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The marketing budget can be a big task to take on especially when you don’t have much knowledge on how it’s done. It make seem like there are more needs than there is money to allocate to these various advertising avenues things can get out of hand when business owners are trying to establish marketing budgets. This is why a plan has to be considered carefully.

Listed below are 5 Basic Approaches for Setting Marketing Budgets.

• Review your previous marketing results

Review in detail your campaign analysis by marketing channel and find out if there is any campaign that might not be performing well. Also, check if you are spending too much of your budget on one particular channel as all this will be the basis for your new budget allocation. This is why you should review each channel and decide if it is worth continuing. You might have other places you can reallocate that budget too.

• Review your marketing mix

The next thing is to determine if you have a solid channel mix and consider your channel mix by cost and resources. Also, you should avoid putting all your eggs in one basket which is one mistake many online marketers makes; so know how much time exactly it will take to create an email campaign versus a postcard mailing. Imagine if you were only marketing on a social network and they suddenly banned marketing. Once you have allocated your budget to the best performing activity, consider apportioning money to new channels that be cheaper in the longer term.

  • Test run and learn

Before you go all out, it is very important that you allocated a small amount of your budget and did a test run and learn activity. If you don’t continue to innovate, then you might be risking sales over the longer term.

  • Cost control

Because you have it does not mean you should spend it; so look for other channels that are lower in price and sometimes free of charge. If you do need to print marketing materials, try and gain economies of scale such as printing three months of stock to obtain discounts.

  • Do Research

It is essential to set aside marketing budget to carry out research projects because customer research is critical to your business. Research is a step that is often missed in marketing to try and build it into your plans. Well if you have vast knowledge in customer you will know this doesn’t have to cost anything as you could simply call up your customers and ask them what you want to know or you can employ a research agency to do this for you. You can use the results of research to improve your product or service to the customer and this will ensure you are achieving maximum return on investment (ROI) on your campaigns.

 

Managing your marketing budget properly is the best investment you can make in your company. If you wisely invest your marketing dollars, you can keep your costs down and get a profitable return on your investment.


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Magento has come a long way since 2007 (the year of its initial release). Magento has grown over the years, to be one of the most popular e-commerce platforms today. Presently magneto is powering over 250,000 online stores. Magento has proven to be one of the best eCommerce Shopping Cart, and there are quite a few reasons for such. For starters, Magento is an open source platform, and it offered users a free, downloadable version called Magento Open Source and was previously known as – Magento Community.

Magento is an open source e-commerce platform that allows a business to set up a website selling product to customers online and also giving the owner the owner the opportunity for 100% managing ability of the platform.

Features

Magento has some fantastic features and we will be listing some of them below. Great features are included in the free community edition such as:

• Wishlists
• Compare products
• Multi-store/mall feature
• Good SEO performance
• Email lists
• Bundle/Grouped/Digital products and many more
• Layered/Filter navigation
• CMS system for static pages
• Advanced searching multiple languages
• Product reviews
• Refer products to friends
• Track order and various currencies
And much more…

Magento comes in three different editions known as:

• Community
• Professional
• Enterprise

Magento is not for selling purposes only it is developed in a way that it can raise a website ranking in search engines along with the vast e-commerce features. Magento is loaded with multiple features provides an exciting shopping experience. Magento is the most power-packed open source shopping cart software out there, and it comes with great 3rd party services like Google Base, Google checks out, Google Analytics, Google website optimizer and many other payment processing services. Magento professionals customize the magneto framework to suit diverse business requirements.

Why should you choose Magento?

• There are many reasons why you should, and some of them include:
• Manage your entire multiple websites from one single administration panel of the magneto.
• Magento gives you the freedom of uploading high-resolution images on your website.
• When compared to other source e-commerce applications Magento installation is easy due to its layouts, add-ons, etc.
• Your customer can quickly turn into a regular customer because they will be able to view the entire order status and information.
• Magento also put in place different marketing and promotion tools that can help you to get a higher return on investment.
• Magento also brings your website to the mobile platform, which is a profitable option as customers can view a mobile-optimized version of the website.
• It thoroughly searches engine optimized.
• Magento has a user-friendly Navigation for Better Customer Experiences.

Magento’s eCommerce Shopping Cart has a variety of products and features so that all online businesses can utilize the software in a fashion that caters to unique online needs and expectations. Best of all, you will never feel trapped or limited by software specifications again!


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If your customers or clients are your business bloodline, then your priority should be providing them with the best possible service to keep them coming back. Excellent customer service is more than just about the things you say or do for them. It’s also about finding out what your customers want and giving it to them. Customer service is more than a worthwhile investment; let’s get right into the top five customer service tips to get your business up and running for outstanding customer retention.

