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How Small Businesses Thrive in a Big-Box Economy

Posted: 15 Apr 2019 09:00 AM PDT

These days, consumers can pick up their groceries without ever entering a supermarket and schedule repeat shipments of their pet's must-have treats and toys for a discounted price. Services like grocery pickup and auto-ship continue to attract consumers to big-box retailers, but it's what they do not do that may matter most. These popular features of superstores do not bring customers into the store at all. On the flipside, small brick-and-mortar retailers keep customers coming in by offering a different kind of experience. By connecting with customers through more than an app, small businesses can stand out in the big-box economy.

The recent trend toward grocery pickup and auto-ship makes sense. When customers could instead order most items online with free, two-day shipping and just one click, a trip to the big-box superstore becomes just an unnecessary hassle. In other words, customers now need a better reason to visit a store than simply needing to make a purchase.

The small business experience

That's where small businesses come in, offering the opportunity for more than a transaction. Independent record stores specialize in hard-to-find albums and host live music events that bring music lovers together. Family-owned hardware stores share generations worth of expertise, providing customers with product recommendations and how-to tips that withstand the test of time. Locally-owned gift shops, jewelers, sporting goods stores and others win customers over with unparalleled customer service that makes customers feel welcome.

In each of these ways, small businesses connect with their customers on a meaningful level. They keep the shopping experience personal and engaging, where superstores have long thrived on detached, do-it-yourself browsing. The detached approach may lead to a higher volume of transactions, but, as every small business owner knows, quantity is no substitute for quality in the long run. Nor is the feeling that you've really been helped.

Take Trio Hardware, for instance. The Long Island hardware store suffered a devastating fire several years ago, destroying its Plainview, New York, location. Wanting to keep the small business in their community, customers soon flocked to the store to aid in the reopening efforts. Volunteers physically carried Trio's merchandise from the damaged storefront to a new, larger location several shops away. When the business needed to expand to another new location last year, volunteers again pitched in to keep the business moving.

Building connections

The connection that small businesses build with their customers is invaluable. It leads to repeat customers, word-of-mouth marketing and, apparently, some much-appreciated sweat equity from the most devoted of neighbors. The contrast created is striking: While big-box retailers and national chains resort to dealing with customers at arm's length, small businesses like Trio Hardware see customers literally lending a hand to help.

To build and maintain this connection, small businesses should continue to focus on customer service, specialized expertise and engaging experiences for customers. These are the qualities that keep customers coming back, cultivating goodwill and trust among consumers. They are the qualities that offset the big-box quantity.

The big-box economy has reached an important turning point. Can national chains keep customers enamored when the transaction becomes a chore? Grocery pickup services and auto-ship discounts attempt to make transactions convenient once again, but small businesses take a different approach. By offering a genuine experience – complete with professional recommendations, attentive service and an inviting atmosphere – small businesses concern themselves with more than the transaction. They sustain their customer relationships with more than periodic software updates. In return, their loyal customers will sustain their independent, brick-and-mortar shops in even the biggest, boxiest economy.

Foldable Phones: What SMBs Need to Know

Posted: 15 Apr 2019 08:00 AM PDT

Everything old is new again. The flip phone is back, sort of. Now it's called a foldable phone, and they are here.

Samsung released details on its Galaxy Fold in February, bringing foldable phones out of early adoption and into the mainstream. The phone-tablet combo, which is scheduled to be released on April 26, is one of the first foldable phones to be released from a major company. Before Samsung released its version, the Royale Flexpai was the first foldable phone on the commercial market. Despite the wonder of the new technology, the Flexpai was met with very skeptical reviews.

In addition to Samsung's release, Huawei, TCL, Oppo and Xiaomi all intend to release foldable phones within the near future. Lenovo, ZTE and LG have made similar announcements. Apple is also rumored to be working on a foldable phone that will be ready in two years. Even Energizer may get in on the fun. With all this movement in the foldable phone market, it's worth asking if foldable phones are an ideal tool for small business.

