Benefits Of Using Cloud Technologies In The Development Of Mobile Applications

Miley on February 27, 2019

Since the cloud has strengthened its presence, changes have begun in the business world. Businesses have begun to recognize the importance of taking advantage of the storage of their data, files, and applications in the cloud. Instead of storing all these important files on external hard drives, they began to transfer them to the “clouds”.

At the same time, “on-premises” is a term that is sometimes used in talking about cloud infrastructure. It means locality, which may seem contradictory. The term simply means that the company’s hardware will be stored at the client’s location, unlike cloud services, for which the vendor usually places the equipment in its data centers. Access to files, data, and applications using local solutions is what distinguishes this approach from cloud services offered by a third-party provider. When your files are in the “cloud” in the usual sense of the service, access to them requires an Internet connection. You can save initial capital costs by using this approach.

There are already a lot of providers in the world who can provide you with convenient and highly reliable cloud services at any time. They help organizations focus on their core business processes and not worry about time-consuming data processing, IT infrastructure maintenance and other related issues. You should meet with App developers for your Android app development.

Source – Pixabay

The High Cost Of Maintaining Local Infrastructure

Despite the fact that maintaining on-premise environments has its own advantages, there are still some reasons that encourage companies to turn to cloud providers. Take a look at these factors:

Electricity Costs

Companies must consider the amount of electricity needed to provide a full-fledged IT work environment. Servers have become much more energy efficient compared to those that were in the past, but they still require a lot of energy for smooth operation. The average cost of maintaining a single internal server can reach thousands of dollars, depending on the resources you need. The power supply must be continuous and with sufficient redundancy. You need to have a ventilation and cooling system for your physical servers.

High Capital Costs

The focus will be on storing data and applications on servers. In the case of the cloud, you do not need to buy anything. Costs are associated only with the resources allocated to you. It is cheaper than building your own infrastructure, and you can easily channel the money reserves to other initiatives.

Modernization can be a nightmare

When you acquire licenses for software, install all the equipment and hire staff to maintain the infrastructure, you will still need to allocate funds for regular updates. The money you have to invest in upgrading can amount to millions, and the process itself can take several months. Using cloud technologies, you do not need to worry about the updates and costs associated with them, because the provider will do “that’s all.”

Disaster recovery

Cloud computing does not guarantee that your mission-critical business applications will be completely free from the risk of failure, but when placed in the cloud, the provider will be responsible for restoring work in the shortest possible time. In the event of a physical infrastructure failure in your enterprise, you can also use a backup in the cloud, if you created it.

Security

Storing corporate “jewels” in the cloud may be the right choice for many businesses, but some strongly deny this possibility. The fact is that there is no right answer. There were cases when local systems were compromised, and cases when hackers could not hack a system located in the cloud. The cloud provider is really interested in customer security. A professional provider will do everything in its power to ensure the security of data and customer applications.

The impact of cloud services on mobile app development costs

One of the best features of the cloud is the savings factor. IT management can really exacerbate the cost of developing apps, the cost of your own infrastructure can be overwhelming. On the other hand, with cloud computing, you do not need to worry about many problems:

Servers: Since there are no local servers, you do not need to worry about the costs associated with them.

Computers: Data is stored in the cloud, so you do not need to immediately build the infrastructure, you can pay for everything as needed.

Maintenance and downtime – you can minimize downtime, as the provider will monitor, maintain and update programs. Less downtime will result in increased productivity, increased income and cost savings.

Source – Pixabay

Some of the advantages associated with cost reduction when choosing cloud technologies for your mobile app

1. Companies can minimize or avoid the cost of IT infrastructure

An important advantage of cloud computing is that businesses can now transform their capital costs into operating expenses and put an end to the endless infrastructure costs that may arise for a non-cloud solution. All data that continues to form, files and documents can now be found in the cloud, and not on the servers of your company.

No matter the size or type of your business, you can go to the cloud and save significant capital costs on hardware, software, additional computing power. You can choose to pay for resources received as needed, or a subscription-based cost structure. A prepayment of several months also allows you to receive a significant discount.

2. Developers can release their applications faster

In an era when everything is estimated at the cost of time, cloud computing is a priority. Developers can access their application projects at any time convenient for them, work with them, correct, delete errors and test. Thus, they can work on a large number of projects, and not worry about the physical server, which has a limited resource for hosting applications.

