Living Proof Creative

I’m personally more productive at around 10 am. I’ll sit down at my computer, have my first cup of coffee while answering emails and messages. Once all the “urgent” matters are out of the way, my brain is clear and also, the coffee has begun to work. This process helps me get my head in the game and get jittery. Jitters are good for creativity. Write that down.

Some people are more creative in the early morning before the hustle of the day, while others thrive later at night, once all the boxes have been checked and they can finally focus. Find what time works for you and stick with it.

Creativity thrives when you’re comfortable in your space. Invest in making your office space a place you love to be in and where you look around and feel happy. Motivational quotes, pictures of your cats, beautiful plants, the macaroni art from your child’s latest school project; whatever makes you feel yellow. Deep, bold yellow.

Great minds this alike, but creative minds think completely differently than anyone else. I have witnessed this first hand when working with children and have since noticed this trait manifested in the creative habits of many adults as well. Some prefer to work with music playing, while others feel more creative when putting pen on paper.

I am most creative when I pace the room spouting ideas and a coworker takes notes. We later sit together to polish it and make it sound pretty. We call it the channel and vessel method. It works for us.

The point above leads me into the next tip. Find a friend — saying the words out loud helps get the juices flowing. Bouncing ideas off your SO, coworker, or friend helps you hear your thoughts out loud, which is another great example of the habits of creative people. That leads us to our next tip.

They can’t all be gold. The Harmon Brothers offered this as one of their creative habits in a youtube video and I have adopted it as my own. I use this phrase as an excuse in every brainstorming session: spout ideas until one of them is good! If you don’t get the ideas out, they become stagnant in your brain and you’re unable to keep those creative juices flowing. Have 100 ideas and one of them will work.

After writing out the layout for this article, I went to hang some laundry. Believe it or not, my creativity came to me when I was up and away from my computer — the words started to flow. I grabbed my phone and texted myself so I wouldn’t forget when I sat back down.

Originally when I wrote the title for this section, that was not the type of break I had in mind, but I had to include it since it was literally what inspired me.

If you’re not the laundry-hanging type, try a set of squats, a headstand, a shower (another personal favorite), or even a change of clothes. Stand up from your desk and do something to give your creative genius a break.

Is there something about the rhythmic chewing or is the brain being fueled by delicious flavors and/or nutrients? Or could it be those priceless seconds where you reach for another bite and your brain disconnects from the tedious task and your slate is wiped clean, ready for a new, fresh idea to come to mind. No matter the cause, snacking while working gets our creative juices flowing.

The habits of creative people are certainly intriguing and can be helpful to implement, but what I have found most true is that a truly creative person must find what makes them tick. Explore your own creative habits and stay true to what works for you.

We hope that the tips and these 7 habits of highly creative minds have helped peak your interest in finding a routine that works for you and stimulates your creativity.

Whether you own a small startup or work at an established corporation, every business needs marketing. Over the years, marketing platforms have shifted, and with that shift, we need to update our approach to marketing and rethink the marketing strategies we’ve grown accustomed to.

When considering which route to take, choosing between either traditional marketing vs digital marketing, there are many factors to consider. If you’re not experienced in the field, it can get a bit tricky. We know better than anyone that the ins and outs of marketing can be complex and for that reason, we decided to write this article to help explain some of the pros and cons of these two forms of marketing.

Stick with us as we break it down.

We’ve grown up with traditional marketing (right? Or am I just old?) and know how to recognize it easily. It’s often very obvious and in your face, which is part of its effectiveness and charm. And although it has evolved over the years based on user habits, one thing has remained true: throw a stone, hit an ad.

Perhaps the best real-life example of traditional marketing would be walking down Times Square in New York City. The glow of brightly lit billboards screams down at the mass of passersby, while the posters in the shop windows call out to you with their latest sale. As you continue on your walk, a young man is handing out pamphlets, encouraging you to take a break and grab a slice at the nearby pizza joint.

This is traditional marketing in all its glory.

Now that we’ve covered what traditional marketing is, let’s talk about some of the pros of this somewhat dated, yet tried and proven method of communicating your message. One of the biggest pros is its physicality.

Whether you’re driving to work, flipping through a magazine at the doctors’ office, or out on the town with friends, you’re bound to run into some form of traditional marketing. If your bartender hands you your drink with a Bud Light coaster, you’ve been targeted by traditional marketing.

You may or may not then order a Bud Light as your next drink, but the power of traditional marketing lies in mass communication and “in your face” brand messaging. The more widespread the communication, the more you’re led to believe that this brand is global and established. After all, you were just handed a Bud Light coaster, not an Icehouse coaster! And if you don’t know what an “Icehouse” is, you’re just proving my point.

Another pro of traditional marketing is its ability to link a brand or product to an emotion. Unlike digital marketing where most information is consumed and limited to a few main platforms, associating a certain brand to an event or location has tremendous power when it comes to positioning.