Features and usability

The foldable phone is one of the first journeys into device consolidation. As technology has expanded, it's not uncommon for the average consumer to have at least three devices – often a laptop or desktop, a tablet and a smartphone. The foldable phone looks to solve that headache by combining both a smartphone and a tablet into one device. For the modern small business owner, smartphones and tablets are vital tools to communicate with employees, plan projects and stay connected while you're working at (or on) your business. A foldable phone, in theory, could prove to be a versatile tool. [Interested in buying a business smartphone? Check out this buying guide.]

We'll focus on the Samsung Galaxy Fold, since it's scheduled for release in late April 2019. The device features a 7.3-inch screen in tablet mode and a 4.6-inch screen in smartphone mode. For comparison, the iPhone XS' screen is 5.8 inches, and the iPad Pro has an 11-inch screen. It should also be noted that the Galaxy Fold has larger bezels on the sides compared to other tablets on the market.

The folding action is straight down the center of the tablet – you'll fold the Galaxy Fold in half and then use the back-left screen for smartphone mode. This makes for what looks like a thick, somewhat clunky smartphone experience. The screen also won't be made of glass (since that isn't bendable) and will instead feature a polymer that Samsung has said can be flexed 200,000 times.

Image courtesy of Samsung

Is it good for business?

As always, that depends mainly on what you need it for. One thing to note about foldable phones, however, is they're expensive. Samsung's Galaxy Fold will start at $1,980. That's a lot of money for a piece of early technology that may not be as effective or elegant as, say, an iPhone and an iPad. Huawei's foldable phone will be priced at $2,600. Both these price points make a foldable phone a huge investment for a small business.

Both are Android devices, so if you're all in on Apple's iOS operating system, these may not be the phones for your small business. Also, it is still too early to say what the actual battery life will look like on these screen-heavy devices. If long battery life is important to you, you may want to hold off until more data is available.

For a piece of technology that's still in its early stages, small businesses are likely better off lugging around both a smartphone and a tablet to ensure the job gets done. While the Galaxy Fold can work with Samsung DeX and be extended into a desktop experience, there aren't a lot of marquee business features on these devices. The main draw seems to be the duality of the device, which could make sense for some small business owners looking to shell out around $2,000 for early tech.

Bottom line

It seems like it's still too early to make a call on the current quality and future prospect of foldable phones. While many companies are racing to release a good product, it's not clear whether this technology makes sense for even consumers, let alone business owners. Unless you have an extra couple thousand dollars lying around, it's likely best to wait to see how (or if) this technology develops into something worth the price tag.

6 Ways Web Push Notifications Increase E-commerce Conversion

Posted: 15 Apr 2019 07:00 AM PDT

Cart abandonment is one of the most common problems faced by the e-commerce industry. All the money that is spent in acquiring a customer goes to drain when the customer abandons their cart.

According to SalesCyle, the average cart abandonment ranges from 69% to 81%, which is a huge loss for e-commerce companies. With cart abandonment push notifications, you can retarget customers who failed to make a purchase.

When it comes to engaging users who've already shown interest in your products, web push notifications are extremely effective. As they direct the user to the checkout page, they act as a direct conversion channel. Additionally, with the right offers, visuals and copy, you can convert a passive lead into an active shopper, thus acting as a conversion catalyst in the overall sales funnel.

Here are the six ways you could utilize web push notifications to increase your e-commerce conversions by as much as 10%.

Re-engage with cart abandoners and browse abandoners

Cart abandonment push notifications

Due to numerous reasons, users add products to their cart but do not complete the purchase. Push notifications can be used to re-engage with these cart abandoners and encourage them to complete the purchase.

When to send cart abandonment push notifications?

  • The user adds the product to the cart and leaves.
  • The user proceeds to check out but does not complete the purchase.
  • Fifteen minutes elapse after the product has been added to the cart.