  1. Management Should Take the Lead

To improve the quality of customer service, managers have to be trained to set the right example because how employees treat customers is a reflection of how management treats them. Customer service, good or bad, is a bigger reflection on management than on individual employees.

  1. Get To Know Customers

With the economy we live in today and to get people to spend their hard earned cash at your business they need to be convinced that the staff cares about their needs. Everybody wants to feel like they matter; and keeping loyal customers is about developing relationships with them, and showing a personal interest in a customer often garners a customer to your business for a very long time.

 

  1. Let Customers Get To Know You

There are only few things that can outdo the confidence that comes with the fact that there is a customer service somewhere available to resolve the situation when a problem arises. Customers that have a relationship with the employees and management believe that they will be able to get a quick resolution because of who they know and this will make them feel confident.

  1. Go The Extra Mile

Your customers need to be sure that that the staff are willing to work a little harder, devote a little extra time, or spend a little extra money to make sure that they had what they needed. This can take on many forms come but no matter how it is accomplished, customers need to know. Notice the word “little” is used because in most instances it really does not take that much extra to create a memorable experience for a customer.

  1. Make YES the standard

Almost everyone hate hearing the word NO. It sucks and no one wants to be told NO. So make YES the standard in your company. Find a way to make it work if you can.

 

Remember that customer service tips can help you to improve your customer service, but if you talk and you know your clients, you did the most important task to customer satisfaction.


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Over the years many people have been choosing a netpreneur career, and one business that had been keeping many busy is the drop shipping business. Drop shipping business has been creating extra income for many households, and also allows people to fulfill the dream of becoming their boss. The incredible part is that you also have the opportunity of having an extra income on the side while maintaining your 9 to 5 job. However, as fulfilling as drop shipping might sound there are still some perks to it. One of the perks of drop shipping is that, as the business grows, so the task grows.

And for some people, this could be overwhelming. But there is a solution to help you balance your business and time for yourself when you are faced with a stressful workload, and this solution is to outsource some of your tasks to a reputable agency like SourceSumo.com. As an entrepreneur, the whole idea is to work for yourself from the comfort of your own home, but one thing you should note is that taking on too much work and end up with too much to can stretch you up. Outsourcing some of the things you aren’t all that good at is the solution for you.

For example, if you are terrible with logo design or product description or any other thing; outsource to SourceSumo.com. SourceSumo.co will do the chore for you, at a reasonable cost. Doing things you are not good at by yourself will only discourage, exhaust and frustrate you. Outsource to SourceSumo.com online to write some fantastic web content for you – doing this will not only allow you focus on the ones you are good at but also have quality time for yourself and loved ones.

The bottom line to outsourcing as a drop shipping is that when you will be able to expend all of your creative energy on the things that you do best when you outsource the things you aren’t that good at and hate doing. For example, if you focus more on how you can market and promote your business then allow SourceSumo.com handle the other work you will almost certainly generate enough extra income.

 

So, hiring SourceSumo.com is a great way to outsource as they will surely help you maintain your dropshipping shipping while you do the essential things.


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Accelerated mobile pages are better known as “AMP” can make your website load faster on smartphones, resulting in great user experience, improved search rankings and most importantly increased traffic. In this post we will be explaining more on AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) and if it is right for you.

What is Accelerated mobile pages “AMP”?

Accelerated mobile pages or AMP is an open source framework that can help speed up the mobile pages load time. This gives visitors to such mobile pages to access the content quickly on their mobile phones. This increase users experience making them come for more. The framework can increase the load speed by stripping out elements that cause web pages to load slower on mobile. These elements include JavaScript and other third-party scripts.

Importance of AMP in SEO

Just as we have stated earlier, the main significance of this framework is the fact that it makes your mobile pages load faster. There is no limit to where your content can be accessed from as a publisher and marketer. A study by googles shows that 40% of people will likely leave your website if it takes more than 4 seconds to load up. But, when your website loads up faster, the bounce rate will be very low thus your content will be seen by plenty of people.

Ranking high in search engine result is yet another importance of the AMP framework. There is an algorithm called Mobilegeddon, and it is a Google algorithm that helps rewards sites that are mobile friendly. This means that when your website is mobile friendly, you also tend to rank high on search engine. A high ranking means more visitors and more revenue for you.

Is AMP for you?

