Mediabeep Mini Moments

How Voice Search Will Work For You

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 20:31:12 GMT

If you're a business that's a bit light on a meaningful web presence we have some good news for you! You're about to get a helping hand from Google in 2019 - this, for the most part, is thanks to a steady rise in voice search. Forecasters predict that by 2020 voice search will constitute 50% of all online searches. When people do voice searches, they tend to do so on a mobile device when they're on the move and in the area.

Google saw this trend and has fortified its AI (Artificial Intelligence) capabilities with something called Duplex. This is an AI feature suitable for synching with "natural language" conversation - it will search information about the businesses available on Google Maps instead of using data on the web. Duplex will crawl Google Maps for the relevant information. This is going to lessen friction by way of automation. As an example, imagine your customer does a voice search and Google finds their favourite local restaurant; Google Assistant can make the phone call for them and even talk to you, the business owner, to make a reservation on behalf of the customer.

You will most likely have seen a new feature on Google Maps called "For You" . This clever little addition can suggest local businesses suitable to your customer's preferences which it gathers from their search history. What is happening here is that Google is integrating and matching data from their web activity with Google Maps application. For You utilises a machine learning function called Your Match which analyses the service offerings and product offering of businesses and makes a calculated judgement as to whether a business can be of service to your customer.

According to Google's blog , "The For You tab is designed to be a constant source of inspiration tailored to your tastes and preferences. Simply follow neighbourhoods or places you’re interested in to get updates and recommendations—everything from recent news about an opening or pop up, a new menu item, and even restaurant suggestions based on what you’re likely to enjoy. If you’re making a trip this holiday season, the For You tab can help you get a jump start on travel planning even before you take off."

Places will be assigned a “match” score displayed as a percentage. This score is representative of how much Google thinks your customer will enjoy your business product or services. When you tap the score it brings up a detailed summary explaining how the score was calculated. The reasons could range from their past dining preferences to ratings they've submitted on Maps.

5 Reasons To Reward & Incentivise Your Customers - REASON #5

Fri, 14 Dec 2018 12:53:49 GMT

BIG DATA!

In the world of e-commerce, big data analysis is the collection of large amounts of information in order to determine shopping patterns and insights about customer behaviour. Using big data provides many opportunities and benefits for both yourself as the business and your customer.

As soon as a customer registers for a loyalty program their details are maintained in securely in the relevant database. Companies can use this data for multi-channel, offline, and ecommerce segmentation. Customer profiles can be analysed and rewards, discounts etc can be tailored according to specific consumer groups and customer preferences.

Data from loyalty programs give you a complete view of customer behaviour, purchasing habits, and preferences. Such information can be utilised to maximise management of inventories, adjust pricing, and plan promotions more effectively. Results from special promotions can easily be measured and you can see where there have been additional purchases, increase in engagement on additional channels, or decreased time between purchases.

Speaking about Tesco’s loyalty program, John Gardiner, (chairman 1997-2004) noted, “What scares me about this, is that you know more about my customers in three months than I know in 30 years.”

You can use data to cross-sell and up-sell, offering extended warranties after an item is purchased, make a suggestion for accessories that go well with the purchased item, and provide discounts on related purchases. Another great line is to promote offers during slow times/days/seasons in order to maximise productivity and capitalise on providing value for your “ad-hoc” shoppers

Big data allows for real-time analysis on your customer’s habits and preferences. When you’re able to tailor their experience based on their likes/dislikes, demographics and other feedback it gives a lot of awareness and ideas towards how you might increase profits. That being said, it is imperative to maintain customer information securely and ensure you handle such information sensitively and, within the bounds of the GDPR guidance (or your own country’s data protection rules). Information such as gender, nationality and age can all be used towards the building of a customised experience. Being able to develop bespoke processes with big data gives business owners a huge advantage in terms of sales.

5 Reasons To Reward & Incentivise Your Customers - REASON #4

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 22:43:54 GMT

IT'S LESS EXPENSIVE THAN YOU THOUGHT!

Think of a loyalty program and you could be forgiven for imagining that a large pot of your resources are going to be funneled off into a program that may or may not reap you the rewards you hoped for.

The reality, however, is that the true cost falls on the other side - it costs far more to acquire new customers than it does to keep the ones you already have and this is attested to by all the main analysts and business gurus. The numbers tell us that it can be 7 times LESS expensive keeping existing customers than acquiring new ones. So the resources you utilise in a loyalty program are likely to pale in comparison to the expense and effort in finding new customers. The slight expenses you incur by setting up a loyalty rewards program will be overshadowed by the additional business generated as a result.

Auto-Pilot Customers

When setting up a rewards system it's advisable to take some time to research. Find out the preferences of your customers - do they sway more towards discounts than free gifts? Do they have a leaning to rewards for passing on referrals over rewards for purchases? That's not to say you have to do one or the other but it gives you an insight into how you might want to set up the program and where your engagement is most likely to pick up.

