If you are running an eCommerce business, or if you’re planning to start one from scratch, I’d suggest you spend some time reading this article word by word. I believe by the end of this article, you might get a clear picture of what to do, where to start, in terms of planning the marketing strategy for your e-commerce business.

1. Start from the basics –  Proper Analytics Setup & tracking for measuring ROI

When you are setting up your e-commerce portal, the first and perhaps the most important step you need to take is to ensure that you properly set up all tracking & monitoring tools associated with the portal. When it comes to tracking the incoming traffic, Google Analytics is the most commonly used solution. With the help of Google Analytics, you can have a comprehensive overview of who your customers are, you can understand:

• Where your customers are coming from
• Which all are the main products they’re purchasing
• How many repeat visitors are there?

With a bit of advanced-level configuration, you can even:

• Set a custom goal & track how many times you can achieve the goal
• Set an event and then track the same

When you are running paid promotion campaigns for driving product sales, you can make use of analytics information to ascertain where most of your customers are coming from, which products they prefer buying, the amount of money you will have to spend for marketing purposes for making a customer purchase a product from you. With all this information, you can develop an effective marketing plan that optimizes the marketing expenses and promises a maximum return on investment.

2. Have a strong SEO Expert assist you in driving organic traffic and sales

A solid strategy for Search Engine Optimization is a crucial factor when it comes to driving organic traffic to your portal. If you have a product to sell, and an eCommerce portal for selling that product, then you will have to make sure your website is visible to prospective customers that are looking for you. This is where Search Engine Optimization plays a crucial role. In order to make that happen, you need to have the support of a strong SEO Expert who is always on top of the latest developments on how the search engines work, how they crawl and index the websites.

3. Develop a solid promotional strategy

Once you have sufficient information about the incoming traffic, sales, and customer data in place, you need to have a promotional plan in place that will help you achieve your business goals.

There are many options on Facebook, Google and other advertising networks to be considered as objectives, such as brand awareness, sales or conversion and the settings for each differ based on objectives.  

While running paid promotion campaigns, you need to have sales as the main objective since only more and more sales will result in taking your business to the next level. You can either hire a well-experienced team to assist you in planning & executing a promotional plan specially tailored for your needs or you can try and experiment with the available paid promotion methods in Facebook & Google.

Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are a set of advertising products made available by the social networking giant for marketers to reach their prospective customers who are having Facebook accounts. As mentioned earlier, a lot of advertising options are available for marketers to reach their target audience, such as awareness generation, driving website traffic, post engagement, video views, increasing the fan base, lead generation and many more. For an eCommerce portal, it is always wise to opt for campaigns that are having awareness generation and sales generation as the prime focus.

Google Ads

Google offers a wide range of advertising products that consist of search ads, display ads, video ads. And based on the requirement, eCommerce portals can make use of website traffic driving campaigns, conventional search campaigns, sales-oriented campaigns, etc with the help of Google.

Retargeting Campaigns

If you are visiting any eCommerce portal like Amazon or Flipkart, and are looking at a particular product, chances are high that you will be seeing the ad for that product wherever you go, be it random blogs or your social media feed. These kinds of ads that follow you around are generally termed as retargeting ads. If you were looking for a product and then decided against buying it at that time, these ads will help you to remind yourself to buy it at a later stage. Retargeting options are available with all major advertising players such as Google and Facebook and they help in brand building, brand recollection activities.

Proper Mapping of Consumer Journey

Based on the nature of your product, generic buying behavior of the customers, it is crucial for you to properly map the overall consumer journey. You need to properly define where the customer will come across the website: which all sources and channels, networks they will be coming from, which would be the first touch-point for your consumers on your website, and also how they are to exit your portal after making their purchase.

Once a consumer journey is properly mapped, you can fine-tune your online promotional strategy and plan top of the funnel or bottom of the funnel campaigns as per your objectives.

4. Build a strong community of customers around you with the help of social media

It is always good if you’re able to build a strong relationship with your customers who regularly purchase products from you. In order to be in touch with them, the most effective method would be social media marketing. Based on the nature of your products, and where your customers are spending most of their time, the choice of social media accounts might differ, if you’re having a clothing brand for the youth, Instagram could be a right option for you.

By posting content regularly on your social channels, you can interact with your customers and ensure your brand is there in their minds when they’re purchasing for similar products. Another important aspect of social media is the ability to inform your customers about the latest offers you’re giving out for your customers: it can be special offers for new customers or special offers for repeated customers.

Social media channels can be used as the anchor for all your content marketing initiatives. On your social channels, you can post the articles published on your blog, reviews shared by your customers, promotional videos and graphics which you make, they can function as the communication hub surrounding your brand.

