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Three uncommon on-page SEO analysis techniques (That move the needle) https://ift.tt/2HND8DB 30-second summary:
With so many on-page elements to optimize, knowing where to start and what to prioritize can seem impossible. But don’t worry, because we’re going to show you three unique on-page SEO analysis techniques, as well as the exact tools we use at Bubblegum Search, to make the entire process easy and effective in equal measures. Once you’ve got the insights and discoveries gained from these practical on-page analysis techniques, we’re confident you will earn higher engagement, increased rankings, and more conversions. Disclaimer before we get started, we’d just like to say that we’re not affiliated with any of the tools mentioned in this guide—they’re platforms we find helpful for on-page SEO analysis techniques and other great alternatives likely exist too. 1. Improved UX content and functionalityStudies show that just one dollar invested in user experience (UX) offers an average return on investment (ROI) of $100 ( that equates to an ROI rate of 9,900%). By making enhancements to the usability of your website pages, you will create a frictionless user experience. If you understand your users’ intent through analysis and research, you will ensure the messaging, design elements, and layout of your webpage provide an answer to a specific question. In doing so, you’ll simplify the user experience by guiding the visitor through their journey, helping them to achieve their goal. Let’s look at our example: To test specific performance and functionality-based elements of your web or landing pages, the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer is a powerful tool: By entering a specific URL and outlining your page’s target key terms, Unbounce’s intuitive algorithm will provide a report that offers an overall page score while drilling down into relevant UX-centric elements. In addition to page speed performance, content relevance, and trust & security ratings, Unbounce’s on-page analyzer tool offers a score on Message Match. When it comes to SEO, content really is king. If your on-page copy is rich, engaging, and fulfills its promise, you will increase your chances of ranking well for relevant search terms exponentially. As Unbounce quantifies all of these essential UX and performance-based elements, you can benefit from a clear-cut snapshot of the elements that are currently working well and what needs improvement. As you can see from the example, the overall page score of 78% suggests that the Bubblegum Search homepage is well optimized for UX and SEO. The report also shows that while trust and Message Match is at 100%, the page could benefit from improved conversion-centric design. In addition to these invaluable insights, Unbounce’s page report also provides a color-coded priority list of detailed actions to help optimize overall page performance. These data-driven insights are based on specific tactics and strategies you can use, designed to make your web pages more engaging, more functional, and as a result, optimized for improved SEO performance. 2. Multimedia and content enhancementNot only does inspiring, value-driven content drive engagement but it also helps in creating a healthy, SEO-boosting backlink profile. Compelling copy, eye-catching imagery, videos, and well-designed on-page multimedia content make powerful on-page SEO boosting assets. One of the most effective methods of analyzing the success of your on-page content, in terms of user engagement, is through heat mapping. Heatmaps are essentially interactive data visualization tools that provide practical insight into how your website visitors interact with your web page and the content contained within it. With heat mapping, you can learn about user intent and ultimately understand how to optimize your webpage content better for maximum SEO success. From the Mouseflow heatmap (screenshot above), you can gain a definitive snapshot of where users are focusing their attention, scrolling, and clicking when engaging with any of your pages. By focusing on click and scroll rates, you can see the percentage of visitors that drop off before ever seeing the curtain content lower down on the page. If the content further down the page earns a lot of clicks or attention but a low percentage of views, positioning this copy higher up the page, for example, will help offer more value, increase user satisfaction, and boost dwell time, enhancing the overall performance of the content as a result. When it comes to understanding the value and relevance of your on-page content, heat mapping is invaluable—and an Onpage SEO analysis technique worth your time and investment. 3. Mobile-first design optimizationWe live in a time where there are more smartphones on the planet than humans. To succeed in today’s world, adopting a mobile-first approach is essential—and if you fail to optimize your website’s content for tablets and smartphones, your SEO rankings will suffer. While many CMS’ like WordPress optimize your website content for the mobile experience relatively swiftly and simply, not every platform optimizes web pages for every screen size. And, by making sure that every aspect of your website is 100% optimized for mobile, you will boost your Mobile SEO rankings while driving more organic traffic to your website.
