Vodafone Idea Limited is an Aditya Birla Group and Vodafone Group partnership. It is India’s leading telecom service provider. The Company provides pan India Voice and Data services across 2G, 3G and 4G platform.
About The Brand
The strategy to drive conversions into subscriptions was to ensure that we were targeting audiences who were most likely to convert.
Vodfone India
Decoding The Brief
Drive Vodafone Post Paid Subscriptions
Challenges
We had to ensure that the Conversion from Form Fills to Subscription was greater than 10%
Our Approach
Strategy :
The strategy to drive conversions into subscriptions was to ensure that we were targeting audiences who were most likely to convert.
Execution :
The campaign was delivered via affiliate partners and a host of proprietary databases via the LeadDigital platform, we used HasOffers and Trackier to ensure that we were optimising outcomes.
Results
15+ MILLION DIGITAL IMPRESSIONS
The campaign delivered 15 Million + digital impressions In 60 Days
7000 + LEAD FORM FILLS
We were able to drive over 7K Sign ups on the landing page
20% CONVERSION
We were able to drive 20% conversions from visits to contactable leads on the landing page
700 + MONTHLY ACTIVATIONS
We were able to drive 700+ verified activations on a monthly basis
Best waterproofing services and products – Dr Fixit is a leading waterproofing expert assuring the right solutions for leak-free homes. Dr Fixit provides you with a clear 5-point waterproofing solution.
About The Brand
Best waterproofing services and products – Dr Fixit is a leading waterproofing expert assuring the right solutions for leak-free homes. Dr Fixit provides you with a clear 5-point waterproofing solution.
DR. FIXIT
Decoding The Brief
Drive Leads To The Dr. Fixit Landing Page
Challenges
We had to ensure that the Conversion from Form Fills to contactable leads was greater than 70%
Our Approach
Strategy :
The strategy to drive conversions into genuine leads was to ensure that we were targeting audiences who were most likely to convert.
Execution :
The campaign was delivered via affiliate partners and a host of proprietary databases via the LeadDigital platform, we used Trackier to ensure that we were optimising outcomes.
Results
43+ MILLION DIGITAL IMPRESSIONS
The campaign delivered 43 Million + digital impressions In 60 Days
5000 + LEAD FORM FILLS
We were able to drive over 5K Sign ups on the landing page
70% CONVERSION
We were able to drive 70% conversions from visits to contactable leads on the landing page
500 + MONTHLY LEADS
We were able to drive 500+ verified leads on a monthly basis
Clorox is a leading multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products with about 8,100 employees worldwide. Clorox markets some of the most trusted and recognised consumer brand names, including its namesake bleach and cleaning products.
About The Brand
Clorox markets some of the most trusted and recognised consumer brand names, including its namesake bleach and cleaning products.
CLOROX IDNIA
Decoding The Brief
To drive awareness and brand salience among relevant audiences, To get our TG to consider our solutions by creating meaningful content in environments of intent, To drive traffic to e-commerce distribution points
Challenges
while is a leading multinational manufacturer and marketer of consumer and professional products with about 8,100 employees worldwide, they are still testing waters in India and not too many people are aware of the brand
Our Approach
Strategy :
TG : Age : 25+ Gender : F Cities : Metro & Tier 1 Interests : Health, Food, Travel. We Had to ensure that our creatives were being served to a set of audiences that were most likely to consider Clorox products.
Execution :
We promoted ads across facebook, the google display network and google search. traffic was being driven to their store front on big basket.
Results
100K + CLICKS
The campaign delivered 100K clicks In 60 Days
1.7% AVG. CAMPAIGN CTR’S
We were able to optimise campaign CTR’s by reaching out to relevant audiences
5.9 MILLION IMPRESSIONS
5.9 Million Impressions Served Across Google & Facebook
2X COST EFFECTIVENESS
Reduced 53% on the average cost per click during the activity.
The moods condoms are a favourite among the old and the youth too owing to the different variety of flavoured and textures that take your partner excitement to the best and next level. Such as dotted, ribbed, ultra thin with the variety like melange, blaze, absolute xtasy, cool and all night condoms.
About The Brand
The moods condoms are a favourite among the old and the youth too owing to the different variety of flavoured and textures that take your partner excitement to the best and next level. Such as dotted, ribbed, ultra thin with the variety like melange, blaze, absolute xtasy, cool and all night condoms.
Hindustan Latex Limited
Decoding The Brief
The campaign aimed at reaching out to their target group and encouraging them to buy condoms and other products via their e-commerce website.
Challenges
Condoms are an impulse lead purchase decision generally, we had to change the behaviour of users at large, and drive sales online.
Our Approach
Strategy :
Our strategy was performance lead, we were talking about the unique selling proposition and product bundles which were not otherwise available
Execution :
The campaign aimed at reaching out to their target group and encouraging them to buy condoms and other products via their e-commerce website. were present across platforms and also partnered with affiliate’s to push online transactions
Results
25K MONTHLY TRANSACTIONS
Delivered over 25K Online transactions Month on Month.
AOV LIFT 450%
Drove a staggering lift of 450% in terms of the AOV
INCREASE IN REVENUES
We were instrumental in ensuring that there was a spike in revenues from ecommerce transactions
DECREASE IN RETURN RATIO
Our campaign resulted in a decrease by over 40% in returns
2020 has seen a great boom in the use of chatbots across the industrial sector. Chatbots are full of advantages to provide undeniable experience for customer services. So, conversational AI is an integral part of business practices across all industries.