As an example, let’s go back to our trusty Bud Light (I swear this is not a paid ad!). This beer is not normally portrayed or consumed as a high-end beverage. You may see examples of traditional marketing for this particular brand at a ball game, on a banner at the supermarket, or on TV during halftime.

Now think of Moet and Chandon, going to the opposite extreme. We wouldn’t see any advertising at a ball game but perhaps would see an ad displayed at the Oscars red carpet or at a golf event. Linking your brand to a particular status or social standing can have an important effect on the concept and placement.

Have we tooted the traditional marketing horn enough? Ok, now for the cons.

One major con of traditional marketing that every “marketeer” will agree on is the lack of transparency regarding the exact result your campaign has had. It’s hard, almost near impossible, to know the true impact your billboard or tv commercial has had on your target audience, and the number of sales it drove. Traditional marketing is often a longer, slower process of building brand power and relevance with your consumers, and oftentimes a particular campaign can’t claim an exact number of sales.

To build on the above point, con number 2 is that this marketing method relies heavily on location. Whether it is effective or not is in direct correlation with how many people are physically in the location where you’ve decided to advertise, be it a billboard, bus stop, tv or radio commercial, sponsored events, flyers, branded cups and coasters at your local bar, and the list goes on.

That brings us to our final con: not knowing exactly who will see your ad. When posting a billboard or sponsoring a tv commercial, while you can segment it to a certain extent, there is no measurable way to know how many people saw it, how many of those are your target audience, and which of those were interested in your advertisement and bought.

I hope you see where I’m going with this — that’s right, I’m setting you up for the wonders of digital marketing’s segmentation, insights, and reporting.

As technology has progressed, so has the interest of the public and the platforms they spend the most time on. Every other meme out there jokes about how this generation can’t stand the thought of leaving their homes and instead prefer to spend all their time scrolling through Instagram, and so marketing professionals have shifted their focus to more relevant communication channels.

We all know and love Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and work to stay up to date and current on all the latest news, celebrity gossip, and personal relationships via these platforms. We also jump to Google when wanting to prove a point or search for ideas for where to take a hot date or order takeout.

When completing any of the above-mentioned actions, you’re likely to stumble across some form of online marketing and, as bewildering as we all find it, ads for that very thing in the days and weeks to come.

Pros of digital marketing, my dear, why there are many! The ability to target the exact person who would be interested in your product and adapt your messaging to resonate with that particular individual or group versus another is a tool you’d, frankly, be foolish to not use. In fact, I bet I could target my own mother with a well thought out and placed ad…and she’d buy it, too!

The unparalleled insight we have in digital marketing is the most powerful tool at any brand’s disposal. With the targeting available to us, we can narrow down our audience as specific or as broad as we want, target users by interests or location, and even create a “look-alike” audience to target users who behave like our current customers.

And then, once that ad has run, we can see exactly who bought, where they are, their gender, age range, interests and more. Each sale can be directly attributed to the campaign and as marketers we can, as Beyonce says, “walk like this cuz I can back it up”.

As big brands and companies are beginning to realize the importance of consumer-centric marketing plans, hearing back from your consumer and establishing a connection with them is more important than ever. Major market studies to analyze consumer behavior and feedback will soon be a thing of the past with online surveys, social media reviews and recommendations, and even apps like Yelp, we can quickly know exactly what our customers think of the product and brand messaging, as well as other aspects such as customer service delivery and more. This is a huge asset when it comes to adapting and tweaking your processes to better serve your consumer and improve your brand perception.

One more amazing pro is the accessibility that directly links your customers to your product. If a social media user sees an ad, they have the ability to buy it right then and there. When flipping through a magazine and seeing an ad, the customer may like what they see, but after they set the magazine down, they may never actually remember to buy the product when they’re at the mall. You’ve now lost a sale, and with digital marketing, it’s easier to prevent those sales from falling through the cracks.

With all these amazing aspects and functions, you’d wonder if there are any cons to digital marketing. Surprisingly, there are a few. We’ll delve into them below.

The internet moves fast and so do our brains. Nowadays, consumers are over-stimulated and constantly bombarded with information and interesting things to look at and take in. In order to keep up with this pace, the messaging, concepts, and creatives have to adapt.

A well thought out campaign today involves well-researched segmenting, eye-catching ad creatives, and a clear CTA in the header, whereas a “good” traditional marketing campaign back in the day was more, well, the Marlboro man. Need I say more?

The problem is that many brands sacrifice quality for clickbait.

This fast-paced take on marketing sacrifices the ability to create a concept that will be as relatable with a consumer. There is no time to allow the user to slowly immerse themselves in the concept and place themselves in the concept you’re creating. Instead of conveying the value of a product and selling it to your audience based on an emotion or concept, we’re just putting the product in their face over and over again, offering a value add that, once again, doesn’t tell the consumer why they want the product and what kind of feeling they’ll have while wearing this particular brand.

We’ve talked about both forms of marketing extensively, but who doesn’t like a clear, well put together table of all of the important elements we analyzed above?! A quick look at this chart shows a clear difference between digital marketing and traditional marketing and, that in this day and age, taking into account the needs and preferences of this current generation and all the tools available to us, we have a clear winner.