To understand the specific actions you must take to optimize your on-page content for mobile devices, analytical tools like Window Resizer (a Chrome extension that will help you get your screen resolutions just right) and WooRank will perform audits and provide data on the specific elements of your website that need changing to enhance your content, functionality, and user experience or fix existing errors, which include:
While an experienced web developer will carry out many of the responsive design-based improvements and fix any technical errors, by using mobile optimization analysis software, you can pinpoint any issues on mobile or tablet and work with them collaboratively to ensure the best possible outcome. BonusTo achieve complete mobile optimization success, check out our mobile SEO audit checklist. By exploring these on-page SEO analysis techniques, you will connect with actionable metrics, data, and insights that will make your online offerings more engaging, boosting your brand authority and improving your organic search rankings in the process. Invest in on-page SEO analysis techniques and you will remain relevant, adaptable, and visible in a digital landscape that is ever-changing. Don’t get left behind—the time to act is now. Do you have any practical Onpage SEO tips of your own? Please share them with us by leaving a comment below. Matt Cayless is an SEO Consultant at Bubblegum Search. He is an expert in Search Engine Optimisation having worked on campaigns for some of the world’s biggest brands and has a passion for helping SMEs grow online. When he’s not chasing the Google algorithm he can be found training for his next marathon. You can find him on Linkedin. The post Three uncommon on-page SEO analysis techniques (That move the needle) appeared first on Search Engine Watch. SEO via Search Engine Watch https://ift.tt/2jPJ80l October 1, 2020 at 05:12AM
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Three uncommon on-page SEO analysis techniques (That move the needle) https://ift.tt/2HND8DB 30-second summary:
With so many on-page elements to optimize, knowing where to start and what to prioritize can seem impossible. But don’t worry, because we’re going to show you three unique on-page SEO analysis techniques, as well as the exact tools we use at Bubblegum Search, to make the entire process easy and effective in equal measures. Once you’ve got the insights and discoveries gained from these practical on-page analysis techniques, we’re confident you will earn higher engagement, increased rankings, and more conversions. Disclaimer before we get started, we’d just like to say that we’re not affiliated with any of the tools mentioned in this guide—they’re platforms we find helpful for on-page SEO analysis techniques and other great alternatives likely exist too. 1. Improved UX content and functionalityStudies show that just one dollar invested in user experience (UX) offers an average return on investment (ROI) of $100 ( that equates to an ROI rate of 9,900%). By making enhancements to the usability of your website pages, you will create a frictionless user experience. If you understand your users’ intent through analysis and research, you will ensure the messaging, design elements, and layout of your webpage provide an answer to a specific question. In doing so, you’ll simplify the user experience by guiding the visitor through their journey, helping them to achieve their goal. Let’s look at our example: To test specific performance and functionality-based elements of your web or landing pages, the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer is a powerful tool: By entering a specific URL and outlining your page’s target key terms, Unbounce’s intuitive algorithm will provide a report that offers an overall page score while drilling down into relevant UX-centric elements. In addition to page speed performance, content relevance, and trust & security ratings, Unbounce’s on-page analyzer tool offers a score on Message Match. When it comes to SEO, content really is king. If your on-page copy is rich, engaging, and fulfills its promise, you will increase your chances of ranking well for relevant search terms exponentially. As Unbounce quantifies all of these essential UX and performance-based elements, you can benefit from a clear-cut snapshot of the elements that are currently working well and what needs improvement. As you can see from the example, the overall page score of 78% suggests that the Bubblegum Search homepage is well optimized for UX and SEO. The report also shows that while trust and Message Match is at 100%, the page could benefit from improved conversion-centric design. In addition to these invaluable insights, Unbounce’s page report also provides a color-coded priority list of detailed actions to help optimize overall page performance. These data-driven insights are based on specific tactics and strategies you can use, designed to make your web pages more engaging, more functional, and as a result, optimized for improved SEO performance. 2. Multimedia and content enhancementNot only does inspiring, value-driven content drive engagement but it also helps in creating a healthy, SEO-boosting backlink profile. Compelling copy, eye-catching imagery, videos, and well-designed on-page multimedia content make powerful on-page SEO boosting assets. One of the most effective methods of analyzing the success of your on-page content, in terms of user engagement, is through heat mapping. Heatmaps are essentially interactive data visualization tools that provide practical insight into how your website visitors interact with your web page and the content contained within it. With heat mapping, you can learn about user intent and ultimately understand how to optimize your webpage content better for maximum SEO success. From the Mouseflow heatmap (screenshot above), you can gain a definitive snapshot of where users are focusing their attention, scrolling, and clicking when engaging with any of your pages. By focusing on click and scroll rates, you can see the percentage of visitors that drop off before ever seeing the curtain content lower down on the page. If the content further down the page earns a lot of clicks or attention but a low percentage of views, positioning this copy higher up the page, for example, will help offer more value, increase user satisfaction, and boost dwell time, enhancing the overall performance of the content as a result. When it comes to understanding the value and relevance of your on-page content, heat mapping is invaluable—and an Onpage SEO analysis technique worth your time and investment. 3. Mobile-first design optimizationWe live in a time where there are more smartphones on the planet than humans. To succeed in today’s world, adopting a mobile-first approach is essential—and if you fail to optimize your website’s content for tablets and smartphones, your SEO rankings will suffer. While many CMS’ like WordPress optimize your website content for the mobile experience relatively swiftly and simply, not every platform optimizes web pages for every screen size. And, by making sure that every aspect of your website is 100% optimized for mobile, you will boost your Mobile SEO rankings while driving more organic traffic to your website.
