“Business Led by Technology: How Mobile Commerce is Dominating Total eCommerce Activity in 2014” plus 1 more

Business Led by Technology: How Mobile Commerce is Dominating Total eCommerce Activity in 2014

Posted: 12 Aug 2014 09:13 AM PDT

This is a guest contribution from online journalist and entrepreneur Megan Ritter.

Every year, tech companies continue to roll out dazzling new smartphones and tablets into the market. Depending on personal preference, people have the option to choose from an iOS, Android, or Windows device, and you don't necessarily have to break the bank anymore to have the latest and greatest in technology. Simply put, today's tech makes even the most grueling daily tasks, like banking, as easy as tapping a screen a few times.

And while we continue to jump back-and-forth between the sizes of our devices (big to small, to big again), both smartphones and tablets are evolving to meet at a 7-inch "SmartTab" form factor, allowing the two different functioning capabilities of a smartphone and tablet to become one. In addition, there will be wearable smart devices, so there will be multiple ways that a person can participate in mobile commerce.

Mobile Tech: Pros and Cons

The number of features built into a tiny device like a smartphone are nearly endless, and with those features come plenty of opportunities, particularly for those in the mobile commerce industry. The bulky PC desktop and even the laptop have largely been shrunk to a fraction of their size, and now a mobile phone can perform nearly all the functions of a PC or a laptop. Mobile commerce allows the consumer to purchase from a business at their own convenience. Retailers have adjusted their services to cater to the mobile customer, including redesigning their websites to cater to mobile visitors along with company-specific apps.

Consumers who participate in the on-the-go, mobile shopping experience expect the entire process to be quick, so it is essential that businesses also make their websites easily accessible and compatible with mobile shoppers as well. Near field communication (NFC) can also assist in mobile commerce. This allows a mobile device to broadcast information over short distances and uses this technology by taking your digital financial information to make payments online.

However, there are a few roadblocks to be overcome regarding this technology—many devices still do not have NFC, and those that do are a bit more expensive than a regular smartphone. These barriers to entry are causing both consumers and businesses to find cheaper alternatives in the meantime while NFC is being phased into smartphones.

Mobile Revolutionizes Marketing and More

Mobile devices have also caused a marketing revolution. No longer can marketing be done by traditional methods alone—many businesses should have a strategy where they can market their products and services via mobile device. Businesses have started using QR codes so that people can use their mobile devices to find out more about a certain business and its products and services. Mobile devices also play a large part in loyalty programs—you can get discounts or free products for checking in on Facebook, for example.

In addition to business, pleasure and entertainment have become largely active on mobile devices—many games today offer the option of in-app purchases, and people can easily watch their favorite shows, movies, and YouTube videos in the palm of their hand. If technology can tell us anything about what consumers want, it's convenience. That means that you need to make your brand's services available when your customer wants them, and by making your business mobile-friendly, you're giving them a reason to keep coming back.

Director, Anybody?

People love using their smartphones to consume content; now they can use it to create content as well. Whether it’s a seven-second Vine or a YouTube video a few minutes in length, creating content via mobile devices will increasingly become the norm as their specifications come to match those of several devices: desktop PCs, cameras, and even sound recording equipment. You don’t necessarily need a studio or a movie set to become a content creator—just whip out your smartphone and let your creativity (and your device) get things rolling.

The Next Step

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. As the demand for mobile commerce increases, businesses must adapt to their consumers’ wants and needs, which will lead to new innovations in the field. Unlike some previous inventions, however, all of us can participate, and we should all be trying our best to move mobile commerce forward for the economic benefits and the sake of innovation.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Business Led by Technology: How Mobile Commerce is Dominating Total eCommerce Activity in 2014

The 6-Step Guide for Crafting an Effective Content Marketing Channel Plan

Posted: 11 Aug 2014 08:23 AM PDT

This is a guest contribution from freelance writer Kanika.

With businesses employing multiple channels for marketing, it can quickly get overwhelming. To stay across everything without losing your head, you really need to have a plan of attack for each channel. Only then will your business be able to get the best results from its marketing projects, campaigns undertaken across various channels, and comprehensively achieve its marketing objectives.

You have to ensure that the content created suits its targeted audience and is appealing and informative enough to hold the people's attention. But the same content cannot be presented on different channels in the same format – t has to be moulded and revised to best fit into a situation, so it can deliver the goods. This is so important for the success of a business's marketing projects and campaigns.

Follow this 6-step approach and you will be well on your way.