3. Improved manageability

The cloud gives you an edge in setting up and allocating resources to meet seasonal surges and fluctuations. Mobile apps and files do not have to be installed on user devices, because you can get them from the cloud at any time.

4. IT team can quickly set up cloud resources to meet changing requirements

You can easily scale your business up and down on demand. Requirements can be very unpredictable, and cloud computing is the surest way to satisfy them all. In the end, this is what will take your business to a new level. You should also meet with app developers for your Android app development.

Author Bio:

Melissa Crooks is Content Writer who writes for Hyperlink InfoSystem, a mobile app development company in New York, USA and India that holds the best team of skilled and expert app developers. She also writes for top app development companies.

Insights

7 Social Media Marketing Strategies That Can Help Your Ecommerce Business Grow

Miley on February 21, 2019

https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-typing-on-macbook-1559048/

The concept of social media and networking may have boomed from a dorm, but it has grown tremendously over the years.

Just for the sake of an overview, let’s take a look at where some of the most popular social media platforms stand:

Facebook, the biggest social network, has more than two billion active users
Twitter is hitting the 350 million mark this year
Linked In is a network that connects more than 500 million professionals
Instagram has already crossed 800 million

The total number of social media users is now over 3.1 billion, and increasing at around 13 percent every year.

Any smart businessperson can see the potential of using these networks as a perfect marketing platform. It is where billions of people gather to share, learn, and discuss. It is why social media marketing has now become a powerful driver of business growth.

eCommerce businesses have a lot to gain from social media. Social media is now one of the significant drivers of website traffic. It stands quite close to search engines. The problem is that it isn’t as easy as it sounds. While it may seem like an ever-expanding pool of prospects, it is not easy to make your mark on such a busy platform. It is a competitive world out there. You need a strong strategy to make sure you are able to reach the right audience and get the right response. Here are seven social marketing strategies to help your eCommerce business grow.

1. Identify Your Best Marketing Channels

There is a reason there are more than one social networks. All of them are different in many ways. For instance, Twitter is just a microblogging platform while Instagram and Pinterest are about photo blogging. LinkedIn, on the other hand, has a more professional approach.

Due to such differences, there is a difference in their demographics. Customer behavior also differs for every channel. The key to a winning strategy is to identify your target audience and leverage the platform that is more popular among that group.

2. Focus on Impressive Visual Appeal

Social media users have a very short attention span. You need to grab attention through eye-catching visuals. It is the first thing they will notice, even before they read the text. Invest in professional logo design service to give your brand a makeover. Even if you are in for B2B leads via LinkedIn, a good logo can make a world of difference.

Visual appeal becomes even more important when you are selling products. You can make attractive videos and images to showcase your products in a positive light.

3. Get on Every Bandwagon

Social media is where trends start, and it is where they go viral. A great social media marketing strategy to make your business appear more relevant and relatable is to piggyback those trends. Thankfully, it is easy to follow and catch up on trends on social media. It is a great way to capitalize on whatever is happening around.

Keep an eye on the hashtags. They are a huge deal on Instagram and Twitter. Facebook and Pinterest are also leveraging the power of hashtags now.

4. Be Part of the Conversation

The greatest thing about social media is that it allows for a two-way conversation. It is where consumers are free to share their opinions and experiences. They want to have their say on everything, including your products and services. However, that conversation can only go on if you are equally involved.

Looking from the business point of view, you have the power to lead the conversation towards conversion. Utilize that control. Get people talking about your business and your products? Be quick to respond, and you can win their trust and loyalty.

5. Do Not Overlook Live Streaming

The engagement rate of live videos on Facebook is double the engagement rate of other videos. Every ecommerce store should look into leveraging this amazing opportunity. It is a great way to show your products and talk about them in real time. You can answer your prospects’ queries right there and then make sure they make a purchase without getting distracted.

Live videos give a very hands-on view of the product. If you can demonstrate how good it is while answering all the question then and there, you will get immediate leads.

6. Look Into Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is huge! The reason influencers are making millions of dollars is that they are helping businesses earn ever more. In 2019, businesses are thinking of spending more money on influencer marketing. Even big brands are jumping on this trend.

Contrary to popular belief, an influencer is not limited to any niche. While an online leather jacket store can hire a fashion blogger to showcase their new products, a furniture store can also join hands with a lifestyle blogger.

7. Always Test and Track

How do you know your strategy is successful? You analyze the results.