5. Inbound & Content Marketing for Your Brand

Inbound marketing is the type of marketing where customers search for products and services similar to yours and come to you after consuming the content out there about your products and services. Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media Management all become useful in one or more stages of inbound marketing.

Whatever content you are planning for your blog and social channels, it should be finalized keeping in mind how your customers and prospective customers will be benefitted from it. The more beneficial the content is, the more likely your prospects will come to your brand when they’re searching for similar products.

6. Product Reviews by Influencers

It is a well-known fact that social media influencers bring in a certain degree of credibility to the brand. You can identify the influencers who use the products similar to yours and you can send them a few free samples in return for product reviews. If they like the product and mention it in their networks, their followers who are searching for similar products will come across your brand and purchase from you.

7. Email Marketing for the win!

When it comes to the e-commerce segment, sending out regular emails to your customers informing them about the latest happenings surrounding the brand is crucial. Special offers can be sent out to the customers so that they can purchase again, you can collect customer feedback by sending them an email with a survey link, there are a lot of things you can do with emails. There are numerous tools such as ActiveCampaign, MailChimp which you can use for sending simple emails to your customers, you might want to take up a paid subscription depending on your audience size so that you can truly customize the emailers.

8. Delight Customers & turn them to brand advocates

Customers are the greatest asset a company can ever have. Not only they purchase products from you, but they also can be effective brand ambassadors your brand can ever get. If you can give outstanding products coupled with prompt customer service, then there is a high chance that they come back for purchasing more from you and also tell their friends and family about your brand.

Most of the points mentioned here can be done by yourself if you’re willing to experiment with them and learn new things; it could get tricky in a few areas. In areas such as paid promotions, SEO, and content marketing you might require expert assistance for planning and execution of the activities at an optimum manner that does not burn too much time, effort and cost. If you require any assistance from our end, get in touch with our in house e-commerce marketing expert for a  free session.

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Make money online – it is something that almost everyone aspires to, it’s like a dream come true. While there are many ways to do it, making videos and earning money out of the same is something that most people do at present. The main reason behind this is the fact that Videos speak volumes than imagery, and it is said that almost 80% of internet traffic comes from online videos. When we think about online videos, the first thing that comes to mind is YouTube. YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine and therefore, it is being sought after by almost every publisher or marketer out there.

As per several statistics, 500 hours of video are being uploaded to YouTube every minute, and you can only imagine how difficult it should be for attracting the audience to your video and then getting them to see your content. That is where optimizing your YouTube Channel or Video plays a crucial part. Let us have a look at a few tips from our experts on video optimization and YouTube Channel Optimization.

Customizing Your YouTube Channel

Let us assume that a guest is walking into your room, imagine their reaction if they find your room to be a complete mess with clothes lying on the floor, table all messy with papers scattered all over. At the same time, imagine if they walk into a room that is well organized and tidy. How the guest perceives your room will automatically develop an impression about you in their mind, it works the same for your YouTube channel itself. If you have a well organized, customized YouTube Channel, the visitors coming across the same will understand that you’re serious about being a YouTube creator and that you’ve put a significant amount of time on the same.

Profile Photo & Channel Art

The first aspect to configure when you’re customizing the YouTube Channel is the profile photo, it can be either your profile or a logo or mnemonic that represents the type of content that you will be uploading. If you are a video creator who wants to appear more professional, the best thing which you can do is to develop a unique logo and name for your channel and use it as the channel’s profile photo.

Similar to most social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, the next area which needs to be customized is the cover image of your YouTube Channel which is called Channel Art. Again, it can be a picture or a graphic that represents what your channel is all about.

About Channel

Similar to the profile picture and channel art, a key area that you can make use of for letting your viewers know what your channel stands for is the About section. The about section has options for sharing a brief description of your channel, contact information, and also options for you to toggle the display of subscriber count or the total number of views.

Channel Trailer

Channel Trailers are where you can give a personalized touch for your channel. It is an intro video section that will enable you to play an introductory video automatically whenever a new visitor views the channel.

Playlists for Video Series

Whenever you are posting videos on related topics or are doing continuous videos one after the other, it is a good idea to create a playlist and add these videos one after the other. For example, if you are talking about various topics pertaining to Search Engine Optimization, you can combine all those videos and create a playlist.

Identifying Useful Content

The most important thing to consider when optimizing your YouTube Account, or any form of content for that matter, if you ask me is to ensure that the content you’re posting is relevant and useful for your readers or audience.