So there you have it! We hope that this article was helpful to you and that now you fully understand the advantages of digital marketing vs traditional marketing and are able to make an informed decision about how to proceed for your business. Taking all factors into consideration is important when designing your marketing strategy, and armed with the information in this blog, you’ll be able to more consciously build the ideal campaign for your business, audience, and product.

We know that there are so many things to keep in mind: what platform is the best for your audience, how to create a successful social media ad, how do I get listed on google, and the list goes on.

The good news is that we’ve been in this business for years now, and survived quite a few algorithm changes and are confident to say that we will be happy to consult you on the subject to help you reach your online marketing goals and set you up for success.

If you’re ready to start getting incredible results, engage your audience, and get your message out there, fill out the form below and we’ll set up a call to get you started!

In the competitive online market landscape there are new eCommerce platforms introduced every day. Forty percent of US businesses are already online, and chances are if you’re looking to sell your products online- you might’ve considered using SaaS platforms like Shopify, Wix, SquareSpace and others.

You might’ve also looked into Open-Source eCommerce platforms like Magento, but this tool’s marketing isn’t as aggressive as some of the aforementioned do-it-yourself models.

Amid all these options, you’re sure to be in search of one thing- the best option for your business and your online store.

When making this decision, the first question you should ask yourself is:
Do you prefer to rent a space for your website or would you like to own your property?

Truth be told, for a starting business, a small influencer shop or just a one-pager website that you want to have to try and push a product – the DIY models can be quite tempting. They might even be the right choice for a starter website, depending on your available bandwidth to invest time into building the website and configuring the products yourself.

However, even then, there are certain limitations to those platforms that will limit your SEO, your control over the content you produce, and your ability to grow.

So, the initial question points to the scaleability of the platform you select to build your website upon. With that in mind,  let’s break down some of the pros and cons of both platforms, and you can determine yourself if you are in need of a templated SaaS or if a website facility with features and additional flexibility.

Magento Vs Shopify: Sell or Be Sold On

We’ll be up front, when it comes to long term investment in the scalability and growth of your eCommerce platform, we prefer the robust, open-source Magento platform. What open-source means is everyone can use it if they know how to, but the how-to part is the tricky thing, and unless you’re a Magento developer, you will likely need to invest in a partner that can design and develop the website project with you.

With decades of experience in developing and supporting eCommerce platforms – you should rest assured that we tested out all of them. Thoroughly. And for small businesses to medium-size enterprises, our recommendation stays the same – Magento is the way to own your content, own your digital presence, and own your sales.

However, this robust platform might not be the best fit for your budget and might actually offer more features than you need for your current business model, so we’ve outlined the Pros and Cons of Magento and the popular SaaS offering of Shopify.

Magento Pros

1. Platform that puts you in control

Unlike Software as a Service eCommerce type of a website – Magento relinquishes all control in the hands of its users. Do you want to tie a certain ERP to your platform?  How about a professional CRM integration? Do you rely on any other tools like Quickbooks for your day-to-day operations?

Just google it – 9/10 times you will find that there is a way to connect your software with your Magento website. As your company and the need of your eCommerce website grown and change, Magento is an evolving and agile tool that can grow and change with you.

You’re also in control of your content, and you have access to the root of your website. This means that you’re getting a far more advanced SEO solution, that helps you to address all of your technical parameters, alter your metadata, change your keywords, meta descriptions, titles, URLs and make your website as Google-friendly as possible.

The traffic you’re getting from Search Engine Optimization is the highest quality and highest converting traffic that your online store can get. Digital Marketing data confirms that organic traffic conversion rates are significantly higher than paid advertising or social media traffic.  So, you want to be sure your website is optimized to come up when your clients and customers are searching for you online.

2. FREE to utilize the platform

Where other platforms can’t wait to drop their hidden costs on you and get you in a nasty situation mid-campaign, Magento offers a lot without any additional cost.

The initial installation of the platform is free. You also have free themes, free integrations, you can apply coupon codes and discounts as you see fit, and a lot of advanced features are free for use as well. Some of them can’t be found on the aforementioned SaaS solutions at all.

There are opportunities to purchase additional plugins and custom features for the platform, but you don’t HAVE to buy anything for the platform to work seamlessly with it’s out of the box eCommerce functionalities.

3. Big Support Community

You have a unique product or offering and you’re confident that there’s something absolutely unique about it that your customers will be crazy about. However, UX expectations for online shopping are often quite similar across industries, and your customers are accustomed to a certain level of consistency in how they navigate through websites.

What’s great about Magento is the vast community of thousands of developers and online store owners that are actively contributing in forms of guides, articles, blog posts, and forums as well.

However demanding your ideas may seem – there are good chances that someone had a similar challenge, and shared their experience online. If not – you can always ask for help, and the good thing about this community is that Magento users are as friendly as some of their interfaces.