Testing and tracking your social media marketing strategy is crucial because of two main reasons:

You need to invest more on what works and change what doesn’t
You need to tweak your strategy according to the changing trends and algorithms

If something doesn’t work, change it. And before you go with it, do an A/B testing to see what works even better. A/B testing can save you from a lot of trouble and huge failures. Social media is a fast-paced world, and it is best to stay careful.

Conclusion

Social media isn’t going anywhere. It is just getting better. It is a great channel to bring in leads, but more importantly, it is a great way to brings leads that are bound to convert. These platforms allow you to promote your product and persuade your audience on a very personal level. It helps you build a strong bond with your customers. With the right strategies, you can improve your acquisition as well as retention, and not to mention, the overall conversion.

Startups

3 Things Needed by Startups to Be Successful

Miley on February 21, 2019

There are so many things that can be said about why startups fail and the truth is that most new businesses end up closing their doors much sooner than what owners want. It is really important to be properly prepared, which is easier said than done. While there are various things that can be highlighted, here are some things that modern startups do need to take into account if they do want to be successful.

Proper Market Knowledge

Numerous entrepreneurs end up enamored with the ideas they have. This often leads to problems because they are just way too focused on what they think works. In order to solve this, the solution is to just learn all that you can about the market.

Keep in mind that it is rare to see entrepreneurs that switch industries and end up being as successful as in the original one. The founders that do have a deep domain expertise tend to be much more aware of market opportunities, customer needs and how the competition can impact everything.

Using Modern Technology

Even if market knowledge is high, still using the same tools that were used years ago can lead to problems as the competition adapts and does invest in technology. Startup owners need to know what technology can be used in order to improve the entire business, which involves a lot of research.

As an example, it is quite common to see businesses training new employees with a use of a screen recorder for Windows 7. The common choice is using software like Movavi Screen Recorder with the idea that it is easier to train someone with video content that involves the influence of the owner.

As Much Data As Possible

In order to sign partnerships, earn funding and even making smart business decisions, a lot of data is needed. You need to be sure that you gather all the data that you can. This includes data about the industry or the market that you operate in and about what is happening in the startup. The more data is gained, the higher the possibility the business will be successful.

Development Insights Martech

How Can You Innovate A Routine Travel Application Development?

Miley on February 20, 2019

Travel apps are on the boom, no divergent ways to the fact. Development companies and the clients are making a handsome revenue from it. But, bringing similar apps in the market to make money for yourself is not how you can proceed further. You will have to offer something extra, something unique, to stand a chance among the big and established players of the Google play store and apple app store.

Here are some of the top features offered by different travel apps. If you are considering travel app development, a combo of all of these won’t be a bad idea.

1. Geolocation

The basic thing any traveler checks after reaching the destination is nearby places to stay or cafes to eat or places to visit. Don’t give them any teeny weeny chance to drop your app and use some other one to get all these information they desired. For that location, geolocation feature is what you must have. The user can run any location-based search and fetch the results very quickly.

2. Weather Forecast

There are a whole bunch of people planning their entire trip without taking weather changes into consideration. A bad climate can alter the trip, like a flight delay or even worse flight getting canceled. So, include weather forecast feature into your travel app which can send weather predictions, any nearby calamity or any such events to the user.

3. Cab Booking

Right after landing, the first thing any user will be looking for is a cab. So, don’t give the user any reason to slip from your app. Give them the taxi booking feature and get them to their location.

4. Price Comparison

Your app would not be the only one they would be using, there will be 2 to 3 more to get the best out of all. So, give them that detail as well. Show them the price comparison of different flights, hotels and other things offered by different apps right on your app.

5. Offline Access

The bad network is a common problem and it can follow you anywhere. This can be a disaster for the users but not if you let them use your app even in offline mode.

6. Language Translator

Language can be a lot of trouble if not handled well. Communication in a different country can create issues but not if you avail a language translator feature in your travel app.

Something Out Of The Box

While traveling, hotel booking can cost a fortune. Those looking for low budget travel ideas, here’s one, “HolidaySwap”. This idea of a travel app is really out of the box. The app owner James Asquith holds the record for being the youngest person to visit every country of the world. The concept of this app is to provide stay at just $1 per night. He brought back the trend of barter. The users of the app can exchange their homes at distant locations. If you are staying in Australia and want a home in the US, find any US person looking to stay in Australia, and swap homes with each other. Isn’t the idea fascinating? So, something like this can help you create your own space in the app market.