Research your chosen channel

Before a business goes ahead with putting its content on a chosen channel or channels like Twitter, Linkedin, etc., it needs to conduct deep research on various factors. The timing of publishing a content, what type of people it wants to target, the tone of content, and team members who will be writing it, and the budgetary limitations all need to be looked at. You also need to consider an estimated number of people who will respond to the content, what action you want them to take, devices people would be using for seeing the content, their time of accessing it; whether they would be at work or holidaying, and similar other factors. Only then will you be able to mold the content to best fit a situation and hold the interest of your target audience.

Choosing the right channel at the right time

It’s great that a business can maximize its content promotion efforts and use every available channel for promoting itself, its products, and solutions, but you need to use these tactically. Choosing some channels over others is best, as it enables a business to devote enough time and energy on few specific channels rather than spreading too thin across all. This is helpful for those businesses who have a limited number of personnel for doing various tasks like content creation, SEO, etc. For maximizing their output, it is better to selectively utilize a couple of channels you think will work well. After that, you can try others – but just starting with every channel and leaving many of them silent is not going to work. Moreover this will burn out team members who have too much work to do than they can easily handle. Failure to follow up with maximum channels is bad for a business's reputation. People who have posted their comments and are waiting for ages to get their questions answered will get annoyed. This does not do much for your reputation – dissatisfied people can be pretty vocal about being ignored.

Formulating a content management plan

A business has to get created quality content in a time bound manner and this can be done by making a content management plan and executing it systematically. It has to devise a content strategy which will decide what type of content needs to be created for various channels and which type of audience will be targeted by the content. The team members who will be writing the content, submitting, promoting and marketing it, have to be identified and assigned their respective tasks. They should clearly know the deadlines of their tasks and milestones. Once content has been submitted and promoted on various channels, the results obtained need to be analyzed. This will help a business to know if its marketing efforts are succeeding as intended or do they need to be improved. This will give an idea what new or extra it needs to do for achieving the desired results. Thus it can better plan for its future content marketing projects.

Executing the content management plan

After the content management plan for a project or campaign has been formulated, it needs to be executed in a streamlined manner. Activities of team members assigned with various content creation, submission and promotion tasks have to be coordinated. Their progress at their tasks needs to be tracked and critically assessed. A business has to know if they are completing their tasks within the stipulated time or if they taking more than required time for their execution. This helps it to know if a project or campaign will be completed within the allocated time and budget. If a business discovers some inconsistencies in the smooth functioning of such projects and campaigns, it should be able to take corrective measures in a timely manner.

This calls for improved organization, communication, collaboration and precise monitoring of tasks and projects. This is something which cannot be achieved manually. The reason being team members are often based in different locations and it becomes difficult to update them on latest developments happening in such projects. It becomes difficult to keep them at same page over a project. So better solutions are needed – and usually web-based.

Web-based project management tools enable smooth and proper execution of content management projects. These will improve communication and collaboration among globally dispersed team members so projects can be completed within time and budget.

You might like to try some of these:

Basecamp: A popular project management tool enables enhanced management in projects in a simple manner. Team members remain well aware of any new activities happening in projects.

ProofHub: Team members can communicate, collaborate fast and transparently with this enterprising project management tool. This tool enables smooth implementation of projects and these can be completed as scheduled.

Trello: This collaboration tool boosts communication and collaboration among group members by making it smoother. Work, projects can be better organized and managed with this solution.

Asana: This project management system enables team members to work together without using emails. Their efficiency improves and they are able to achieve more at work with minimum effort.

Molding content as per the context

After content has been created, it has to be molded so as to fit into the right context. A business may witness new developments like it launching new features or solutions, redesigning its website, upcoming festivities like Christmas, New Year and others where it becomes quite necessary to mold the content to best fit to a given situation, context and the targeted audience. Thus the business would be able to present the latest and updated information to the people and they will respond more actively to the business's needs.

6. Creating an editorial plan

For properly using a chosen channel and for getting the maximum results, a business needs to create an editorial plan. This will get mapped to its global editorial calendar. The editorial plan enables a business to determine velocity, tone, intended action and structure for the content it needs to put on a specific channel. As an example, a business wants its Twitter page to consist of following things:

Velocity: One post per day
Tone: Conversational, friendly and occasionally laced with humor
Intended Action: A business wants subscribers to click through to its guest post
Structure: 140 worded post with a business's logo

An action plan means you get your business marketed effectively and quickly. I hope these six steps have helped you.

Kanika is a freelancer content writer who likes to delve deep into technology, tools, and making people aware about utility of such aids through her informative write-ups. In her spare time she enjoys sketching, cooking, travelling and spending time with her family and folks.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

The 6-Step Guide for Crafting an Effective Content Marketing Channel Plan