But it’s not all good news, of course. Here are some of the cons that you should be aware of if you’re considering Magento as your eCommerce platform.

Magento Cons

1. Requires Expertise in Website Development

DIY websites tout a low cost and ease of use, however most of them are far more labor intensive than the typical layperson has time to learn how to manage. While some non-eCommerce sites can be built and published live quickly in these platforms, especially if have no SKU, customer, or order data to worry about, these platforms are akin to glorified Facebook accounts.

If your business is at a place where you’re looking to focus on growing your sales and create an eCommerce solution to help streamline the running of your business, an investment in Magento will result in a customized solution. However, it will likely require budget spent on coding and design talent.

2. Lengthier Production time

As we said before – Magento is an open-source platform that puts you in control. Now picture a kid playing with a set of Legos: there’s a blueprint on how to assemble those right, and a certain level of creativity can help you to enhance your Lego firetruck or add some customization to it. That’s what Shopify is. A single set of Legos.

The open-source Magento Platform offers limitless possibilities, so you can find yourself continuously adding features, changing content, integrating new features and updating your look whenever you want to, anyway you want to. Production time with these projects definitely takes a toll because of that. There are always more things that you can play with, and always more useful features to add to your eCommerce website.

3. Free comes with a cost too

Magento might be an open-source platform, but the cost of hosting is necessary if you’re looking to actually launch it. The same as every other website that you own – you need to have a place to put it, and a dedicated server is the best option if you’re looking for a secure way to store your platform.

Furthermore, as you grow your business – you will definitely want the help of a programmer of a developer to support your website, update regularly, handle inventory and process sales. So if you’re growing your business the right way – you’ll have to step away from the counter at one point and focus more on the management side of things.

Lastly, there is a great number of themes and integrations that come with an additional cost. Although a lot of third-party apps can be added to your website, some of them will charge you to actually execute that integration. Popularity always comes with a price.

Now that we’ve broken down some of the Pros & Cons of Magento Open Source Platform, let’s outline where it would be beneficial to use Shopify as a solution for your online business, and also where it might fall short of its eCommerce platform competitors.

Shopify Pros

1. DIY Model

As the name says – Shopify is usually a Do It Yourself type of a platform, where you’re guided through the process and enabled to carry simple tasks in order to set up your first online shop.

It’s fairly simple to use, it comes with multiple different themes for your website customization, and comes with an integrated POS system, which definitely makes things easier for the first timers who’re looking to start a business online.

With a simple drag and drop interface, you are able to build a page and start moving your products, preferably on social media, with very little time invested.

2. 24/7 Support

As any other service that you pay for, and SaaS means exactly that (Software as a Service) – you’re getting a bang for your buck in terms of technical support. The support team might be available around the clock for any question, but as with most large companies, support is not personalized and the quality often varies.

Other than that, there are extensive guides full of useful content that you might want to consult if you encounter a problem of any sort. From Facebook Advertising to Drop Shipping – Shopify Guides can educate you on anything you can do with this platform.

One thing is certain about Shopify – they go beyond in customer relations in order to retain their clients and enable them to utilize their services to the fullest.

3. Low initial costs

Basic Shopify, as the name indicates – comes with a limited set of features and eCommerce support, at a low price of $29 monthly. There are some additional fees (that we will discuss here shortly), but the fact that you have to pay only $29 to set up shop is mostly the reason why people opt in for this SaaS solution.

If you’re looking to utilize all Shopify functions, the price is a bit higher – $79 per month. After that, there is also an advanced solution that puts the price at $299. These two options vary in just a couple features, but mainly people need the latter to utilize Shopify reporting, and cut down on some other hidden costs.

As previously stated – the fact that you don’t have to worry about hosting, and the fact that you only need some good quality images and some time on your hands, makes this option very popular among young entrepreneurs, small businesses and influencers.

Whether the cons outweigh the pros of this platform still depends on the nature of the business that you are running. Shopify is very popular among Dropship companies, and businesses who are running sales via their social networks. That being said, here are a couple of downfalls that you should be aware of.

Shopify Cons

1. The more sales you make, the more fees you pay to Shopify

Paying $29 per month to have your own webshop sounds too good to be true. And it is. The $29 option provides you with just a glimpse of Shopify abilities, and you’re pretty much inclined to get some of the more expensive options right from the get go.

With the Shopify Plus solution, the more sales you make on your webstore – the more money you pay. Shopify Plus solutions for vendors in the medium size enterprise category, will cost you a minimum of $2000 per month to maintain. Plus the additional fees of running your store.

The “good” news is – once your percentage based model reaches $40k in fees paid, Shopify will be satisfied with this figure and won’t charge you additionally for any other sales you make.

Furthermore, Shopify does not allow you to use any outside payment processors, so you will be forced to use their Stripe solution, which charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction in credit card fees.

And if you’re using a payment provider that your business is accustomed to already, instead of their solution, not only that you’ll pay the same fees, and the cost of integration, but there’s also an additional fee of 2% per transaction.