Another such concept is Preparture. While visiting an entirely new nation, you might know the routes which is quite blatant. Now Preparture not only shows the routes to the locations you feed but creates a whole route itself. Say for example you are want to grab a bite at XYZ restaurant, you want to withdraw money from the ATM, you want to visit the local mall of the area. You feed all these destinations in the app and it will plan the route based on which location is near and what task you should complete first, where you should head next, and where should your journey end. It is your one-stop travel planner app.

So, I guess now you know if really want to top the app store charts, you will need something never thought before or never done before.

Author Bio

I am Pratik Kanada, founder & CEO of 360 Degree Technosoft, an iPhone and Android app development company which makes app ideas into reality by providing unique design and development services across the globe. To keep up with the trend, I have also laid steps into React native and ionic app development. I generally write blogs on mobile technology, app development, and app marketing.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pratik-kanada-31793020/edit/photo-opt-out/

Development Insights Martech

How to Manage Your Email Marketing Campaign to Improve Sales

Miley on February 19, 2019

Email marketing is a marketing strategy that was believed to be declining due to the emergence of social networks. However, the truth is that it is still very functional. Promotional emails are an essential part of sales and larger marketing strategies used by brands and businesses.

Today, close to 70% of businesses and brands in the United States invest money and time into email marketing, according to the infographic by 99firms.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is building huge email databases, with lots of unsorted email addresses. Such a database is usually quite challenging to successfully manage, which is why you have to take certain measures and optimize your email marketing efforts.

Here are some tips for managing your subscriber’s database and optimizing email marketing campaigns.

Segmentation

As the name suggests, segmentation means creating several emailing lists according to specific criteria, such as age, sex, geolocation, and other relevant parameters. This is essential because if you send the same message to all your subscribers, your open rates and conversions are probably not going to be very good.

On the contrary, as you can see from the infographic below, segmentation increases open rates, leads, and revenues by 39%, 24%, and 24%, respectively.

Mobile-Friendliness

Nowadays, the vast majority of people read emails on mobile devices. This entails that one of the first steps of your email marketing campaign must involve checking that messages are mobile-friendly. In other words, the entire message, including videos and images, must render perfectly on mobile devices.

If you fail to do this, the users are not going to bother zooming in and out or scrolling sideways to read the email. They will simply send it to the spam box.

Unsubscribe Option

Of course, you don’t want to lose subscribers. But leaving out the unsubscribe option is going to be considered rude and unprofessional, and your email address will most likely get quickly blacklisted. Therefore, always make sure that email users could leave your mailing lists if they are not happy with the messages you send them. If you wish to keep and increase the user base, email optimization is the way to go.

Top-Notch Content

This might sound like trivial advice, but you would be surprised how many businesses neglect this aspect of composing an email. The content of your email should be optimized in terms of length, structure, and elements. You should be aware that people prefer watching videos over reading text.

That said, you need to find a perfect balance between the two while making sure that the video does not start playing automatically. Let your customers decide if they want to see it.

Call To Action

Even if you create the best email in the world, it is not going to be quite successful unless it brings conversions, among other things. To accomplish this, you need to include a call-to-action button. The button has to be clearly visible, clickable, and contain clear instructions about what are you asking users to do – whether they should check out your latest product, subscribe to your new social media channel, etc.

Conclusion

As you evolve with your ways of reaching subscribers, you should study reports and statistics derived from each of your email campaigns. These will help you to understand better what you do properly and what you need to work on.

For more help on how to successfully optimize emails, consult the infographic below.

Martech Products SaaS

The Significance of A Defect Management Tool in The IoT Industry

Miley on February 13, 2019

Detection of bugs is simple and easy. However, organizing, managing and tracking them in one place is extremely difficult. Therefore, the defect management tool has a significant role to play. An effective tool has a rich-information format that clears your line of sight and consolidates and configures your activities at one place. It helps to record, manage and track all your testing efforts in a very productive user interface and provide access to all your projects at your fingertips.

Whereas, internet of things (IoT) is the network of devices such as home appliances and vehicles that encompass connectivity, actuators, sensors, software and electronics which enable these things to connect, exchange data and interact. IoT is of immense significance these days.

Therefore, we are presenting to you with some reasons why defect management tools are important in the IoT Industry.