When doing a video, you should have a clear idea of what you’re expecting to communicate with your audience. You should have an idea of what content they’re looking for and how your content will be helping them out. Whatever doubt, or question the users have, they look for videos that will help solve their pain points.

If you’re posting the content which helps the audience to address their pain point, it would be really helpful for them and you alike. They get what they’re looking for and you get a new viewer or possible subscriber if they like your content.

In order to identify the topics which the audience is interested in, you can make use of tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, Answer The Public, etc.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner, even though it is a tool for planning your online advertisement campaigns, can be useful for identifying what are the main keywords used by the audience that is related to a particular topic. With that information, you can deduce the top keywords you should be targeting while preparing your video content.

Google Trends

If you want to identify the videos that are trending at present and then develop videos in sync, you can check out the YouTube search option available within Google Trends. You can also narrow down your search results by selecting relevant keywords and then see which type of video you want to develop or get inspired from.

Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a wonderful tool that enables you to understand what the general public is searching for surrounding a specific keyword. If you give the keyword or topic idea in the search bar, this little magical tool will give you something that is called as a search cloud that constitutes most of the search queries that people have used to arrive at this particular keyword. If you are searching for a keyword such as dance, all search queries people have used that contain the keyword ‘dance’ will be shown as below. It will help you give better titles for your videos.

Adding relevant keywords and tags

As mentioned in the beginning, YouTube is primarily a search engine for videos, and therefore, keywords, tags, etc play a crucial role in making your video or channel visible. Most of the Search Engine Optimization tactics will work here too. While uploading the video onto YouTube, based on the keyword research you had done while identifying the topics, you need to ensure that the video title, description, etc contain the top keywords that are relevant to your topic. Also, you can give relevant keywords as tags. The same applies to the channel, you can shortlist a few categories that you will be covering in your channel and then finalize a few channel-specific tags and configure it accordingly.

To recap, if you want to organically grow the number of views or subscribers for your YouTube video and channel, you need to have a clear idea about what you are planning to offer the viewers in return of the time they spend watching the content you produce. Also, you will have to ensure that you have left enough bread crumbs so that your Hansel and Gretel, the viewers can find their way home to you 🙂

If you want to know more about how to optimize your youtube channel and get more subscribers, feel free to get in touch with us.

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Ever wondered what makes QR codes unique?

Over the pandemic days, you might have come across several types of contactless payment modes which assist in maintaining social distancing, such as tap n pay, QR codes, etc. While the tap-n-pay feature would be primarily available in high-end devices, QR codes enabled a significant chunk of users to facilitate contactless payment. But have you ever wondered what makes QR codes so unique? And are QR codes only good for payments and nothing else?

Well, with this article, we’re trying to discuss the QR codes and the different types of QR codes.

What is a QR Code?

A Quick Response Code or QR code is a machine scannable 2D barcode that stores a particular type of information. Usually, the data stored can be text, image, audio, video, addresses, or URL.

Why QR code?

Earlier, dedicated QR code reader applications were used to scan the codes and reveal the information within; however, at present, smartphones have become so smart that just the dedicated smartphone camera can deduce the QR codes and disclose the information. Hence, it has quickly become the most accessible mode of information disbursal. Furthermore, due to the pandemic, the receptibility of QR codes has increased significantly on a global scale. The eMarketer – Insider Intelligence Report estimates that the number of smartphone users in the United States scanning a QR code will increase from 83.4 million in 2022 to 99.5 million in 2025!

What are the different types of QR codes?

Based on the type of data stored, QR codes can be classified into:

Text QR codes: stores simple text characters displayed when scanned.

Image QR codes: Stores a particular image that can be accessed when scanning.

Audio QR codes: Stores audio files.

Video QR codes: Plays a video when scanned.

Contact QR codes: Stores address and other contact details.

Based on the data being stored, a different classification of the QR codes also exists, which is Static & Dynamic QR codes.

Static QR codes are those where one data type is encoded. We cannot change that information in between.

Dynamic QR codes, on the other hand, are more sophisticated QR codes where we can program the data or the destination at any time as per our convenience.

Difference Between Static & Dynamic QR Codes

The key difference between static and dynamic QR codes lies in the data encoding and accessibility. As you’re aware, the data stored in Static QR codes cannot be changed.

However, for dynamic QR codes, you have the flexibility to modify the end destination as per your requirement. If you’re using them for your consumer campaign, you can even track the unique QR codes and obtain advanced-level insights.

Generation of Static & Dynamic QR Codes

Usually, most third-party QR code generators can generate static QR codes of any type without complexity since the encoding method is simple. Hence, we can come across many free tools.