To understand the specific actions you must take to optimize your on-page content for mobile devices, analytical tools like Window Resizer (a Chrome extension that will help you get your screen resolutions just right) and WooRank will perform audits and provide data on the specific elements of your website that need changing to enhance your content, functionality, and user experience or fix existing errors, which include:
While an experienced web developer will carry out many of the responsive design-based improvements and fix any technical errors, by using mobile optimization analysis software, you can pinpoint any issues on mobile or tablet and work with them collaboratively to ensure the best possible outcome. BonusTo achieve complete mobile optimization success, check out our mobile SEO audit checklist. By exploring these on-page SEO analysis techniques, you will connect with actionable metrics, data, and insights that will make your online offerings more engaging, boosting your brand authority and improving your organic search rankings in the process. Invest in on-page SEO analysis techniques and you will remain relevant, adaptable, and visible in a digital landscape that is ever-changing. Don’t get left behind—the time to act is now. Do you have any practical Onpage SEO tips of your own? Please share them with us by leaving a comment below. Matt Cayless is an SEO Consultant at Bubblegum Search. He is an expert in Search Engine Optimisation having worked on campaigns for some of the world’s biggest brands and has a passion for helping SMEs grow online. When he’s not chasing the Google algorithm he can be found training for his next marathon. You can find him on Linkedin. The post Three uncommon on-page SEO analysis techniques (That move the needle) appeared first on Search Engine Watch. SEO via SEO – Search Engine Watch https://ift.tt/2jPJ80l October 1, 2020 at 05:11AM
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Pivoting with SEO: How Wildgoose reinvented itself during the COVID-19 crisis https://ift.tt/34dyZjL 30-second summary:
Matt Finch, SEO Manager at Distinctly, provides insight on how the team worked with events company Wildgoose to pivot quickly in the face of the Covid-19 lockdown. Founded in 2003, Wildgoose is a global leader in corporate events and team building, winning numerous awards for the thousands of experiences it delivers across the world annually. When lockdown began, Wildgoose’s sales and pipeline took an immediate downturn, with a year on year drop in sales of 62% for the month of April. Operational costs were tightened along with evaluations of the marketing and tech spend, and Wildgoose was forced to downsize its workforce by over 50%. The company had to act quickly, having just launched a new website in anticipation of a record-breaking 2020. A swift decision was made to repurpose Wildgoose’s offering into a set of remote team building activities to connect people virtually. This pivot would ultimately prove not only to protect the company’s immediate future but to help it thrive, and was backed up by an SEO campaign from Distinctly with three-month areas of focus in place. What focus areas were targeted?