Your loyalty/rewards scheme effectively becomes a self-sustaining machine, for the most part, due to its cyclical nature: the more purchases a customer makes, the more rewards he or she will receive - and they are inspired to continue purchasing.

Revisit your initial research and updating the rewards as this will help to keep your customers engaged.

5 Reasons To Reward & Incentivise Your Customers - REASON #3

Mon, 10 Dec 2018 11:45:54 GMT

PUSH NOTIFICATIONS

Push notifications (sometimes referred to as push messages) can help to attract more customers at certain touchpoints . A “touchpoint” is a point of interaction, a term often used to describe the interaction between a business and its customers. Push notification technology allow you to send reminders and real-time updates that encourage your audience to regularly engage with your brand even if they’re not aware of it.

Mobile app notifications allow you to keep in touch with your users in an unobtrusive manner by providing timely messages and helpful/relevant information such as rewards, discounts, special offers and breaking news about your brand or industry. The more personal value you can show to your customers, the more effective your notifications are.

Enhance brand consistency

With mobile notifications, you can trigger immediate purchases by bringing the customer’s attention to limited/time sensitive offers or special discounts. Letting your customers know about last-minute deals, coupons, and special offers is a powerful way to direct customers to a touchpoint in your marketing efforts. Push notifications give you an opportunity to give extra to your customers/clients.

Enhanced Customer Experience

Push notifications can considerably enhance your customer’s experience. You add value to the customer experience when you provide useful and relevant information, keeping your customers abreast with the latest updates, promotions and offers. Push messages are great for drawing a customer’s attention so make them valuable, time-sensitive and maintain a friendly/personal tone. The more relevant and personal your notifications, the better results you can expect.

Reduce friction in the customer journey

Push messages are less intrusive than email and some other forms of engagement and can be far more effective at driving traffic to certain aspects or areas of your business. Place deep links in push messages that take users to a particular place in your app – this helps you engage users and, coupled with a powerful call to action, you encourage receipients to perform the desired action.

The Big Idea

Push notifications are an essential part of your marketing tool kit. Well-considered, relevant, and timely push notifications that are sent to people who are already interested in and engaged with your business are an effective way to win with your customers. Through careful planning you can utilise push notifications to strengthen your customer base, increase their engagement with your brand and position your business as a “go-to” expert in your industry/field that customers like, know and trust; that alone is worth its weight in gold!

5 Reasons To Reward & Incentivise Your Customers - REASON #2

Sat, 08 Dec 2018 01:41:33 GMT

CREATE BRAND ADVOCATES

2min read

it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your only valuable customers are the ones spending money, when in fact the reality is that some of your most valuable customers, rather than spending money, are the ones generating it! We refer to these types of customers your “brand advocates” - these customers are the ones referring your loyalty program and special offers to their friends and family, and if they are on social media, their followers too. These types of customers are gold!

Most brand advocates are not motivated by money. What floats their boat is a desire to tell other people about their great experience with your brand and want to share this with other people to help them make better purchase decisions. This means most brand advocates are often just looking for recognition that you appreciate the good work they are doing. By building in some type of refer a friend scheme or similar you can keep your brand advocates feeling special. Perks could take the form of discounts, exclusive information/news about the business. Even recognising them in your blog or as a ‘customer of the month’ on your social media channels can be used as alternative or additional ways of showing your appreciation for their efforts.

having a loyalty scheme alone is not going to necessarily give you effective brand advocates - the level of customer service you deliver is essential. When you impress customers with your product or service, when you respond to questions, queries and complaints in a polite and timely manner, when you listen to feedback and act on or implement customer's ideas then you are well on your way to leveraging your position and being seen as providing value and benefits to your customers. This keeps your customers happy and helps you to create better relationships with them, which can help convert a regular customer into a brand advocate.

5 Reasons To Reward & Incentivise Your Customers - REASON #1

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 22:01:28 GMT

CUSTOMER RETENTION

Just 3% of first time visitors that make a purchase at your shop will return to buy again. This statistic is alarming especially after the effort and budget you've allocated to attracting them in the first place. So how can you change this trend? One way is through a loyalty program.

Loyalty schemes and coupons are a fantastic way to generate extra business and are a simple and effective marketing tool to spread the word about your products/services. We're used to seeing the big brands utilising loyalty schemes and may wonder why they do this. The reason is simple. Collectively, your repeat customers bring the most revenue in to your business.