The role of chatbots is not limited to customer services only. Although they are recommended for customer support. Conversational Bots are helpful to promote marketing and sales activities.
Since chatbots are a small application of conversational AI. Conversational Intelligence has a much wider scope. It compiles the trending technologies and utilizing the mix for variant purposes. Artificial Intelligence has captured a significant share in conversational marketing.
“What” & “Why” paves a path towards the Conversational AI trends for 2021. And, also, to the reason why it is a priority for the major section of the industry.
What Is Conversational AI?
The set of technologies that help simulate the conversational environment is coined as conversational AI. These sets of instructions are used in conjunction with Virtual agents like bots to make them capable of understanding the intent and tone of the words framed together into a sentence and then process a response to the text or voice message and reply in natural ways. Therefore, Conversational AI accommodates the interaction between peoples and complex systems.
Why Conversational AI Is In-Demand?
The systems and processes are getting more complex. Because of the increasing technical demands in the industry. And it gets difficult for the non-technical users to navigate through the complex problems without any expert help. The use of chatbots at the forefront eases the movement of the user when surfing or shopping online. It is a step ahead towards betterment. Customer experience is the priority for the industries now. Hence, the customer experience will be simpler and more intuitive. (Only by replacing the traditional UIs with the conversational dialog boxes).
Why Conversational AI Becomes A Priority In 2021?
1. Manages Dialog Turns & Twists
A normal human conversation is full of uncertainties. Each dialog in conversation is capable of changing the flow of conversation further. Understanding these turning points is the major goal of inducing Natural Language Processing techniques into AI applications. Hence, the Conversational AI concept manages instant pauses, rollbacks, or repetitive conversations. It also provides a fluent hassle-free experience to the users.
2. Context Management
Since we are talking of bots, we can’t be sure that the bot you chatted with a month ago still remembers the highlights. Neither we can be sure it will continue the conversation from the same endpoint. But Conversational AI knows that every conversation has some context involved. And it is also aware that context levies the importance of information. Conversational AI holds the context from past conversations. Because of this, it can resume the conversation from the same endpoint. For example, user information, preferences, queries, etc.
3. Sentiment Analysis
Conversational AI makes bots capable of analyzing the emotion and tone of the conversation by breaking down the sentences/phrases into singular words. Each word or utterance is then further analyzed considering the key triggers, connotations, and placement in the sentence. You can count them as individual metrics that combined together to define the type and intensity of the emotion conveyed through the conversation.
4. Multilingual Support
Conversational AI supports almost every language. Hence, contributing to your business growth by giving you access to understand the intent of individuals across the globe. Online stores can integrate a chatbot that provides multiple language support without any translator. Read more
5. Rapid Industry Adoption
The introduction of chatbots in the commercial industry has captured every sector from marketing promotions to customer support. Automating business processes in certain sectors allows the marketers and owners to focus on the more critical issues that can’t be taken care of under bots for now at least. With Conversational AI, bots are one step ahead of the artificially intelligent earth.
6. Behavioral Analytics For Bots
Chatbots employed by the industries have fetched them huge user data, performance, and/or other metadata. But, if data is not providing any information, it is useless. Hence deciphering the information contained in the data and delivering significant insights is what is required. And Conversational AI is capable of doing so. Conversational AI-based analytics provides a visual representation of the user journey via plotting the flow of dialog in the conversation between the user and the bot. These flows define user behavior. Further, it can also determine the intention of the user.
7. Machine to Machine Conversations
We can’t skip IoT since we’re talking about intelligent technology behind the smart devices. Internet of Things or IoT enables the machine to machine conversation by creating a data-sharing network. Conversational AI plays a vital role in deciphering the information shared between machines. And vital information shared with the man via conversation too. In other words, Conversational AI is the mediator. It supports the conversation between the man and machines without any manual help.
8. Voice Assistants
Conversational AI caters to resolve the communication hindrances too. Voice assistants are the chatbot capable of conversing with the human. Rather by talking instead of typing long sentences. Amazon Echo, Google Home, etc. are the real-existing examples of voice assistants. Hence, supporting the hands-free conversation.
Summing Up!
The use and trends of Chatbots use cases have been widely embraced in 2020. And there is no doubt that it will proliferate in 2021 as well. Since the use of chatbots is not restricted to any particular sector or industry type. Any enterprise can enjoy this technology.
Analytics Insight has listed top 10 chatbots to watch out for in 2021
Companies are trying every possible way to meet customers’ expectation. Yet another way that enhances their relationship with customers is coming up with chatbot, a software that’s capable of carrying out conversations with the customers. What better than being addressed to your issue at any instant of time? Right from responding to your queries to offering you the best, chatbots have got you covered. Chatbots are employed to improve customer engagement and reduce customer support expenses as well. They are an excellent way to automate most of the customer interactions. If you’ve been hunting for the best chatbots then have your task is done for you’ve landed at the right place. Read on to know which the best chatbots are and what is so unique about each one of them.
10 Best Chatbots to look for in 2021
Who wouldn’t want to improve customer engagement to boost up sales? Now that we are well aware of the fact that chatbots aid in improving customer interaction, learning about the best platforms does make every possible sense. Here’s a list of 10 best chatbots of 2021.
• Acquire: Acquire is an AI-powered chatbot. This works round the clock and aims to solve all the customer queries. There are some questions that are most frequently asked. It is here that Acquire comes into play. It answers these queries of the users. Since, the most commonly asked queries are addressed by the bots, the agents can now handle other complex questions. This is a no nonsense chatbot. All that you’ve to do is decide your goals, purpose of the chatbot, and then set up a custom workflow.