2. Not SEO Friendly

One of the main reasons why people dislike Shopify is its lack of SEO abilities and features. If your business is relying on Search Engine Results to bring you leads and conversions – be aware that this is not a platform for you.

Some of the basic technical SEO parameters that you need to set in order to have a properly indexed website are simply not accessible (like robot.txt for example). As you don’t have access to your eCommerce shop backend as you would on WordPress or Magento (since you’re only renting the platform), there is also a problem with limitation on you ability to execute redirects.

Your URL structure, page titles, meta data and other content is out of your reach as well. You’re forced to use templated themes that generate new pages for you, and the level of management is so poor that you end up having duplicated content that Google just ends up disregarding all together. So if you’re looking to sell via Shopify, you’re best to go with social media advertising, as even Google Ads won’t give you the ability to optimize your Cost Per Click through content optimization

3. Expect Limitations

The initial packages of Shopify will not let you take a look at your reports and generate documents if you want to have any record of transactions that you are making. Gift cards, and similar functionalities that would enable your shop to run promotions only become available as you upgrade your account. The initial low cost of using this platform really provides the bare minimum of what your eCommerce business requires.

Furthermore, Shopify uses its own PHP code, that is unlike any other, so if you’re looking to get out of the box of your initial settings and upgrade your theme a bit – you will need help from developers that work specifically with Shopify.

If you’re looking to integrate other features that your business uses on a daily basis, additional cost for adding plugins and addons is something you should count on. Plus, if email lists is something you depend on to maintain relationships with your clients – be aware that there is no email hosting possible. You would need a third party app for your emails, or a personal address that will not be the same as your business URL.

So it seems that the cost friendly model that Shopify is known to be, is only cost friendly if you’re not making a lot of money. Which by itself kind of defeats the purpose of running a business at all. One more, perhaps less-important downfall of this model is that it’s very popular among scammers, hackers and shady individuals that are ready to jump to the opportunity to utilize the cheap platform to scam users out of their money. Apparently, making yourself too accessible also comes with a price of its own.

If you are still not sure which option would be a better fit for your company, fee free to review the following table and contact us directly. We’d be happy to set up a one-on-one consultation to learn about your business objectives and provide you with some strategic advice on how to get started with your eCommerce site. Let’s get to selling!

References:

https://www.cloudways.com/blog/magento-vs-shopify/
https://ecommerce-platforms.com/compare/shopify-vs-magento-community-edition-ecommerce-platform-comparison
https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/ecommerce-website-builders/comparisons/magento-vs-shopify/
https://www.shopify.com/compare/shopify-vs-magento
https://magento.com/resources/magento-vs-shopify-comparison-guide

B2B (Business-to-business) marketing presents a whole world of possibilities with amazing rewards if planned and executed with care. If you’re looking to promote your product or service to other companies by means of social media marketing, this article is for you!

B2B digital marketing targets other businesses, rather than individuals. You’ll want to plan a B2B marketing strategy if you’re a product or service that caters and sells to other businesses rather than directly to the consumer.

Let’s imagine you are the proud owner of a brand-spanking-new scheduling and project management software that helps offices, companies, and all kinds of professional projects to run smoothly. Because other businesses like your own are likely going to need your product more than individuals, you’ll achieve better results and generate more sales if you target your marketing efforts to other businesses rather than employing direct-to-consumer strategies.

In case you haven’t guessed, there’s a whole art to really getting B2B digital marketing to pay off…but have no fear! In this article, we are going to take you through 8 steps that will provide you with the blueprint you need to get your B2B social media marketing strategies off the ground with optimum results.

In our experience, people tend to want to skip right over this step when they are ready to jump into their marketing shoes because frankly, it’s a bit tedious. That said…don’t! Defining your ideal customer profile is extremely important to ensure results on your marketing efforts, because a message that speaks to everyone, speaks to no one.

Figuring out your ideal customer entails having a brainstorming session with your team and pinpointing one company (since we’re talking B2B marketing) whose business would be sure to improve by using your product or service. Ask yourselves: “who needs us most, and why?” Maybe a company whose employees work remotely and don’t have a physical office space? Or whose services require great attention to detail and organization that is lacking in other products within your competition. Put a name and a face on at least one example of who you’d consider to be your ideal customer.

Bonus tip: defining your ideal customer is not about determining who is ideal for you, it’s about determining who your product is ideal for.

Once you’ve decided on that one ideal client whose life will never be the same after experiencing your product, the next step is defining your target audience. This is the step that will make or break your B2B strategy.

Here is why this step is so important: While your product or service “could” probably be useful and helpful to just about anyone, that’s too broad to base a B2B marketing plan on. You have to find a group of people to whom your communication style and marketing efforts will apply most to, this will help ensure that your advertising won’t fall on deaf ears.

So, take the hard work that you already invested in discovering your one ideal customer, and make a list of said customer’s defining characteristics that you can then apply on a broader scale to your overall target audience. Your list might include details such as: age, location, industry, interests, organization style, problems and challenges, workflow and style, etc.