In 2010 Costa Coffee launched their UK customer loyalty program, the Costa Coffee Club where customers are rewarded with points for every purchase they make, points they can trade in and spend on any other Costa Coffee purchase at any of the 2,300 UK outlets. Just some of the rewards the business has seen are increased sales, increased spend per-customer and increased frequency of visits

A loyalty scheme can help create closer bonds with your customers by gaining an insight into their buying habits. You can use this data to tailor the types of rewards and promotions delivered via your consumer loyalty program. A supportive marketing consultant can help you drive loyalty, footfall and revenue

There's no reason why small and medium size businesses shouldn't develop a loyalty scheme to reward their most loyal customers and drive more business revenue. With 69% of consumers having a preference for loyalty schemes and coupons delivered through their smartphone the time has never been better than now to get involved.

It's affordable, effective and your customers will love you for it!

3 REASONS YOUR CHURCH SHOULD NOT BUILD AN APP

Sun, 02 Dec 2018 18:39:28 GMT

Reduce your outlay and increase your reach

"In many churches, you’re just as likely to see members reading scripture from their phone or tablet as you are to see them reading out of a traditional hard-copy Bible"

If the above statement resonates with you then it is likely you have witnessed it or you are one of those people! "On the other hand", I hear you ask, "doesn't that statement support the notion that a church app is a good thing?"

It’s a reasonable question, afterall mobile apps can be incredibly powerful platforms. But before you make a decision to head down that road why not check out these three reasons (I could give you more) why a native app might not be the right choice for your church.

REASON #1 - PROGRESS

When I use the term "native app" I'm referring to an app that has been designed, developed and submitted to either the App Store or Google Playstore which is then downloaded by users to their smartphone or tablet. For a long time there were a number of functions that could be carried out on a native app that could not be emulated on a mobile website. It was also possible to use elements of native apps whilst offline. This could not be said of mobile websites

Well, the game has changed somewhat - web coding language has progressed to the point that this disparity between native apps and web-based platforms no longer exists - enter Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

PWAs are essentially a hybrid between a native app and a mobile-friendly website, giving the end user all the functionality of an app with the ease of access and wide-reaching capabilities of a website. They have a reduced outlay, with a PWA costing less than half of what it would cost for a native app and a far wider user base due to cross-platform capabilities

No need to go to an app store and download; users access the PWA straight from their browser and simply save the icon to their homescreen for future use
No precious memory space taken up on the user's phone; PWAs are around 20 times lighter than your standard native app
Push notifications? - Yep PWAs can do that!

REASON #2 - DECLINE

it would be advisable to consider the actual data and statistics regarding native apps

Between the App Store and Google Playstore alone there are over 4 million apps available - if that isn't market saturation then please tell me what is!
While UK stats show that most people have around 80 apps installed on their smartphone 90% of their "app time" is spent on their top 5 apps
Stats in both the UK and the US mirror the same results - as much as 67% of smartphone users download zero apps per month . Zero!
60% of apps in the Google Playstore have been downloaded zero times!

All the stats point to one thing. We're downloading and using fewer apps than ever - there is a stark and obvious decline in native app usage and this will continue as the adoption of PWAs grows. In fact, according to Gartner, by 2019, 20% of brands will abandon their mobile apps

REASON #3 - AUDIENCE

When comparing the top 500 mobile web properties to the top 500 mobile apps, comScore found that the website audiences were 2.2 times larger than the app audiences. This tells us that having a website is actually much more important than having a native app. A PWA ticks the box on both terms - they are discovered, accessed and ranked just like a website but have the capabilities of a native app.

"The future of mobile is in PWAs"

To find out more about PWAs CLICK HERE FOR A BONUS GUIDE ON PWAs AND WHY IT MIGHT BE A BETTER OPTION THAN A NATIVE APP

Chatbot News - Subscription Broadcasts

Fri, 30 Nov 2018 01:08:45 GMT

Make sure you request permission from Facebook to continue to be able to use this feature on your chatbot

On December 31st, 2018 Facebook is going to switch from app-level permission for subscription broadcasts to page specific permission.

If you use subscription broadcasts, even using third-party software, and want to continue to use these then we highly recommend you apply as soon as possible so you have time to go through Facebook's review process. This must be done for every Facebook page you want to have this permission.

Page admins may access the subscription messaging request form by doing the following:

Go to Page Settings > Messenger Platform
Under 'Subscription Messaging' in the 'Advanced Messaging Settings' section, click the 'Request' button.

In the form, the Page admin will be asked to provide the following:

A sample message and a brief description of how the bot will use subscription messaging.
A short screencast that shows how people will start a conversation with the bot and examples of subscription messages that the bot will send.
Which of the three eligible subscription messaging use cases applies to the bot.
A confirmation that the bot will only send non-promotional content through subscription broadcasts and will abide by all Facebook Platform policies and community standards.

Give examples of updates you would give to your customers that are non-promotional . Examples might be industry trends, blog posts that aren't just about a new product, or similar.

Please let us know if you have any questions. You can also read Facebook's official information on this change .