• OMQ chatbot: OMQ chatbot is a self-learning AI-powered chatbot platform. The main purpose of designing this is to reduce the workload of the agents who deal with customers on a regular basis. OMQ chatbot is linked to the central knowledge base. It is capable enough of understanding the query or issue of the customer and responding with the most suitable answer. If it finds the issue to be too complex to handle, it directs the same to an agent.
• Netomi: This chatbot aims to deliver the highest accuracy due to its advanced Natural Language Understanding (NLU) engine. This platform boasts of an out-of-the-box integration with most of the leading agent desk platforms. This is available in a variety of languages and supports analytics and real time reporting as well.
• Watson Assistant: This chatbot, developed by IBM, makes into the list of the most advanced AI-powered chatbots in the market. Watson Assistant holds the potential to keep a track of the users’ historical chat or call logs. If it is not able to address the issue at its best, it can ask the customers for more clarity and also direct them to human representatives, if necessary.
• Ada: Ada is yet another AI-powered chatbot that’s ruling the market. It comes with a drag-and-drop feature. This chatbot platform allows the users to add GIFs to certain messages, and the companies can make the best of their customer data. Ada holds the potential to send personalized content to the customers and also ask for customer feedback. Using this feedback, the companies can work better.
• ChatterOn: It is one of those AI-powered chatbots using which one can create Facebook Messenger chatbots without coding. Hence, this is no less than a saviour for non-technical users. This bot is self-learning thereby making it agile and adaptable.
• Aivo: This is one of those excellent platforms that enables you to communicate with your customers in real-time via text or voice. It is flexible enough to the extent that it can adapt itself to the rules. It promises to deliver a seamless and a high-quality experience.
• Rulai: Ruali is an AI-powered chatbot for enterprise brands. It has several advantages – it is capable of predicting the behaviour of the users, can understand the context of a conversation, know what the preferences of the customers are, can take actions accordingly. If it is not clear with something then it can also ask customers for more clarification.
• Sequel: This chatbot platform has a range of chatbot templates to offer. One can customize the template as well using the drag and drop interface. It is built on NLP and engages the users in a great manner.
• Botsify: It is a Facebook chatbot platform. It caters to integrating other chatbots into your system. The best part of this is that it is apt for non-technical users. Additionally, its basic version is available for free. The only drawback is that it cannot handle multiple entities to be correlated with one phrase.
All in all, Chatbots are an added advantage for your company. The right chatbot can save your time, money, and help you make better decisions.
Yes, it’s that time of the year again. The time when we close the balance for the current year and start planning for the next one. Can you imagine 2021 marketing without automation? No one can! But this doesn’t mean that we don’t need to be prepared for what the future holds in store for 2021.
So let’s take a close look at the top marketing automation predictions for 2021. There has been enough uncertainty this year to warrant extra attention to being prepared in the next one, don’t you think?
In fact, the uncertainty that shrouded most of 2020 lays the foundation for what will happen in marketing automation in 2021. With most businesses going fully digital or moving most of their operations online, the need for marketing automation software has increased exponentially.
And this is not something that will change too soon.
Marketing Automation Predictions for 2021
Digital marketing was largely viewed as a must-have strategy by most marketers even before the pandemic. Seventy-eight percentof marketers believe that digital marketing was the key to their marketing efforts successful.
People turned to their devices with studies showing that device usage leaped by 16 percent in a single day in the US! Everyone is online (still!) so there has never been a better time to polish your marketing automation strategy.
Video marketing is not a new concept — it stuck around because it works. Everyone loves watching a relevant, entertaining video.
Statistics show that 85 percent of internet users watch video content and it is estimated that the average person will be spending 100 minutes a day watching online videos in 2021.
They are easy to follow and when done right, educational too. There are several video types that you can use to reach your targeted market. For instance, some people have turned to vlog to reach their audience.
Recorded or live Q&As are also extremely popular and will continue to be this way. These are great for interacting with your audience. Q&As are more informative and don’t seem like sales so you can attract people to your business easily.
Ninety-three percent of companies say that their video content helped them to get new customers, with 63 percent of businesses saying that they get the best ROIs through their videos.
One of the best things about video marketing is that, even though you can’t automate production, you can definitely automate its distribution. There are dozens of social media management tools to help you distribute your video content automatically. Just schedule the post and go on with your day.
The same goes for sharing your video content with your email subscribers. Schedule a campaign in your favorite automation tool and go back to your dashboard to see how it performed.
Pro tip: leverage marketing automation for a video like a pro. Schedule your most important videos to be published at different times on different days. Why? Organic reach on social media is low, so posting a video just once means that you’ll only reach a small fraction of your audience. Play with different times of the day to catch bigger chunks of your fan base, especially if you cater to an international audience, in multiple time zones.
Remember, when we all used to rely on a clear customer journey: awareness, consideration, decision. That’s it! Start creating content and campaigns for each stage.
Well, not anymore. Today’s customer journey is complex and unpredictable. Sometimes, they will narrow down their search to a single brand only to expand it again minutes later.
With more time to spend online researching options, consumers are becoming more and more aware that they are in charge of the process and that they don’t have to give in to remarketing ads or persistent email campaigns.
What can you do?
Automate, but smartly.