No matter how witty and original your marketing tactics are, there is no one thing you can say or do that will convert everyone into a lead or sale. This is why any marketing plan must include a target audience, you need to know who you are speaking to in order to present them with content that they will find attractive, relatable, and engaging.

Now that you’ve determined who you want to target, it’s time to step back and take a look at who else is offering the same services or solutions that you are. Competitor research is priceless because it gives you a peek into what you’re up against, what your competition may be offering to your same target audience, how they are performing, what you might be able to do differently, and how you can stay ahead of the game.

You’ll want to start a tracking system with your top 10-15 competitors and keep tabs on info that can provide insight into what’s working for them, what’s not working, and where you can improve on their tactics.

You should dig deep in order to gain a clear understanding of what their SEO strategies are, what keywords they use and rank highest for, what they are posting on their social media, how many followers they have, calculate their engagement, what kind of content they get most attention on, how much they’re spending on advertising, etc.

Of course, competitor research can go a lot more in-depth too, you can do surveys, market research, attend their conferences, and much more. However, if you’re current focus is on a social media B2B strategy, you’ll want to start with the pertaining data first.

Even if you have the best, cleverest marketing campaign on the planet, if you aren’t posting on the channels that your target audience is spending time on, they won’t know you exist. This takes us back to why step number 2 and defining your target audience is so important, you have to know who they are in order to understand their online behavior. Where are they likely to be browsing or looking into solutions for their business?

If your product or service is targeted to small business owners or startups, you might lean toward channels like Facebook and Instagram. As a matter of fact, business decision makers spend 74% more time on Facebook than any other social media channels.  If your focus is on catching big corporations and multi-tiered business models, you might focus more on getting seen and heard on LinkedIn to convert leads.

Don’t worry, this isn’t just guesswork…remember that one name that you came up with in step one — your ideal customer? Grab the name of that business and do some research on it: what channels do they post on more frequently, what is their online behavior like, what other pages and social media profiles do they interact most with, who do they follow? This will give you invaluable insight into how to get them in the bag with your social media marketing efforts.

Implementing a marketing strategy without clear, set goals is like playing a basketball game without a hoop — you might get all sweaty dribbling the ball around, but you’ll never get to win.

SMART goal setting includes goals that are Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. Let’s take a deeper look into each of these.

Specific:Define exactly what do want to achieve and what it would mean to achieve your goal or milestone

Measureable:The success of your goals should be based on objective facts and stats, not opinions or gut feelings. What numbers do you need to reach in order to accurately measure that you reached your target?

Attainable:You’ll want to choose goals that are achievable at your stage of growth as a company, even if they are a challenge. This includes laying out, planning, and scheduling all the specific action steps you will need to take in order to reach the goal.

Relevant: Your goals and milestones need to be in line with what your business’ model, structure, message, and communication style is all about.

Timely: Define the deadline by which you need to reach your goal. This ties in with the specific steps you will take to accomplish it, each step should have a start and finish date to get your to your goal on time.

Once you’ve determined your SMART goals, you’re ready to start setting some KPIs (key performance indicators) that will serve as check-ins along the road and help you ensure you’re progressing in the right direction.

Here are a few examples of how to measure KPIs for your social media platforms: level of followers, link or profile clicks, brand mentions, reposts, shares, comments or other actions taken on your posts, and active followers.

Make sure you set KPIs that are attainable and measurable, not just a list of “would-be-nice” goals to reach at some point along your way. Rather, they should be carefully thought out stepping stones that you need to reach in order to take the next step along your strategic planning. If you don’t reach one of the stepping stones, you’ll know that something needs tweaking and you can adjust your B2B strategy accordingly.

Bill Gates wasn’t kidding when he wrote that “content is king”, and it rings true now more than even back in his day!

If you plan to use social media as a marketing tool, then what you choose to post is the prime factor that your target audience will use to decide whether or not they like what your offering and want to do business with you. Your posts should all be based on a consistent communication style and pattern that matches your brand, offer value to your followers, and give your followers and clients a positive impression of your company.

Need some help figuring out what to post or what your audience is interested in? You can use social listening tools to give you insight into what people are most interested in surrounding your industry. Also, performing hashtag and keyword research and keeping it updated at least twice a month is an important way to stay up to speed.

Also, pay attention to what platforms you’re posting on and at what times, keep track of which posts performed best so you can adapt your content and timing accordingly.

Time invested in careful planning and preparation of your content is one of the best investments you can make to ensure your social media marketing campaigns are a success. We hate to be the ones to break this to you, but you simply can’t expect to achieve great results on posts that are thrown together at the last minute with no rhyme or reason. Laying out a content calendar for each month or so in advance will give you a bird’s eye perspective on what your followers will be taking away after a month of seeing your social media posts.

Loomly, Hootsuite, and Monday are just a few options of social media editorial calendars and scheduling software that we promise will change your life for the better.

