reflection of Your Brand’s Personality:

Explainer videos can be a great way to reveal your brand’s personality to your audience. You can create explainer videos to represent the persona of your products and brand to your target demographic.

Boost in Sales and Conversions:

A video marketing campaign’s purpose is to convince viewers to take specific actions like registering with your company, visiting a landing page on your website, or downloading an app on their smartphones. Once a prospect takes this step, they become part of your marketing and sales funnel and you can use your standard approach to converting them into a customer.

Lower Bounce Rates:

Presenting an explainer video on your website reduces bounce rates and entices visitors to look around more. This in turn increases your website’s stickiness and correspondingly your sales lead volume.

Additionally, SEO rankings also go up. Studies show that including a video on your website drives the search results up by 50%!

Improved Email Marketing Campaigns:

By including explainer videos in your emails, you can increase your click-through rates by 96%!1 Explainer videos are perfect for increasing lead generation. To make the greatest impact, you need to ensure that you have a perfectly crafted explainer video.

Reaching a wider audience through better accessibility

Explainer videos when properly executed, can be a great tool for accessibility and inclusivity. The best part about videos is that visually challenged folks can hear audio and hearing impaired folks can see the video and subtitles, effectively addressing two demographics that are often ignored.

What Makes a Good Explainer Video

Psychological studies have shown that video is an ideal medium for providing any type of information because it engages both auditory as well as visual senses.

Here are some key benefits of integrating explainer videos into your business’ marketing strategy:

Wider Reach through Social Media platforms:

Today, social media platforms are all about visual content. By having an explainer video in your tool kit you can reach wider audiences via social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram.

Greater Engagement:

Explainer videos appeal to customers’ emotions. Emotional appeal is important because people take action and engage not because of facts, but because of the emotional connection that they feel.

Reflection of Your Brand’s Personality:

Boost in Sales and Conversions:

Lower Bounce Rates:

Additionally, SEO rankings also go up. Studies show that including a video on your website drives the search results up by 50%!

Improved Email Marketing Campaigns:

Reaching a wider audience through better accessibility

What Makes a Good Explainer Video

All great explainer videos have these five things in common:

#1 Short Length

A good explainer video will typically be between 1 to 2 minutes long. This is the ideal length to deal with short attention spans.

#2 Focused on Problem Solving

Prospective buyers usually watch explainer videos to solve their problems. Therefore, your explainer videos need to show them that you understand their problem perfectly and that your product or service is the ideal solution to that problem.

#3 Reflection of Your Brand and Target Audience

The personality of your brand and that of your target audience must match the tone and visuals of your explainer video. This makes the explainer video, and ultimately your company, more relatable to your customer base.

#4 Strong Call To Action (CTA)

Your explainer video must clearly state what you want your viewers to do after watching the video: register with your company, buy a product, view your website, follow your social media accounts, or take some other action.

#5 High Quality Video and Content

In the world of 8K video technology, you can’t afford to have poor video quality. However, quality refers not only to great animation and high resolution but also to the production, the script, and the content of the video.

Great companies focus on the what, the how, and the why to keep their explainer videos simple, informative, and engaging.

· What is the problem you are addressing?

· How will your product/service fix it?

· Why should the prospect choose you?

Most often, business owners spend too much time and energy focusing on the what and the how part of the explainer videos that they forget to take the why into consideration.

Average explainer videos are good at explaining the products or the services but fail to clearly state the brand strategy or philosophy. Clearly

outlining the purpose of your brand is the key to reaching the hearts and minds of the audience.

To get the why part right, your video marketing team needs to know what your target audience is and firmly present the underlying mission of your company.

This will help your brand to uniquely associate with your audience.

Types of Explainer Videos

There are a few types of explainer videos you can choose from to fit your needs:

Animated Explainer Videos:

Animated videos are the most popular and effective type of explainer videos. They are preferred because of their visual appeal and are relatively easier to create than Live Action explainer videos.

However, given the fact that consumers are used to seeing high-quality video animation content with superb production daily, business owners must hire professionals to create perfectly crafted explainer videos for them. Animated explainer videos come in a variety of forms and styles:

· · 2D or 2.5D Animation

· · Infographic

· · Chalkboard

· · Product Simulation

· · Kinetic Typography

· · Character-Driven

· · 3D Motion Graphic

Live-Action Explainer Videos:

Live-action explainer videos are a style of video that uses photography or videography with people and physical objects, instead of animation. Live-action videos need a lot of creativity, expertise, and technique to keep things interesting.

Additionally, a production team that includes scriptwriters, camera persons, art directors, lighting experts and video editing teams are needed to create a world-class video.

For live-action videos, it pays to have a professional team to help craft them. The challenge is that a poorly crafted video will have a majorly negative impact on your brand and product. Having no videos is way better than having bad videos.

A mix of both:

You can enjoy the best of both worlds by using a mix-and-match approach to get your ultimate explainer video! This type of video combines 2D or 3D animations and real-world videography to give you the perfect blend of VFX and realism.

DIY mixing of animation and real-world visuals and objects might get tricky and may not give you the desired results. Getting it done professionally is the ticket to get a premier quality explainer video.

Let’s take a look at how a perfect explainer video is created.

Steps to Create the Perfect Explainer Video

Now that you understand the types of explainer videos as well as their benefits, how do you create one which complements your brand perfectly?

The process of creating an explainer video is divided into three broad phases — Pre-production, Production, and Post-production.

Let’s take a deep dive into these stages to understand what it takes to make a minute-long explainer video.

Phase 1: Pre-Production

In this stage, you sit with your professional video agency and brainstorm ideas and discuss the basic concept of your explainer video.