Invest in marketing automation software that allows you to have a 360-degree view of the customer’s behavior and cross-reference reports. Integration is your best friend here: integrating your CRM with your marketing automation tool (for instance, Salesforce with Mailchimp), you can send hyper-targeted and relevant messages to your contacts.
Marketing automation in 2021 has to respond to the customers’ demands: less generic campaigns, more personalization, and more relevance.
It feels like email marketing has been around since the beginning of time. But just because it’s rather old, it doesn’t mean it’s any less significant.
Marketing automation has taken an email to the next level.
Email marketing has progressed over the years and it has now become more personalized and tailored to every recipient’s needs. Nowadays, it has all been hyper-simplified. All you need is your email address, and the rest can happen on auto-pilot.
Email marketing automation will also get a significant upgrade in 2021. Forget about siloed marketing tactics and integrate email with your business goals in 2021 and beyond.
How can that happen?
When you integrate your email platform with your CRM or ESP, you get a birds-eye-view of your customer’s profile. This means that you can (and should!) set automated campaigns for:
Thank you notes after purchases
Recipient’s birthday
Reminders for clients who usually purchase things at regular intervals (for instance: “Hey, it’s time to refill your cat food bag”)
Very specific segments: import data from your CRM into your email marketing platform to know, for instance, who will attend what class in your gym. Then proceed to send automated emails to those people alone.
4. AI (Artificial Intelligence) Use on the Rise
No, this is not about the kind of artificial intelligence you see in movies. This breed of AI is specifically made for businesses. It is meant to make processes and operations easier.
Let’s look at two kinds of marketing automation AI. Despite the low uptake of AI in business over the years, 2021 will most likely see a spike in usage.
Most of the behavior patterns that consumers follow when looking to make a purchase, like asking friends and family for referrals, checking out reviews, or online researching, have made their way into the business world. A lot of research is done before the potential buyer goes to your site.
Conversational AI is here to help with that. It is an artificial intelligence technology that powers chatbots to respond to inputs.
In short, this technology looks for a way to narrow down where a potential buyer is in their buying process and what are the next steps they should take. This can be done by asking questions to website visitors while they are still on your site, for instance.
AI makes it easy for a customer to navigate through your website, making it easy for them to get what they are looking for instead of wasting their time going through everything.
It also shortens the sales cycle and leaves your website visitors more fulfilled. In short, AI (in marketing automation) can improve your chat conversion rates significantly.
Email marketing also uses artificial intelligence to make email tasks easier. Email service providers offer AI-based tools that you can easily adjust to make it specific to your brand’s needs.
If your goal is to increase your click rate and conversion rate for your campaigns, 2021 is the year when you should consider AI for email. It is going to help you organize your campaigns by making it possible to send specific emails to the recipients who need them.
Artificial intelligence can create algorithms that optimize content according to the price, relevance, display order, etc., and send it to each subscriber catering to their needs.
AI for email considers a subscriber’s behavior on your website, looking at how they respond to messages, their social media activities, and purchase histories, among other factors to know where their interests lie.
Once it has narrowed down a subscriber’s interest, AI now filters these interests to find the one email that will fit the customer’s needs. It then proceeds to send it to them.
When people receive offers they are interested in, it creates better customer engagement and increases sales for your company. Email AI is still evolving and increasingly becoming easier to use, even for small businesses. This is the kind of marketing automation prediction for 2021 that you can use to grow your business starting right now.
5. Better Personalization Fueled by Marketing Automation
Yes, personalization takes center stage in 2021 and beyond. But personalization without marketing automation is a nightmare. Can you imagine emailing everyone in your list separately, so you can add personalized information in each email?
It’s OK, you don’t even have to go there. Marketing automation can do this for you. And, in 2021, it goes beyond adding the recipient’s name.
New developments in marketing automation will allow you to deliver hyper-personalized messages across channels. In fact, this will be the norm starting with next year.
Picture this: you have a loyal customer who follows you on two social networks and orders from you regularly. They sometimes also use your website chat or call your support department. How do you which channel works best when you try to reach them?
Marketing automation will take that off your plate. Coupled with AI and cross-dashboard views, you will be able to know which is their favorite channel and send personalized, automated messages.
6. Integration Is no Longer “Nice to Have”. It’s a Must.
Integration helps bring together different facets of your business to work as one efficient tool. It’s not just sales and marketing that will live prosperously under the same “roof” (read: dashboard). It’s also accounting, IT, operations, customer support, and more. Pretty much everything that counts towards your business goals can be brought together in a single dashboard using iPaaS or integration services.
Come 2021, SaaS and iPaaS will become increasingly popular for obvious reasons. These tried-and-tested solutions will enable industries affected by the crisis to transit effortlessly and seamlessly into the new normal.
Integration is a crucial marketing automation prediction for 2021 because it marks the end of siloed business operations and the beginning of seamless transitions between departments and channels.
As iPaaS services evolve, they bring easy-to-use interfaces that come with a plethora of benefits for both the companies using them and for their customers.
7. Offline Conversion Tracking
While acknowledging that almost everything is turning digital, let’s not forget that brick-and-mortar stores will continue to exist. Only they will have an online presence, too.
But in the era of seamless communication across channels, you can’t afford to keep the two separate. This is where offline conversion tracking comes in.
To achieve this, some companies have been using promotional codes, coupons, sensors, and other means to translate digital marketing and in-store foot traffic into sales.
Google uses features like geo-targeting to show potential customers and uses product searches to determine conversion rates. Facebook uses data from customers with location services to show local store advertisements.