Are your posts engaging enough to draw your customers in? Are you posting relevant content on relevant dates and times (such as posts that talk about specific days of the week, special celebrations, seasonal trends, or simply whatever is trending at the moment)? Planning out your posts will prepare the way for you to pump out content that is likely to speak to your ideal target customer at a specific date or time, and also give you a whole vision for what you want to communicate through your brand’s messaging over time.

As you can see, a lot of hard work goes into developing a bull’s eye B2B social media strategy, but investing the time to do it right will really pay off! We sincerely hope this article provided you with some clear insight that you can now implement so you’ll get the most out of your next B2B social media marketing campaign. If you ever need an expert team to step in and do the heavy lifting of the planning, research, and preparation for your B2B social media marketing efforts, give us a holler and we’ll be happy to help!

The future is now folks!

Living Proof Creative has spent 40 years (collectively) in the digital realm, mainly in development and growth of eCommerce platforms and sales solutions. Over the years, we’ve translated entire business models for the online market, and helped quite a few companies to establish sustainable growth.

Every industry, and niche, comes with its own myriad of challenges and obstacles, and every market needs a custom tailored solution that will fit their needs.

However, some things never change.

The ease of your online business relies mainly on your ability to manage your inventory. Failing to set up a good inventory management system before you launch your business can result in a variety of complex (and sometimes very annoying) problems.

Regardless of the size of your business, the customer base you serve, the types of products you sell, or your expertise – understanding the ins-and-outs of inventory management is one of the first challenges you have to tackle, if you are looking to build a scalable, profitable, and sustainable business process.

It’s eCommerce 101, but that doesn’t mean it comes easy. Setting up a inventory management system can take a fair bit of planning, and it’s a definitely a slow learning process as you never know what the season and the competition on the open market will have in store for you.

In fact, let’s explain why the following 18 steps may prove to be vital for your online success.

The Importance Of Inventory Management In eCommerce

Today’s shopper expects online purchasing to be as seamless as buying an item in a brick-and-mortar store, if not more so. The younger they are – the more simple and smooth the whole experience has to be.

Thus, companies have to be efficient – ship products fast, ship cheap (or preferably free when possible) if they want to stay competitive in their industry.

Building a quality front-end website and integrating it with a back-end accounting and inventory solution is the best way to manage the online buying/selling processes efficiently.

This is where a good online inventory management system comes into play.

Let’s simplify it, shall we? Real-time inventory information has to be available before any online purchases occur. When you receive new inventory, you must update product quantities in your website’s inventory system. The data is then pushed online for all customers to see.

Once a customer places an order online, that order goes directly to your inventory system to be reviewed. If the order meets certain predefined criteria, the inventory management system marks it as “ready to ship”.

When an employee receives the order, they use verification scanning or mobile picking devices to ensure the right item gets shipped. Of course some still choose to rock it old school using a pen and paper, which works too.

Then the product is prepared for shipping; the shipping documents are processed, printed and marked; and the customer is sent the information through the inventory system via email.

Without a properly set inventory management system, sales orders get missed, the wrong items get shipped, inventory quantities are incorrect, customers get frustrated, and ultimately you lose sales. Before you even launch an eCommerce business, your inventory management system must be in place.

So, we’ve compiled this checklist for improving your eCommerce inventory management system:

18 STEPS TO A PROPER INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

1. Base It All on Data

Use data to plan ahead and calculate the right range and quantity of products to have on hand throughout the whole year. Look at your annual customer order numbers, or projections, and break down the numbers into volumes (daily, monthly and quarterly) to identify the highs and lows of customer demand.

Next, calculate the stock volume you’re likely to need in case customer demand happens to increase. To determine the right volume of products you’ll need in stock, review industry data, keep track of the latest consumer trends, and analyze your sales in previous years.

2. Keep It Stocked

In order to stay on top of your stock supply, estimate how quickly you can replace declining stock levels, and whether you have enough safety stock for a sudden spike in customer demand. Not having a product immediately in stock is a sure-fire way to lose a sale.

3. Make In-Demand Products Accessible

It’s functional feng-shui. Arrangement of your inventory makes a huge difference. Lay it out so your in-demand products are within easy reach. Set up your warehouse to make the best use of it. Store all the less popular products in farther or harder-to-reach areas.

4. Store Inventory Near the Shipping Point

Every second counts in the race to deliver products in this instant-gratification based society. Reduce shipping time and bring products closer to customers by storing some of your inventory off-site near your local postal service or shipping company. You can even consider setting up regional hubs.

5. Access Information in Real-Time

This is an important one. Your inventory software needs to process and display information in real-time. This will enable you to access accurate stock data at any time. Make sure the online inventory software of your choice identifies out of stock items, alerts your website immediately, updates your stock levels whenever an item is taken off the shelf, and tracks a product during shipping to provide an accurate delivery time.

6. Hire More Staff During Peak Sales Periods

It takes some time to recruit, hire and train new staff, so you need to start planning ahead of time. For example, most eCommerce websites do up to 40% of their annual sales during the Christmas holidays. This means that you should start planning everything in June.