1. It Provides Information Rich Format

Vector flat concept of process social media business and marketing. Startup, business planning and results – vector illustration

An effective defect tracking tool enables you to report and track defects using its rich information format and the interactive dashboard. The defects are spotted back and forth within the cycles and are also connected to the referenced test cases.

2. It Helps to Create Customized Defect Reports

While creating customized defect reports you can take advantage of the two-way integration with the defect management software such as JIRA. You can also utilize customized fields to make this integration more appropriate within your business context.

3. It Offers Jira Integration

A defect management tool enables you to sync your defects with the simple set up selection in JIRA. It is ideal for the team working in an agile environment. This is where business analysts and testers can coordinate with two different tracking tools. The issues or defects created on one platform can be logged on to another.

4. It Provides Flexible Reporting

It enables you to log your defects independent of test cycles and modules and use them again and again. This can only be done with its decoupled architecture. In this way, the defect is not required to be created again and again in one case or module.

In the End…

A test management tool like Kualitee can offer an in-depth picture of the sort of defects. After being recorded, these bugs can be traced in various ways. It simplifies the process in many ways through different viewing formats. It enables you to monitor the bug history at any time with various information pointers. A test management tool provides more features than any defect management software. Therefore, many companies allocating a huge chunk of invest in purchasing a test management tool.

Author Bio:

Ray Parker is an entrepreneur and internet marketer with over 9 years of experience in Search Engine Optimization, Creative Writer and Digital Marketing Consultant.

Insights

Why Your WordPress Website Might Be Slow

Miley on February 12, 2019

WordPress powers about 30% of all websites. That means if you’re a blogger or you run a small website, there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with it.

Unfortunately, even though popular content management platforms make speed optimization a breeze, a lot of WordPress sites are still slow. It might not seem like a big deal if your site takes a few extra seconds to load, but it is. Website speed is important for user experience, SEO, and website revenue. Even a single second can make a big difference.

That’s why we’ll outline several things you should look out for if you want a fast WordPress site.

Server Resources

Your choice of hosting could be the first problem. If you don’t get enough server resources, it’s difficult to maintain fast speeds. It’s essential to pick a good hosting provider.

According to the website hosting experts over at the Hosting Tribunal, who prepared the informative graphic below, SiteGround offers various benefits, including a fast server and good customer support. They also offer managed WordPress hosting.

Mind that managed WordPress hosting is not a must-have if you want to host a WordPress website. However, it does have a lot of conveniences like more security, automatic updates, and more qualified technical support.

Excessive Plugins

Another common bottleneck for WordPress sites is plugins. Plugins are one of the great things about WordPress and these days you can find a plugin for just about anything. They let you create things you would otherwise need years of web development experience for.

That being said, too many plugins can bog down a website. Your server must spend resources to run plugins. If you have too many plugins active, they increase your load times. Using many form builder plugins can cause your website to load slower. That’s why choose one form builder WordPress plugin and you’ll see the difference in the performance.

If you’re experiencing performance issues, it could be because you installed too many plugins. Delete any you’re not using; you’ll be doing yourself a favor.

Hosting Environment

A third common issue is that you haven’t upgraded to PHP 7. PHP 7 is two to three times faster than the previous version. However, only a third of WordPress sites run on PHP 7.

Chances are your hosting provider supports PHP 7. Still, they won’t upgrade your site to it without your consent because they don’t know if your theme and plugins are compatible with PHP 7. If you’ve owned your WordPress site for a while and haven’t upgraded, you could still be on PHP 5.

You can use the Display PHP Version plugin to check if you’re still using the older version. If you’re not using PHP 7, contact your hosting provider’s support team. They can help you upgrade and make your site faster.

These are some common issues that trouble WordPress sites. There are a lot of other ways to improve website speed. Looking into them is always worth it.

WordPress users have numerous plugins that make speed improvements easy. If you want to make your website faster, you can find ways to optimize images, enable GZIP compression and server-side caching, and many other things.

And if you want to learn more about website speed itself, the infographic below has all the core info to get you started.

Development Insights Martech

How Much Good Will Video Content Bring To Your SEO In 2019?

Miley on February 11, 2019

Video content has become one of the most, if not the most, influential mediums on the internet. Long gone are the days where you would visit a website and find only text posts. Nowadays, everyone wants to get in on the craze of video content. The best part is that search engines have taken a liking to videos just as much as users have. With this in mind, you need to take some steps to ensure that your video will be at the top of searches everywhere.