Marketing automation tools can now give you combined insights from all your customer touchpoints. Neatly grouped in a single dashboard, they will fuel your growth through data-driven campaigns.
Conclusion
With the new changes looming on the corner, a lot has to be changed for businesses to perform well in the coming year. The above marketing automation predictions for 2021 are just some of the ways to ensure your business thrives.
Investing in the right marketing automation now will mean you have a leg up before the next business year begins.
Take your time and evaluate your options and marketing efforts. Find better and more efficient ways to interact with your customers so that you can cater to their needs. Digital marketing is an ever-changing field and you need to adapt with time using the right strategy and tools.
While marketing automation is great, it’s not everything you need. The human touch is also important, perhaps more important than ever. Even if you can automate every email and social media campaign, remember to always humanize them. A hand-written thank-you note sent along with the order can turn a first-time buyer into a loyal customer for life.
Remember that catering to customers’ needs means understanding them first. So take the time to do that. Analytics reports in marketing automation get more refined every year, so you have the perfect opportunity to dig deep into customers’ behavior and adjust your strategy according to it.
While some businesses employ both mobile websites and apps, other companies might have to choose one of them. The choice between mobile apps and websites depends on their cost, usability, required features, and the audience they serve.
That being said, studies show that users prefer mobile apps more than mobile websites. This makes for a strong reason to create mobile apps for reaching out to potential (and existing) customers.
In addition, there are various other reasons that make mobile apps better than mobile websites.
Following is our list of the top 10:
#1 Mobile apps offer better personalization
Personalization is about offering tailored communication to users based on their interests, location, usage behavior, and more.
With mobile apps, it’s easy to treat users with a personalized experience. Using a mobile app A/B testing tool, you can also test out different experiences for your customers.
Mobile apps can let users set up their preferences at the start, based on which users can be served with customized content. Apps can also track and observe customer engagement, and use it to offer custom recommendations and updates to the users. Furthermore, they can also identify the location of the users in real-time to provide geography-specific content.
However, improving user experience is not the only purpose that personalization serves. It can also help improve the conversion rate of apps.
When users are pampered with personalized content, they have a higher chance of converting as it offers a human touch as opposed to generic content which comes across as rather robotic or automated.
#2 Ease of sending notifications
For the last couple of decades, email has been the most widely-used business communication tool. Businesses have extensively used email (some almost abused it) to reach out to their users. As a result, email has lost the effectiveness it once had; its open rates and click rates have constantly dropped[1].
Well, there’s no reason to worry.
Enter mobile app notifications.
These notifications are of two types: push and in-app notifications. Both are exciting alternatives for communicating with app users in a far less intrusive manner.
The ability to send instant, non-intrusive notifications to users is so desired that it is one of the major reasons why many businesses want to have a mobile app in the first place.
In-app notifications are the notifications that users can only receive when they have opened an app. Push notifications, on the other hand, are those notifications that users can receive regardless of any activity they are doing on their mobile device.
There have been instances where the push medium of notifications has delivered click-through rates of 40%. In case you chose to stick with a mobile website or are running one while building an app, you can send your push notifications with VWO Engage.
Sign up for a free trial and see how easy it is to send notifications to both desktop and mobile users.
#3 Making use of mobile device features
Mobile apps have the advantage of utilizing features of a mobile device like camera, contact list, GPS, phone calls, accelerometer, compass, etc.
Such device features, when used within an app, can make the user experience interactive and fun.
Moreover, these features can also reduce the efforts users would have to make otherwise. For instance, users completing a form on a banking app might need to submit their photograph for completion of the process. The app can let users take the help of the camera of their mobile device to capture and submit a photograph.
The device features can significantly shorten the time users take to perform a certain task in an app, and can even boost conversions.
Note: Mobile websites can also use some features of a mobile device like camera, GPS, etc. Still, there are technological constraints and privacy concerns in utilizing multimedia features of a device (which mobile apps can use).
#4 Ability to work offline
It is probably the most fundamental difference between a mobile website and an app.
Although apps too might require internet connectivity to perform most of their tasks, they can still offer basic content and functionality to users in offline mode.
Let’s take the example of a banking app again.
The app can provide features like tax calculation, installment calculation, and determination of loan limits. These features can work even without the help of an internet connection.
Note: Even though mobile websites can use caching to load web pages without an internet connection, they can only offer limited functions.
#5 Freedom in designing
Even with all the technological advancements in web designing, mobile websites have to rely a lot on browsers to perform even the most elementary functions. Mobile websites depend on browser features like ‘back button,’ ‘refresh button,’ and ‘address bar’ to work.
Mobile apps don’t have any of these restrictions.
A mobile app can be designed with a lot of elaborate functions, based on advanced gestures like ‘tap,’ ‘swipe,’ ‘drag,’ ‘pinch,’ ‘hold,’ and more.
Apps can use these gestures to offer innovative functionality that can help users perform a task better. For example, an app can let users move to a next or previous step using the swipe gesture.
#6 New branding experience
Since a mobile app is distinct from a company’s website, it has the liberty of offering a new brand experience to users. It means that the company can experiment with new branding styles for the app, which can be different from the regular brand style of the company’s website (or the company altogether).
Going a step further, companies can build mobile apps specifically to transition into a new brand style for themselves.
Additionally, a mobile app can also allow users to customize its appearance, as per users’ liking. This can further help on the personalization front of the app.
Note: The concept of microsites works on similar lines. Microsites offer a distinct brand experience to users, as compared to their parent sites. They are often used to promote a sub-brand, an event, or a newly-launched service.