Brainstorming Session

In this step, your professional video team listens to your goals and ideas for your brand’s explainer video.

Every explainer video is unique. During brainstorming, your video team’s creative director and scriptwriters decide what you want your video to convey and look like.

Here, you and your video team also decide the type of explainer video you want – animated, live-action, or both.

The Storyboard

After coming up with a rough layout of your explainer video, the script writers get down to writing a compelling script for your explainer video

Then, the storyboard is set up which incorporates scene-by-scene details of the script. This gives you a clear idea of how the production of your explainer video will play out.

Phase 2: Production

The making of your explainer video starts at the production stage.

If it’s a live-action video, the director and the camera crew shoot the video with the help of preferred actors and different props and backgrounds.

If it’s an animated explainer video, then the animation team begins to design the graphics and effects based on the approved storyboard and the script of your explainer video.

If it’s a mix of both, then the video is shot first and the animations are created and layered into the live-action video framework.

Phase 3: Post-Production

Here is where the magic happens. All the team members sit together and edit every single detail of the explainer video. The voiceover and sound effects are added to the video and final touch-ups are done.

Voiceover

Whether it’s an animated video or a live-action or a mix of both, the choice of voice and tone in the background matters. The quality of tone and voice should match your target audience’s expectations.

This process is often taken for granted by DIY video creators. Your professional video agency will have a wide range of voice templates and you can pick the perfect one for your explainer video.

Sound effects

A good soundtrack is as important as the animations and the cinematography of your video. A good soundtrack can make your explainer video more attention-grabbing and engaging for your audience.

The music for the soundtrack can be either purchased online or we at Atula can create a customised audio track just for your explainer video.

Final Editing

Final editing is done by video editors and your explainer video is polished and finishing touches added.

DIY vs Professional Explainer videos

Believe it or not, on average, it takes about 6 weeks to create a world-class 60-90 second explainer video!

There are two different paths that you can take to make the ideal explainer video for your brand. You can either be a DIY enthusiast or take the help of a professional explainer video company.

The DIY Approach

The DIY approach is for situations where the stakes are not high. The only positive aspect of making the video all by yourself is that it would cost relatively less to create, and … that’s it.

However, the list of cons of doing it yourself is never-ending. You would be limited by your skills, time, gadgets, and software, which is not ideal for something this important.

DIY kits would not only be more time-consuming but also distract you from the core aspects of running your business.

Professional Video Agency

On the other hand, if you take the help of a company that specialises in creating explainer videos, like Atula, you will have a much better and professional-looking explainer video.

By choosing a professional video-making company like Atula, you’d have a team of experts in directing, scriptwriting, animation, cinematography, and editing working together to make the finest explainer video tailored to your needs and preferences. Additionally, Atula’s experts can ensure that your videos are compressed, sized, and optimised according to the various requirements of multiple social media platforms. The visual and physical sizing of

videos is extremely important because it can mean the difference between a highly successful campaign and an also-ran, lukewarm one.

Leaving it to professionals would help in time management. While your video is being produced, you can take the time to focus on managing your business’ other activities with a more carefree mind.

To get a world-class, top quality explainer video for your brand, call the experts on video marketing at Atula on 0207 101 4351 or email Atula at enquiries@atulatech.com

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The Key to Getting the Most Out of Your E-commerce Development Partner

Post author By atulaadmin
Post date September 14, 2021
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The Key to Getting the Most Out of Your E-commerce Development Partner

There are over 2 billion digital buyers all over the world. As a business owner, you must have an e-commerce platform for your company to tap into this large base of potential customers and increase your sales. The best way to get a foot ahead of the rest would be to engage an ecommerce partner. Leaving your e-commerce website in the hands of experts will ensure that your e-commerce website is professional-looking as well as has all the bells and whistles of a modern-day e-commerce store. However, before developing an e-commerce website, there are many factors that you as the business owner need to consider. Doing your research on these factors will help you to get exactly what you need from your e-commerce development partner. Going to an ecommerce development partner without doing this research is like going to a store without knowing what you need. It may be the best store in the world, but they cannot help you if you don’t know what you need. Let’s take a closer look at the factors you need to be mindful of before contacting your preferred e-commerce website development agency.

16 Factors to Keep in Mind Before Developing Your E-Commerce Website

1. Competitive benchmarking

The fundamental assumption is that as a business owner, you are the subject matter expert for everything related to your products and services, competitors and others in your league. A good starting point would be to conduct market research and shortlist at least 5 to 10 of your direct competitors. Compare your brand with others in the same space, benchmark your offerings, understand your deficiencies and plan your business model and logistics accordingly. Be sure to compare yourself with only those players who are in the same league as you in order to reach a reasonable benchmark for your business. For instance, if you are just starting out, it doesn’t make sense to compare your advertising budget with that of an established giant in your industry.

Always remember, you are in control of setting the benchmark for your company.

2. Brand positioning

You must be clear on where your brand should be positioned in the market. You need to decide if your products and services aim to be “luxury”, “smart”, or “affordable”.

This is a key point in ensuring that your business is viewed for what it actually is. If your brand is ill-positioned, your website will attract a different segment of consumers and your products or services won’t meet your consumers’ expectations. This, in turn, will result in the deterioration of your brand’s image and eventually, a loss for your business.

3. Value proposition and clear differentiation

Your business must have an answer to the biggest question that runs through the minds of your prospects: “Why should I choose your brand?”

The best way to answer this question is to have a good value proposition and clear differentiation from your competitors.

Your company’s uniqueness should be a perfect combination of several compelling factors that drive potential customers to choose you over your competitors.