1. Bring quality instead of quantity

The quality of a good video is what keeps viewers coming back. On YouTube, for example, the most viewed videos are those with the most effort put into them. You need to start with the basics. For starters, come up with a good premise for the video, the main theme can’t be any topic that comes to mind, it has to have a purpose. Good video quality shouldn’t be disregarded. In the age of 4K video streaming, you want to be ahead of the curb. Don’t forget about audio, either. The audio in your video should be crisp and easy to comprehend.

Driving more views and clicks to your site will require some quality content in your video. There’s no reason to go overboard and spend months on a single video. Quality over quantity is the name of the game, but don’t exclude quantity from the equation. If you have a particularly brilliant idea that can lead to a complex and long video, try splitting it into several parts. Viewers aren’t patient when it comes to waiting for videos so your content has to come out at least semi-regularly. This way it will constantly be searched and it will bring in traffic.

2. Don’t neglect social media

People are constantly talking about the influence of social media on the newer generations. The truth is that social media has an effect on everyone, not just the younger crowd. Hosting videos on social media platforms are possibly the best way to spread them across the internet. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are itching for those videos with attractive content. Facebook has started optimizing its model to better fit videos because they are preferable to photos. They are easy to share and the users do the job for you.

In order to maximize the number of clicks and shares you get from a video, it has to appeal to a broad audience on these social networks. Viral videos are what you should strive for. Social media sites are like marketing machines, if you put something good in, it’ll basically share itself. Major brands have begun investing in live videos as well. There’s something about their spontaneity that attracts users and they might not feel like it’s as much of a timewaster as a fixed video.

3. Integration is key

When it comes to making quality content, blogs have always ruled supreme. Text posts aren’t a thing of the past just yet, they’re still going strong. With video marketing on the rise, it might be a good idea to create complementary content that connects to blog posts. There’s no reason you can’t integrate a specific video that has a similar topic on your blog. This will be key in helping your content better get across to viewers. Some subtext is given by the blog post and then the video provides the heart of the content. Readers love getting a different dimension and perspective while reading a blog post.

Bridging different topics with blogs and videos is great for spreading content as well. You can adjust your blog post to match the topic of your video so it becomes much easier to share. This way, not only do you optimize the user experience, but you also get an easier medium to share your videos in. For example, say you want to share a video game review article. Making a review video to match would not only attract more users, but it would also give attention to your video channel. Either way, you can’t lose by making both.

4. Pick the right thumbnail

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this doesn’t really hold up on the internet. Most people will give your video a casual glance before deciding to click it, which is why it’s important that the glance shows them exactly what they want to see. There is a near-infinite number of videos online and people simply do not have the time to check each and every single one of them. The thumbnail is going to make or break the popularity of your video.

To create an engaging thumbnail, you need to think about a couple of things. First of all, it has to stand out. Make sure it doesn’t get lost in the sea of other video thumbnails. After that, you have to decide which frame of the video represents the content of the video best. It should be an impactful moment that shows the gist of the content, without being too chaotic. Alternatively, you could just add an image that isn’t actually from the video but still represents the point accurately.

5. Focus on titles

As with anything that you share on the internet, the title is an extremely important detail. It’s the main way to find your content. This might be even more important for video content since there’s no matching text that could be used to identify what the video topic is about. In order to get people to the page, your video is in, you’re going to need a proper keyword in the title. There’s nothing more important for Search Engine Optimisation than picking the right keyword. Think of what your video represents and try to find the right word or words that would describe it best.

Search engines like Google need something to start with in order to show your video as a search result. It would be ideal if your video also had an accompanying description below it. This way you can add some more details that signal what it’s about. Don’t overdo the keywords, search engines might penalize you for it.

6. The right host

Search engines really like pages that have a fast load speed. Nobody likes waiting for something to load on their website. Unfortunately, integrating things like videos on your page could potentially slow down your blog page or wherever you host your video. There is also quite a difference between hosting your video on a site like YouTube or its alternatives.

Picking the right host could mean the difference between a quick page load and a page load that search engines recognize as slow. Make sure you test out your website on page load speed test applications before going live.

Conclusion

Platforms like YouTube have made creating video content easy and affordable. No business should go without at least one interesting video on their website. It’s a huge boost to visitors and you’ll find that search engines like Google will adore you for it. Just make sure you create unique content that caters to the masses and you won’t have to worry about your website not receiving traffic.