Mobile users spend 86% of their time[2] on mobile apps and just 14% of the time on mobile websites.
Moreover, a study by eMarketer concluded that users spend more than 90% of their mobile time on apps as opposed to mobile web.
Note: A point to consider here is that users spend a majority of their time on gaming apps and social media apps.
Note: We also don’t have data telling us which mobile websites users visit more often (out of the 14% of their time mentioned above). Hence, it’s not possible to make a comparison.
#8 New stream of conversions
If you’re looking to increase conversions, mobile apps can be a great medium to push users down the conversion funnel.
Mobile apps can be used to acquire both top-of-the-funnel (ToFu) and bottom-of-the-funnel (BoFu) users.
For instance, utility apps can bring-in ToFu users, which can be later nurtured into BoFu leads. On the other hand, apps like eCommerce already have BoFu users, who have a higher possibility of converting.
Add-on: Since mobile apps are much more targeted in nature (through their content and utility), they can be used to tap specific users in the funnel. Mobile websites, in contrast, reach out to a diverse set of audiences.
#9 Brand presence
Users spend a substantial amount of their time on mobile devices. It’s safe to say that many of the users encounter the apps they’ve installed on their devices, almost every day. This regular encounter can be viewed as a branding opportunity for the apps[3].
Even when users are not actively using a mobile app, they are still reminded of the brand associated with the app. The icon of the app acts like a mini-advertisement for the brand.
The presence of an app on a users’ device helps influence user’s perception about a brand, subconsciously.
This user behavior can be linked to the Signal Detection Theory, which suggests that users process even those ads which they’ve ignored at some level in their minds.
#10 Apps can work faster than websites
A well-designed mobile app can perform actions much quicker than a mobile website.
Apps usually store their data locally on mobile devices, in contrast to websites that generally use web servers. For this reason, data retrieval happens swiftly in mobile apps.
Apps can further save users’ time by storing their preferences, and using them to take proactive actions on users’ behalf.
There is also a technical justification as to why mobile apps can work faster—Mobile websites use javascript code to perform most of their functions and the framework that mobile apps use can run almost five times faster than a javascript code! While all this happens in the background, users get to complete actions quicker on the front-end of mobile apps, again contributing to a delightful user experience.
Mobile app v/s mobile site—what should you choose?
Developing both mobile website and mobile app for your business can prove to be a costly affair and you may have to choose one of the two channels, based on your budget and business goals. While both channels have their own pros and cons, mobile apps, especially, can help you get higher conversions and retention. Mobile apps offer greater personalization and operational efficiency, along with multiple other exclusive features.
However, once you’ve designed a slick mobile app, how do you ensure it also delivers on all its promises and drives the intended growth for your business as opposed to being just another channel that you have to manage and maintain? Well, the answer is simple – you test it rigorously.
Mobile app A/B testing allows you to steadily enhance your in-app user experience by experimenting with features, app flows, and other UI-based changes to improve your engagement, conversion, and retention rate. Therefore, while having an up and running mobile app is definitely the first step towards engaging with a whole new audience segment, optimizing it continuously will help you drive tangible improvements in your key business metrics. VWO Mobile App Testing is a robust mobile experimentation platform that empowers you to build engaging experiences that delight users as well as launch world-class features by mitigating any risk. If you’re unsure how, request a free demo by one of VWO’s experimentation experts to understand how you can leverage VWO Mobile App Testing to improve your app’s key metrics.
In recent years, the CRM (Customer Relationship Management system) has evolved far beyond being just a tool for contact management to offer something for everyone in an organisation.
As 2021 approaches and we move further into the new decade, some key CRM trends will shake up the industry as we know it.
Here are some of our top predictions for CRM in the upcoming year, including rising CRM use from new markets, powerful features and integrations, and the impact of wider tech trends on CRM.
The latest CRM trends for 2021 to pay attention to
1. AI is becoming a key part of CRM systems
If there’s one thing that’s affecting all industries, it’s artificial intelligence (AI). We’re using a lot more AI than we might think in our daily lives as well as at work.
14% of global CIOs have already deployed AI, according to Gartner’s 2019 CIO Agenda survey, and it’s estimated that AI associated with CRM activities will boost global business revenue by $1.1 trillion by the end of 2021.
2. There are fewer barriers for first-time CRM users
65% of sales professionals use a CRM and 97% consider sales technology “very important” or “important”, according to LinkedIn State of Sales 2020.
However, that leaves one third of sales professionals not using CRMs. Common barriers to adopting a CRM include reservations about cost and lacking the resources and tech knowledge to implement a CRM system.
As CRMs continue on their trend of becoming cheaper, simpler to implement and easier to use, these objections are becoming increasingly irrelevant. We forecast a higher percentage of companies adopting CRMs for the first time in 2021.
3. Social CRM keeps rising
What is social CRM? It’s the integration of social media channels into CRM platforms.
By viewing social media and CRM together, companies gain a more powerful overview of what people are posting about them on social media, as well as a clearer understanding of brand sentiment.
If organizations can use social CRM to respond to comments quickly and thoughtfully, they can build stronger relationships with existing and potential customers and incorporate more user feedback into their roadmap.
4. There’s an all-star line-up of CRMs to choose from
Even though Salesforce’s share of the CRM market is over 19%, there’s a huge range of tools competing for consumer attention.
Customers are choosing from a diverse market of over 609 CRM systems, with tools that cater for both generalized needs and specific niches and requirements.
