No one can deny the fact that the whole world is adopting digital mediums. When we even think of living without our mobile phones, laptops, desktop computers or any of our digital assets, it seems impossible for us. Companies know this fact and the smart ones have appreciated and adopted the entire digital medium really well. Think about giants from any field of business, do you see them ignoring this emerging medium? No! They realize how important role digital marketing is playing to convert their customers to happy customers, to give them opportunity to associate with their buyers and gaining new consumers. If we say digital marketing is staircase to success for businesses then it will not be wrong.

Have you ever thought why digital marketing is so important? For the reason, that it is a quick force working as a catalyst to convey message across your targeted audience. And for a fact, the thing grows super fast doomed to be the future- It looks like digital marketing will soon substitute or inspire almost all forms of traditional marketing.

The most interesting thing about digital marketing is it gives equal ease to customers and to companies as well. Here let’s talk about some forms of digital marketing. Websites and optimized SEO content give advantage to both- firm and customer- and squeezing the gap between consumers and goods/services. Blogs are becoming the most popular thing because it gives an insight about company and services to customers and at the same time it is an opportunity for company to define its persona as appealing as it can. Online video contents are quenching the thirst of consumer to go through the features of products and for company it is an effective way to cheaply promote the content/ product and stir the zeal of viral marketing. Social media marketing tools expands your reach to customers and customers’ reach to you. The remaining list is still long and exhaustive about the benefits of digital marketing, we have discussed few and foremost here.

Marketing never brought such parity before. Of course firms cannot compete with the customers for the advantages but when you have such appealing medium so why to ignore it? If you are a firm that has not yet realized and recognized the worth of digital marketing then now is the time to adopt it fast. What are you waiting for, move ahead!

Unosha Naved

A glimpse of smile, a simple hi, a welcoming expression, shake of hands, a warm hug or anything else is enough to make friends. But he was ignorant to all of them. He always thought about his lonesomeness but never got the mystery solved. He had everything but no real friend to share his happiness and excitements with, and one day he broke all of his toys and shattered. The reason for his loneliness was nothing but his unwelcoming expressions, unfriendly looks and waiting for other children to come and do friendship with him. The rule is simple: If you want to gain friends, you need to be welcoming!

Brands are like children. You feed them to cultivate and when they grow up you wait for the return from them. But one thing you should never forget is care for your brand all through its life cycle. Today everything is changing and going digital so as your marketing methods. It’s not that conventional marketing strategies have been outdated. Now the new marketing means and methods are mixing up with older ones and producing better results. Almost every brand has a fanpage and in our previous blogs we have also talked about the importance of facebook fanpages, but do you know what ingredients are necessary to attract people to your fanpage? There are many! But we will cover the first and the most important ingredient here and it is ‘Landing page’ or ‘Welcome page’.  Without landing page visitor will go directly to your wall. There they will see activities and many things happening but most of them will not know the action you want from them. They may hang around your page but leave without being your fan/friend. You actually did not welcome them nor even reflected your motive to have them as friends. It is just like that sad child who wanted to gain friends but remained unwelcoming. Facebook landing page is a greeting gesture yet direction for action to your visitors. Without this welcome sign you may stay where you are but by smartly availing this opportunity you may add many followers to your troupe and earn lots of brand advocates.

Unosha Naved

Believe me or not, we all love to flaunt big brand logos – on the clothes we wear, the computers we use and even the food we eat! The company logo of a well renowned brand is almost like a status symbol! When you think of brands like Reebok, Nike, McDonalds, KFC, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, MicroSoft, Intel and a host of others, what is the first think that comes to mind – the company logo. The moment we see these logos, we are tempted to buy these products. Why? Obviously because we know that the company logo is not just a creative image representing a brand – it stands for trust, reliability and popularity. Aren’t all these the very factors that make us buy their products too? You bet! And the more we buy and use these items, the more it helps these companies to create their brand awareness.

I would love to believe that a company logo is much more than a graphic representation of its brand image. It symbolizes the trust, reliability and popularity of the brand and aren’t these the factors that make us buy their products? You bet! With an effective company logo, successful brands roll in millions of dollars every year as profits – the more we flaunt their products, the more money they make!

