Place web forms on your website to grab hold of the attention of your site visitors. Web forms are used to capture important information of a new visitor on your web page or website. They will give you information about who visited it and took action. By action we mean, signing up on your website, subscribing for your newsletter, providing you feedback, etc. Also, you can use the data provided by your customers for future references/events or connect with them.

Having a good and attractive form on your website may help you attract your customers and convert them into leads. Below are some different lead generation forms that you can use on your website!

Best Web Forms for Lead Generation

1.Sign Up Forms

A sign up form should be simple and should ask for as less information as possible. According to data, multi-step forms convert 86% higher.

At PayU, we keep it minimalistic with our multi-step lead generation form. However, instead of “Sign Up”, we thought of using words that best describe what a user is about to do. When someone clicks on “Create Account”, they are asked to enter their email ID. After they do that, they are taken to the next landing page wherein they are asked to fill a few more necessary fields such as their Name and Phone Number.

We made sure that our sign up form matches our brand’s aesthetic of being the most secure payment gateway and included a one-step verification process with an OTP being sent to user’s registered mobile number.

2.Contact Us/Support Forms

This is the most important web form for your customers! Therefore, make sure it is easy to find on your website. It should be prominently placed. While we would suggest having a short form and provide your email ID for further assistance, another way to do it is by having a “chat” with your customer.

We have “PayU help center” platform wherein our site visitors can “chat with PayU Buddy” and find answers to their queries. It is a simple yet interactive platform where users can raise concerns, get answers and also track their queries. It starts by clicking on the CTA asking if you are a PayU merchant or not.

3. Pop Ups

Pop Up forms are one of the best ways of boosting conversions. Make sure that the content on the pop-up form is clear enough to tell the site visitor what to do and why! A pop up can be of anything from providing a free e-book to information on the latest updates.

Have a look at the pop-up PayU site visitors receive as soon as they login into our dashboard:

First, the pop up starts with “Introducing New Help Portal” which gives our site visitors a reason to respond because it is something that might help them.

Second, the form does not require the user to enter any information about them. There is a bright orange CTA that we have placed right at the center of our pop up that will take them to our landing page.

4. Free Trials/Download Forms

According to data, 62% of companies get 10% or more of their business from free trials. Having an interactive free trial or download form can drive your site visitors to your website and convert them into leads. Place your free trial/download offers between your blogs or on your website prominently. Free trial forms are a great incentive for people to sign up!

The secret is to give them something they can’t resist! Something that helps them to grow their business. For instance, PayU offers a free download of its ebooks with just a few simple steps of entering the name, phone, and email id.

Also, we have placed the link of this ebook free trial landing page in between relevant blogs, to increase the leads from ebook downloads.

5. Feedback Forms

It is super essential to know if your customers are happy and satisfied! A research found that only 1 out of 26 unhappy customers complain and the rest just leave. Therefore, providing a feedback form to your customers after they take an action on your website is key to having happy customers.

There are many benefits of taking feedback from your customers:

1. Prevent negative bad-mouthing about your brand
2. Know what customers want and develop products/services accordingly
3. Eliminate issues or problems in the initial phase

The feedback forms can be in the form of a pop-up or a button on the website. They can be interactive and fun with emoticons.

Conclusion

Generating leads is not a cakewalk! And as we mentioned above, adding these forms on your website could help you increase it.

At PayU, we use web forms for sign-ups and collecting data on who visits our site regularly. We constantly try to improve our web forms with different designs and techniques.

We suggest you incorporate all these forms on your website or other online portals to skyrocket your leads. Once you have generated a lead, you would want them to have a seamless experience while purchasing something from your website. You can provide a seamless checkout experience by integrating PayUmoney payment solutions on your website. For more details,

The post Generate Better Leads Using These Web Forms appeared first on PayU Blog.

What would be your pick?

We are sure most of you naturally would be inclined towards option ‘b’. This is an obvious choice as; images not only provide reading convenience but also reflect the hygiene of the blog.

Blog covers, memes, infographics, gifs are some of the ways you can showcase your content creatively and more effectively. A classic example of making wise use of catchy images is blogs and emailers.

Pick up any promotional emailer from your inbox or visit any blog site, you’ll find marketers toying around with vivid images to grab eyeballs and educate readers.

So, if you want readers to repeatedly land on your content and further convert into avid users then, using the catchy images is the key!

Compelling CTA

Call-to-Action buttons are intent magnifiers. They tell the readers what exactly they are supposed to do and at what point in time.

For example:

There 2 most used and conversion-friendly CTAs:

Don’t just see the length of each CTA above, also observe the context, tone, and compulsion it projects.

Here are some useful statistics put forth by marketing experts:

Make the most of these findings and start converting visitors to users the compelling CTA way!

Comprehensive Voice

By comprehensive voice we mean the tonality of the text, your choice of words, how actionable is your content and so on.

Conducting your content in a graceful voice is important to make sure that it is read in the way it is intended to be written. As per the trends we have been observing recently, writing actionable content triggers urgency and empathy in the minds of the readers.

Example: Replace sentences like “You need to write in an active voice rather than in passive voice.” with “Write content in an active voice.”

By drafting content which is on-point assures that things will move faster. Hence, in this case, conversions will take place faster.

Remember to concise, to the point, crisp and actionable with your language and words you use to impact and inspire masses.

Creative Presentation

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that this point is a mix of all the three mentioned above and the rest as well. Creative presentation is basically the overall look, feel and presence of your content.

Are all the colors, typography, text positions, image layout, background, theme and so on is the correct order and place?

As small or basic the above elements may seem, but together they can make or break your content. Beware, conversions are your priority and hence having your creative presence in all good shape and form is of utmost importance.

Let’s sum up: Whether you are small or a big business, content is important for conversions. However, laying it well is all the more important to draw maximum attention.

With all the marketing efforts for your business in place, it’s a good idea to have an all-in-one payment solution in place as well. Be a part of the PayUmoney family to enjoy the best payment gateway experience. Grow your business effortlessly!

Does your marketing strategy comprise of branding, advertising & promotions, social media presence for conversions? But, what about content marketing?

‘Content is King’ holds all the truth when it comes to building a perfect marketing strategy for your business. Just think through this: content is everywhere and in all possible forms. Then, how can it not help you bring in better leads and higher sales?!

In this blog post, we will emphasize on the elements that help increase conversions!

Role Of Content To Increase Conversions

If you are writing mere basic content in the form of blogs then, getting conversions as per your expectations may seem too far-fetched. However, technology is advancing every minute and so are the search engines’ content indexing criteria.

By merging your creative writing skills with SEO. This merger will eventually result in your business topping the search engine lists of good content to read, thus bringing in quality leads and conversions.

You can check out our expert article on how to write quality blogs that are optimised.

The post How To Create Content That Brings In Maximum Conversions? appeared first on PayU Blog.

What is B2B Lead Generation?

A Lead is basically a consumer who shows voluntary interest in a particular businesses’ products or services. Attracting these leads to your business with the help of various smart marketing techniques is called Lead generation. In case of B2B lead generation process, your leads or consumers are other businesses you need to attract. 

For example, you specialize in corporate gifts and gift wrappers. You have a website and social media presences for the same as well. Now with your online business set in full swing, you need to create awareness amongst other businesses, acquire customers and bring in sales. For this flow to take place smoothly, you need to generate quality leads first!  Before you jump in to know the B2B (business to business) lead generation mechanism in detail, set your online business on track by indulging in these 4 secret ingredients of a successful online business!

