by Nick Throlson | Jul 17, 2018 | Business
As cities get more congested, bike sharing has emerged as a feasible in-city ride with economic and environmental incentives. Here is what you need to succeed as a bike-sharing startup:Metropolitans are stuffed with bike-sharing startups. If you live in any such city, there will definitely be one out there. And though the concept has mushroomed across the globe, there are few global success stories and even the unicorns of the segment are till now largely limited to cities like Beijing, Shenzhen, Washington D.C, San Francisco, and others of the same league.
For a startup looking to start a bike sharing service, there couldn?t be a better time- the market is neither so nascent that they would have to innovate and build the requisite technologies themselves nor it is so explored for the competition to burn them out. With enough success stories around and ample un-explored markets, the time is just ripe to build a bike sharing app. But before you rush to seize the opportunity, you need to understand that it is a rapidly moving domain and it is essential to get things right at the first go as you may never be able to find another chance. So, to help in the cause, there are 4 absolute necessities that you must incorporate in your bike sharing app:1.Heatmap
Bike sharing essentially works by fitting bikes by GPS and displaying their location on a map in the app. The moment any users starts a ride, that bike is taken off the list of available bikes and isn?t displayed on the map. If you are building an app, it is almost certain that you would also use the same tech and method. But there is also a crucial addition you can make.
The problem here is that since the users don?t have to set a drop location before they start a ride, once all bike are taken, new users have no way of finding out when a bike will be available or when. To counter this, you can show them a heat map of all your bike activities. This will give them a clear idea of where they are most likely to find bikes at approximately what time.2.Seamless Experience
Once the user gets to a bike, the process to start riding must be as seamless as possible. QR codes work best in the situation. Each of your bikes should have a QR code that the users can scan from their app to unlock it. While this adds convenience for users, you also get to fend off the intricate task of installing and maintaining any kind of software on the bikes.3. Simple And Secure Payment
Payments are collected, once all users complete their ride Process should be as simple as possible and of course must be secure as well. A preferred way would be to use some popular mobile wallet that users in that area already use rather than creating your own- to minimize friction during payments. But you must also include traditional payment options like credit and debit cards for the non-tech savvy users.4. Booking Options
The booking and availability in bike sharing have a crucial problem- a bike is stopped from being displayed on a user?s app the moment another user unlocks it by scanning the QR-code. Now consider this- you see an available bike a couple of yards away and when you are down half the way, it disappears (because someone else took it). Now imagine the same condition during rush hours at any subway station. The service would essentially frustrate more users than it would serve. To overcome, you need to offer users an option to book bikes in advance. They can just select a time and be assured that they will find a bike. Not only would it enhance loyalty to your service also help them occasionally book rides for others as well.Now you may have some idea of how intricate it can be to develop a bike-sharing app that looks quite simple on the surface. But the startups are lucky in this regard as well because as these technologies go mainstream many app development agencies are starting to offer such services. Just hire an app development agency that fits in your budget and vision to start your journey. by Nick Throlson | Jul 11, 2018 | Business, Marketing
Making a Mark in Online MarketingOnline digital marketing has gained popularity in the internet age. This type of marketing is performed through the internet using electronic devices like mobile phones and computers. Some well -known types of digital marketing include Search Engine marketing SEM, content marketing, mobile marketing and social media marketing. Before the advent of the internet, traditional marketing was performed through print advertising, flyers, advertisements in the newspaper and magazines and billboards.?