What was achieved?The move has led to an overall increase in organic traffic of 56% and a sales increase of 158%, since the company’s lowest point in April. In addition:
How it was done: Rethinking Wildgoose’s business modelWithin days of the main revenue drivers effectively disappearing, Wildgoose founder Jonny Edser and the team were working on a way to secure the future of the business. The solution they came up with meant they could not only reshape their existing offering but take advantage of the sudden upswing in demand for virtual communication during the lockdown. Jonny Edser says,
Using SEO for a successful launchBefore coronavirus, Wildgoose wasn’t ranking in the search results for any queries relating to “remote”, “virtual”, or “online”. With the business model shifting, search visibility needed to follow suit, so this needed to change as soon as possible. Wildgoose’s new products were one of the first to market, but they needed to be put in front of the right people. Matt Finch, SEO Manager at Distinctly, says,
Keyphrase and content optimizationPeople’s searching habits have changed since lockdown set in, so traditional keyword research has had to change with it. Instead:
Digital PR and link buildingWildgoose’s unusual experience of redesigning its business offering meant there were unique data and content that could be used in relevant publications to promote the new products. A survey into people’s experiences of remote working secured coverage and backlinks in over 40 HR and business publications, allowing links and authority to be built into the new product and category pages, aiding ranking chances. An effective internal linking structure was also utilized, meaning pre-existing powerful pages were funneling authority to the new pages to boost them further. MD Jonny Edser was promoted as an expert in the field of virtual team building, leading to features in Forbes, the Chartered Management Institute, and Thisismoney.co.uk. All of this combined to show Google that Wildgoose was leading the way in the field, and so deserved to rank highly for its new target keywords and queries. Turning Wildgoose’s fortunes aroundWildgoose is now firmly focussed on the future, with a renewed energy around product development and new gameplay formats. The company is streamlining its sales and operational processes and scaling its business model based on updated forecasts for the months ahead. Expect to see more traditional team building activities made virtual over the coming months. Matt Finch is SEO Manager at Distinctly, an award-winning search marketing agency. The post Pivoting with SEO: How Wildgoose reinvented itself during the COVID-19 crisis appeared first on Search Engine Watch. SEO via Search Engine Watch https://ift.tt/2jPJ80l October 1, 2020 at 05:05AM
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Pivoting with SEO: How Wildgoose reinvented itself during the COVID-19 crisis https://ift.tt/34dyZjL 30-second summary:
Matt Finch, SEO Manager at Distinctly, provides insight on how the team worked with events company Wildgoose to pivot quickly in the face of the Covid-19 lockdown. Founded in 2003, Wildgoose is a global leader in corporate events and team building, winning numerous awards for the thousands of experiences it delivers across the world annually. When lockdown began, Wildgoose’s sales and pipeline took an immediate downturn, with a year on year drop in sales of 62% for the month of April. Operational costs were tightened along with evaluations of the marketing and tech spend, and Wildgoose was forced to downsize its workforce by over 50%. The company had to act quickly, having just launched a new website in anticipation of a record-breaking 2020. A swift decision was made to repurpose Wildgoose’s offering into a set of remote team building activities to connect people virtually. This pivot would ultimately prove not only to protect the company’s immediate future but to help it thrive, and was backed up by an SEO campaign from Distinctly with three-month areas of focus in place. What focus areas were targeted?
What was achieved?The move has led to an overall increase in organic traffic of 56% and a sales increase of 158%, since the company’s lowest point in April. In addition:
How it was done: Rethinking Wildgoose’s business modelWithin days of the main revenue drivers effectively disappearing, Wildgoose founder Jonny Edser and the team were working on a way to secure the future of the business. The solution they came up with meant they could not only reshape their existing offering but take advantage of the sudden upswing in demand for virtual communication during the lockdown. Jonny Edser says,
Using SEO for a successful launchBefore coronavirus, Wildgoose wasn’t ranking in the search results for any queries relating to “remote”, “virtual”, or “online”. With the business model shifting, search visibility needed to follow suit, so this needed to change as soon as possible. Wildgoose’s new products were one of the first to market, but they needed to be put in front of the right people. Matt Finch, SEO Manager at Distinctly, says,
Keyphrase and content optimizationPeople’s searching habits have changed since lockdown set in, so traditional keyword research has had to change with it. Instead:
Digital PR and link buildingWildgoose’s unusual experience of redesigning its business offering meant there were unique data and content that could be used in relevant publications to promote the new products. A survey into people’s experiences of remote working secured coverage and backlinks in over 40 HR and business publications, allowing links and authority to be built into the new product and category pages, aiding ranking chances. An effective internal linking structure was also utilized, meaning pre-existing powerful pages were funneling authority to the new pages to boost them further. MD Jonny Edser was promoted as an expert in the field of virtual team building, leading to features in Forbes, the Chartered Management Institute, and Thisismoney.co.uk. All of this combined to show Google that Wildgoose was leading the way in the field, and so deserved to rank highly for its new target keywords and queries. Turning Wildgoose’s fortunes aroundWildgoose is now firmly focussed on the future, with a renewed energy around product development and new gameplay formats. The company is streamlining its sales and operational processes and scaling its business model based on updated forecasts for the months ahead. Expect to see more traditional team building activities made virtual over the coming months. Matt Finch is SEO Manager at Distinctly, an award-winning search marketing agency. The post Pivoting with SEO: How Wildgoose reinvented itself during the COVID-19 crisis appeared first on Search Engine Watch. SEO via SEO – Search Engine Watch https://ift.tt/2jPJ80l October 1, 2020 at 05:04AM