These factors can be but are not limited to, the quality of your products, price point, services, easy returns policy, environment-friendly products, seamless user experience, and offers.

Did you know that the #1 reason people shop online is free delivery?

4. Avoid a conflicting product mix

Avoid including random products in your business as this might confuse potential customers.

Choose products wisely so that they align flawlessly with your brand’s position. For instance, if you are positioning your company as a luxury brand, avoid listing products that look mass-produced and industrial with no sophistication.

Always deliver what you claim.

5. Inventory

There’s nothing worse than getting orders coming through your web portals and you not having stock to sell! If inventory holding costs are prohibitive, consider if your suppliers offer drop shipping.

Even if you did go down the dropshipping route, it would be in your interests to have some stock of your best selling products .

It’s better to be safe than sorry.

6. Photographs and videos

A picture speaks a 1000 words. Almost every product purchase is made on the basis of how appealing the visuals are. Camera resolutions are at their best ever, and with the combined power of digital software, showcasing a product in the best light is not just easy these days, it is a basic necessity!

It is hugely beneficial to invest in professional photographs of your products that you can upload on your e-commerce website.

Actual product images definitely build trustworthiness as stock images can be easily replicated and could show up on competitors websites. Having a set of professional images also allows you use your own branding and showcase your product from more than one angle.

Attaching explainer videos and product demo videos on your website goes a long way in gaining the attention of potential customers. A recent survey suggested that almost 80% of internet users state that product videos give them more confidence when purchasing a product.

7. Choice of keywords

Words, phrases or topics that describe your business or content are called keywords. They are words or phrases that people are most likely to use when searching for your content. These keywords are used within your website’s content to make your website easily discoverable via search engines, a process otherwise known as search engine optimisation or SEO.

Your web design agency will be able to compile a list of keywords for your business depending on your brand positioning, followed by research on what words have the highest search volume, least SEO difficulty, i.e., competition, and low Cost Per Click (CPC).

Choosing the right keywords is essential for your e-commerce website’s SEO as well as your company’s overall digital marketing.

8. Product descriptions

Product descriptions on your e-commerce website should be engaging for the reader and must include all the attributes of the products like colours, size or dimensions, weight, features, benefits and so on.

A good website design should allow you to provide short descriptions at first glance and also long descriptions for those customers who like to know more.

Including key words related to your product or service within your product descriptions helps a lot when it comes to search engine rankings. Your e-commerce partner should be an expert in knowing what key words and phrases to include, to ensure your website is brought up when searched.

9. Choosing the right blogs

Blogs are an excellent way to showcase your expertise. Regular blogs not only keep your customers engaged, they also attract new visitors to your website. Showcasing depth of knowledge builds trust and consequently encourages visitors to purchase from you.

However, being closest to your business, having a pipeline of the right topics for blog articles would be down to you. It would be a wise decision to engage experienced writers who could write on your behalf based on a brief outline of the key message you want to convey.

Look around the internet and find out what your competitors are blogging about and assess the quality of their content. You can either provide your content writing partner agency with the same topic but with much richer content or choose a different but relevant topic that will help you stand out from your competition.

Your strategy should be focused on two main objectives:

a) Subtly introduce yourself and your products to the target audience instead of going all out with an aggressive pitch.

b) Reduce bounce rates on your website by providing backlinks to reference third-party articles and crosslinks to your products and services on your e-commerce website.

10. Digital marketing

With over 189 million active websites on the internet, you can’t count on your e-commerce website to be the only voice for your business no matter how well-made it is.

You must have a team of digital marketing experts who can come up with a strategy to boost your brand on all Social Media platforms s well as other digital business platforms like Google My Business to help your brand get the attention it needs.

A good strategy will ensure a smooth and quick transition from an awareness phase to the stage of being a recognised brand, being considered for purchase.

11. Affiliate marketing

Allow your business website to be a self-promoting portal by giving out discounts or special offers on referrals to affiliate marketers.

This is another great way to engage with customers and get more sales.

Statistics show that 81% of customers trust the advice of friends and family over businesses. So, having a referral scheme on your website is quite likely to get your conversion rates up.

12. Newsletters

A newsletter is a great way to deliver news and updates about your business to your customer base. Adding incentives and interesting detail would make it worthwhile for people to remain loyal. The key success factor of a newsletter would be regularity of good quality, engaging content and a reason for your customer to look forward to it.

13. Full List of Holidays

You would benefit from having a full list of holidays attached to your business plan to strategically schedule your promotions and ad campaigns through the year.

Advancements in technology can even automate your digital marketing efforts ahead of the holidays and busy times, allowing your team to focus on core business.

14. Advertise on print media

Print media is one of the oldest and most basic forms of mass communication. Monthly publications are extremely popular even now, despite the ever growing electronic equivalent. The smile joy of holding the daily news paper or the glossy magazine is something that will surely be around for a fair few years.

15. Use multi-channel capabilities for your e-commerce

On average, 52% of online businesses have multi-channel capabilities.

Most businesses today have multiple channels that help them sell their products to more customers and communicate with a wider audience.

In addition to your own e-commerce website, you should also consider listing your products and services on other platforms like Amazon, Google Merchant and stores belonging to Social Media platforms.

These platforms have a massive customer base. Making your wares available on these websites will increase brand awareness and drive more sales.

16. Engage in institutional and direct sales

If the nature of your products or services is not particularly end-user specific, having a B2B channel would be a wise move. Institutions tend to buy on volumes and if this is something the business can cater to, we say go for it!

Conclusion

As a business owner, it would be immensely beneficial to use these 16 points as critical factors to ensure your success. Your growth and success would depend on the first steps you take!