?Traditional Marketing versus Digital Marketing Traditional marketing has benefits. You can reach your audience quickly and easily; hard copies of the materials can be easily stored for future use or for the use of customers and easy to understand. Digital marketing is beneficial because customers can easily interact through a digital medium, marketing over the internet is cheaper, it is easier to measure the success of an online marketing campaign, digital marketing helps a business target a global audience and all sizes of business can compete easily in an online platform. Most business enterprises use both types of marketing according to their budgets. Today, traditional marketing is used to support a digital marketing campaignPlan Digital marketing success is all about planning. Make a list of the types of customers who will be interested in your product and plan how you can effectively market the product to them. Understand your product and identify the reasons why your product is superior to those of your competitors. Plan ways by which you will give better customer service compared to your competitors. Put yourself in the place of your customer and make marketing plans based on what you think you will require if you are your customer. Have a clear picture of the type of results you want. Make a list of platforms you intend using in your digital marketing campaign. Use tools to automate the marketing campaign. Platforms will have an option to help you schedule content. Have a plan b ready when a customer responds to your marketing efforts. Keep your plan flexible and change or improve the plan to make the marketing plan effective.?Budget and Goal Make a digital marketing budget. Make sure that all your paid campaigns are within the budget. Make the budget flexible so that you can invest in another platform if the one paid marketing strategy is not achieving results. A clearly defined goal is essential for successful digital marketing campaigns. This goal will help you monitor whether the campaign is going according to plan and whether strategy needs to changed or tweaked and help you measure whether your campaign is a profitable one.?Website A good website and other digital accessories are the main aids to digital marketing success. The website should be easy to navigate and give all the information about the product for effective digital marketing. Other requirements for successful digital marketing include your own virtual private server and your own domain name.?Search Engine Search Engine Marketing SEM is one of the most important ways of getting customers to buy and use a product in the internet age. Most customers refer to search engines to find a specific product. The website should be Search Engine Optimized to get a high rank on the search engine results list. Investing in Pay per click ads and Bing Ads are important for successful search engine marketing.?Social Network Marketing You should market your products on social media networks where potential customers are likely to see them. You can also use paid social media advertising to effectively market your product. When marketing over the social media you should write a page that makes potential customers interested in the product rather than promoting it like an advertising campaign.?Marketing using Content Content marketing involves writing or placing relevant content on the website. Content is the key to successful digital marketing. You can not only write relevant content but also place images, videos and audio clips to draw the attention of your potential customer to your product. The quality and quantity of the content on the website is important for successful digital marketing. When writing content on your website, make sure that the content you write is subtly promoting the product.?Email Marketing You must make an email list of potential customers and send targeted emails to successfully market your product. The email should be sent to interested customers and not to all available email lists Users will put it in their spam folder if the email is not relevant to them.Banner AdvertisingBuying advertising space in a high traffic website is an effective marketing strategy to achieve digital marketing success. Placing your banner in an up and running website will not only be beneficial to you but will also benefit the website publisher.Mobile MarketingYou must make mobile apps to help potential customers to find information about your product easily on their mobile devices. You should place apps on Amazon, Google Play and the Apple App Store to ensure that the information is available on all devices. Google recommends making a responsive website for effective digital marketing rather than two websites one for a desktop and one for a mobile device.Employee wellbeingThe backbone of a company with a good product is its employees. To make employees happy the company must recognize their contribution, create a friendly environment and have a healthy communication between management and employee. One method of making employees is to have a corporate game show where employees can play interesting games to learn more about the products of the company. There are specialized agencies that hold such game shows in companies.Digital marketing is a challenging marketing method. It is also the most effective marketing method available today. With a careful flexible plan in place, you can effectively market your product over the internet and increase sales of your product. by Nick Throlson | Jul 9, 2018 | Business, Marketing
Want to know how businesses are killing it online in 2018? Here are the secrets of successful digital marketing strategies employed by top businesses.Content marketing rules the web
Using content to drive traffic and increase sales is a top marketing technique employed by businesses. People go to the Internet most often to research. Searching for ratings, local places, information, and help learning to do something.By regularly creating useful content, you?ll position your business to be the answer to their query.Content marketing increases your website authority on the search engines. It will also build your brand, giving visitors to your site a reason to stay longer and increasing the chances of a sale.Customers are weary of ads. 71% of consumers claimed they were turned off by content that sounded like a sales pitch. They want useful and entertaining content.Offering that useful content will not only help your SEO, it will build trust in your audience by making you a thought leader.Content marketing will also give your brand a persona, another crucial element in a world ruled by social media and selfies. Letting your audience get to know your business on a more intimate level will help build trust and ultimately drive more sales.The biggest hurdle to most businesses considering a content marketing strategy is the time required to create content. Content marketing can be time-consuming, but there are content marketing secrets used by marketers that you can try to save time.Consider adding content to your marketing strategy and get more from your digital marketing efforts.Make offline and online marketing work together.
The lines between the virtual and the physical worlds are blending more every year. While we may all live in the physical world, consumers are spending more and more time in the virtual world.It is crucial for businesses to connect their online and offline marketing in creative ways to make a seamless transition for consumers.For the first time in 2018, time spent online is surpassing all other media types. People spend more time on the internet than they do watching TV, listening to the radio, or reading print.No big surprise there. But it may surprise you that many businesses are still failing to maximize their online efforts.What are some ways to blend these types of media?Use hashtags in offline marketing to bring a campaign to the digital world.
Extra Gum is a great example of using a hashtag campaign to combine their online and offline marketing in a creative way that focuses on the consumer. In their TV and printed on their product is the message ?we?re looking for life?s little moments? with the hashtag #giveextragetextra for people to share their moments on social media.This will create some excellent user generated content, as well as helping to remind consumers of the gum during everyday life moments.