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New WordPress core team lead: Francesca Marano https://ift.tt/2SgUtGM I’m very excited to announce that Francesca Marano is joining team Yoast as our new WordPress core team lead. When we recently added two WordPress core contributors to our team, we hinted that we were looking for more people. We feel that to be in line with our core values of sharing and collaboration and making the web better, we need to do more. One of the roles we had to fill was for WordPress core team lead. The team is growing and it felt like the right time to hire a lead. Finding a lead for a team like this isn’t easy. You need someone who has experience leading people and projects. But you also need someone who knows WordPress like the back of her hand and can navigate all of its teams and intricacies with ease. When I realized we might able to hire Francesca I got very excited. She’s the perfect fit. We were on a call together and we quickly realized that we could (and probably will) talk for hours. But we also realized that we also should do this. What does Francesca have to say?In Francesca’s own words:
Francesca has spent the last few years at SiteGround, which is a company that we’re good friends with, so we wanted to make sure all was good with them. I’m happy to see they were supportive of her joining our ranks and want to thank them for that. Welcome Francesca!With that, please join me in welcoming Francesca Marano to team Yoast. Let’s have some fun together while working on a better web! The post New WordPress core team lead: Francesca Marano appeared first on Yoast. SEO via Yoast https://yoast.com October 1, 2020 at 04:44AM
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The cost of complexity: ClickZ’s advisory board discuss the latest trends in martech https://ift.tt/2GtnwEI 30-second summary:
Last week we met with the ClickZ advisory board to discuss the latest trends, pain points, and predictions in digital transformation. Advisory board members include key thought leaders positioned at the forefront of marketing, advertising, and technology. Key challenges for marketing leadersThere was unanimous consent among advisory board members about the tremendous shift that COVID has had on digital operations and consumer behavior. For example, ecommerce penetration rate grew from 16% to 27% over an eight-week period in 2020, versus growing six to 16% over a ten-year period prior to COVID. Source: Forbes “This indicates seismic changes in the way consumers purchase products,” explains one of our board members. “For example, the grocery category has exploded with platforms like Instacart, Walmart Shipped, Whole Foods Online, and of course Amazon.” The different platforms and technologies that facilitate online shopping for consumers are contributing to added confusion and complexity for retailers. Should they sell directly on their own website or set up shop on Amazon? Where should they advertise their products (Google, Amazon, Walmart, all three)? Another member commented, “In the midst of this explosion of retail media and the complexity of buying ads across many platforms, we’re seeing martech players emerge to try to address the confusion. We’re caught in the middle, trying to figure out how to leverage these platforms as they quickly iterate their various tools.” From a B2B perspective, there’s been a tremendous disruption in the way organizations operate internally, with a large part of the workforce shifting to working from home. In-person events, a key lead-generation and nurturing tool for B2B marketers, were canceled at a massive scale. “Some of the core channels that B2B marketers use to reach their audience evaporated overnight,” explained one board member. “There was a giant move to digital. Many businesses in industries like healthcare manufacturing and financial services pivoted to digital transformation much more rapidly than they’d planned.” Digital transformation leads to digital fatigueCOVID-19 is forcing the acceleration of digital transformation and this push is leading to digital fatigue. Online-only events like virtual summits are less effective than they were at the start of the pandemic, and they tend to cast a wider net in terms of leads in the funnel. Notes one executive, “We typically do thousands of events a year and now we’re doing zero. We cancelled our largest conference this year and we rebuilt an experience in ten weeks to engage customers digitally.” The technology that powers these events hasn’t caught up with the growing need to support large events in an engaging way. “From a technology perspective, the ability for platforms to enable engagement with thousands of customers or audience members just isn’t there, and I don’t think it will be for a long time,” explains the same executive. The move online is contributing to an existing trend within marketing technology that’s now critical—how do sales and marketing teams start aligning and working more effectively together, coordinating every activity that they do for maximum effect? That’s a problem that hasn’t been solved. The need to connect technology investments to business impact has grown during a time when budgets are tight, and the future is characterized by uncertainty. “There’s nothing that drives efficiency like a 40% budget cut,” said one member. “The dark side of attribution is credit—using attribution to prove the value of a specific marketing investment becomes toxic quickly because you’re trying to ascribe why something succeeded back to yourself or your initiative without really understanding its impact on business.” Another member concurred, emphasizing the data problem inherent with rapid digital transformation. “Over the last six months, as businesses invested more in reaching out through digital channels, they quickly realized that they had a data problem. They were using third-party or second-party data sources and weren’t integrating