7. Factor In Shipping Costs

How much does shipping and handling affect your revenue? A good inventory management system is should be able to accurately calculate and factor in all costs. In order to estimate your ROI, you should make sure that the cost of shipping and handling stock is tracked by your inventory system.

8. Set a Minimum Stock Levels

How low is too low? When setting minimum stock levels for every item you sell, you should determine the lowest possible inventory you can have in order to avoid fulfillment delays and meet demand.

Analyze your data and determine the exact amount of time it takes to replace the out-of-stock inventory. When it goes below a designated number, contact your wholesaler or manufacturer to place a new order. As your customer demand and experience grow, adjust this number over time.

9. Count Stock Weekly

In the chaos of shipping and handling, things can easily go missing. Designate 2-3 employees to manually count your stock and crosscheck it online weekly. Using the same employees every time will increase production, speeding up an otherwise tedious process.

10. Find Your Stock’s Sweet Spot

It’s important to find the right amount of stock needed at all times. You can’t afford to have too little or too much stock in hand. Not having enough stock volume will cause a break in the turnaround of products and money (not to mention dissatisfied customers and bad reputation), while extra stock costs you and takes up room in your storage space.

The longer your products sit there, the more their value decreases. Keep track of your product’s turnaround rate and use the information to adjust the volume accordingly. Make sure that you have 30 days of inventory in stock at all times.

11. Respond Quickly To Out Of Stock Items

Inventory keep you on your toes! Whenever an item goes out of stock, it becomes a lost sale, which means a lost customer. If you do run out of an item, respond as quickly as possible. And remember to inform customers about the out-of-stock product from your eCommerce store by posting a notification on the product page as to when it will be back in stock.

Take backorders and complete them when the product comes in. Always monitor your in-demand products closely to know when to replenish stock.You must have a good grasp on the shopping habits of your target audience and your inventory. Otherwise you risk overestimating how many items you really need in stock, or underestimate the demand.

12. Know When To Buy Inventory In Bulk

As you probably already know, buying inventory in bulk usually gets you a better price per item. However, if you already have stock sitting on your shelves, buying in bulk will just pile on more and you risk being overstocked. Buy in bulk only if your forecasting results prove that the profit margins can cover the storage fees and the needs for that amount of stock.

13. Choose the Right Inventory Software

Picking a software that’s right for you is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when it comes to your online inventory. There’s a variety of quality inventory software on the market. Choose one that is best tailored to your business. Determine your needs and choose one that meets them the best. Some good ones to consider are: Channeladvisor, Seller Cloud, nChannel, Stitch Labs, and 4PSite. Be sure to chose one that links your payroll and accounting software and other relevant systems. Ask your consultant or the software manufacturers for some advice if you need it.

14. Inform Customers In Real-Time

Today, customers value communication more than ever. Once they purchase a product online, they want to know what’s going on with their order from the moment they pay for it, to the time it’s delivered. You should opt for a system that acknowledges payment receipts, as well as shipping and delivery details. Make sure to give your customers the ability to track their orders.

15. Be Aware of Important Seasonal Events and Trends

If there are any events or trends that may influence your target audience’s purchase behavior, you need to be aware of them. For example, back-to-school and Christmas may cause spikes in buying. Around Valentine’s Day there’s an increase flowers and chocolate sales. And don’t forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Prepare to throw in some discounts and have enough products in stock to gear up for the seasonality.

16. Keep Your Records In Check

With accurate and up-to-date information, you will manage your inventory more effectively. It’s very ease to let record-keeping slip, even if it seems obvious. Check the status of your inventory daily, and even several times a day when it’s a busy one.

17. Consider Selling Through the Amazon Webstore

If you’re just starting your business, it may be a better and more viable option to use an eCommerce selling platform, such as Amazon. It is already established as a selling platform which allows you to reach customers through advertising or sell directly through its webstore. This can be a good way to get access to millions of their customers and see how the market responds to what you have to sell.

18. Implement Inventory Management Software

Investing in the right inventory management software is necessary if you want to build and scale a successful eCommerce business. Some of the tips mentioned above can be manually worked through, but it won’t work to your advantage when you will want to scale your business.

This kind of software can help ensure you’re never understocked or overstocked, keeps a pulse on your inventory, compiles real-time data, leverages valuable insights to grow your business, and syncs your inventory status across all your selling channels.

Inventory managements can often feel like a balancing act. On the one hand, you don’t want too much stock because it will cost you. But on the other hand, you want to have enough stock available to meet customer demand. It’s imperative you make data-driven and informed decisions, use historic sales figures, and industry trends to guide you. By following these 18 steps, you can establish an effective and secure inventory management practice, which will help your business boost sales and bottom line growth.

Are you running an eCommerce business? Let’s connect.

If you think your current solution is outdated, or would like to work on streamlining and increasing your sales, we have a team of experts who know exactly what you need.