Get in touch with us on 0207 101 4361. Our experienced team can have a free 30 minute discussion to ensure you have covered all the factors critical to your success.

Check out all our services and areas of expertise @ https://atulatech.com/our-services

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10 common pitfalls to avoid in a small business e-commerce website

Post author By Soumya Dinesh
Post date August 30, 2021
No Comments on 10 common pitfalls to avoid in a small business e-commerce website

10 common pitfalls to avoid in a small business e-commerce website

There are estimated to be over 2.14 billion online customers and buyers in 2021. This amounts to 30% of the earth’s population! E-commerce capabilities for small business websites present a tremendous opportunity for you if you get it right.

Running a small business e-commerce website is a challenging task at the best of times, but during the Covid-19 pandemic, almost all businesses have had to move online to survive. This has meant that competition for mindshare in the online space has reached a feverish pitch during these last couple of years. Here are 10 of the most common pitfalls that plague most small business e-commerce websites.

Pitfall #1: Poor Visual Design

There is a vast difference between the websites of 1994 and websites in 2021. Long gone are the days of just having three CTA buttons added to your small business e-commerce website and calling it a day.

Today, you need to have an attractive, elegant, and functional visual design and User Interface (UI) not only to attract customers and gain traffic but also to increase your website’s SEO rank organically.

Your small business e-commerce website needs to be intuitive and easy to use, as well as aesthetically pleasing. Navigation needs to be simple and the overall layout should be neat, clutter-free, and sophisticated. An important rule-of-thumb is to ensure that users reach their destination in under three clicks.

It is good practice to avoid automatic pop-up windows as well as video or audio files that play automatically without giving a user an option to pause them. Atula has a great team of Visual Design, Usability, and User Experience experts that can help design a visually fantastic yet intuitively functional website.

Pitfall #2: A Slow e-commerce Website

47% of your online buyers expect your small business e-commerce website to load within 2 seconds or else they leave! Even a one-second delay in loading results in massive abandonment at your e-commerce website.

Gone are the days of using simple hosting and putting up an e-commerce website. The choice of server location, server performance, the volume of HTTP requests, the number of JavaScript files, images, CSS, and videos have a huge impact on your website loading speeds. Additionally, great caching with a state of the art Content Delivery Network (CDN) matters tremendously for your small business e-commerce website performance.

This is no longer a game for DIY enthusiasts and home-brewed solutions. Getting professional help can mean the difference between your e-commerce site being a huge revenue generator and simply being consigned to the cyber dust-heap.

Pitfall #3: Insufficient User Personalisation

On a small business e-commerce website, personalising a customer’s experience can be a huge help with customer acquisition and retention.

74% of businesses believe that user experience is one of the most important factors for generating sales and conversions. Implementing customisation and personalisation options for your e-commerce website gives buyers a sense of control and a great experience.

Standard personalisation approaches include prioritising product categories based on the customer’s interests, targeting specific personalised products, implementing easy options like “one-click buy”, and auto-fill options for pre-existing customers.

Birthday discount schemes, personalised Call To Action (CTA) buttons, greeting the customer by name on a landing page, and adding personalised blog posts also helps generate traffic to your website.

Pitfall #4: Inadequate Product Information

Your small business e-commerce website is the bridge between an in-store experience and an online one. However, one key difference between a physical and a virtual experience is the absence of a store assistant to help and guide customers, providing them with relevant information needed to help them to make buying decisions. Your e-commerce website must have all the relevant information about products as well as your brand easily accessible to buyers. This includes descriptive as well as technical information about your products.

Tip: Keep technical information available at the click of a button but not directly visible to avoid clutter while giving users the option to go deeper if they wish! Additionally, avoid using generic content provided by manufacturers, since google immediately penalises such duplicate content. Get a writing team to craft excellent product write-ups that are unique.

Pitfall #5: Unnecessarily Complicated Checkout Process

The average abandonment rate at the shopping cart stage is 69.75% for Desktop users and goes as high as 85.65% and 80.74% for mobile and tablet users respectively.

The checkout is the most important step in the sales process on your e-commerce website. All the effort and money spent may result in nothing if this aspect isn’t executed correctly.

Ensure that your e-commerce website’s design uses clear indicative icons and graphics, includes a progress bar as well as a fully functional back button at

each stage of the checkout process and provides live chat support for buyers that need help.

For unregistered users, the registration process causes the most friction between a customer and a sale. It is a good practice to get a buyer to register towards the payment stage of checkout.

However, it is wise to collect a prospect’s email early on so that an abandoned shopping cart can be saved and a customer can receive an email gently nudging them to complete a sale. There are over 30 strategies used by Atula’s team of experts to optimise your checkout page alone!

Pitfall #6: Not having a responsive website

57% of users will not recommend a brand with a poor, non-responsive mobile website. This is significant, given that as of Feb 2021, 55.65% of web traffic comes from mobile users!

Therefore, it is really important to have a small business e-commerce website that is optimised to work on any browser and device.

A responsive web design uses HTML and CSS to automatically resize your e-commerce website to perfectly fit a variety of browsers, devices, and device sizes. The tech team needs to set appropriate responsive breakpoints, use a fluid grid, and make sure that images, videos, and typography in your small business e-commerce website are responsive.

Atula has deep expertise in developing responsive e-commerce websites for multiple customers and we bring all that learning and expertise to your e-commerce website!

Pitfall #7: Minimal SEO implemented poorly

You can either spend most of your capital on advertisements and paid promotions or smartly optimise your small business e-commerce website to secure a top rank on Google’s search results organically.