it, so they hit a wall and the data started to fall apart.” The advisory board members all agreed that data is a pain point connected to digital transformation, and technology is what will solve the problem of data. The questions then are: what technology and who is qualified to manage it? One shiny object to rule them allAs martech players emerge to address the shift to digital, companies are caught in the middle of an explosion of complexity, trying to figure out how best to leverage new technology with little time to plan. Regardless of their role or business sector, the experts we spoke cited data complexity as one of their biggest challenges. Among the issues they need to address are data unification, onboarding new tools and technology, and the complexities inherent in implementing changes within a large organization. “Underlying all of this are massive societal changes upending everything that we used to know about how things work,” explains one tech VP. “It’s important to stay laser focused on business impact and what is going to drive value, and not get distracted by shiny objects.” This last point introduced another challenge that businesses face around data—the issue of privacy. Companies have a lot of data about their customers. When they embark on the journey of unifying it under one platform, they must address ethical considerations related to privacy. Some of the shiny objects that marketing executives are drawn to involve AI and machine learning, for example, tools that monitor the text analytics inherent within social media. But not all AI is created equal and the leaders on our panel are tasked with discerning what tools can live up to their promise and which ones are just fluff. On the other end of the spectrum are large organizations with Chief Digital or Technology officers who have incorporated multiple martech platforms in their tech stack. “Many of my clients end up with a lot of big marketing costs, but the technology isn’t meeting their needs,” explained one of the advisory board members. “They might have Eloqua, Adobe Marketing Cloud, and Pardot and are thinking of incorporating HubSpot. But what they really need to do is step back and create a customer data model, so they can benefit from these technologies.” In short, there is no single platform or technology to rule them all—no shiny object that will fix the complexity introduced by the rapid onset of digital transformation. At least, not yet. The master of databasesDigital transformation begets data—customer data, purchase data, competitive data, sales data, marketing data and on and on. Wrangling not just the data, but the platforms inherent in collecting, storing, managing, and unifying this data takes expertise. That’s leading to both a trend and a pain point for marketing leaders across industry sectors and organizations. “Businesses need data savvy people that are sitting on the cutting edge of marketing technology,” explained a member. “We need people who understand data privacy, data sources, and ad tech, but finding these people is hard. They’re in high demand right now.” Overcoming the challenge can be difficult for large organizations who don’t have the technology infrastructure in place to manage large amounts of first-party and third-party data, stitching it together to form a complete picture of their customers. This is particularly true in retail. “Large retailers that operate across different geographic areas have many different levels of maturity on their marketing teams, depending on where they operate,” explained one executive. “It’s not only about finding new talent, it’s about learning how to make more decisions based on data-driven insights.” The cost of complexityComplexity costs money. Our advisory board emphasized a focus on simplification, on streamlining the essential pieces of digital transformation—data, platform integration, talent, and alignment of sales and marketing. Avoid shiny objects. Don’t buy tech just because someone says you need it and don’t expect one platform or piece of tech to solve all your problems. Understand the role of people in the process of digital transformation and get your team up to speed. Create a digital transformation/marketing transformation/data transformation strategy. Put someone in charge of it—a champion who understands data and how to connect the dots in a way that factors privacy into the equation. “Not only is your marketing mix scrambled,” says a member of the board, “But your talent needs to be adjusted as well. You’re not doing the same things you did in 2019 and you certainly won’t be doing the same things in 2021 that you did in 2020. This is a year of transition. It’s the year where marketing transformation has been accelerated by at least five years or more.” The post The cost of complexity: ClickZ’s advisory board discuss the latest trends in martech appeared first on ClickZ. SEO via ClickZ https://www.clickz.com October 1, 2020 at 04:14AM
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The importance of customer engagement in a digital-first environment https://ift.tt/3cNIHNI 30-second summary:
The pandemic forced many businesses to innovate quickly, placing a heavy burden on digital channels as consumer behavior shifted. The following chart by McKinsey uses data from late April 2020 to demonstrate how US consumers’ are accelerating the adoption of digital channels, though this trend is global. Source: McKinsey The shift to digital adoption spans all categories of consumer goods and services, and all areas of business, as many employees have shifted to remote working and are using digital platforms to do nearly everything – including day-to-day communications, event management, teaching and training, and servicing customers. A strong digital backbone has quickly become essential for corporate survival, with the leaders leveraging machine learning to drive the new digital experience. Content created in partnership with Pega. Personalized customer engagementPersonalized customer engagement has been thrust to the forefront of digital transformation initiatives out of necessity. But customers have come to expect a high level of personalization and consistency across all touchpoints. This is particularly true in the digital realm, where behemoths like Google and Amazon have set the bar extremely high when it comes to delivering top notch customer service. Pega understands the importance