A recent report put together by a renowned marketing website reveals that over 63% marketers find steady lead generation as a key challenge.  

B2B Lead Generation: Super Techniques

In the corporate gifting business example mentioned above, the best way to generate leads would be to

• Place “order now” or “know more” forms at relevant places on your website
• Collect all necessary consumer information — name, email address, contact, address, etc..(understand which business needs to collect what data in the sections below)
• Once the high-intent consumers submit information via the form, they are your ‘leads’.
• Now you can connect with them directly. Send curated content such as engaging industry newsletters, product updates and so on.

Remember: A consumer who signs up voluntarily will never push your emailers in their spam. They want your service and so you need to make their need stronger by nurturing them well!

Broadly, there are 2 effective ways to generate leads:

1.The traditional way: Customer referrals, magazine/newspaper advertising, tele- calling, events etc.

2. The non-traditional way: Search engine results, social media, digital marketing and more.

However, you cannot hand the trophy to either of them as both play an important role in generating higher leads.

You Require B2B Lead Generation? 

67% of B2B marketers put forth that, they see at least a 10% increase in sales opportunities through lead generation.

Yes, you do! One of the biggest secrets to a successful business is a new lead generation.  A consumer lands on your website or blog because it’s their need and they happen to search deeper for it. They did their job! Now, it’s your job convert these consumers into customers by implementing an appropriate marketing strategy. If you fail to target the right audience, at the right time, all of your efforts in building your brand goes in vain. Thus, lead capturing is an important step to grow your business. 

7 Effective B2B Lead Generation Techniques 

1. Write blogs & e-books: Choose diverse topics to write on. For example, if you are a fin-tech or payments company like PayUmoney, you can write about various digital marketing trends and strategies as well apart from payments. This allows you to target a large audience, who not only owns a business and want a payment solution but also, wants to market their business well. Further, you can churn out useful e-books as well for better traction.

2. Use social media: Social media, on the other hand, is the modern-day bullet! Plan quality campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Boost these campaigns if necessary or you can opt for the complete organic route as well. Give relevant action buttons or commands as well. You can also run contests on your social media channels.

3. Create effective CTA: A CTA is a ‘call to action’ which redirects your audience to the right URL or window.  

4. Add relevant pop-ups: A pop-up is used to collect direct leads. There are various kinds of pop-ups you can use on your website: exit intent, interestial, banner, side push. Usually, websites use interstitial pop-up which gets displayed right in the center of the web page to gage attention. Even banners prove to be useful. Choose pop-up style as required. 

Side Pop-up

Pro-Tip: You can also add a sticky subscribe button at the end of the page

                                                                                                                        Website Banner

5. Slide in request after page scroll: As the name suggests, this is one of the easiest ways to generate leads. Slide in a request to ‘subscribe’ after someone scrolls through X% of your entire page. As per research, sliding in after 80% of page scroll gives the best results.  

 Pro-Tip: Use SumoMe to track the heat map and target your audience accordingly!

6. Add a side bar: Side bar is one of the best places to add a subscribe form. Just by setting up an appealing subscribe box on your sidebar, you can gently attract a lot of visitors. Ask them to subscribe to your blog or a newsletter by clicking on a relevant CTA.  

7. Launch a dedicated landing page: Keep a particular section of your entire website or blog dedicated to subscriber button. Here, offer something that will attract the visitors and design it beautifully.  

Apart from the above-listed ways, you can also run contests, use videos and gaming for a useful B2B lead generation.

What Lead Information To Capture? 

Now that you will be implementing the above-listed ways to make the maximum of your lead generation efforts, the most important factor is the type of information to be captured. This information captured while B2B lead generation is then used for passing on further marketing and business communications like emailers, newsletters, offers, etc.  You mainly need to capture: 

1. Name
2. Email Id
3. Contact
4. Age
5. Gender
6. Profession
7. Website Details or URL
8. Other Specific Information (cars, business type, house owned, etc)

You can choose any or a combination of the information to be captured from the ones listed above as per your industry type. Businesses mainly ask for the basics: name, email & contact.

Tools For Best B2B Lead Generation  

• FieldBloom: FieldBloom is an all in one customer feedback form-creating tool. Create beautiful surveys, CRM and lead forms and increase your B2B lead generation.  
• Sumo: Sumo is one of the most popular tools that provides multi features like creating pop-ups, welcome pages, social share bar and heat maps.  
• Instapage: Instapage integrates with popular marketing and Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) platforms like MailChimp and Hubspot. It offers drag and drop landing page creation feature along with heat maps.  
• Vyper: Vyper is a tool for creating viral contests. It allows you to make best of your ideas by adding actions like filling a form, asking customers to follow social media profiles and so on.  

Find out the top 41 B2B lead generation tools you can use to upgrade your online business now.

Once you are through with the idea of B2B lead generation, just follow these simple steps: 

• • Give an effective CTAs

• • Design appealing landing pages and emails  

• Make the best use of your social media

Make a way through your sales team to implement your campaigns in the best way! Remember, the more you tweak and keep experimenting with your and B2B lead generation ideas, the higher is the probability of welcoming new leads.  

With all your marketing efforts for your business in place, it’s a good idea to have an all-in-one payment solution in place as well. Sign up with PayUmoney now to enjoy the best payment gateway experience and grow your business effortlessly!   

Recommended Reads 

• How to Build a Successful Lead Generation Form
• Leading Digital Marketing Strategies for Your Business

The post B2B Lead Generation For Online Businesses: A Beginners Guide appeared first on PayU Blog.

A good Instagram content strategy gets the attention of readers, however, a great content strategy keeps them engaged for long. Having such a strategy is particularly essential in the beginning to tap readers, fans, followers and eventually, customers for your business. Once you discover an arrangement that works for you, you just have to follow the lead. Let’s get started on this journey to discover your Instagram Content Strategy.

Key Pointers To Instagram Content Strategy

Are you looking out for content strategies that will bring you, new followers? Or to keep your audiences engaged? Or for more? Use these amazing tips to get them anchored to your profile for good!

1. Posting Creative Photos Or Videos

Understand the objective of your business and what defines your brand. Conceptualize how you would like to present these objectives in your Instagram content, be it photos, videos, posts, stories, hashtags, etc. For example, PayUmoney uses similar visuals like colors, fonts, and dedicated logo to stand out as a distinct brand to the audience.

Using consistent visuals, helps you build your visual brand voice and create your version of the brand story. Keep your content creative and colorful, featuring your products and services to the best.

In addition to that, use Instagram stories! Instagram Stories are gaining popularity day by day. This new feature by Instagram lets you publish photos, videos for 24 hours after which they disappear. These stories have some amazing features such as adding stickers, hashtags, location, polls, gifs etc. that make them attractive and interactive. Not only this, but they also provide the “Swipe Up” outbound link feature on sponsored stories (available to Instagram accounts with more than 10,000 followers).

Here’s how to use Instagram Stories:

• Be creative, be spontaneous, and keep buzzing.
• Post behind-the-scenes, live videos, Q&A, new product launch glimpses, campaign promotion posters, etc. on these stories.
• Direct viewers to various landing pages using ‘Swipe Up’ and thus increase revenues.
• Make the content easily readable and viewable making it appropriate for better understanding.
• Keep the best of your stories for longer with ‘Story Highlights’

This will provide the opportunity for more people to see and engage. However, be careful not to deviate from your brand voice.