Google uses over 200 ranking factors in its algorithm to assign a Search Engine Result Page (SERP) rank to a website. Your e-commerce implementation team needs to be familiar with these variables and find ways to optimise them in your e-commerce website.

However, not all factors contribute equally to your e-commerce website’s SERP rank. Some factors like mobile usability, page speed, keywords, security contribute more than others like keywords in the domain name, domain expiration date, Adsense, or H1 tag rule.

Additionally, using meta no-index tags, canonical tags, keyword stuffing, rich snippet spam and similar black hat SEO techniques can negatively impact your e-commerce site’s rank. SEO is a complex and specialised game, given Google’s propensity towards whimsical and abrupt changes in the rules. Smart business owners will get help from a team of SEO experts like Atula to help them stay ahead of the Darwinian game of SEO hide and seek.

Pitfall #8: Using Outdated Tech leading to Technical Glitches

Retail site owners do not realise the losses they incur due to faulty e-commerce websites. 52% of online shoppers abandon a website and visit a competitor’s website!

Technology is the fuel and the grease that keeps the e-commerce engine running. Your launch page, checkout page, and everything in between should be free of technical glitches. Layout bugs, faulty interactive features, page errors, and site maintenance are enough to frustrate the most loyal customers.

Having your e-commerce website built using modern technologies is a critical aspect of the smooth running of your online business. For instance, 59% of online shoppers claim that Artificial Intelligence (AI) based user experiences influence their buying decisions. AI can help user personalisation, improve recommendations, and initiate automated campaigns to increase reach and generate leads.

Additionally, using chatbots provides 24/7 assistance to consumers and sends shipping and tracking information to them. Using a cloud CDN can improve content delivery speeds and make your e-store more adaptable.

Assistive technology and audio commerce can take your business to new audiences like the youth and the visually impaired demographics.

For instance, implementing speech-to-text technology in your search bar can enhance the usability of your e-commerce website. All this, in turn, adds to your business’ growth. Here again, it pays to hire experts to help you deliver a state-of-the-art, world-class experience based on cutting edge technology while you get freed to focus on the business side of things.

Pitfall #9: Lack of Social Proof

In 2021, the lack of social proof on your small business e-commerce website is a big no-no. Your prospects need to know what your existing customers and buyers feel about your products and your brand.

Social proof is based on normative social influence factors of social psychology. For example, positive customer testimonials and reviews dramatically enhance your brand’s image among prospective customers.

Using positive social media posts of your products from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram helps build confidence in your prospects. Adding factual data about your brand like sales volumes, social media followers, and the number of positive reviews helps to build a bond between your brand and your buyers.

Active, implied, and story-telling social proof techniques are some unique ways to help your prospects and customers convert. Needless to say, getting a team of boss-level technology savants like Atula is critical to taking your business to the next level.

Pitfall #10: Underestimating the value of PPC campaigns

American online retailers spend up to 76% of their ad budget on Google’s Pay Per Click (PPC) ad campaigns. This number acts as a vote of confidence in PPC campaigns by business owners.

Google uses an auction-based bidding mechanism to rank ads and position them before organic search results. This means that with a PPC campaign, you can get to the top of the search page! Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter also offer highly targeted PPC campaigns.

Social media PPC campaigns offer unmatched audience refinement capabilities for highly specific targeting. You may choose an audience from a specific demographic, location, age, gender, and relevant interests while planning your PPC campaign.

The ROI on PPC campaigns is quite amazing. PPC audiences are 50% more likely to buy your product as compared to organic visitors, because the buying intent is higher among those who click an ad.

The challenge, in this case, is that your e-commerce marketing team must strategise these campaigns down to every single detail such as goal, target audience, and the landing page of your e-commerce website. Also, each platform has its magic incantations that must be used to make the most of them. Get Atula’s team of marketing and advertising magicians and soothsayers to help you extract every ounce of juice from your PPC ad campaigns.

Conclusion

Thinking of implementing a new small business e-commerce website for your business?
Tired of your glitchy, outdated small business e-commerce website that gives zero results?
Want to get a highly trustworthy and competent team to leverage technology that delivers results?

Give us a call on 0207 101 4351, send us an email on enquiries@atulatech.com, or contact us on our website and we’ll be happy to provide you with a free consultation on building an elegant, world-class e-commerce website that delivers results and lives up to its full potential. At Atulatech.com, we have enough experience to understand your exact needs. We can design an e-commerce solution tailored specifically for your success.

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Contactless solutions for great guest experience.

Post author By Soumya Dinesh
Post date August 12, 2021
No Comments on Contactless solutions for great guest experience.

Contactless solutions for great guest experience.

The global travel, hotel, and hospitality industries have borne the major brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic that began in early 2020. In the UK alone, international, and local travel restrictions, reduced occupancy, as well as social distancing rules have hammered business turnover in the hospitality industry. Simultaneously, fixed costs along with debt have stayed where they are, leading to a massive downward spiral impacting over 1.6 million jobs at their peak. In 2020, hospitality businesses that have halted operation number at 55% compared to the industry average of 24%. 2021 promises to be different: with vaccinations at 90% of the adult population with the first dose and 70% with both doses, a major turnaround is already underway.

This is the right time for hospitality businesses to kick into high gear and get ready to take advantage of the current summer surge as well as the long-term uptick as everything goes back to business as usual.

The price of doing nothing could be extremely high, given that there is a way to use technology to dramatically enhance your guest experience. Using a Contactless Guest Experience Management App like EZStay™ can help you dramatically enhance your business and the guest experience, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction while seamlessly dealing with social distancing restrictions

What is Contactless Guest Experience?