of one-to-one customer engagement. Their platform integrates customer analytics and decision-making in real time, using AI to evaluate the context of each customer interaction as it’s happening – then recommending the next best action for that customer, at that moment. Pega is hosting an online summit to discuss how some of their partners, including Vodafone, one of the largest telecommunications providers in the world are embracing the new digital experience. Writes Pega, “At this interactive summit, you’ll learn how enterprises are using real-time technologies to centralize their analytics and make personalized, one-to-one decisions for every customer, at every touchpoint. You’ll see how organizations are unifying data, analytics, and channels into a single connected customer experience – leading to hundreds of millions in new customer value, every year.” Best practices for digital customer engagementAs noted above, consumers have high expectations from companies who engage with them over digital channels. These expectations are the driving force behind best practices for digital customer experience. Here are a few examples of best practices that should be implemented when connecting with customers online:
Pega’s Summit addresses this best practice in a session titled, Designing a Real-Time, One-to-One Experience with Pega Customer Decision Hub. Writes Pega, “In this session, we’ll showcase how real-world teams use Pega Customer Decision Hub to centralize their analytics, activate contextual data, and make billions of real-time decisions each day.” The demonstration will feature recently released capabilities such as Pega’s Value Finder, where the AI identifies and profiles dis-engaged customers, then recommends a strategy to build new offers and messages that are more relevant for their specific needs. Spotlight talksInspiration comes in many forms. That’s the impetus behind Pega’s Spotlight Talks with thought leaders at Accenture, Ernst & Young, Infosys, and Capgemini—companies that help clients engage their own customer base in real-time, through the use of Pega’s Customer Decision Hub Platform. The talks address each organization is implementing technology to meet a variety of customer engagement and customer experience challenges across the digital landscape. These include:
The virtual summit, Pega Discover: One-to-one Customer Engagement Online Summit, is free and takes place on October 7th, 2020. Visit here for more details about the event, or to register. The post The importance of customer engagement in a digital-first environment appeared first on ClickZ. SEO via ClickZ https://www.clickz.com October 1, 2020 at 04:06AM Choosing subscription software that’s right for your business https://ift.tt/3l1FwER 30-second summary:
There are dozens of software options that allow companies – from the tiniest startup to the largest enterprise – to add on, or convert sales to, a subscription model. However, the process for choosing the software, and implementing it, is more complex than many anticipate. In fact, many companies go about it in entirely the wrong way. Often, the decision to begin offering subscription sales triggers an RFP (request for proposal) for software vendors, or for smaller companies – research and direct outreach to vendors. Unfortunately, in the face of urgency many companies miss the crucial need to step back and map the broader ecosystem, connecting where they are now to where they need to be. So, instead of a smooth journey, they end up with costly detours that take them down the wrong path, wasting time and money. Before you can identify what tools will get you to where you want to be, you need a clear understanding of your requirements, how the software you chose communicates with and compliments the software you already have, and most importantly the business processes that will need to be rearchitected to ensure the success of your implementation. The process becomes more complicated the larger the company is and depending on what goods or services the company sells. Small start-up, small problemsFor a small start-up company selling subscription goods or services, you might find a simple solution comes ready made from the payment gateway – the provider who processes your credit card payments. These can be as cheap as no cash upfront and a percentage of your sales. Some examples to look at are:
There are other gateway providers too, but you get the idea. Choose one that offers the most functionality and charges the lowest transaction cost. Make sure you confirm currency support, card type support and other features like account updaters and retry logic. In terms of complexity, this is a quick trip to the shop. They are not complicated to enable and you are unlikely to make a costly mistake that you can’t get out of relatively simply. Later on, as sales grow, you will likely want to re-evaluate your system. Beyond start upsFor a growing small-or medium-sized business, the next level up are low-cost subscription billing vendors. They are limited in terms of the charge models they can support but are much cheaper than the enterprise class applications. They have lightweight customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force automation (SFA) capabilities but are not at all a replacement for a true CRM application like Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics, which most large businesses use. The most common of these software packages are pretty similar to one another. They each have some strengths and weaknesses or are known for a specific industry focus. Those packages are as follows: These vendors are tuned for low complexity but high-volume consumer subscription models. Pricing is usually fairly transparent on their websites but there will also be some setup costs and additional costs. In terms of the voyage, think of these as a day trip down the coast. You don’t need to do much more than think through the basic preparation such as: Which is best suited for your sector? Which price point suits your business? Which one provides other capabilities that you aren’t currently paying for? All of these software packages are fairly easy to set up and might not even require outside help to enable – something that is in stark contrast with the software used for the largest businesses. Nonetheless, selecting a software package means you need to think ahead. If you are growing rapidly, or have