Create a cohesive brand.
When you?re building your website and logo, make sure it uses your businesses branding. Print and digital experiences should be seamless for users.Combine online and offline shopping.
Brick and mortal sales and online sales are becoming more blended. Successful businesses adopt the attitude of ?we don?t care where you buy? and create a cohesive marketing effort to reflect that.For example, if you have a physical store front, make it easy for shoppers to look up reviews about your products on your website.? 82% of users research online while in the store. You can include a scan code to make it easy for shoppers, and even have a coupon appear for the shoppers that are in the store researching that item.Nordstroms has a great way of using the Internet to increase in-store sales, as you can see in the example below.
Use Marketing Automation
From email autoresponders to automatic segmenting of an audience in your CRM, there are many ways marketing automation will make your life easier and your marketing more effective.Decide what tasks are most tedious and choose the software that will help ease the burden for your sales and marketing teams. This is especially important for small businesses where the owner or manager IS the sales and marketing team.Marketing automation software ranges from simple social media account management like Hootsuite to more advanced business management systems. Below is an example of a marketing automation system for network marketing businesses, which includes a complete CRM with integrated emails and autoresponders, calendar, reports, and audience segmentation.
These digital marketing secrets are what successful businesses are doing in 2018. Isn?t it time you started crushing it online? Start improving your digital strategy today by:- Improving your content marketing.
- Blending online and offline marketing efforts.
- Using marketing automation.
by Nick Throlson | Jul 6, 2018 | Business
With high motivation and drive to pursue your business idea, you are well and truly on the right track to starting your new business. However, without developing essential business skills, your thirst to immediately initiate your business may lead you closer to failing then succeeding. Maintaining and improving on key proficiencies will allow you to grow your business at a faster rate, as well as allowing its viability and sustainability. Mere passion is not nearly enough to maintain a competitive edge ahead of rivals within your industry, especially in an increasingly aggressive competitive landscape. Here are 7 integral skills that you should develop prior to starting a business.
An integral skill that you will need to develop is understanding the key measures of profitability and sales growth. Ensure to create a business plan prior to the start of your business. Showing your positive annual forecasts and feasibility of your business will ease your ability to attain business loans. Formulating financial statements and accounting budgets will also allow you to evaluate profit achievements and check whether you are meeting your set targets and objectives. By evaluating the financial data, where it be annually, monthly or even daily, you will be able to properly budget and invest in areas that are required for you to boost your business? growth. Your financial reports will stand as proof to partners and stakeholders that your business is increasing in profit and is a sustainable business to invest in and partner with.
As a manager in your organization, it is important that you have a solid understanding on how to effectively manage your employees. You must ensure that you are able to maintain employee satisfaction to reduce turnover rates, absenteeism and increase productivity in the short and long term. This can be achieved by focusing on promoting a healthy work environment for your employees to thrive in. Encourage health practices through group sport and physical fitness sessions that will also be able to foster teamwork and collaborative work effort. Promote healthy eating by providing healthy food options such as installing a healthy convenience store or Healthy Vending Machine within your work office. It is highly integral to encourage a supportive social environment by promoting inclusivity and diversity and stressing the negative impacts of workplace bullying and degrading work environments.
Being tech savvy is a fundamental skill to attain prior to starting your business. You will require technical skills to record financial and inventory data into software, programs, and spreadsheets to manage your business spending. It is integral to understand the formatting of website development programs to attain a greater reach to consumers outside of your geographical office location as well as to allow for e-commerce consumers. Through high proficiencies in social media, you will be able to reach out to your consumer base through various marketing platforms and better adapt to changing digital marketing trends. By taking advantage of emerging technological trends and opportunities that arise, you can capitalize the technology to improve your business? operational processes, marketing and even core product or service. Through your technological knowledge, analyze what areas of your business are driving business growth and which target market is your business attracting by measuring digital marketing metrics.
Influencing and empowering your employees is a quality that is essential to starting up your own business. Leadership is a quality that encourages innovation and creativity from employees that can be used for the business. Effective leadership also improves employee morale which will increase the overall productivity of the business. Develop a clear company vision, set goals and develop a pathway for your employees to be inspired to follow. Become a guide, mentor and role model to align your employee?s passion and motivations to your own.
- Organisational/management
One of the most integral skills to develop prior to establishing a business is organizational skills. To effectively schedule, manage and be time-efficient, a high use of organizational skills is required. Organisation is needed for planning what goals should be pursued and which objectives should be met. This also accounts for tactical level plans such as the attendance of meetings and coordinating with suppliers and other stakeholders. Organisation is essential when involving the scheduling of tasks for your employees, focusing to avoid under or overworking your staff.