2. Creating Perfect Post

Captions are one of the most important parts of your post, and also, often the overlooked ones. Though there is a limit of 2200 characters for the caption, brands must put in efforts to make it worth reading.

They are part of your brand story and contribute massively to generate customer connection and hence interaction. Viewers don’t just read ‘description’, they look out for a story which is interesting, builds a mood, showcases an experience and inspires them for action.

Here’s how to write Instagram Captions:

• Place the key information of your message in the first few lines of your message. Ideally, it should not be more than 2-3 lines.
• Ensure the language used is not bombarded with jargons, but is simple, creative, user-friendly and most essentially, relatable to your brand context.
• Induce a User Generated Content in your caption like asking questions, asking to share an opinion or feedback etc.

This will encourage your customers to come on board for communication with your brand and give them the feel of belongingness. However, do not get personal. You are given this feature for a reason, make most of it!

3. Using Apt Hashtags(#)

Hashtags make you They help you connect with new viewers and followers. Hence, research appropriately to understand the popular ones for your audience and use relevant ones in your post. For example, your business is related to Fashion, type #fashion and you will get the search results (as shown below) along with a number of public posts for the hashtags.

If you wish to create a hashtag of your own i.e., branded hashtags, keep them relevant and easy to remember. Promote them on all your social media platforms like Facebook Page/ Groups, Instagram Page, Twitter Page etc. This will ensure discoverability, increased engagement, and better recall.

Pro Tip: For better results, use a mix of popular hashtags (to drive traffic) and branded hashtags (to promote the brand); at least in your initial Instagram journey.

For example, PayUmoney uses its branded hashtag: #PayUmoney with popular hashtags like #BusinessTips, #TuesdayThoughts for their Tuesday post campaign

Geolocations: Geolocation or location tagging allows users to search, tag, comment and engage with your content associated with the particular location. Organizations promoting travel and events can particularly leverage this feature for user involvement. The physical stores may also create a location for their store through a Facebook check-in and use it on their Instagram account.

It is recommended to use this location in every applicable post for audience engagement. Also, you may use the geo-tagging sticker in your Instagram stories to promote your store and thus, the brand.

Instagram Insights For Your Business

Use and find out what makes your audience interact with you. Note the posts that drive maximum engagement, refurbish your content accordingly and keep optimizing. Be regular in posting your content as it creates a routine for followers to check updates on your different products and services on that specific day or a specific time. Hence, you make the customers come to you on the exact day and time you want.

Content will always be the foundation of your Instagram Business Profile and distributing it, is the next stage. The beauty of Instagram is, it allows you to directly connect to your profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, providing you opportunities to cross-promote your content across various other channels. So gear up and formulate that winning Instagram content strategy which captivates your audience!

With all your marketing efforts for your business in place, it’s a good idea to have an all-in-one payment solution in place as well. Now to enjoy the best payment gateway experience and grow your business effortlessly!

Recommended Reads

How To Promote Business On Instagram & Drive Sales

3 Successful Instagram Marketing Strategies For Businesses

The post Expert’s Guide To Instagram Content Strategy appeared first on PayU Blog.

• Instagram keeps customers 10 times highly engaged with their brands compared to Facebook.
• 70% Instagram users are probable buyers as they have already purchased products online.

Driving sales on Instagram can be a task at times if not done right as almost 70% of the posts shared on Instagram go unnoticed! Hence, based on the above facts, in this blog you will see drilled information about;

How To Promote Business On Instagram Easily In Just 5 Steps!

#1. Create Instagram Business Account

The first step to drive sales is to create an Instagram business account separate from a personal account. If you already have a separate account for business, you can switch it to an Instagram business profile easily:

• Go to ‘Account Settings’

• Click on ‘Switch to Business Profile’

In addition to the above, you can also make your Instagram business profile more attractive and sales savvy by:

• Directing your profile visitors and followers to useful business links such as online store, website, etc. Place these links in the bio as that is the only place where you can insert links. Instagram is less commercial and more inspirational!

• Fill your description or bio (below your handle name) with great information: what you do? who you are? why you do what you do? etc..

Pro-tip: Shorten the links and make them trackable, so that you are on top of your business with valuable visitor insights. This will help you grow sales!

#2. Twist The Content You Share 

Content on Instagram has a very diverse, creative and vibrant approach! More often than not, businesses do get confused with what needs to be posted on Instagram? So, here are the top posts which get maximum likes:

• Posts with faces (they get 38% more likes comparatively!) & food
• Event-related posts
• Product posts
• Team pictures
• Behind the scenes images
• Short Videos
• Memes
• Other User Generated Content (UGC)

This social media platform is the place where you can be as creative as you can. Bring in ample of faces, colors, and moods to make the best use of Instagram.

Image Courtesy: Instagram

Shining some more light on UGC: It is a very strong content generation when it comes to media channels like Instagram where youth and businesses are the main targets. You can use UGC strategy to get more views, likes, and reposts on Instagram. For example, if you are a fashion designer and sell clothes on Instagram, you can put up posts of your clients or buyers wearing your creations. This will prove to be your testimonials as well. You can ask your clients or buyers to tag you in their posts as well. Use apps that enable you to re-post or re-gram UGC content which triggers word of mouth in the future.  

Image Courtesy: Instagram

#3. Run Successful Instagram Contests  

Running out of ideas on how to promote business on Instagram without seeming obvious? We have a solution! The contest is one easy way to promote business and drive sales subtly. Also, this way your brand gets recognition, engagement, and increased number of followers. 

Some of the most used contest ideas are: 

• Comment To Win (participants have to like your photo and tag 2 friends) 

• Like And Tag To Win (participants have to like your photo) 

• Type Your Email ID To Win (participants have to comment their email ID) 

• Tag Us To Win (participants have to post photos with your product + with a specific hashtag and post it on their wall) 

Image Courtesy: A brand on Instgram

Note: Run a contest only when you have a good number of followers. This is so, the number of people who are engaged to your post increases through the contest.  

Apart from these 3 sales strategies on ‘how to promote business on Instagram’, mentioned above you can also drive sales to your Instagram by:  

#4. Advertising On Instagram To Promote Business  

Instagram is a great place to advertise, especially if you have started a new business. This is because photos can drive sales without the need to say much about them. These ads come on the users’ news feed and it will not seem obvious to them, as they look very similar to regular posts, except with tiny sponsored tag on them. If you are posting on Instagram feed, you can advertise with photo, video, and carousel (which can be used to showcase more than one product in a go). 

Instagram Stories is a great way to post your content because your readers will find the post at the top of their feed always for 24 hours. When it comes to ads, you can post ads with photo or video, which also carries a tiny sponsored tag on it.

#5. Drive Sales With Instagram Influencer Marketing  

So do you know what influencer marketing means? Influencer marketing is a type of marketing which uses people with influence to convey your brand’s message to a large number of people. You can hire an influencer instead of directly marketing to a large group of people.

If you are looking for reasons to use an influencer, the most important reason will be to reach people who are having doubts or questions about using your product. To know in depth about Influencer Marketing check out Quick Insights into Effective Influencer Marketing. 

Instagram is slowly becoming one of the most used social media platforms, especially among people who shop online. Also, now that you know how to promote business on Instagram, you will be able to increase real engagement between your brand and customers. When these Instagram sales strategies are put into practice, you will learn how to promote your business and drive sales effortlessly.  

With all your marketing efforts for your business in place, it’s a good idea to have an all – in- one payment solution in place as well. SignUp on PayUmoney now to enjoy the best payment gateway experience and grow your business effortlessly!