increasingly complex needs, you might want to take time now to think about how your software decision will impact growth. Enterprise subscription managementMedium-to-large businesses are the category where planning and forethought is absolutely essential. The stakes are high because the cost for getting it wrong can be punishing – lost sales, high costs of manual processing cutting into profit and redundant features that you are paying double for, just to name a few. So, think of this as that once-in-a-lifetime trip, where every detour or unplanned mishap can delay your arrival or ruin your entire trip. Where are you headed? How long will you stay and how will you support yourself? When you get there, what will you do and will it be what you wanted? Whether your company is small or large, your first inclination might be to consider whether Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) can meet your needs. Unfortunately, more often than not, the answer will be – No – ERP is not the right solution to solve your subscription billing issues. The reasoning starts with the legacy of ERP applications being designed and built to handle the planning, fulfillment and billing of physical goods. This design has worked exceedingly well for the last 30 years or so and has led to a clear delineation between the front and the back office. However, subscription models break this wall between the front and the back office and ERP applications have been slow to respond. Some ERP applications, including SAP, Oracle, Oracle NetSuite and Sage Intacct have introduced subscription management capabilities, but they still have issues because the actual management of the subscription (upgrades, add-ons, etc.) happens in your CRM tool – often making ERP tools built to manage subscription irrelevant. That is not to say ERP will never be the right application to manage your subscriptions, but you should do significant investigation prior to attempting this route. The software needed by large companies has many features and typically has the ability to integrate with the rest of your systems — CRM, ERP, and ecommerce packages. Your subscription management package should have the ability to scale and handle high daily transaction volume. Setting up these systems is complex and typically expensive. If you are looking at these applications you need to ensure you know how you are going to support the implementation – either with an outside firm or with internal staff – or you could end up paying for a large failed implementation. These software systems can be broken into two categories, those that work with Salesforce for subscription and usage billing and those that are vendor agnostic and focus on more complex pricing and rating information for high-volume usage: Salesforce focused Subscription and Usage Billing
Complex pricing and rating focused on high volume usage
Your team should have a very good idea of what is needed before even starting a conversation with one of these vendors. In fact, we always advocate a “vendor agnostic” approach – where the end game is not which car you drive but where you want to go. Issues you should consider include how and where these systems connect with your existing CRM and ERP systems and how the sales, marketing and finance teams will use these packages to grow revenues. Any software expense that creates lots of manual work because it doesn’t communicate or interchange well with your CRM or ERP is wasted money. Special considerations for sales and marketing teamsSelling subscription-based goods and services is very different from traditional one-off sales. Instead of focusing on net new accounts, subscription sales are driven by customer lifetime value. In a subscription model closing an initial deal is often quicker as initial license values are comparatively small and have a lot of opportunity to grow the value of the customer. Teams will be looking to sell add-ons and upgrades. To do that, they will need constant and accurate information about what the customers have and what they are using. So, you really need to ensure your strategy provides the most robust and up-to-date customer install base and usage information possible so you can build successful account based marketing plans. Most enterprises already use either Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics. Salesforce has done a good job of creating a subscription management system that coordinates well with its CRM software so you should start with Salesforce CPQ & Billing if you are already on Salesforce. The major ERP vendors have packages but too often they don’t include tools to manage the subscription in your chosen CRM and often don’t integrate well. Planning for a great resultFor the largest companies, the success of your recurring revenue journey will depend on the quality of your three-to-five year technology and business architecture plans. Your plan needs to be solid enough to guide you and flexible enough to get to your final destination if the market changes dramatically. Always start with getting an understanding of what your CRM and ERP technology anchors can do as they will be part of the solution regardless of what you use to manage subscriptions, calculate invoices and optimize collections. Start with ensuring your sales process is structured to lead to automated downstream billing and revenue recognition. You can’t automate a process that has no structure up front. And lastly, always start with looking at the simplest solutions and investigate what the vendors you already work with for CRM and ERP have available to solve your subscription management challenge. With the proper time and energy dedicated to front end planning, a large company should be able to deploy new software within a relatively painless timeline. While it’s difficult to offer an estimated budget required to implement these tools, given various dependencies, I can say that the better your plan, the lower the long-term cost. Last, remember that while it’s important to know the differences between these software packages, it shouldn’t be your starting point. Start with your end goals and map the technology and process optimizations that will get you there. The post Choosing subscription software that’s right for your business appeared first on ClickZ. SEO via ClickZ https://www.clickz.com October 1, 2020 at 03:59AM |
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