The CRM systems leading the way for user satisfaction right now on G2 are:
HubSpot
Salesforce
Less Annoying CRM
Freshsales
5. Businesses can condense their sales and marketing tech stacks
With the rise of sophisticated CRMs and core tech tools, sales and marketing teams can get away with using fewer tools than before.
As a tech trend for 2021, teams will increasingly wonder: why do we pay for App A when App B can now tick that box and more?
For best results from their tech stack, teams will be creating more integrations and two-way syncs to ensure contact data is always updated across all apps.
6. Voice and conversational UI will start integrating with CRM
Voice technology is critical for the evolution of SaaS tools. It’s a key factor for accessibility, but it also simply makes tech easier and more enjoyable to use. According to Adobe’s research on voice technology:
“Almost all users (94%) consider voice technology easy to use and say it does more than save time – it improves their quality of life.”
Technology like Salesforce’s Einstein Voice Assistant is making it easier for salespeople to track, message, update and notify their teams about customer data.
We anticipate many more CRMs following suit in the next few years of the 2020s with voice assistant usage and supporting hardware in operational processes and interfaces.
7. Businesses are automating more processes using their CRM
To stay relevant to tech-savvy customers, top CRMs need to offer advanced automation features.
Many of the top players have been investing heavily in automation in the last few years; including HubSpot, Salesforce and ActiveCampaign, which have placed automation front-and-center in their product and marketing.
In 2021, we predict CRM will become more synonymous with automation. For instance, using chatbots to communicate with customers and solve help tickets automatically, or using automated email workflows to nurture sales prospects down the funnel.
With automation, businesses can offer high-quality customer services while optimizing operational costs – something that an increasing number of businesses are realizing, and CRMs are continuing to support in new ways.
8. One of the top advantages of CRM? A high-def view of customers
Choosing a strong CRM and filling it with reliable data that’s enriched by other apps is the easiest way for a company to build a comprehensive view of its customers.
According to LinkedIn’s State of Sales Report 2020, top-performing salespeople have a higher confidence level in their CRM data than their counterparts. Of the top group, 53% are very confident, and of the non-top only 32% are very confident.
9. CRM is becoming interwoven with IoT technologies
From smart home devices to wearable health monitors and cybersecurity scanners, there are expected to be more than 64 billion IoT devices worldwide by 2025, says TechJury.
This also applies to the corporate world: 93% of enterprises are believed to have adopted IoT technology in 2019, according to Fierce Electronics, which will only continue in coming years. This ranges from simple IoT devices, such as energy meters and smart appliances, to more advanced solutions for greater cost efficiencies, organizational capabilities and supply chain visibility.
Improving customer experience is the area where most enterprises are using data generated from IoT solutions. With IoT technologies, companies can monitor and service their clients in new and proactive ways that were previously unimaginable.
10. CRM: not just for customer-facing teams
CRMs have been traditionally thought of as tools for sales and customer success teams. Times have changed – and CRMs are now a crucial part of a company’s wider tech stack. In 2021, more organizations will realize that CRM benefits everything.
Marketers can use CRMs to best understand the contacts in their pipeline and monitor how CTAs convert. Customer success teams can access a 360-degree view of the customer to provide the most personalized experience. And management can access valuable data on performance across the board.
11. CRMs keep getting more sophisticated
The most requested CRM features are basics like contact management (94%), interaction tracking (88%) and schedule/reminder creation (85%). About a quarter of buyers want monitoring of the sales pipeline and funnel.
However, a fifth of CRM users want slightly more advanced functions: sales automation, a central database, email marketing, customization and reporting/analytics.
Mike Richardson, managing director at Maximizer Software, shared with MyCustomer the importance of balancing sophistication and a centralized view of the customer:
“Best-in-breed systems are rapidly appearing in the market, bringing increasing layers of sophistication and becoming extremely good at solving specialized needs… However, all of these different touchpoints with the customer need to be centralized into a single view of the customer experience, in a system of engagement.”
12. A CRM’s customer experience is as important as its features
According to Salesforce, 84% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services. There are several ways to use CRM technology to meet the expectations of today’s customer:
Live chat for quick support
Enriched data to show the full customer journey and previous support tickets
As more organizations up their customer experience game, others must follow suit: 73% of customers say one extraordinary experience raises their expectations of other companies.
13. Consumers expect companies to know more about them
A business-to-customer relationship is becoming increasingly like any other human relationship. A company needs to remember previous conversations with a customer, understand their needs and expectations, and adjust communication accordingly. To enable this, all required customer data must be quickly accessible and accurate.
This isn’t always guaranteed: 87% of consumers believe companies need to provide a more consistent customer experience, says Zendesk.
Having a CRM as part of a connected tech stack is the best way to fix this, as it allows different team members to store customer data about all previous conversations and known preferences.
14. CRM growth will come from new markets
Over 50% of CRM buyers in 2019 were in one of four markets: real estate, consulting, distribution and insurance. As we head further into the 2020s, a great deal of new CRM growth will come from other vertical markets. These include:
Healthcare
Finance
Insurance
Manufacturing
15. Younger generations are pushing for CRM use
28% of millennials think CRM applications are “extremely critical” to their success, compared to 18% of Generation X and 9% of Baby Boomers.
This CRM trend will grow as millennials and Gen Z continue to gain buying power and the next generations enter the workplace. In the decade ahead, more teams will become tech-centric and insist on maximizing performance through intelligent CRM technology.