Insights Startups

How Well-designed Triggered Emails Help Your App Startup Stand Out of The Crowd

Miley on February 5, 2019

#triggerwarning: If you aren’t using triggered e-mails, you’re leaving money on the table! Triggered and transactional emails are often overlooked by new companies because people tend to consider them as less important than making a good product or having a nice website and neat landing pages. However, these emails are the outer spin electrons of your marketing molecule — those emails are the everyday connection between your product and your audience. You may have to pay more attention to them, treat them gently. Good copy won’t be enough; you need a stunning design for these emails too because it’s the medium that new leads, users, or customers see first.

Credit: Shutterstock

What are triggered (and transactional) emails?

Triggered emails are a subset of a larger group of marketing emails — those which are sent based on some kind of action. It implies some level of automation and preparation. These are NOT like emails that you write to your partners or clients on the fly. The trigger could be anything. The most used and common triggers are connected to payment services and purchases. We call this little group of triggered emails _transactional emails_. These are the messages you get after you order something on Amazon: a confirmation, a receipt, shipping updates, etc. There are many different things that could trigger an email. My favorites are the Welcome emails of freemium or free-trial offering startups. This is the moment when your website visitor became interested in your product and ready to try it. The welcome email is the first “real” and “personal” communication between a company and the new customer.

The open rates of triggered emails are so high because…

They are contextually and temporally relevant to the recipients. It’s about something they did and should be close enough in time that they remember it well. If the triggered email’s subject line is well-aligned with the context (triggering event), the probability of opening the email goes sky-high. Why? It’s purely a psychological matter — we are reinforcing our own decisions about things that we’ve already expressed interest in. The timing also a helping factor here: the email comes immediately or shortly after the event that triggered it — it helps the feeling that it is connected and important. So people tend to open these emails ~70% more often than any other kind. So what prevents you from using them? Hopefully, you’re already doing some kind of automation and sending triggered emails. Now I’ll help you to get the most out of them.

Timing and context matters when sending triggered emails

It’s true. Let’s examine closely my favorite triggered email scenario, the Welcome emails. You sign up to try a shiny new tool that will help you conquer the world by reducing your time doing some horrible busywork, let’s say ……….. (pick your least favorite task, I don’t want to insult anyone). The minute you enter the app you get a welcome email (it’s often coming from the CEO of the company). How does this email look? Boring. Why? Because most of the marketers think that a plain text email will look personal. Also, there is a legend that the plain text message will land in the Primary tab (which only applies to Gmail) or easily avoid the spam folder in other email clients. Does it really serve to get into the Personal inbox — the holy Primary tab — with your Welcome message? Do you want it to be read immediately? While you are thinking about the best way and time to send out the welcome email or any other triggered message, please remember this piece of advice: immediate messages could be nice, but please do not distract people from your own context with the connected triggered email. The worst case scenario coming from an old e-commerce tale, a webshop marketer had the idea to up-sell things in a triggered email followed by the initial webshop order offering a 20% coupon code. Timing was the only problem. They sent this email before the checkout had closed. The visitors of the webshop who had seen the incoming email and had opened it before the end of checkout easily applied the 20% code and bought their very first item for 20% percent less price… That was not good for the revenue of course. Timing is important but sadly, good timing alone is not enough.

The design is the delicacy you’ve been searching for

Delivery to the Personal inbox may not be the best for marketing and product related emails. People tend to delete messages that are sent to their Personal sanctuary, but then turn out to be marketing material. In the previous example, the Welcome message is surely marketing material, but everyone will see it. Then why does everyone try to deceive their leads and fresh customers with plain text designs? Your message might be better placed in the Updates or Promotions tab (in Gmail) or to the “Other” folder, however, it has to be exceptional to stand out amongst the others. You need a hilarious copy and/or stunning design. The branded design is a must-have, but a nice design or image that drives interest is clearly the first step. If the visuals are on brand, it leverages optical continuity, while any additional creative and eye-catching thing would do the job to pin down the reader of the email and entice them to read further. A well-designed layout, a flashy image, a funny GIF — all of these could serve your goals.