Recommended Reads 

Instagram Marketing Strategies For Businesses

What Is Instagram?

The post How To Promote Business On Instagram & Drive Sales appeared first on PayU Blog.

Top 3 Instagram Marketing Strategy

The app has nearly 800 million active monthly users and 2 million monthly advertisers. Instagram for business is scaling up every second. Approximately 80% of businesses follow a business on Instagram. These are very good business numbers and they need to be put up optimal use! Check out these 3 Instagram marketing strategies which will help you organize your business on Instagram in the best way.

1.  Target Your Audience Wisely 

Just like any other plan or strategy, target audience plays the most important part of your Instagram marketing strategy. It is important to determine the audience you want to reach on Instagram. Before you narrow them down, it is crucial to be clear in your head about the objective of your business.

Perform a quick, extremely easy and most effective exercise to figure out the true ‘objective’ of your business on Instagram: Complete the Statement

I want to take my business on Instagram because………………

Pro-tip: Be brutally honest about your answer. Type the first thing that comes to your mind after reading the above statement.

Once you have found the objective it’s now the right time to move towards implementing that objective. The first step to do so is spotting and pulling out the right segment of the audience. Who is the ‘right set of the audience’? They are the ones your product or service has been designed for. For who you know will see your product once and will definitely stay with it or either instantly buy. They will be your loyal customers and fuel your cash-flow increasingly.

Some helpful factors involved in narrowing down the right segments of the audience for your Instagram business include:

a. Demographic – This factor helps you pick people belonging to desired age, gender, income, lifestyle and so on. For example: if you sell luxury men’s accessories then your desired:

• • Age group: 30 years and above 

• • Gender: Men & Women 

• • Income: Rs. 35,000 and above 

• Lifestyle: outdoorsy, socializing, etc.. 

b. Psychographic – In this factor a person’s attitude, interests, personality traits, values and so on. Keeping the above example in mind psychographic segmentation in your Instagram marketing strategy would include:

• • Personality Traits: Open, easy going, hard working, loves to socialize, stylish and so on 

• • Interests: Loves partying, fancy things 

• Attitude: always wants to upgrade in life 

c. Geographic – We know the world is a small place and social media is meant to make it even smaller. But let’s be practical! If you are selling men’s luxury accessories then it makes no sense to target audience living in tier 2 or 3 cities or villages. You need to be very watchful of the culture each city or region beholds.

2. Detailed Competitor Analysis 

The agenda is not to copy your competitors but to progress with the world and probably go 10 steps ahead of them. Make a list of all competitors in your space. Check their account regularly, make a keen note about what are they selling, which top brands are they selling on their Instagram account, how many people like, comment or tag their products and so on. This analysis will broadly give you a roadmap to create an effective Instagram marketing strategy for your business.

Apart from the factors mentioned above, there are a few specific factors you must take away from your competitors:

a. USP: Unique Selling Point is one exclusive factor which every business should possess. USP is the answer to a very prominent question: “Why should people buy my product or service?” Niche products, men’s office accessories or accessories from London, etc. could be your unique points. It differentiates one business from the other, so make sure your business is truly unique.

b. Time of posting: As per research, the below could be the best days and time to post on Instagram to reach out to more people, but you also need to know when and what are your competitors posting. At what time are they posting luxury men’s hygiene products and at what time of the day are they posting men’s perfumes?  

Image Source: CoScehdule

c. What are you posting?: Men’s accessories may seem like a very narrow business, but you can always inspire people to explore this segment more through your posts. Post relevant and aspiring content on Instagram.

 3. Posting Regularly

The trick is to never run short of content. [bctt tweet=”Keep your Instagram handle or profile buzzing with pictures and stories to tell. ” via=”no”] It’s good to stick to your business but do offer variety of content to your users. Once in a while, you can put up couple watches or perfumes instead of just men’s accessories. Talk and show what’s the trend. For example, some men may prefer fancy buttons today than wearing cufflinks. Remember, we are here to do business and not to spam your users. Here are some interesting Instagram statistics that will never make you fall:

• • Photos with faces get 38% more likes 

• • Second half of 2017  saw 28% increase in Instagram ads 

• • Weekdays are most preferred by Instagram users to engage 

• • 80% influencers prefer Instagram for brand collaboration 

• Instagram photos 36% more engaging than Videos 

 Instagram Payments

At present, businesses only post their products, ask users to comment or direct message to buy, ask buyers send payments and then the product is sent to the buyer. This only makes the entire payment process or the joy to buy a product disturbing. Let’s revolutionize and make this payment process simple with PayUnow. The payment process is exclusively designed for you to accept payments directly into your bank account without sharing any confidential details. Here’s how you accept payments in few easy steps:

1. Post your products on Instagram 
2. Ask interested users to comment  
3. You create a payment link on PayUnow 
4. Share that link with them on Instagram via direct message 
5. Your customers copy the link to a browser to pay 

The biggest plus point of using PayUnow to accept payments on Instagram is:

• • It enables your customers to pay using multiple methods like credit/debit card, net-banking, UPI, wallets and more without downloading any app. 

• Has no monthly limits on payments, so you can accept as many payments you want to.  

Use the best way to accept payments for your Instagram business. Know more about PayUnow.

Today, Instagram is growing stronger and users from other social media channels are moving here. So, it’s better to start now than wait for later and miss out on vital user segments. Put these Instagram marketing strategies to the best use. We understand your desire to keep growing your business endlessly, and hence we want to make accepting payments easy for you. Signup on PayUnow and accept payments from customers easily anywhere! 

Recommended Reads

What is Instagram for your business?(And it’s benefits for you)

The post 3 Successful Instagram Marketing Strategies For Businesses appeared first on PayU Blog.

How To Use WhatsApp Business App?

In the past few months did you receive:

• • Messages showing brand names instead of an unknown number. E.g.: God electronics instead of +91- 9898989898
  • Noticed a verified mark against the brand name?

Wondering how did these businesses get to give such professional touch on WhatsApp? Then the answer is Beta Test. Before launching the business app for Android smartphone users, WhatsApp ran a beta test with select businesses in India. To send professional messages to your customers you have to:

Step 1: Install WhatsApp Business App

WhatsApp for business is free to install app available only to Android smartphone users for now.

Step 2: Enter Required details

Mobile number registration & Business name screens

Mobile Number: As this is the first attempt by WhatsApp to monetize the app, they allow businesses to register with landline numbers as well.

Business Name: this is the name that flashes on your customer’s WhatsApp chat.

Note: For account verification, WhatsApp has drafted a few parameters, brand popularity is one of them. For account confirmation, your WhatsApp number has to match your business number.

Step 3: Personalize Your Profile

Business details & Setting personalized messages screens

Business Details: Build customer trust by adding a genuine appeal to your WhatsApp business profile. Provide a business description, category, working hours, website and more for better sales!

Personalized Messages: Make your customers feel that you are not far away from them. Select custom messages to personalize these messages to let your customers know that you’re “open” or “closed” for the day.

Step 4: Get. Set. Send.

Image courtesy: WhatsApp

Now that your WhatsApp business account is created in less than 5 minutes, it’s time to say “Hey there!”. Start sending product or service updates to your customers, create groups of like-minded people to share your products with. If your customers find your marketing tactics annoying, they have all the liberties to block you.