Your cart recovery push notification should include images of the product, a personalized message, a CTA linking to the checkout page and an offer compelling the user to purchase.

BollywoodKart observed a 15% rise in the revenue after using cart abandonment push notifications.

Browse abandonment push notifications

Often, customers search for products but never buy them. Tap into this customer behavior by sending browse abandonment push notifications.

When to send browse abandonment push notifications?

  • The user has gone through the product page.
  • They did not add the product to the cart.
  • No purchase was recorded, and the user left the page.

Your browse abandonment push notification should include an image of the recently searched product with a link to that page. Chances are, if the customers see the same product again after some time, they may be tempted to buy the product. Many customers do not make the purchase on the first visit and need multiple reminders to complete the action.

Auto notifications to keep the user engaged

Keep the users engaged with push notifications sent at regular intervals. Automate your push notification strategy to let the user know about the new products launched by the e-commerce store.

You could collect details such as the birth-dates and anniversary-dates and leverage them to send occasion-based push notifications. Wish the user well on their special day and during the holiday season with specialized discounts. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, Easter, St. Patrick's Day and local holidays can be used to send special discounts, thereby giving the customer an excuse to shop.

Send triggered notifications based on user action

Behavioral push notifications triggered after the user takes a specific action work wonders to increase conversions. It makes the message more relevant for the recipients, thereby making them more inclined to make the purchase.

For example: If a customer has purchased a blue gown from your e-commerce store, you can send a push notification promoting matching stilettos or stud earrings to go with it. It would surely entice the customer to buy those products too and help you cross-sell.

Use the right copy for the user to click on your offer

The character limit for push notifications for multiple browsers is:

  • Title text limit: 50 for Chrome desktop, 40 for Safari and 30 for Firefox
  • Body text limit: 120 for Chrome desktop, 100 for Safari and 30 for Firefox

The copy becomes much more important since your message has to be precise and should retain its effectiveness. People will only click on the notification if the copy provides value to them.

Three tips to help you improve you advertising copy are:

  • Clear messages have a higher click-through rate, as they are action based. For example: "Have you read John Grisham's latest novel" vs. "John Grisham's latest novel is available for purchase." The latter has a clearer message.
  • Your copy should be concise because the character limit of push notification ranges from 40-120 characters. Identify and highlight the most important value proposition in your copy.
  • Humans tend to be more motivated by the idea of potential loss than potential gain. As an implication, creating a sense of urgency and arousing the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is a great strategy while drafting push notifications. Highlight a limited time offer to inspire the user to make the purchase immediately.   

Remember, with information being accessible at the fingertips, write credible copy without going overboard with your claims.

Segmenting your subscribers

A study by PushEngage found the click-through rate to increase up to 218% using segmentation in web push notifications.

Different users subscribe to your website for multiple reasons. Instead of putting them under the same bucket of a marketing campaign, segment them. You can segment them based on parameters such as geo-location of the customers, their online behavior and preferences, their past purchases and products searched for. A secondary level of segmentation can happen based on:

  • Website design – Different people would subscribe to your push notifications from different pages. Segmenting them according to the page where they subscribed from gives you a better understanding of the category your user is interested in. For instance, if a user subscribes to the push notification from the "Jewelry" category of your e-commerce store, you can send them exclusive notifications about jewelry.
  • Customer action – You can create multiple segments for users who've abandoned the cart while shopping or browsed the products without purchasing them. Then on, you could run drip campaigns for them using urgency and special offers.
  • Customer status – If you have different pricing plans, you will know which plan has each user opted for. Using segmented campaigns, you could create different features of the higher plan for the user to upgrade.

Send tailor-made offers to every user so that it gives them a feeling of exclusivity and increases the conversion rate.

Timely push notifications increase the open rate

Push notifications should not intrude the privacy of your customer. From 8 a.m. to noon, 3 to 5 p.m. and 8 to 11 p.m. are the hours during which the users are most active. As a general practice, the best time to send the push notifications is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m..