Inspiring ideas of well-designed triggered emails

Let’s start with Asana and a traditional Welcome email, my favorite type. They decided to have a simple layout, with a simple picture and a really compelling button (CTA). While they help in the onboarding, they redirect the readers to their mobile apps, with the same sort of app download Block that a wide variety of companies could use at the bottom of their messages. While I promised not to show any triggering event that is connected to payment or purchase, don’t think that you’ll get away without seeing some e-commerce examples. There are numerous opportunities to send triggered emails in the e-commerce world. Check out this example from Debenhams. They send this remarketing email when looking at one of their products without buying. Why? To help you remember them when you make the final choice. As you can see, this email is not the average, nearly plain-text, triggered an email. They sent a comprehensive email with a complex layout structure and different content blocks for different little goals. You may think, that the hardest part in an email like this is to set-up the automation, but in fact, the most time-consuming part was the email design itself.

Wrap-up

Fortunately, there are tools like Chamaileon.io that you can use for designing emails and templates, quickly and easily. With a drag-n-drop editor and ability to tweak complex elements, an email design like the above can be done in hours. To identify the right events you can use as triggers, I suggest talking with your colleagues and holding a brainstorming meeting.

Insights

Tips for Boosting Output through Technology

Miley on January 30, 2019

In theory, in order to increase one aspect of your output, you would have to sacrifice something else. We’re either talking about more time, more money or more resources. Well, one of the ways to get a productivity boost without making a sacrifice of any sort is to get more efficient tools. Nowadays, these tools (either software or hardware) are either free, inexpensive or give an amazing ROI. Here are five such ideas.

To-do list apps

The first thing you need to understand is the importance of making a to-do list, on paper or in-app. No matter how focused or dedicated you are, it’s impossible for you to keep track of absolutely everything and there are some things that must, eventually, slip your mind. With the help of a to-do list, this can easily be avoided. The reason why it’s better to do this on an app than on paper is a simple efficiency. No waste of paper, no fear of forgetting the list (who leaves their home without a phone?) and an extremely easy way to alter it. This also helps you avoid difficult handwriting, crossing items off the list with a pen and much, much more.

Project management tools

Managing a project is difficult enough even without all the various technical issues that you have to deal with, time and time again. With adequate software on your side, it’s fairly easy to see how a project management tool could help you assign tasks, share information, make public announcements and even exchange files within the team. Even though diagnostics shouldn’t be the main objective, keep in mind that with a reliable project management tool available for all types of servers, you’ll also be able to keep track of all changes made on the project. Should a mistake happen somewhere, it’ll be easy to trace back to it. Moreover, even though casting blame shouldn’t really be your thing, going for a project management tool can at least help avoid unjust accusations.

Dual monitors

Source – Pexels

Previous two items on this list were software-based, which is why it’s now important that we mention at least one hardware solution to the issue of productivity. The first thing that comes to mind is the concept of dual monitors and the ways in which this can improve your productivity. For designers, writers and, overall, content creators, this can allow more insight into what they’re currently doing, as well as the ability to look at resources while working. For programmers, the advantages are even greater. Furthermore, this is a one-time investment, unlike software subscriptions that you might be forced to make every month. In other words, getting an additional Samsung monitor for your office is a course of action that will, beyond doubt, yield a great ROI.

Noise-canceling earbuds

Source – Pexels

The problem with noise lies in the fact that it’s often just impossible to ignore it. If there’s a visual distraction in the office, you can just not look at it but if there’s something making noise and you can hear it from where you sit, there’s not much you can do. Make no mistake, in the office, there’s always something making noise, even if it’s just people typing, breathing or walking by. Most likely, on the other hand, you’ll also hear appliances humming, coworkers chit-chatting, while it’s not unlikely that the outside noises, like traffic, might also end up being an issue. Fortunately, all of this is avoidable with the use of noise-canceling earbuds.

Time-tracking apps

Finally, when it comes to the issue of productivity, time is one of the most misused resources there is. One way to improve this is with the help of time-tracking apps. Sometimes, these tools will use the alert system to help you stay on track. At other times, they will provide you with a better analysis of how you use your free time. The latter allows you to deal with this situation in whatever way you see fit. Either way, your productivity is bound to experience a serious boost.

Conclusion

Boosting output through technology is not only possible but it is also simpler and more frugal to achieve than you might have expected. With just a couple of apps and peripherals, you can make a massive difference in both your performance and job satisfaction. In other words, this is a competitive edge that’s so easily obtainable that it would be outright negligent not to do so.