Simply put, Contactless Guest Experience is using software technology to help customers access all your hospitality services through their smartphones while maintaining social distancing norms. Typically, since guests access hotel Wi-Fi anyway, they simply use a Contactless Guest Experience solution like EZStay™ to check-in to your hotel, request room service, book appointments at your restaurants, spas, or other facilities, and finally pay and check out of your establishment, all without any direct human contact! EZStay™ is Atula’s unique contribution the hospitality Industry. While Contactless Guest Experience solutions have been around for a few years, Covid-19 restrictions have catapulted this approach to the forefront, making it a great solution to several challenges posed by the pandemic. Contactless Guest Experience solutions like EZStay™ can help your hospitality business achieve greater efficiencies while simultaneously greatly enhancing a customer’s experience of your hotel, resort, or spa.

Features of a Great Contactless Guest Experience Solution

Any Good Contactless Guest Experience Solutions should provide these features at a bare minimum

Online check-in and check-out are a primary, must-have feature of any contactless guest experience solution worth its salt. For guests, there is a dual advantage – the convenience of check-in or checkout and payments, as well as safety in terms of social distancing for Covid-19.

Any good solution will have a room service feature where customers can access all room service options on the smartphone device itself. This dramatically increases the convenience factor for customers while reducing the support load on your hotel.

Since the hotel or resort room was itself booked online in all probability, it is a simple extension of that to have customers book a restaurant, salon, spa, or any other facility directly from their smartphone using the contactless solution, rather than having to call a service desk.

Payment integration is a critical, must-have feature of any Contactless Guest Experience Solution. Typically, check-in, check-out, facilities, or room service would be integrated with a payment gateway so that customers can pay on the go. This way, the entire process of dealing with financial transactions can be handled automatically.

A good Contactless solution will be able to integrate well with your existing software systems, ensuring that your investments are protected and that you don’t need to rip and replace them..

EZStay™ can be seamlessly integrated with your existing hotel management or ERP systems ensuring that your customer facing systems are modernised and upgraded, while protecting your backend systems of records. You can continue to use your existing backend systems which also eliminates the need to re-train employees on a new backend system!

Today, chat as a service is so ubiquitous and customers’ preference to use text chat for any kind of interaction is so high that it makes complete sense for any decent Contactless Guest Experience Solution to incorporate live concierge chat in multiple languages.

Any Contactless Guest Experience Solution needs the ability to add or build any custom features that a business may require. For example, Digital Door Keyless Entry is one such optional feature that hospitality businesses can use. In the case of a Contactless Guest Experience Management App like EZStay™, you can integrate your check-in and payment features so that a customer can access their room using the Digital Door Keyless Entry option. This eliminates the need for cumbersome key management which requires in-person dealings with the customer.

Strictly speaking, security is not a “feature” in that it is not optional. An insecure Contactless Solution is no solution at all. Any robust Contactless Guest Experience Solution needs to have security baked into all its features and functions. For instance, at check-in time there needs to be a secure but user-friendly option to authenticate customers and provide access to the right set of facilities.

Again, having an intuitive user-centric design as well as a personalised experience must be built into a Contactless Guest Experience Solution. User experience matters because a good, intuitive user interface means that everything works seamlessly, and guests can use the app without having to figure it out. This way, guests can focus on what they are there for: to enjoy your hospitality experience.

Additionally, the app needs to be personalised for each guest based on their room type, personal preferences, and special requirements. Customers will remember a great personalised experience, especially if the app remembers their choices and makes appropriate recommendations. For a hotel, this is an opportunity to upsell or cross-sell services that a customer would like.

Benefits of contactless hotel solutions

There are several benefits of Contactless Guest Experience Solutions to both customers as well as hotels, resorts, and spas.

Contactless Guest Experience Solutions like EZStay™ can be highly customised to meet your hotel’s exacting needs. Your logo as well as brand guidelines, colours, and visuals are used to create a branded customer experience for your customers. Additionally, EZStay™ can be set up to use customised workflows to map to your hotel’s processes for everything from check-in and check-out to room service and concierge.

EZStay™ has been designed by user experience experts and is both easy to use and intuitive for even first-time users. This way, customers have a seamless experience and focus on having a great time at your hotel.

Since the hospitality industry is still reeling from the impact of Covid-19, EZStay™ is available with flexible and innovative payment options to meet your exact financial needs. There is a Perpetual License option where you pay a one-time lump-sum fee, along with a small annual maintenance charge for updates and upgrades. Another option is a monthly subscription model where you optimise your hotel’s operational expenses by making a monthly payment.

Benefits to your hotel

Contactless Guest Experience Solutions like EZStay™ offer several benefits to your hotel, resort, or spa.

Simply announcing to potential customers that your business offers a 100% Contactless Guest Experience will attract many more customers leading to both greater occupancy and revenue, with positive revenue streams.

Greater occupancy will directly lead to greater revenues, with a direct positive impact on your RevPAR. Additionally, all the upsell and cross-sell options available in EZStay™ will again help increase customer spend on your property. A customer survey shows that up to 50% of customers would order more room service if they had that option on their smartphone.

Given that social distancing norms seem to be here to stay with us for a while, it is safe to say that your establishment will comply with government health safety and social distance norms that are in force.

Benefits to your customer

There are several benefits of Contactless Guest Experience Solutions to both customers as well as hotels, resorts, and spas.