Step 5: Create & Share Payment Links

Do your customers face problems in making payments via UPI? If yes, then WhatsApp business app is a definitely not a perfect option to use. The app only enables UPI payments. On one hand the app provides whole load of facilities for small businesses but, on the other hand it fails to provide an apt payment solution or facility. You need to make use of an extraordinary app – PayUnow, which helps you to create and share payment links with customers on WhatsApp, Facebook, SMS, Email and more options.

Easy create and share payment link on WhatsApp using PayUnow

On PayUnow you can:

1. Accept customer payment directly in your bank account
2. Your customers can pay via credit/debit card, net-banking, wallets, UPI and so on
3. No monthly payment collection limit (unlike wallets)
4. Your customers don’t need to download or update any other app (unlike WhatsApp business app)
5. You do not need a website to use PayUnow

There’s more to PayUnow! Check out more detailed features and business benefits of PayUnow right away to provide best payment facility to your customers.

Step 6: WhatsApp Business Statistics

Every business needs to know the results of their sales or marketing efforts. You should know it too! Get to know messages sent, delivered to your customers and read by them.

Undoubtedly, WhatsApp is winning big bucks in the market today though this is just the beginning. Recently, KLM airlines became the first airline to have a verified WhatsApp business account. Passengers receive their flight documentation (tickets, boarding pass, etc.) and flight updates on WhatsApp. The airlines made use of WhatsApp to interact with their passengers on the one-on-one basis in order to establish a strong bond with them. This increased passenger return rates and airline sales!

How to use WhatsApp business is a simple question to answer, but what about increasing sales? Listed below are some pro-tips to help you get savvy with:

What Are The Ways To Use WhatsApp Business For Selling?

Pro-tip 1: Promote your business

WhatsApp is vast and considered as ‘most used’ communications app globally.

Any business owner or marketer cannot resist to not use this platform to reach out to his clientele. Choose all your like-minded customers, create a group (not mandatory) and broadcast new products, offers, promo codes and more to them. You can also share product demonstrations with them. For example; as the business app supports video content, you can share product feature videos, ‘how to use’ gifs with your customers for clarity. Since this is a personal communications platform, make sure all the promotions are worth your customers time.

Pro-tip 2: Send Reminders

Today, when it comes to “Breaking News”, WhatsApp is leading the league leaving news channels and newspapers far behind. Referring to the KLM airlines example mentioned above, WhatsApp is used as a medium to send latest updates, essential documents, and status to their passengers. Similarly, you can make use of the app to send payment or order reminders to your customers.

Pro-tip 3: Take care of your customers

Keep your customers happy at all times. Use WhatsApp to stay in touch with them, support them by providing a platform where they can complain, share their valuable feedback or rate your services. This stops them from putting up complains on social media platforms like Facebook, as they have a much personal way to share their grievances.

With all the useful information brought to you about WhatsApp business you wouldn’t have to scratch your head about ‘how to use WhatsApp business to sell your products’. Just follow the above steps and tips, and we are sure you are absolutely good to go with booming your business across leaps and bounds. Before we move on to working on our next blog post for you, we have jotted down a few businesses that do well on WhatsApp and are almost always ‘sold out’ within just 30 mins!

1. 1. Home Décor
   2. Crafts & Arts
   3. Jewelry & Accessories
   4. Clothing
   5. Services – photography, event planners, beauty consultants, stylists & artists and so on.

Stay updated with latest business trends only on PayUmoney blog and like always….grow your business effortlessly!

The post How To Use WhatsApp Business App To Sell Products? appeared first on PayU Blog.

Coca-Cola, Nike, Starbucks, you name it and you will find all small-big businesses on Instagram. Launched in October 2010, Instagram has definitely taken the world by a storm. A global hub of more than 800 million active users, Instagram can help you take your business to the new avenues of success.

“A simple, fun and creative way to capture, edit and share photos, videos, and messages with friends and family.”

– Instagram

Instagram For Your Business: All You Need To Know And More…

Instagram has pioneered a very sharp change in the way we filter and deal with the world around us. The photo and video sharing app is more than just a ‘for-personal-use-only’. It is big and it is business. Instagram is a global platform that allows businesses to inspire audiences, recruit new talent, showcase products, and services, and personify their content.

Whether you own a small or a big business, creating a business profile on Instagram and marketing it well seems to be the need of the hour. With an Instagram business profile, you can increase your brand visibility, drive sales and increase your customer base. Firstly, it’s essential for you to know the power of the app by getting well versed with its benefits.

Instagram co-founders Mike Krieger (@mikeyk) and Kevin Systrom (@kevin)

What are The 6 Major Benefits of Using Instagram For Your Business?

Once you create a business account on Instagram, you are eligible to reap the benefits mentioned below:

1. It is free!: You can signup and setup your account quickly and for free. Instead of spending huge bucks on hiring marketing agencies, be your own expert and spend wisely for promoting your business on Instagram.
2. To-the-point communication: As Instagram is a photo and video sharing platform, you get to convey your core communication message creatively.
3. Informal: Gone are those days when you had to oblige your audience with flowery and formal words. Use the young and creative app to influence your audience the way they like.
4. Connect with customers: Make use of Instagram for your business to reach out and engage with your customers directly. This will help you to get better marketing insights into your target audience, likes, dislikes, preferences and so on.
5. UGC: User Generated Content gives your audiences the liberty to understand your business better. This also helps them to trust you deeper thus creating an essence of loyalty towards your business in their minds.
6. Instant analytics: All the posts that you boost on Instagram from your business profile can be easily analyzed within minutes. This instant analysis of your posts will help you map effective marketing, content and sales strategy for your brand.

How You Can Use Instagram For Your Business?

It is not hidden, that Instagram was acquired by Facebook. The fusion of Instagram’s creativity and fun culture with Facebook’s accurate analytics and hassle-free business boosting tools, paved ways for many online businesses. To make the most of Instagram for your business use these 3 powerful strategies:

Instagram Content Strategy

Instagram is a very simple, creative and intimidating(initially) app. We all know that content is the king to promote any business. Therefore, it is important to draft a solid content strategy for Instagram in order to attract the right kind of audiences. More often than not, businesses end up asking “what should I post on my Instagram business profile?” Well, the answer is right here:

• Creative Photos/ Videos: As the app is a visual in-the-moment platform, go extremely creative with the product photos and videos that you wish to post. Variety is the spice of life, so strike a balance between the kind of posts to want to put up (product, behind-the-scenes, leisure pictures, etc.) Make use of unique filters available to you to enhance the photos, to set the mood and to give them that extra edge. Basically, the idea is to be informal and allow your audiences to be a part of your world.

• Perfect Post Caption: Caption your photos or videos well. A picture is worth 1000 words, but when it comes to business it is better to add a short and crisp caption so that your audiences know your business well.

• Apt Hashtags(#): It’s a good habit to stay on top of what works and what doesn’t to attract new followers. A relevant and meaningful # allows non-followers to find your content. If they like your content they will willingly hit the “Follow” button in your profile. Apart from discoverability, hashtags also allow you to track your marketing campaigns, contests and so on. It helps you to categorize content related to a specific campaign so that you can monitor the performance of those hashtags efficiently.

Instagram Marketing Strategy

Still confused about from where to begin? Here’s what you need to your rescue – an effective marketing strategy! Like mentioned above, the app is quite intimidating at the first because it is different from other social media platforms, but you need to start somewhere.

Instagram’s Official Profile

• Map target audience wisely: Every marketing strategy has mapping target audience as its top parameter, Instagram is no different here. Some helpful factors to consider while mapping your Instagram target audience include age, gender, location, interests, etc. Also, you can take a look at your competitor’s followers to make your audience mapping easier.