So the next time you are out shopping, or simply out for a walk, take a look around. You will be surprised to see that you are surrounded by company logos, of both big as well as small brands, advertising their respective brands and products. Now figure out which ones amongst these have you actually chosen to buy in the last five years. You will be amazed that consciously or unconsciously, you have gone for companies that have highly attractive logos that clearly stand out in a crowd. Spooky, isn’t it? Well, but it is true! … And it is all that every brand out there intends to achieve – visibility, effectiveness and popularity (remember the fundamentals of marketing?).

So, which is YOUR favorite company logo … and why? Do find out and let me know!

Hmm, it’s just a tease, I thought to myself. Nevertheless, I was eager to see what all the website has to offer. So I clicked on the products tab and within a few micro-seconds, a whole bunch of designer dresses came hurling down the screen (you know how you visit an actual dress store and shop owners hurl one dress after another at you to try on?) Kudos to the website design, I must say, I ended up clicking on each image and looking at it from various angles (another detailed viewing feature that the website design provided), enlarging images, zooming in to see the sequin and lace work and trying out different color option. I was simply loving the experience! And guess what? After two excited hours of navigating through the website, checking out the products and services, clicking on add to cart buttons to see how the checkout process works, I ended up spending a good amount of money!! (and I had never even shopped online before!) As for the e-commerce site, with the powerful tool of a catchy website design, it turned me, the most reserved online shopper into a shopaholic!

That’s precisely the magic a great website design weaves. It catches your attention towards the company’s products and offerings, engages users in the highly attractive design elements, prompts them to navigate further with utmost ease and makes them take an action – which in most cases is buying the products! Wow, what a fantastic way to push sales and lead to better conversions! If you don’t believe me, try out for yourself! (Tip: Keep your credit cards away or you might end up splurging, just like I did!)

I may have not tried out the juice- because everything about it almost convinced me to not taste it. I may have not known about this product if by chance I have not seen it in the shop. Point is products go to the long process from raw material to processing to finished goods but it all go in vain if not marketed and branded properly. There are thousands of points to consider while branding your product but in this age of information and technology if a company misses the most important points then it is equal to committing sin- “A sin which results in ultimate failure”.

I would here quickly cover few must-to-consider things while branding. The thing first comes is your name and then logo.  Don’t make your brand’s name a tongue twister nor make your logo a colorful tartlet, no problem if you are going with the simple stuff- Simpler is better!  Other thing is packaging, fine you are having a low budget but the all you have got is already wasted, trying everything with a low budget is not a wise decision. You can go with less gaudy packaging according to your affordability. Leaping over many other points I want to ground on the most important thing- online branding. Now customers’ decision making is influenced by online mediums, they like to do online shopping, they first check websites of brands before purchase, they read blogs and reviews. Not merely this but customers also love to become part of brands by joining them on various social media platforms. Today branding is not only limited to offline mediums, count online too. If your company is new and want to build a strong image in the minds of consumers by correct depiction of brand then you need to find an organization that can assist in branding at its best. Being a company you have to realize, branding is not a formality. It is the definition of your soul!

By:

Unosha Naved

This is not a new story, we have many brands around us who are not making out from opportunities they have. They wait for big amounts for big advertising but they are not realizing about the wonders with small investments. Social Media marketing is nothing but humanizing your brand, stirring the friendliness among brand and its customers, and these customers can grow immensely. Once your customer is your representative then you don’t need extra efforts. One friend of your brand can introduce you to hundreds of other friends, don’t you believe? Just log in your facebook account peek out your any friend’s friend list, we are 99% sure the numbers will not let you down. Yes, it is as simple to calculate. Social media marketing gives you the way to sell ice cream in winter and soups in summer. You just need to pick right idea on right time to the right market and…? And the world (ideally digital world) will be yours!

By:

Unosha Naved

First let’s refresh what we call“Social media marketing”. We say: the thing that builds long term relationship and gives long term return on efforts with the help of ongoing conversation is referred as social media marketing.  Now move on to steps in social media marketing, there are 5 key steps as you can read below:

1.    Pre-planning
2.    Pay attention to the conversation
3.    Forming the target profile
4.    Set specific goals
5.    Enter in the conversation

Pre-Planning

The very first step is to plan. Like every breed of marketing, social media marketing has the same prerequisite- research. Find out industry and customers inclinations and plan your strategy accordingly. The Questions to answer for getting required information are:

•    How information flows in the industry?
•    How do people get access to the information?
•     What networks consumers use to interact?
•    How they influence?