It gets tricky when we’re talking about dynamic QR codes through. Enterprise customers mainly use dynamic QR codes with specific requirements, such as QR code-based payment methods and consumer loyalty campaigns. Hence, the QR code generator tools, such as Ayruz’s own DynaQR, offer customized solutions tailored to the customer’s needs.

How can I evaluate whether the QR codes suit my marketing campaign?

Well, if you’re looking to evaluate whether QR codes are suitable for your next marketing campaign, you all have to write to us here. We’d happily offer you a free consultation and guide you further.

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Suppose you’re a brand owner of an FMCG company, an e-commerce company, or an FMEG company that directly sells its products or services to consumers. In that case, you certainly know how crucial customer data is for your brand, correct? From time to time, you will have to ensure that the vision put forward by your company is in sync with the requirements of your customers. Only then can you be sure that the product or the brand you represent will be capable of scaling more heights.

To maintain an ongoing, evolving relationship with the consumers, a brand can opt for many mediums, such as:

• Work with intermediaries such as dealers or distributors to collect customer insights.
• Hire an independent consultancy to interview customers spread across specific pre-defined demographics
• Conduct consumer engagement and awareness campaigns that interact directly with the end consumer.

The most effective way to build a relationship with the end consumer is to conduct engagement and awareness campaigns that interact directly with them without intermediaries. Let us discuss the key points a brand owner, such as yourself, can keep in mind when running a consumer awareness campaign.

Have simple steps for participation

It may seem like a straightforward step; however, most of the time, failure to not complying with this step has proven fatal to engagement campaigns run by many brands. Furthermore, if the engagement campaign involves many steps for the consumer to complete, there is a high chance of getting bored before completing the tasks and dropping out. Therefore, we can witness higher completion rates if we simplify the steps.

Have an exciting rewards structure

When running a consumer engagement campaign, we must clarify what the consumer receives. There are many ways with which we can reward the consumer, such as:

• The overall experience itself
• Chance to act as ambassadors for the brand
• Gift Vouchers
• Free Samples
• Mega Prizes

If the gratification is not appealing, there are high chances for consumers to lose interest in participation quickly, and it can also result in drop-offs.

Have a user-friendly medium for interaction

Suppose you’re running an engagement campaign surrounding your FMCG product and wish to direct people to a particular microsite. There are many ways you can achieve the same. You can:

• Conduct print campaigns where you can display the URL for sharing with the customer.
• Post the URL in your social media feeds.
• Print the URL in your product packaging for users to type in their browsers.
• Display a dynamic QR code in the product packaging that is generated using customizable QR code generators like dynaQR, which Ayruz powers.

If you’re looking for the most convenient medium for running an engagement/awareness campaign, then displaying a QR code on the product would be the right way to proceed. It is because the user need not type in the URL, or the brand does not have to chase the consumer with the link.

Have a kick-ass style of presenting content

In consumer engagement campaigns, brands often check all aspects above, but they accidentally ignore the content written for communicating with the audience. It would be rather plain or uninteresting and will not generate a sense of excitement in the audience for participation. Sometimes, the text content will be exciting; however, the way it is presented, the design, etc., will be uninteresting. That also can dampen the excitement of the participant. Finding the right mix of engaging content and kick-ass visual elements can be critical for pumping up the excitement level of participants.

Have an always-on support mechanism

When brands often run consumer engagement mechanisms, customers will encounter glitches or need additional support from the organizers to resolve their queries correctly.

Sometimes, their entry may not be accepted, or a gift voucher didn’t reach them due to technical issues.

At those times, if a proper support mechanism is in place, customers will get prompt resolutions, and that pleasant experience, in turn, will aid in turning that customer into a loyal one.

The prime objective for a brand, while executing a consumer engagement campaign, must be to forge a lasting relationship with its loyal customers. If you’re looking for ways to engage with your customers, feel free to write to us by clicking here. We’d love to discuss and assist you in developing your next kick-ass engagement campaign!

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The need for consumer engagement & loyalty campaigns

Customer engagement and loyalty programs are not new and have been an age-old global phenomenon in industries varying from finance to automobile and retail to travel. Through loyalty programs, brands establish meaningful one-on-one relationships with their customers and enhance the value being provided to them.

From time to time, the brands must ensure that their vision is in sync with the customer’s requirements. Only then can the brands be sure they will be capable of scaling more heights.

Among various industries that face the consumer, FMCG brands, in particular, face the challenge of establishing a direct relationship with the customers as they lack Point-of-Sales systems and rely on multiple retail outlets for sales. As a result, FMCG brands are compelled to increase their marketing activities to sell their products in a grueling competitive environment with limited customer access.

Maintaining a retailer relationship to garner the customer data required for the company’s databases and CRM is also expensive.