• Detailed competitor analysis: It’s good to know what your competitors are doing. If you already know your top competitors, scan their accounts thoroughly. Make a note of the type of posts receiving maximum engagement and likes. Start constructing your marketing and content strategy accordingly. The motive is not to copy your competitor’s strategy or to increase their ‘unfollow’ list. The agenda lies in progressing with the world and possibly leaping 10 steps ahead of the rest.

• Posting regularly: Keep your Instagram editorial calendar always full and busy with relevant content to offer your audience. Constantly spy the best time to post on Instagram, healthy number of posts and also post a variety of content.

Instagram Sales Strategy

At the end of the day, the sole purpose of any business is to sell their products and services to maintain a consistent business cash flow. To see your sales soaring high –

• Place useful links in bio: 37% of the Instagram audience decide whether or not to follow a business on the basis of the description. To avoid heavy spamming, the vibrant app has enabled placing business links only in the bio, placed right below your profile picture. Your post captions or any other content cannot be pasted with links. So, make your bio useful and attractive to your audience by correctly redirecting them to your website.

• Promotions: It is easy to promote or ‘boost’ your post on Instagram via Facebook within seconds. To make the most of promotions, make use of influential marketing. Each Instagram profile has the potential to influence a billion. As per estimates, $1billion is spent on Instagram influencers. Learn more about influencer marketing and put into action today!

• Run meaningful contests: #ContestAlert can bring you more results and followers than you can ever imagine! The exchange of goodies or free giveaways during contests is a great way to bring in a huge number of audience and alarming business.

Instagram Insights

All your efforts should end up with valuable results. You should know how your Instagram strategies and campaigns are performing. There are 4 basic Instagram insight metrics, you should keep an eye on:

• Impressions: Refers to how many times your ads appear on user’ screen.
• Profile Views: Represents the number of times your profile has been viewed.
• Followers: This metrics shows the number of followers you have gained and lost over the past week.
• Reach: Reflects the number of unique users who have viewed your posts.

Note: Instagram provides weekly insights for your business. Hence, you will not be able to access Instagram business insights of the past weeks. It is advisable to keep a record of all your business insights on weekly basis, to avoid losing out on any valuable insight into your business.

Does Your Business Have An Instagram Account Yet?

As success doesn’t come overnight similarly building strong Instagram prominence doesn’t happen overnight. Start now! The bright side of Instagram is: the app users are extremely active and love engaging with businesses creatively. So, snooze your doubts and put all, content, marketing and sales strategies in place to witness the power Instagram brings for your business!

Learn more about Instagram marketing strategies to grow your business.

The post What Is Instagram For Your Business?(And Its Benefits For You) appeared first on PayU Blog.

What is Google Analytics? 

It is evident that if you own any business online or offline, you are keen to understand your consumers’ behavioral patterns, preferences, attitude, and choices. In case of a physical store, you can personally observe your consumers’ behavior. But if you host a business online then, you might want to use google analytics for website to know your consumers’.

For an online business, the valuable insights which are available at your fingertips include: 

• Your site interface  
• Customer behavior  
• Where do they come from, etc.

How to Add Google Analytics to Website?

To get the most out of this post, you first need to set up a google analytics account. Here’s the step-by-step process to create google analytics for website: 

Step 1: Go to google analytics, create a new account, select your website URL and fill in other required details.  

Step 2: You will get a tracking ID for your tracking code. Which will more or less look like –  

Step 3: The above code needs to be pasted in the next window, go to settings, turn on the e-commerce tracking feature and click on save. It might take 24 hours for google analytics to start collecting information.  Once your account is active you can start viewing business reports.

Welcome to google analytics for website dashboard! 

Note: Here you only see the big picture and not the underlining currents which contributed to the reports.  

In order to make accurate business-centric decisions, all need to look at is –  

These tabs appear on the left panel of your dashboard. They need to be your main focus points at first. You will be more confident and pro to surf other reports in analytics once you master these basic ones. Before you go deeper in the reports, remember to set the desired date correctly in the top right corner.  

Google Analytics For Website Reports  

Real – Time Report  

*Information in the image is blurred for privacy purpose. 

It simply projects all activities happening on your site. It is a great tool to monitor website traffic in depth – who is on your site at that very moment, their geographic location and pages they are browsing.  

A real-time report is mainly useful for pulling out the email, blog, social media or campaign performance. Also, for tracking them on the spot impact of traffic on your site. You can utilize this information to make better marketing and promotional decisions for your business.  

Audience Report 

It tells you more about who is on your website. This report provides in-depth insight into the age, gender, geography, language, device used (desktop, mac, mobile, etc..). You can figure the total number of visitors on your site (sessions), new & returning users.     

Simple terms explained:  

Sessions: A group of on-site activity a user makes within a given time span. A single user can open multiple sessions at the same time.  

Users: Total unique visitors to your site. There are two types of users: new and returning. Google analytics creates a unique id for every new user (desktop, mobile, etc..). Thus if your id is 01 you are a new user (desktop). If you go back to the same site again then you are a returning user. But if a different device is used (mobile), then your id will be 02 (new user).   

Page views: It is the total number of pages viewed (loaded or reloaded).  

Pages/Sessions: The metric page per session is the average number of pages viewed in a session.  

Avg. Session Duration: It refers to the average amount of time your visitor stays on your page.  

Bounce Rate: Percentage of visitors who view only one page of your site within a stipulated time period. There is no further activity performed by the visitor which leads to session expiry.   

You can change or add segments as well in this section. By adding an additional segment you are opening your analytics ground a bit more by comparing two segments. For example, you can compare people who bought your product and people who didn’t buy the product in order to understand the difference between them.  

You can make use of this information to: 

• Understand people from which country, state and city are viewing your website and are interested in it. This will help you to cater to these specific audiences by creating campaigns or communications meant for them. For example, shipping costs, sales, and so on.  
• As you know which device (mobile, desktop, android, mac, etc.) is popular amongst your audience you can optimize your site accordingly.  

Acquisition Report 

This report projects how your visitors and users found and arrived at your website. From where did they arrive at your website? Which other sites got them to yours? What distribution strategy is working and what is not is highlighted here. Apart from acquisition overview, Referrals helps you to understand which pages and domains are linking to your store and directing traffic.  

Behavior Report 

The behavior report tells you the improvement areas in your content and how your visitors are reacting to it. Bounce rate, page load time, unique views are captured here. This report will help you improve your customer experience on your site thus increasing conversions.  

Conversion Report 

The Ecommerce tab under conversion is the reason why you turned on the E-commerce tracking initially while signing up. Here google analytics tracks your product, transactions and time of purchase on the basis of the information it receives. These insights help you understand which product is liked by and suited for your customers. 

Google Analytics for Website Campaigns 

One of the most important things to track in analytics is your marketing efforts in the form of campaigns. So how do you track your campaigns? Just with a link! Google analytics facilitates you to quickly create and automatically track campaign specific special URL. To track campaigns automatically all you have to do is log on to Google’s campaign URL builder tool.  

You need to paste your website link and provide some relevant information asked. Once this is done, Google provides you with a complete trackable URL. This URL can be used wherever you wish to promote your product or site. Google will automatically recognize the link and track all the actions performed by the user. These searches can be viewed in the Acquisition – Campaigns tab.  