Well, we already talked about how good and perfect Accelerated mobile pages is; but one thing you should know is that it also comes with some restrictions. One of them is enabling to have lead forms, on-page comments, and other elements because the framework doesn’t permit JavaScript and other third-party elements. The only solution around this is to rewrite the site’s templates and accommodate the restrictions. You also have to make sure that the operating content in your CSS is not more than 50KB. You also have to embed the videos using the amp-video custom tag and also address your images correctly and ensure they utilize the amp-img element. When it comes to your article on the hand, you will have to include a unique tag that allows search engines to detect your article in AMP version.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that Accelerated mobile pages are beneficial to your website when you install it correctly. It helps increase your views and gives your user a better experience. IF you are comfortable with the restrictions our site will be able to take advantage of these features, and you will have a bump in your search results.


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One of the best time for any ecommerce business to make money is during Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM). A release by Shopify shows that over $1 billion was collectively sold by Shopify merchants during Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) last year. Shoppers spent billions as well on both big and small ecommerce websites throughout the four-day event at businesses. So, if you are an ecommerce store owner and wish to make the most of the killer deals this Black Friday, then you need to start planning now. That’s right – now.

  1. Make a Budget (Now)

Before you make that list or research for that product, you need to decide how much you can afford to spend firstly. Then you can figure out your must have and other purchases you might have in your store. Doing this will help you dole out appropriate amounts for your purchases and other essential things.

  1. Check the Ads

When last did you run Facebook ads and Google AdWords? Is there a new upgrade to the platform? This is what you should look out for; you don’t want to start your ads a day to the big day and find out your ads are not converting or your payment method is no more valid. So look out for things like this.

  1. Keep the UX simple

There will be thousands of websites offering the same product as you (only if you offer handmade goods), so you need to make sure your website is in excellent condition and also the user experience is kept simple. You can also minimize the data are necessary to display products to keep page load time down. Sharon Anne Kean who is Bloom & Wild’s product director says “think about the minimum viable product that can help here.” “What’s the minimum information you need to display to get someone to make a purchasing decision? A good example could be not showing all product imagery upfront, and progressively revealing it as users click through the shopping journey. Similarly, you probably don’t need someone to log in at the first click, so that’s a whole lot of validations and data processing that can be put on hold until later down the funnel.”

  1. Weigh Online vs. In-Store Shopping

The fact that there will be a lot of people in the store and people will rather shop online doesn’t mean they can beat the crowd if the shop store is lesser than that of online. SO, as a store owner, keep your eye on the store price and make sure you beat the price – price comparisons are an absolute must. You can even start your Black Friday sales earlier than the physical store.

  1. Be a Social Media Butterfly

Wherever you might be researching for your products and price from, then you need to start following them now. Keep a close eye on these on this websites so you won’t keep selling at a lower price when most website might have increase pricing.


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Let me keep this as simple as possible – the continued growth of your business is not going to be fueled by one-time customers. It is very crucial to retain your customers for the longtime success of your business. According to a release by Gartner Group, it states that a 5 percent increase in customer retention can increase your business profits anywhere from 25% to 125%.

You will be able to help your business tap into a high level of retention when you understand how to actively engage your customers across the channels they are active in. Having a retention strategy in place is a worthwhile investment for every business since it can help them generate revenue for the future. However, when it comes to increasing customer retention we have listed below some of the best-kept secrets:

  1. Create an open line of communication

With the advancement in technology, your customer doesn’t have to hold for a long time while waiting to speak with someone in customer service. You can make use of the numerous live chat options that allows your customer to link to you directly. Live chats option allows you or your employee attend to multiple customers at a time, instead one at a go when using the phone.

  1. Don’t make customers repeat themselves

Doing this will make them think you are not listening to them and this is why you need to listen to them because there is nothing more frustrating than your customers repeating themselves over and over again to resolve a problem. Train your staff to be respectful, and teach them always to restate what the customer said to lessen confusion.

  1. Always calm down

There will undoubtedly be issues you or your client won’t have an answer for immediately, but this does not mean you should pawn customers of or passed them off when trying to resolve a problem. It can be very frustrating to be passed from employee to employee, so if you have an answer or can find a solution to the problem stay on the line with the customer until is done.

  1.  Take customer feedback seriously

If you have a feature on your website where you collect feedbacks or surveys, then you should take those feedbacks very serious and try to respond to them. Because this feedbacks are the best way for you to identify the problems your business is having and find a solution to them as well. Your customer will also know when you notice and respond to their feedback.

  1. Be honest and transparent

Everyone makes mistakes, and your customer understands this. When you admit to the fact that you make a mistake, this will foster trust and increase customer retention.

 

As a business owner, it is essential that you pay close attention to your customer feedback as this will inevitably increase your business profits over time.