Ensure you are continuously communicating the organizational goals to your staff and stakeholders in a clear way. Allow for the opportunity for feedback and ideas, enabling a 2-way flow of communication to foster discussion and creativity in problem-solving. Maintain a positive and supportive interaction with stakeholders and well as develop networking skills for external connections. Developing high communication skills will enable you to confidently pitch ideas to partners, stakeholders and the public to showcase the passion of your business and knowledge on is the purpose, aiming to confidently show progression in your business. With effective communication, you will be able to cultivate loyal employees and capitalize on their innovative ideas and charm customers and suppliers to remain with the brand.
A skill that is often neglected but is highly critical for rapid business growth ongoing learning and development. Seeking to improve and educate your skills and knowledge on your product will assist you to develop a better product or efficient business processes. Embrace a mentality to strive for improvement and not be complacent with how your business is currently. Always be willing to innovate and explore new opportunities and trends within your industry.
No matter the purpose of your business, aiming for profitability will only be achieved through your initial drive and development of skills to boost your business growth. Which key skills do you think are essential to developing, prior to starting a business?
by Nick Throlson | Jul 2, 2018 | Business
For any business owner, you know how important it is to maintain a solid and reputable name on the internet. Not only do most people search for potential companies online, but they will judge a specific business according to its reviews, customer service and what other people have to say about their services.
Here are some measures you can take to maintain your name in the online world: Why Your Brand Name and Reputation is Important OnlineThe reason you need to maintain a solid reputation online is because this is probably where you'll be making most of your business. If your company is solely based on the internet, you could lose hundreds or even thousands of customers just because of a bad reputation. Even companies that are more locally-based need to have a solid online presence because the majority of your customers will first look you up online before visiting your physical location, office or store. If your reputation is tainted online or if you haven't made a name for yourself at all, it'll be difficult for customers to want to make use of your services. Provide Superior Customer ServiceIn order to maintain your name in the online world, you need to provide superior customer service. This means that you need to respond to clients when they call you or send an email in a prompt and professional manner. This also means that you need to handle bad situations as quickly and professionally as possible. While it's easy to snap at someone who leaves a negative review about your business, this won't look professional and can deter others from utilizing your services. Erase Bad Reviews or Online EmbarrassmentNegative reviews and embarrassing online situations, like an argument you had with a customer, can taint your otherwise solid reputation. You need to try to get rid of negative reviews and erase embarrassing situations that others are able to find easily. There are two ways for you to remove bad reviews: you can ask the reviewer what you can do so that they change their rating or you can hire a service that will write hundreds of positive reviews to outweigh the negative ones. Marketing and AdvertisingBoth marketing and advertising are crucial when you own a business. If you fail to market and advertise your company, you're going to have no reputation or name at all. There are several ways that you can market, and these include search engine optimization, brochure handling, business card creation and affiliate exchange. If you are unsure of how to market your own business, there are many companies that will be more than happy to handle the project for you for a small fee. Link Exchange and PPCLink exchange refers to exchanging links with a fellow business owner who might offer similar services or products as you do but is not considered competition. You do not want to exchange links with a competitor because you might lose business this way. PPC, also known as pay per click, will help you to reach out too many different customers so long as your link is active on PPC platforms. Social Media IntegrationMillions of people all over the world use social media pages regularly, which makes it a wonderful platform for those who have businesses. It is free to create a social media page, and a small fee for you to run a social media campaign. Campaigns are targeted to a specific demographic, so you are reaching out to people who will want to make use of the products or services that you are offering. There are dozens of social media sites that can help you to get your name out there and maintain it in a competitive online world. Take advantage of it like Youi did to generate a loyal brand value.Website Creation and MaintenanceIn order to maintain your name and reputation online, you need a good website that is both easy to navigate and looks professional. Most people will want to visit your site to learn more about the products or services that you offer before they make use of your company. If your site looks unprofessional, is not kept updated or is difficult to navigate, this will deter these individuals from making use of it, which can result in lost money and a decrease in customer flow. If you do not know how to create or maintain a site, a website design service can perform this work for you and work to get the site maintained regularly with all of the latest designs, plug-ins and search engine optimization trends. Create Profiles and PortfoliosIf you do not currently have a business profile or portfolio, now is the time to create one. The portfolio showcases what you offer, your experience within the field and the type of work that you do. These profiles can also be found quickly on search engines, which means that it will be one of the first things your clients see when searching for either your name or company name. It is also mostly free for you to create one of these portfolios, especially when using one of the more popular sites online. When you take steps to maintain your name in the online world, you are able to increase business and revenue each day. Maintaining your name not only means that you need to keep sites and blogs updated, but it means that you need to be well aware of what is being said about your business behind the scenes. Even one negative review can affect your company in a negative way and deter dozens or even hundreds of people from making use of the products or services that you sell. It is imperative that you take a professional and relaxed manner when maintaining your name online, as even one argument with a negative customer can result in backlash from many of their friends or relatives, tainting the reputation of your business greatly. by Nick Throlson | Jun 26, 2018 | Business
Budgets are highly variable things, and there is no single correct way to make the "perfect" budget. Instead, there are several factors that go into making the best budget fir perfectly for your needs. Many times, finding the right budget consists of trying out different budgets, trial and error, calculating expenses and making the right budget to make sure all your ends are met. Through all of these variables, few things are certain: we do need a budget to keep track of our finances, there are several ways to make budgeting easier on you and going online can actually affect your budget and make it easier to prepare it if you understand how it affects you. SO, how will going online affect your budget? Below are some ways it helps save money and makes budgeting a less daunting task.