Pay Attention to the Conversation

You should always measure the depth of water and then get in to swim. Before entering social media marketing pay attention to the ongoing conversation in the industry. The things you need to identify are:

•    Competitors
•    Industry News Resources
•    Blog Comments

Forming Target Profile

Now the next step is forming a target profile. In which you need to:

•    Identify important attributes from listening
•    Chart out your consumers’ presence in social media
•    Make target profile

1. Behavioralistic: Brand Loyalty, Readiness to buy
2. Geographic: Region, Climate, population
3. Demographic: Majorly Age, Gender
4. Psychographic: Activities, opinion, interest, attitude etc

•    When you know their attitudes and behaviors then you can bring the interactivity which can relate them with your brand.

Set Specific Goals

It is really important to direct all of your efforts to achieve correct and specific goals. Identify why you need the social media marketing, options are given below:
•    Brand awareness
•    Traffic increase on the website
•    Search Engine Results
•    Generate Leads
•    Reduce CRM cost
•    Increase Revenue or others

Enter in the Conversation

Now the last and the most important part is to step in the conversation.  You need to be smart! Try to aware people about your brand by adding value and fun. After some span of time start hooking up people and maintain long term communication and then slightly move on to social commerce that brings high equity through exclusive offers, product promotions, registration etc.

Some Important Tips:

•    Your language, brand image, and information on all social media profiles and platforms should be consistent.
•    To earn reputation, you must be conversing not campaigning.
•    Turn negative feedback of people in to positive and respond kindly.
•    Set your milestones.
•    Identify what people like the most by concentrating on response patterns.
•    Last but not the least; Start with the platform which you can actively maintain or contact any professional social media marketing company to do it for you.

Written by:
Unosha Naved

Let alone all the revamping and mending of old ones, can’t people even think of designing a good website at first place? Ok, below find few of the most committed mistakes in web designing. If you don’t do them next time then I may go to heaven <grin>.

Supposing people want to come on your website, anyway.

Sorry. Visitors find answers for their problems; they don’t care what you want. If they don’t find solution then they don’t like to come on your website. People normally search to solve one or more of the following problems.

1. They need information
2. They want or need to purchase something
3. They  want entertainment
4. They want to join a community

Try to serve up to these needs. Not yours.

Even a chap from Pluto can figure out what your site is about.

Self confidence is good but not the one which misleads you. See if people understand about your website within 5 seconds, and if they don’t then it’s a failure.  Your tagline, your copy, your images and everything across the website should be correct, in sink and define the common message.

Here is one example of a tagline, guess what it’s talking about.

It’s all about compassion to your own self. Do it.

Quit smoking?  Investment?  Medicine? Now who on earth can identify what this tagline is about?

Comparably, here is example of another tagline for the same purpose.

Grow plants and save the world from pollution. It’s for your own good!

Better? Now here is my point. Beating about bush gives you only thorny results.

Wow Yellow on Orange, this contrast is looking superb.

Pardon me. No one likes to stress eyes, so you need to come out of personal preferences. Say it color, font size, style or whatever. Make your website easy going not torturous.

Putting every design element makes website attractive.

You sale laptops to offices, one day you walk inside an office and meet a person. You are talking to pitch him and in the middle he picks up pen to sign a big amount to purchase laptops for the whole office but………. You reach over, grab the person by throat and shriek “Not now, you rich man. I have not finished my pitch yet”

You would never do that. Would you? Then why are you doing it to your online customers by using so many design techniques that keep your visitors away from purchasing. These unwanted designing elements are not hip, cool and attractive plus equivalent to grabbing some one’s throat when he wants to purchase. Avoid things that get in the way of sales.

Navigational Hide and Seek.

Alright you love to play hide and seek but please don’t do it with your customers. Your web navigation should address these questions

1. Where am I?
2. Where have I been?
3. Where can I move next?
4. Where is the Home Page?
5. Where are the services?

Some of the common mistakes in navigation are: disparate types of navigation on the same website, link of the current page on the current page (home page link on home page), ambiguously worded links making mystery to visitor that where he will go if he clicks. No linking to the home page and confusing links to the home page. Confusion, confusion, confusion!  Don’t punish them for coming on your website.