Schedule the messages considering your industry and business type. For instance, if you have an e-commerce store in the food industry, consider sending the notifications at the time of breakfast, lunch, supper or dinner.

The bottom line

Timely and relevant push notifications on your e-commerce website will increase the conversion rates. These six strategies will ensure your web push notifications are valuable, concise and visually appealing to your subscribers, thereby compelling them to take the intended action.

8 Reasons Not to Use WordPress

Posted: 15 Apr 2019 05:00 AM PDT

Have you tried do-it-yourself website builders? Or maybe you've gone to your cousin's nephew who's really awesome at building websites on WordPress? Did it backfire? Or are you currently considering WordPress as an option for your new website?

WordPress is a free source for creating websites and it is used for more than 50 million websites worldwide. While many people love that it is seemingly easy to use, offers different professional looking layouts, and is free, there are several downsides to this website building giant that you can fall victim to if you aren't familiar with how the web works.

1. Plugins

WordPress offers plugins into their content management system to increase functionality. That might be an accordion list or a gallery. While it might seem like an awesome option to make your website look better and more personalized, there are risks you are taking with each plugin you install.

Each plugin is created by some random Joe, which means that if the plugin crashes there aren't many (if any) support options to help you get your website functioning properly again. Also, since plugins are created by different people there is no guarantee they will work together. One might work beautifully on your site, but adding another might cause chaos to ensue.

2. Software Updates

WordPress has regular software updates to keep its platform functioning properly for its users. These generally need to be done often, sometimes every single month. The trouble with these updates is they can cause issues with the theme that you're using on your site or break your plugins because the plugins are no longer compatible with the new updates. Is it really worth it?

3. SEO

Achieving search engine optimization isn't impossible with a WordPress site, it is just more difficult – especially if you don't know what you're doing. There are lots of plugins that can be added to help with SEO, but there are dangers associated with plugins, so if you aren't picky you may end up with a bigger problem on your hands. Many factors play into ranking well in the search engines, and if you aren't aware of all of them when building your website, you might choose a theme or plugin that actually works against you.

4. Unlimited Login

The default setting for a WordPress website is to allow an unlimited number of login attempts. This is dangerous for security because a nasty little bug can latch itself onto your site and force its way in your page after enough tries. Even if it isn't able to force its way in it can still overload your server from the force of the attack. 

5. Malware

WordPress isn't susceptible to all malware on the internet, but they have been known to have security vulnerabilities with their platform:

  • Backdoors. The backdoor method is when a hacker gains access to your account through abnormal methods such as FTP, DFTP, WP-ADMIN. This attack usually happens because you have outdated software or a hole in your security.
  • Drive-by downloads. A drive-by download is similar to a drive-by shooting. The hacker comes by and downloads a payload to your server telling you that your website has been infected and that you need to install their anti-virus product.
  • Pharma hacks. Pharma hacks take your site and make you become a distributor of SPAM trying to send people to a store that is controlled by the hacker to generate revenue.
  • Malicious redirects. A malicious redirect will redirect anyone that is trying to get your website to a malicious website, such as a pornography site. People may think they are clicking into your crochet stuffed animals page when what they end up on is a website with explicit content. 

6. Easy Target

While it is nice to have the option of creating your own website, it can also be dangerous if you don't know all of the precautions to take. Lots of people use WordPress to create their website, which means that all of those people have very similar looking websites from the front and back end. If a bug is able to find a security flaw on one site, chances are the same flaw exists on hundreds of other sites, now making them all vulnerable targets.

7. Compatibility

WordPress puts forth its best effort, but it has been known for having a hard time smoothly switching displays across different internet providers, windows sizes, and devices. It might make the switch on most devices, but every once in a while someone on your site will encounter a display that it doesn't understand or have the capability to work with.