Challenges faced in making consumer engagement campaigns successful

There are various ways for an FMCG company to interact with their customers, such as:

• Making use of conventional mediums such as print/TV.
• Use social media channels such as Facebook & Instagram.
• Put up marketing collaterals at the physical stores with proper CTA.

However, brands often fail to build a sustaining relationship with their customers because the customer has to go through various levels of hierarchy (or steps if it is a digital interaction) before speaking with a brand representative. The same goes for the brands to interact with the consumer as well. Therefore, whenever a brand is planning to conduct a consumer engagement campaign, it’d be best if they keep in mind five important tips for running such campaigns.

One most important tip to keep in mind would be to make sure that the steps for participating are as simple as possible! If the engagement campaign has many steps the consumer must complete, there is a high chance of stopping midway.

Enhancing the packaging to help the consumer

What if there is a way to give your valuable customers a more straightforward mechanism to interact with their favorite brand (you)? The simplest way would be to enhance your product’s packaging. Brands have already started working in this direction by placing simple QR codes in their product packaging and running special promotions.

Pepsi & Money Heist

If you didn’t live under a rock, you should have certainly seen the hype that was surrounding the campaign that was conducted by Pepsi & Netflix for celebrating the finale of Money Heist. Very special unique QR codes were printed in the limited-edition golden cans & packs that gave out virtual tickets to the consumers who scanned them.

The promo film that was aired surrounding the campaign had scaled new heights by garnering over 2.4 million views on MX Player, 3.3 million views on YouTube, and 3.4 million views on Twitter within just 24 hours.

QR driven consumer engagement campaigns by Nandini GoodLife

Another notable campaign that was executed by enhancing the product packaging would be the series of brand awareness and engagement-oriented campaigns that Nandini GoodLife, in association with Ayruz and Tetra Pak India are running. With the help of unique QR codes developed using dynaQR, Ayruz was able to supply over 100+ million QR codes to enhance the Tetra Pak packaging and executed the end to end campaign that saw more than 300,000 scans from loyal consumers, 47% of those who scanned at least twice.

Why connected packaging?

Is it just consumer engagement or loyalty campaigns that are possible by enhancing your packaging? Not exactly. In August 11, 2021, European Medicines Agency endorsed recommendations that were developed by the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA) for facilitating usage of track and trace systems at the global level. As per EMA, the track and trace systems are a useful tool for mitigating the risk of medicine shortages and to fight the production and marketing of falsified medicines.

We’re discussing more pointers on the need to enhance the product packaging through QR codes in our free whitepaper, “Building customer engagement, loyalty & trust through digitization” which is available here.

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Ayruz is excited to announce that we have contributed four server-side tags to the Google Tag Manager Community Template Gallery! Our team has dedicated efforts to designing tags that enhance your tracking abilities and provide deeper insights into your data.

What is the Google Tag Manager Community Template Gallery?

The Google Tag Manager Community Template Gallery is a repository of templates created by GTM users and partners worldwide. The gallery offers a range of templates, including server-side and client-side tags and templates for common use cases and specific integrations.

Contributions to the Google Tag Manager Community Template Gallery

Contributing to the Google Tag Manager Community Template Gallery involves a review process by Google and the GTM community. As a result, only high-quality, useful templates are accepted and published in the gallery.

Ayruz is proud to be one of the many partners and service providers contributing to the Google Tag Manager Community Template Gallery. Our contributions reflect our commitment to providing value to the GTM community.

Ayruz’s Contributions

Our team has developed four server-side tags that the GTM community has approved. These tags are now available for use in the gallery. Below is a summary of each tag and its potential uses.

1. Algolia Search Insights: This tag lets you track user behavior and search metrics on your website powered by Algolia. You can use this data to optimize search results and enhance the user experience.
2. URL Encoder: With this tag, you can encode URLs and create encoded URL parameters useful for tracking purposes in different analytics and marketing tools.
3. API Connector: With this tag, you can connect to any API and fetch data from it. This tag helps send data to marketing platforms or custom reporting.
4. MoEngage: This tag lets you track user behavior and events on your website or app powered by MoEngage. You can use this data to trigger personalized campaigns and improve user engagement.

The purpose of each tag is to provide you with a better understanding of your data and enhance your ability to track it. Using them can improve the user experience, optimize search results, and trigger personalized campaigns that drive engagement and conversions.

We are excited to share our server-side tags with the Google Tag Manager Community Template Gallery. We aim to provide practical tools and resources to help you enhance your tracking capabilities and gain valuable insights into your data. We hope you find these tags helpful and welcome your feedback and suggestions for future contributions.

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