Other than these most committed mistakes there are many things to consider like the quality of content, information architecture, usability, use of graphics and flash, ratio of text on home page, purpose of placing text etc. Make sure if these websites ever speak, we would need not to censor it <grin>.

Written by:

Unosha Naved

How it evolved?

There was a time when computing and its virtues can only be shared with in the close doors of government institutes or they were limited to the corporates and business giants.
Later in 70’s a revolution broke this ice out and desktop computing was 1st introduced for the personal use. The credit goes to Apple Inc. who had developed Apple 1 as a mark of 1st personal computer to be place at the market shelf. Later they released LISA which bore the foundation of upcoming desktop era by adding the GUI or Graphical User Interface that made the human interaction with the machine more closer then a Keyboard.

The continuity of Approach:

With the release of MAC or Macintosh in 1984, a whole new era was incepted. An era of Rich GUI based personal desktop computers were created and got instant attention from the common public but the winner of this war was not doubt Microsoft.
With the release of Windows Operating system, over the IBM compatible hardware architecture, Microsoft had made tons of money along with market share of more then 90% of desktop computing around the world leaving behind The Apple, who had originally created the concept.

Browsers, The game winners of Internet Era:

Till now, Microsoft has survived from many threats and adventures by its competitors and from its false decision making attributes but it seems like, they going to lose the war now with more browser based embedded technologies and growing popularity of Mobile based interface to stay online.

Its now time when one can clearly says that the war is not b/w gaining and keep maintaining the desktop market share but its all about how good is your browser. The more advance your browser is the more applications it can embed in itself truing out the desktop based products outdated as time passes by.

When you are talking about advance and modern browses it means how up to date they are with the changing trends and needs of online community, how fast they are and how easily they can be installed over any race of operating system available on the planet. Additionally, how mature they can behave when any web based application is called in them is another way to judge their credibility and scalability.

Certainly, this is not a case with Microsoft’s web browser the Internet Explorer. If i remember it well, till IE8 there was no thing like HTML5 and its features but the time they realize that their rigid approach can be a product of their self demise, they started to accept it in the next version the IE9 but the fully adaptable version would be accepted by IE 10.

Wrapping it up

Since the scenario needs rapid development and updates, only those browsers can take a lead in this battle who are open source and contributors around the world put their efforts to make these browsers more advance and trustworthy for the general public. But this is not the case with Microsoft as they closely held the source codes with them and updates or upgrades can only be taken place with their boundaries. this closed nature would be the top most reason of losing this battle over the Internet for Microsoft. Google’s Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are now market leaders in the browser manufacturing and since they are open to all, they have an army of coders, developers & Designers who work for them voluntarily without any charges or incentives hence cutting the development cost as well.

Written by:

Muzzamil Hussain

Visit Web Design Company and Toronto SEO Services

Think web beyond desktops

According to the estimation by technology gurus, within the next few years there will be a clear shift from desktops to smartphones. That means people will prefer to access the web whenever and wherever they want instead of reaching to the desktops or laptops first.

Get exposed to audience

Every organization wants to reach all available customers but for that proper marketing strategies are required- right things on right time. Presently you are relying to your website to expose your business to the customers but it will no longer be a case because your current website can only be properly seen on computer screens- You have to think ahead of it! Shouldn’t it display correctly on mobile phones to optimize your exposure to your customers? It should!

Don’t hurt your Sales

People do purchase through mobile phones and it is the matter of seconds that they decide buy or not to buy from you. If they are finding it difficult to navigate on your website then they will move onto your competitor’s for purchase. Make your site mobile friendly else you will lose your customer.

You have a fair chance, Win the Game!

Most of the website owners have not yet thought about having mobile version of their website, and many of them are your competitors. May be they can’t afford it or whatever. But they are giving you chance to be the one to meet boundaries of success. Win the competition in your niche and put up a mobile form of your website. It will definitely give you benefit.

Be with them- anywhere, anytime…

People now enjoy more to search information from their mobile phones. It gives people liberty to access even most important information sitting anywhere and anytime. Though desktops have their own value but we cannot ignore the worth of surfing on the go e.g.:  while travelling, at grocery store, sitting in restaurant, waiting for friend in mall etc.

Now if you think that it is about time to have mobile version of site for your business then you need to contact a reliable company to get it done professionally: http://www.solsnet.com/contact_us.php

Written by:

Unosha Naved