16. A company of one is big enough for a CRM
How large does your business need to be to have a CRM? The answer for 2021 is: a company with one employee is big enough.
If you’re managing contact details, juggling a busy pipeline and have customer data to keep track of, you can benefit from using a CRM. These are familiar pain points for freelancers.
As automation becomes more synonymous with CRM (see #7), bots are completing more contact management tasks and saving team members from having to lift a finger.
Chatbots offered by platforms like Drift and HubSpot automatically guide prospects through marketing and sales pipelines – collecting data, asking questions and delivering more personalized content.
With self-service, customers get their questions answered faster with far less effort required from the provider. It’s a win-win.
18. Analytics features need to be a CRM’s strength
With sophisticated analytics at their fingertips, organizations are in the best position to identify problems, solutions and opportunities. Companies recognize this – and are increasingly looking for powerful analytics tools to process and report on their data in real time.
CRMs must offer advanced analytics too. Organizations want the most accurate data into how their sales pipeline is performing, how happy customers are and what’s contributing to churn, for example.
Although not all organizations are ready for sophisticated stand-alone analytics platforms just yet, more SMEs are viewing CRM analytics as a must-have, not a nice-to-have.
19. XaaS – everything as a service
SaaS – software as a service – is well-known, but what’s XaaS? Everything as a Service takes the concept of SaaS and spreads it to encompass every form of product and service.
With XaaS, any IT function can be transformed into a service for enterprise consumption – from platform as a service (PaaS) to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) among many others. XaaS includes any computing service delivered via the internet and paid for via a subscription rather than an upfront cost.
As a tech trend for 2021, we predict more organizations will seek cloud solutions for new corners of their business, whether as part of their CRM, a stand-alone system or a connected tool.
20. CRMs need to be connected to every other part of a business
As each year rolls by, more organizations are viewing their CRM as an essential organ for the wellbeing of their company. To make this happen and reap the benefits, a CRM has to be connected to all other tools and processes in your organization.
From your email marketing tool to your invoicing system, make sure to have two-way syncs set up between tools that store customer data and your CRM.
Keeping your data in sync is the best way to avoid human error, resolve pesky data silos, save time on manual input and paint the clearest picture of your business for every team.
In the 2020s, you should have no reason to distrust your customer data and wrestle with unending lists of duplicate emails and misleading data.
To benefit from the CRM trends for 2021, make sure your data is connected
If we have to make one overall prediction for tech and CRM in 2021, it’s that more businesses will be using technology to eradicate or automate what they don’t want to deal with – while getting better results from the tasks they focus on.
The recipe for that is a strong CRM, automated workflows where possible, and a connected app stack where data moves freely between your apps.
It seems everyone is whining and in a tizzy about Google not providing organic keyword data in Analytics. While I believe it diminishes the value of analytics somewhat, I would argue that it’s a great move that will help content Marketers. I’ve written in the past that SEO is Dead and I’ve watched as the industry has slowly gone away. This may be the last nail in the coffin.
If I sound happy about it, it’s because I am. I wrote this in an interview with our marketing automation clients, Right On Interactive:
Google’s move to block the tracking of all keywords makes marketers’ lives more difficult, but not impossible. Marketers will still be able to monitor click-through rates using Webmaster data to understand how organic traffic is impacting their overall inbound marketing efforts. If anything, this continues to make us better marketers. We should be focused on writing content that’s valuable to our audience and listening to our audience – not chasing keywords, manipulating sites, and seeking out links to artificially grow our search rankings.
This is especially good news for the average business that doesn’t have the budget to invest in SEO strategies to generate keyword-rich content throughout the web to artificially inflate the ranking of their content. Most of us can’t compete with large companies and an industry that has grown to billions of dollars. Where there’s a financial benefit to cheat, companies will cheat. And the industry has been cheating (and cheating and cheating). Many of the players are delusional about their strategies but it’s clear that Google is not. Google wants organic traffic to be organic, not driven by wealthy SEO companies that have million-dollar sandboxes to uncover ways to cheat and get their clients ranked. Google’s change is hurting those folks – not you.
And, while you won’t be able to attribute a specific keyword to a specific prospect, you will be able to know that person arrived organically and from what page they did. Knowing the topic of the entry page your prospect arrived on your site on will help you to better understand the content that’s providing value. And doing keyword research and competitive research can still uncover opportunities for finding and writing additional content that will be found and be of value. Search optimization is a foundation for any content strategy, but writing and sharing better content (written, spoken and visual) will always outperform tweaking page titles or keyword density in a page.
The gap provided between Webmaster data, Content data, and Analytics data should help you sharpen your ability to develop great content. Instead of jumping to the keywords section of analytics, you should be diving into the traffic by page title to understand which articles are providing the most traffic to your company. Keywords were distracting and made many marketers lazy. They just kept writing crap to drive more traffic based on keywords instead of focusing on the overall content that was attracting the most attention.
There’s really no data that’s leaving a hole in your ability to develop a fantastic content strategy. You can still review Webmaster data to understand the keywords that are driving the most content – but you can apply it to the content that’s driving the most views and conversions. Understanding the context around the keywords you were writing about can provide a ton more insight into what’s popular or not popular.
As an example, focusing on ‘google keywords not provided’ could lead me to a few blog posts about the trend and alternate solutions. Instead, I’m focused here on how it’s going to help marketers. That context should ultimately prove more valuable to my content strategy than just tossing a keyword combination around! The context around your keywords should be a focus of your attention as well!