Most people find google analytics for website very difficult to use or understand because of all the jargons used in its reports. However, to grow your user base and business further, understanding these simple basics of your online business and audience is crucial.  

It’s time to start your online business with PayUmoney!

The post Google Analytics For Website: Basics Simplified appeared first on PayU Blog.

Read about the various kinds of marketing strategies for online business to understand the basic difference between online and digital marketing.  

Digital Marketing Strategies: A Simple Explanation 

As mentioned above it is an umbrella term for your entire online marketing efforts and much more. Digital marketing broadly covers two types of marketing strategies: 

Paid Digital Marketing Strategy 

SEM

Search engine marketing ideally covers the complete paid form of advertising. You can perform a small exercise to figure out how SEM works on search engines and hence how it will work in the best interest of your online business.  

Ex: Type whatever you want to search using any search engine (Google, Yahoo, etc..) and hit ‘Search’. You may see something like this: 

First and the last 3 or 4 results will have ‘Ad’ written below them. This means, that these are highly SEM savvy. A marketer displays ads on search engines in order to: 

• Increase visibility: As it sits on the top of the page, it is more likely to be visible and hence clicked.

• Increase clicks: High visibility means more clicks. People think that it is on the first page and on the top means it is a reliable source (which could be the case), but they do not understand the ‘Ad’ bit here.  

• Scale up brand value: Surfers mainly rely on the first two pages of the search engine, the SEM controlled searches gain more clicks, thus increases credibility and brand recognition.  

Marketers bid for certain high volume search terms and concepts related to the main search term, to get a very evident ad placement on the first page of the search engine results.  

*SEM is a broader concept which is inclusive of SEO, CPC, display ads placement and so on. But in this blog it is mentioned as separate points, simply to bring out the depth of each concept well.    

Display Ad Placement

This type of digital advertising is mainly seen on the website. The ads displayed are mainly of 2 types: 

• Retargeted ads: For example: if you saw a product on site A and then you closed that site and hopped onto site B and C. The products which you saw on site A earlier will flash on site B and/or C as well. Basically, site A is trying to sell the products you were interested in. This is called retargeting. A wants you to make a purchase and hence wherever you go on the web it will follow you.  

• Informative ads: These ads are never seen by you earlier maybe. They are new to you and performing the basic function of ads – you create product or brand awareness amongst the viewers.   

The main contributors to display ad placement are: 

• Impressions: It refers to the number of people who have viewed the ad at least once. So, if there are 5 ads on the webpage, the impressions calculated will be 5 every time one visits the page.

• eRPM: It signifies, effective revenue per thousand impressions. This term notifies the amount of money earned for every 1000 views this is the standardized method of calculating the monetization of the traffic coming to the website. The higher the eRPM the more money you make.  

 CPC

 Cost per click or PPC (pay per click) means that when your display or search engine ads are clicked on, you will pay a certain mutually agreed amount to the site per click. For instance, if you get 5 clicks on your ad and each click is worth Rs.5 then, you owe 5×5= Rs.25 to the site. The other alternative to calculate CPC is the cost per thousand (CPM), wherein impressions in 1000s are considered regardless of the viewer clicking on the ad or no. CPM is more or less similar to eRPM.  

 Digital PR

Digital or online public relations is no rocket science. What PR professionals do in traditional media – newspaper, events, talk shows, digital PR experts the same online. There are many editions of e-magazines, e-newspapers, blogs, podcasts and so on. PR has proved to be a very powerful and effective tool offline and online it is all the more useful as it boosts your reach, shares, and awareness to a wider audience. The main advantage of digital PR is that it is more measurable than traditional PR. You can make use of UTM links and SEO tools to gain insights. You can precisely pull out the exact data you want to understand. It also focuses on evaluating domain authority (DA) and organic opportunities.  

 Social Media Marketing 

This term is very well known to all of us. If simply put, social media marketing is one of the most vital parts of digital marketing. It refers to the process of welcoming traffic or target audience via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and so on. Social media marketing is highly preferred by the marketers today because of its popularity, high reach, and greater visibility. This component is a must in your digital marketing plan. Social media content is highly driven by SEM and SEO.  

Affiliate Marketing

It is a way to earn commission by promoting other people’s or company’s products. Affiliate marketing is where you find a product you like, promote it to others and earn a piece of profit for each sale you make. It is a very preferred strategy today because of its effects and cost-effectivity.  

Content Marketing

It is one tool which can help you achieve these objectives. It is not only a cost-effective strategy but also a very important arm of digital marketing. If you observe, you absorb it everywhere – social media, advertisements, announcements, emails, blogs, search engines and so on. It is an art of storytelling. Digital is not only limited to just blogs and Youtube, it is expanding into OTT (over the top content). OTT includes distribution of diverse content via audio, video and other media by using multiple-system operators (MSO) with an internet connection. For example, you can view Hotstar shows on TV, laptops/desktops and even mobile phones. OTT enables a wide distribution of content and hence its consumption.   

Influencer Marketing

Today as the world is becoming a lot more social, marketers want to reach out to their audiences in the best possible channel, time and place. A recent report points out to phenomena that over 1,800 million people are actively using social media at present. Marketers want to target these people, millennials mostly, who are their consumers by utilizing influencer marketing. Usually marketers tie-up with social media influencers for a particular project or time span (depending on the prominence of the connectivity and impression amongst their followers) to promote their brand and products. 

Viral Marketing

Be it videos, stories or images everything funny, effective and realistic is viral. It is mainly structured and planned for social media. Are you aware of one day when your Facebook newsfeed doesn’t have a meme or gifs without any likes or comments? It is very effective on social media channels.  

Referral Marketing

The name says it all. It refers to reference! Your customer will refer your business to 10 others and those 10 will refer to other 20 people. This effect of reference also to power with word of mouth will take place only if you provide quality service and product to your customers.  

CRM

Customer relationship management is an important element not only in digital marketing strategy alone but otherwise as well. This is recuperating with your customers in a condition of crisis or disaster. For example, you sold a product to one of your customers and it didn’t come across as the one your customer wanted or it turned out to be defective. Then CRM comes into the picture. You may either give an upgraded product for a lesser price or introduce cash backs and so on. Maintaining a healthy relationship with your customer is very important to sustain and scale your business up. 

Mobile Marketing

It includes in-app advertising and promoting your products and services. You can also make use of digital mobile games to promote. Mobile has become a very crucial part of our lives. Be it rich or poor, rural or urban, making use of feasible data packs for entertainment and information is a supernova. Marketers today are exploring all means to reach their customers via the small screen which can easily slip into ones pocket. Mobile is empowerment and confidence to achieve whatever one wants instantly.     

Organic Digital Marketing Strategies 

SEO

Search engine optimization is a part of SEM but the only difference is – SEO is organic. Search engines have always been a major platform to drive bulk traffic to websites. With a change in Google algorithms, you need to be extra careful while optimizing your website. Implementing right SEO techniques is the best way to create a Google-friendly website. It helps you to maintain SERP (search engine results page)  ranking.   

Awesome Content + Targeted Outreach + Value Add Proposition = Links

Social Media Marketing

Yes, it is mentioned as an arm of paid digital marketing strategy as well. Social media marketing may not necessarily be 100% paid or organic. A combination of both is healthy for the business as paid one will target deeper and more and the organic one will increase credibility.  

Content Marketing

Similarly, for content marketing, you don’t have to pay yourself for drafting blogs or putting up timely social media content. As discussed above, it is a very vital component in any form of marketing. People see your content be it in the form of text, pictures or videos, and this content helps them to dive deeper into the decisions making process.    