8. Themes

Many people love WordPress because it offers an easy way to make a website, for a person who doesn't know much about web development. The only problem is that if you aren't careful you'll find yourself with a website that looks identical to everyone else. Instead of looking professional your business might look like a tacky copycat.  

We're not telling you not to use WordPress, we're just giving you several of the reasons why we won't. If you do plan to use WordPress for your website, we urge you to make sure that you are taking every precaution you can to keep your website backed up and secure. Do your research and stay up to date with the latest WordPress experts. 

How to Install Windows Patches with PowerShell for Free

Posted: 15 Apr 2019 05:00 AM PDT

Querying missing patches and installing them across many different Windows systems can be a chore if you don't have the right tool. Many different commercial offerings exist, but if you want a free solution that requires a little bit of PowerShell know-how, you can use a free, community module called PSWindowsUpdate to do the trick.

Installing and getting to know PSWindowsUpdate

PSWindowsUpdate is a community module that's available via the PowerShell Gallery. In your PowerShell session, run Install-Module PSWindowsUpdate to download and install the latest version. The download should be quick. Once downloaded, the module's commands should be available to you. By running Get-Command -Module PSWindowsUpdate, you can see that we can do a lot of things other than just installing patches.

Querying missing patches

Before you can install patches, you need to know which patches you need across your systems. The PSWindowsUpdate module provides a command called Get-WindowsUpdate we can use to discover any missing patches. The Get-WindowsUpdate command supports querying the local computer or remote computers.

When run, you can see below that it returns a list of all of the missing updates on whatever computer you target.

Installing missing patches

Once you know what you're missing, you can then take that information and install the patches. Get-WindowsUpdate provides many different parameters to query and install updates. For example, if we're happy with installing the list of patches provided with Get-WindowsUpdate with no parameters, we can take the next logical step and install them.

There are many types of "states" a patch can be, such as available, downloaded and installed. Some patches need a reboot to complete an install while some don't and so on. The Get-WindowsUpdate command gives you the flexibility to pick and choose what updates are installed.

For example, let's say that we don't care about anything else other than getting the missing updates installed on my computer. In that case, we can provide the nuclear approach by telling Get-WindowsUpdate to install all missing patches, accepting every one that it finds and initiating a reboot if it needs one.

We could be a little more gentle and only pick specific updates using the KBArticleId parameter. The below command would install only that particular KB, and if it needed a reboot, it would let us know rather than automatically rebooting.

Summary

The PSWindowsUpdate module has many different options and way too much to cover in one article. I encourage you to download and try it out. Be sure to check out the extensive help documentation for each function if you're unfamiliar with the syntax. If you have the patience to learn this module, you can build some advanced update management solutions.

Measuring Success When Working With Influencers

Posted: 15 Apr 2019 04:00 AM PDT

Social media influencer marketing is the fastest-growing online customer acquisition channel, beating out organic search and email marketing in 2019. And while influencers have gotten their fair share of bad press, there's no denying the reach they have on the ever-important young demographic. Social media influencers span the fashion, beauty, and home products industries (and more), and you can find them mainly on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. They have become popular as a result of the trend toward engagement-based marketing in addition to the credence these individuals hold among consumers.

"Influencers often have a relatively high level of trust with their audience, [which makes] it easier to promote products and services, rather than running ads," said Brandon Webb, founder of Hypluxe.

But where traditional marketing had easy-to-measure results following a campaign launch, influencer marketing is more fluid and difficult to measure in numbers. Here are nine ways to judge whether your influencer campaign was successful.

1. Affiliate links

Use affiliate links to measure success. Through programs like Amazon Associates, you can create a specific URL that contains a unique code that identifies a person's ID or username. If the visitor clicks on the advertisement or post and goes to that business's site to make a purchase, you may receive a commission.

"Affiliate links will allow you to track purchases and clicks uniquely, so you can see the analytics specific to each influencer," said Webb.