Most customers will be happy that they and their loved ones can adhere to social distancing norms for everyone’s benefit. Contactless solutions offer exactly this benefit

Today’s digital natives are very comfortable with technology and surveys show that 75% of guests would be happy to use a Contactless Guest Experience Solution like EZStay™ from a pure convenience perspective. After all, there would be no need to carry door keys, remember room service, concierge, or reception desk numbers and they could make reservations at a spa or a lounge bar from anywhere

Technology and the future of contactless solutions

Contactless experiences have been possible primarily due to the rise of smartphones along with the internet. Although at the back-end there are large and complex technology platforms doing all the heavy lifting, as far as your customers or your employees are concerned, all they need to do is access their respective applications either on a smartphone or a workstation.

A PwC survey shows that implementing new technology solutions has led to a 135% increase in revenues, a 71% reduction in customer complaints, and a 19% increase in ratings. There can be no better evidence that technology is having a lasting, real positive impact on the hospitality industry.

In the meanwhile, technology is also rendering the traditional concierge obsolete with the rise of text-based support options that are the go-to communication channel for today’s digital natives.

The future of contactless

Contactless Guest Experience Technology and Solutions are growing in leaps and bounds. In the future, those who do not adopt this approach will be rendered obsolete very quickly. Additionally, powerful analytics tools, as well as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms, are quickly adding tremendous benefits to customer acquisition, service, pricing, revenue, and profitability for hotel businesses.

Conclusion

Contactless Guest Experience Solutions like EZStay™ are here to stay and the only question is when (not if) hotel businesses like yours choose to adopt this approach towards better profitability and customer satisfaction. We at EZStay™ Solutions will be at Stand 362 at the Hotel360 Expo being held on 28 – 29 September 2021 at ExCeL, London. Make sure you visit us at Stand 362 to get a live demo of our EZStay™ Contactless Guest Experience Solution and learn how you can exploit EZStay™ to increase your occupancy, revenues, and customer satisfaction ratings while lowering expenses and effort.

Call us for a free 30 minute consultation

Thinking of implementing a Contactless Guest Experience Solution for your business? Want to find out how EZStay™ Solutions can help you increase revenues, occupancy, and customer ratings? Give us a call on 02071014351, send us an email on enquiries@atulatech.com, or contact us on via website and we’ll be happy to provide you with a free consultation on how to leverage EZStay™ Contactless Guest Experience Solution to its full potential! [a]Assure them that this does not mean dumping their existing investments in Hotel ER.

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7 Things your Small Business Website MUST have.

Post author By Soumya Dinesh
Post date August 2, 2021
No Comments on 7 Things your Small Business Website MUST have.

7 Things your Small Business Website MUST have

Today, 4.66 billion people worldwide have access to the internet. This constitutes around 60% of the global population, who access over 1.5 billion websites on the internet today. Almost every activity these days requires a website – from grocery shopping to banking to finding anything about anything!

Long gone are the days of the static, half-dead brochure websites. For instance, e-commerce sales by the end of 2021 are estimated to add up to around USD 5 trillion! We were tempted to use a capital T, but a love of good grammar prevailed…

If you’re setting up a small business or even if you are looking for a small business website redesign, you need to know that a website is a lot more today. It may be

Let’s take a look at the 7 Must Haves that every small business should consider

MUST-HAVE # 1 : A great domain name

Believe it or not, a great domain name matters. Especially today with the internet being as crowded as it is, a short, sweet, memorable domain name can mean the difference between great website traffic and good website traffic. This is because the domain adds a lot of authority to your small business website’s content and purpose not just for your visitors, readers and customers, but also for search engines (Cough – google – Cough!)

www.mysmallbusinessname.com

MUST-HAVE #2: Small business website design and structure

Great website design matters. Visitors love aesthetically pleasing small business websites. But that’s not all. You need to make sure that the visual design aids and enhances a great user experience. For this reason alone, it may be worth getting the help of website design experts to get a great website design for your new website.

Even if you are looking for a website redesign, then it is even more important to get someone who is really good at small business website redesign to help you create a great visual experience as well as a great user interface for your visitors as well as prospects.

Website design is greatly enhanced by having the right website structure. Your small business website must have the following pages to be effective:

HomePage/LandingPage:This is the most important and most visited page of your website. Ensure that your prospects find what they are looking for instantly.
AboutUs: Talk about the history of your organisation. Highlight key individuals. Tell a stor
ContactUs: This is an important page that visitors will use to contact you. Ensure that you list your Phone, Address & Location, Email, and have a Contact Form if necessary.
Links to Social Media: Present links to your social media pages on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
Services/Products/Offerings: Here, present your offerings in detail, including all services and products
Testimonials,UserReviews:User reviews and testimonials are an important part of building your organisation’s credibility. Ensure that you have them displayed prominently.
Blog: A blog is an important tool to generate traffic from search engines, display your expertise and trustworthiness to prospects and get them to buy from you.
PressReleases/NewsUpdates: Use this section to keep your small business website up to date with the latest press releases and news updates
Policies&Terms-and-Conditions: Provide your visitors with your legal privacy policies and other terms and conditions.

MUST-HAVE #3: Great technology under the hood

Today’s high-tech small business websites have a lot going on under the hood to ensure maximum visitor retention. For instance, even a tiny 2-second delay in website loading time results in 87% of folks abandoning a shopping cart! Therefore, getting experts to ensure that your website is finely and optimally tuned to generate maximum business is absolutely essential!

Here’s what you need to keep that website engine roaring smoothly and efficiently:

Fast loading pages:

Ensure that your small business website is super fast and has load times below 1 second with an outer limit of 2 seconds. Websites with a top ranking on google have load times of less than 2 seconds.

Mobile-friendly small business websites:

Over 55% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices. Therefore, having a mobile-friendly website is a top priority. As the largest search-engine, and with 80% of online browses using mobile to browse the internet – Google recommends a mobile-first approach to all businesses that need a greater visibility. In order to achieve the kind of speed needed, Google has Accelerated Mobile Pages – a framework that helps in developing your website optimised for Mobile and Tablet devices with great speed and user experience.