Viral Marketing 

Not all forms of viral marketing are paid or boosted. Agencies thrive harder to get their videos and other content infectiously circulating on the social media. In this quest, they end up paying heavily to the agencies or the social media channel directly. A classic example of organic viral marketing is ALS ice bucket challenge. The crux of the content was so crisp that no money was required to be pumped in. In fact, the noble cause got charity in millions.  

Referral Marketing

If you have a business you can be the spokesperson and communicate your business to your close circle of friends and family, talk about your products and even give testers. All this for free. The word of mouth effect starts rolling from you and ends up reaching to millions.  All this free. The bottom line remains the same in both paid and unpaid form of referral marketing – the product or service needs to be exceptionally true and useful. 

CRM

It is not necessary that you give cash backs and reduced rates products to your customers to maintain relationships, a kind gesture of acknowledgment in your business – on your social media page or website is very receptive and appreciated by your customer. The recognition is of relevance than the money spent.   

Planning Digital Marketing Strategy 

Goal Identification 

Identify what is your aim for developing a digital marketing plan? Ask yourself why are you creating it? For whom is it? What will it give your business in return? Also, know what your customers are looking for? Answering these questions will make your marketing strategy stronger and relevant. Once you know what you actually want to achieve on the digital platform, measuring your success against the final report will become easy.   

Research 

With a strong digital marketing plan comes a lot of research. Knowing your target audience (TA) is extremely important, as you will be strategizing, creating and promoting it according to the TA you choose. However, your research shouldn’t be limited, it should include:   

• Target Audience: Depending on the categorization mentioned below you can zero down what and who are you looking out for and how do you want to target the best.  

• Online Market: Which sites are your audience viewing? For how long? What kind of digital content is your competitor marketing to draw users? What are people consuming online? What are they sharing? What is trending online? Where do the gaps exist?    

• Keyword Search: SEO is one of the most vital parts of online digital marketing. Which is the most used keyword in the market? Out that list, which keywords will work best for your business for maximum search engine optimization? 

 Unleashing Creativity 

Now is the time to sit down with your team and pitch some great digital marketing ideas creative enough to grab eyeballs and attention of your TA. Here campaigns are created keeping: 

• Campaign theme (central idea): What do you want to convey in the campaign? How you want your target audience to react and behave after viewing your campaign?  

• Tagline: This will explain what your campaign is about in as short as a line. Eg:  Coca-Cola – Open Happiness.

• Campaign Duration: Here, you need to decide the duration of your campaign. How long you want your target audiences to see it? How much time is adequate to run the campaign for its success.

• Creatives: A picture is worth 1000 words! Your creatives are the face of your campaign. They can’t be weak. Creative/ image is what your audience will see first and then decide whether or not to move ahead or dig deeper into the campaign. Here’s what you need to answer for yourself: How will the creatives be created and what will be the best font, color, texture, copy of the creatives?What will be visually appealing your audience? How your creatives will compel them to click on your campaign and take action? How will your entire feel and look of the campaign make them stay on your page or be glued to your campaign for longer? 

• Duration: Every campaign has a duration attached to it. Typically,  your digital marketing campaign can run for 3 months, 6 months, a year or for as long a particular occasion is. Then whether to extend or cut short the actual duration solely depends on your analytics numbers and the campaign effectivity. Example, you can plan summer campaigns, Diwali campaigns or even an Independence day campaign. Here, you need to make sure that the visibility and awareness of the campaign are created and started way in advance. If you are aiming for a summer campaign, there is no point in making your campaign live during Diwali or Christmas. You need to planned and prepared for your campaign well in advance so that when it’s time, it’s just the matter of executing your campaign and not creating it from scratch.   

• Digital Channel Mixing: Once you are clear about what and how it’s time to know where?! Digital marketing is a very vast field with multiple overlapping options. You need to choose whether you want to make use of only paid or only organic digital media? Google search ads or webpage banner ads? You want to use simply content marketing or team it up with referral and influencer marketing as well? You need to choose the best permutation and combination for your campaign.  

• Manage Content: Content even in the digital world is the king! No industry or campaign can work without content. Content can be textual, it can be in the form of videos or pictures. But it needs to lead your audience somewhere, a place of their deep root interests. For example, if your audiences are searching for “best marketing strategies for online business“, then they should land up somewhere by clicking on your link – blog, video, statistics, comparison chart, infographic and so on. Your campaign must provide quality and value to your searches and you can provide this with the help of valuable content.  

Distribution 

Social Media or SMS? Mobile or online marketing? Where do you want to distribute your digital marketing content and strategy to reach your correct audience is of utmost importance. Once you have decided the channels you want to make use of, distributing is as easy as 1-2-3! Because of digital marketing buying your preferred media space takes less time than buying a traditional media spaces – newspapers, magazines, TV, etc.  

Analysis 

You need to know which type of campaign strategy or creatives worked best. Where is the improvisation needed? How can you draw more audience to your campaign? How your result numbers increase? Also, check whether you have achieved your goals? Did your message reach the audience the way you intended it to? And so on. Analyzing your digital marketing strategies and its effects on the market should be your routine! 

Digital Marketing Budget 

There is no specified budget for any digital marketing campaigns. It solely depends on your analytics at the end of the day. However, it is advisable to not bank all your budget on one channel or online media. Allocate or invest your money in various channels – email, SMS, social media, YouTube, Online PR, etc.  

Before you go ahead with allocation you need to know: 

• Which digital platforms are leading in terms of viewership and then conversions. Here are some insights, 

• Analyze other successful digital marketing campaigns and plans from the past, on the basis of –

1. Appeals: whether the referred campaign struck the logical or practical chord, or was it successful because of its humor angle and so on. Basically, you need to figure out what element or the campaign was the most appealing to the audience.  
2. Emotions: People preferred P&G products because of its emotional and light mother-child videos? Or did the Dove real beauty testimonial ad create true empowerment, tender self-love, and celebration in the women?  
3. Usability: By making use of these emotions and appeals and other creative elements, what actually made the audience make up their mind to buy that particular product or for instance, participate actively in the ALS ice bucket challenge for a cause? How easy it is to make a decision in the favor of what they see? 
4. Views: What are people actually viewing on the digital platforms? This question is of utmost importance because today almost every brand – big or small has some of the other digital media presence be it on social media, websites, search engines and so on.  

Your budget can be as big as lakhs and crores or as small as a few thousand, pumping in money is always your choice. What really matters is choosing the right channel mix for your business and boosting it till you derive at satisfactory results.  

As per FICCI report enlarging 2016 statistics, India projected a good 15.5% which states that the country is a fastest growing advertising markets globally with a large consumer base. Also, the most reliable insights source points to the fact that, though India is marching slowly on 12.7% in the digital ad spend arena, it is the fastest growing mediums at 33.5 CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) from 2015-2020. Consumption of online video content has drastically shot up from 49% to 66% over the last year (afaqs.com).  

These statistics are not just about growth rates and numbers, but it clearly makes a statement that digital advertising and content is on an all-time rise and is also raising the business spectrum way high. 

Flexibility and change are the keys to owning and creating any digital marketing campaign. Keeping the above information in mind, successful digital marketing definitely takes time, creativity and work plan to fall into place. But it is worth all the efforts!  

Before laying the blueprint for your digital marketing campaign, want to kickstart your online business? Looking out for a simple, fast and safe payment gateway? Collect Payments with PayUmoney. 

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