Having an affiliate link lets you see exactly who is clicking on which products, giving you data on what products are selling well or not.

2. Impressions

Look at impressions to find out how many people have viewed a piece of content. Impressions are another type of hard data that show you exactly how many people the influencer campaign reached;  however, impressions do not mean engagement. It only shows the number of people who saw the content for any amount of time, rather than read or engaged with the content in other ways.

3. Engagement

Likes, comments, shares, retweets and reactions all count as forms of engagement. These are publicly available and can be a good initial method of vetting potential influencers by showing what level of engagement an influencer's posts have with their followers.

To calculate engagements, add up the likes, shares, comments, etc., that you see to determine how many people engaged with the content. You can also divide the number of comments, likes and shares by the number of impressions to create a metric known as the engagement rate.

4. Have set goals

Do you have a solid plan for what you want to accomplish with your social media influencer campaign? If not, set some goals.

"The best way to measure your success is to set targets," said Mikaella King, social media marketer at Blinds Direct. "Setting realistic targets, like 'I want to have 1,000 Instagram followers by June' will allow you to see if using an influencer is successful."

This is also helpful when choosing an influencer to work with, because you have clear expectations of what you want to achieve and those expectations allow the influencer to create an effective plan.

5. Monitor traffic before, during and after the campaign

Observe what your site and social media traffic looks like before you launch the campaign. Then take daily or weekly notes as the campaign is going on, noting spikes and dips. Finally, record what your traffic looks like after the campaign is over, and compare your notes to get a picture of how effective the campaign was at driving traffic to your site. For social media, assess your follower counts and engagement rates, then compare.

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6. Determine your KPIs

A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively your company is achieving your business objectives. These will vary depending on the industry. To set them, ask yourself basic questions about your brand:

  • What impact do you wish to have?
  • How can you improve the world?
  • What are your money making goals?

Basically, follow the SMART method (specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, and time-based objectives) when setting your KPIs. [Interested in performance management software? Here are our best picks.]

"Set up KPIs that are relevant to your brand and industry," said Kyle Flaherty, CMO of Zaius. "You'll need these in place so you can track and then report on them at the end of the campaign."

Flaherty suggested objectives, such as boosting brand awareness, improving website traffic, increasing lead generation or reaching new audiences.

7. Create promo codes

You've probably seen promotional codes offered by social media influencers for a discount on products or services. This is a great way to bring in new customers, as well as track sales, since you'll be able to see how many people entered the code at checkout when purchasing your product.

8. Add UTM parameters

A UTM parameter (also called a UTM tag or code) is a customizable piece of text that allows analytics software to track campaign traffic. Attaching a UTM code to the end of a URL helps you determine which campaigns brought in the most traffic, which links visitors clicked on the most and more. Flaherty said to use Google Analytics' Campaign URL builder to avoid mistakes.

9. Ask for access

When discussing a potential partnership with an influencer, see if they're willing to share their personal data and analytics with you after the campaign's completion. It never hurts to ask.

"Don't hesitate to ask to see potential influencers' Google Analytics data," said Flaherty. Many influencers will have sophisticated data (and plenty of experience interpreting it) that they can share with you to help you understand your campaign's success.

Things to look out for

When choosing an influencer, it's very important to have a firm grasp of your objectives. There are thousands of influencers to choose from in every space, so you want to partner with the right one for your business.

Geoff Crain, digital director at Kingstar Media recommends checking for fake followers and low engagement first, then seeing who has an authoritative voice in the space you're looking to advertise in. "For example," he said, "If you are interested in increasing business in the fitness world, find influencers who are personal trainers or own their own gyms. Their followers engage with their content because they trust their voice to be legitimate when discussing the category in which they are experts."

Flaherty added that asking for referrals is a great way to ensure you're working with an effective influencer. "Not every influencer is the right influencer," he said. "It depends greatly on your specific budget, your target market. Ask for referrals from other relevant businesses you know who use influencers."
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