Additionally, there are multiple browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, with multiple devices and platforms like Android and iOS, each with its own versions! All this means that ensuring a uniform website experience across platforms is no longer an amateur’s game. Get professional help with this, and you won’t regret it!

Content Management Systems (CMS):

Gone are the days of plain, simple HTML websites. Today’s complex websites require to be CMS driven with many, many moving parts. The CMS space is also crowded with options of both proprietary and open source like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

Add to that the free website builder options like Wix and WordPress.com and you could have a mountain-sized headache just selecting the right option, let alone having the time, energy, and technical expertise to do a great job with those tools!

The right small business website tools:

As if life were not complicated enough, there is a lot more tech needed to help your website succeed. You need to ensure that you have a superb array of tools like E-commerce plugins, shopping cart options, payment gateways, newsletter automation tools, CRM connectors, website analytics and usage statistics, site security, and so on. Importantly, you might get away with creating a new website for yourself, but think about how will you manage and support it in a sustainable way.

MUST-HAVE #4 Traffic Generation & Marketing Systems

Okay, so you’ve sweated blood and tears – or maybe taken the smart, time-saving route of getting an expert – to build the perfect, super-fast, mobile-friendly, tool-laden, ecommerce ready, secure website. That is just the beginning: You now need to pay attention to the whole point of having a website: traffic and visitors! Here are the most crucial aspects of getting traffic that you need to ensure: Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engines – or more specifically the 800-pound gorilla called Google – determines the amount of organic traffic coming to your website. And Google is a fickle mistress: she demands that every word on your website be organized just so, else she’ll ignore it completely.Search engine optimization is the process of writing and organizing all your website content to give you the best chance to appear on google’s search results when a prospect searches for a company providing a service or product like yours.

SEO is a highly specialised operation that requires consistent and persistent effort to use unique keywords that have high search volume and low difficulty and cost per click. This is a long-term strategy for your website to be ranking in the top 5 or 10, in search results for you to stand out from other competitive websites. So ideally you need to look for someone providing Small Business SEO Services who are experts at optimizing your small business website.

Ad Landing Pages:

While Google will give you organic traffic, you can rig the game by advertising on Google, Facebook, Instagram, or any other publication to generate traffic to your website. All that traffic then needs an Ad Landing Page on your site to access your offer

MUST-HAVE #5 Credentials and Customer Testimonials

Once a prospect lands on your site, it is time for your content to work its magic and win them over as customers. Everything on your site must work towards that one end: getting a new customer. Towards this end, you need to ensure that all your credentials, certifications, and testimonials are accessible to customers

Customer list and Customer Testimonials:

The biggest credential for most of your prospects will be a list of customers and glowing testimonials from your best customers. We, humans, are huge fans of social proof so testimonials are among the list of must-haves on your website. Govt Licences & Certification, and Industry Body Affiliations: These need not be shoved into the face of a prospect, but do make it easy for them to find it if they need it.

MUST-HAVE #6: Set-up Analytics and invest in Digital Marketing

Ultimately, unless you are Jeff Bezos and you have money to throw around, you want a website with a single purpose: To attract more customers, directly or indirectly. Here are a few steps you can take in that direction:

STEP 1: Boldly display your Value Proposition: Why you?

Don’t be shy. Let your prospects know immediately why they should consider you to buy your latest product or service. Tell them in no uncertain terms why you are the best option for them in terms of price, quality, durability, and customer support.

STEP 2: Guide a prospect through the decision-making process

Don’t imagine that prospects will spend a lot of time and energy to figure out your website. Guide them and help them in that direction. For instance, you could have a simple Quiz to determine their needs and then point out the right product or service for them. Additionally, ensure that you use techniques like a sitemap and navigational tools like breadcrumbs to help them move around on your website easily.

STEP 3: Have a Clear, Compelling Call-to-action (CTA) “

Ask and you shall receive”. We’re consistently amazed at how many websites fail to simply ASK their prospects to sign up, call, phone, or email. Prospects are not mind readers and in this day and age of ultra-high distraction, without a clear and compelling Call-To-Action, you may well be wasting a lot of your time, money, and effort with a website.

MUST-HAVE #7: Consistently updated, well-written blogs

Visitors to websites still love to read blogs even though there are over 2 billion blog posts published annually. Most importantly, companies with regularly updated, compelling blogs generate 67% more leads than those who do not! This one statistic alone should convince you that having a blog is a sound financial deal. Blogs are one of the best ways to keep prospects engaged and warm. With a regular blog post -weekly or twice a month – you can convince them that your organization, along with its products and services is the right one for them. Over time, you can win them over with your expertise and experience, through blog posts. Best part? You don’t have to do this overtly, in an in-your-face manner!

Conclusion

Owning, managing, and operating a small business website today is no longer a trivial affair. It is time consuming, and requires expertise in visual design, user experience, technology and software programming, digital marketing, ad campaigns, SEO, and hosting just to name a few. It makes little sense for any business owner or small business website manager to get into the nitty gritty of website redesign or development. You would be well advised to focus on your core business and get someone to really do a great job so that you can laugh all the way to the bank! Call us for a free 30-minute consultation

Give us a call on 04402071014351, send us an email on enquiries@atulatech.com, or contact us on our website and we’ll be happy to provide you with a free consultation on building an elegant, world-class website that delivers results and lives up to its full potential. At Atulatech.com, we have enough experience to understand your exact needs and we can design a website solution tailored specifically for your success.