Link all of your accounts together!One way of going online can help you manage your finances is by using the Mint app. Mint is an online budget tool that allows you to link up every financial account that you have be it savings, checking, or credit cards. By linking up all of your accounts, you can track your progress towards reaching your retirement goals. Mint also allows you to create a budget plan, specified to your lifestyle and income, to pay off your debts. These online tools give you visual representations like reports and graphs. that illustrate your spending trends, what you need to save in order to pay down debts, and what needs to be saved for retirement in order to help you chart a course towards success.Understand your Personal CapitalThere are also online tools that help you understand your personal capital by tracking your online investments and other large picture aspects of your budget. By using an online tool, Personal Capital, you can access your financial dashboard and see literally everything that you are spending money on or investing money in. This tool gives you a big picture look into your wallet and helps you track your successes and where you need to improve on in order to reach your budgeting goals Personal Capital also allows you to track your investments portfolios and receive advice on the best investment opportunities from an objective standpoint. By paying an additional fee, the online Personal Capital app can actually manage your investments so that you get the biggest return for the money you invested, thereby getting the most out of your finances. Personal Capital is a great tool to give you the overview of your finances, helping you create a budget and invest wisely.Build a Blueprint to map out our financesChase is a great bank with which to do regular banking transactions with. They come highly recommended as a favourite credit card that gives people security, rewards, and other unique features. But what many people don't realize is that Chase also offers Chase Blueprint. This is an online feature that provides free budgeting tools to go along with your Chase credit card. This feature does exactly as the name describes, offers you a blueprint to build a perfect budget for your lifestyle. The Chase Blueprint online feature help you affect your budget by giving you a personalized plan to pay off purchases, minimize interest on your credit cards, and monitor your online spending to make sure you are not spending too frivolously, and are making large strides towards your financial goals. Chase Blueprint is also an entirely free budgeting feature, and better than that, by staying on track with your budget you can earn rewards, gift cards, or even travel. If you have or sign up for a chase credit card, you will have access to great budgeting tools that will help you take steps toward financial freedom.Calculate your financial spending!There is another way to help leverage your budget by going paperless and switching to online forms of managing your finances. We don't realize the cost of paper checks and bills. This outdated form of payments is extremely expensive thanks to the costs of producing and processing paper checks. You can calculate the cost of processing paper checks and other expenses by using the cost calculator. This online tool helps you find ways to cut costs and makes it easier to create a low budget that gives you the ability to save for the future.Switch from paperless to online finances!You can save money by switching from paper checks and bills to paying everything completely online, but that can also make paying bills confusing. It can be hard keeping up with which bills have been paid, and which ones are coming up, or are due immediately. This brings a challenge for learning how to budget wisely and save for the future. However, by using the online tool called Buxfer, you are given the ability to monitor how and where you spend your money and can keep track of your upcoming bills. This tool also allows you to project your future earnings and interests on your savings so that you can plan your finances well into your future. It helps you set short and long-term goals and work towards them and keeps you accountable for upcoming bills that need to be paid and gives you the option to pay for everything online. Buxfer is a great tool that gets young and older people like the ability to get their finances well under control, learning how to organize and pay bills easily, as well as saving and setting short-term and long-term goals, and having the knowledge of how to budget wisely to meet those financial goals.By switching from keeping track of your finances solely on paper, and using the technology available to us today, you give yourself a better chance of succeeding and becoming financially free. Going online can teach you how to save, tell you how much o put aside out of your paycheck to save, invest, pay bills, and of course, money to have fun with. By learning how to use online budgeting tools, you can truly set yourself up to be financially free enjoying your future entirely.