Best Practices: Why Search Engine Optimization Belongs in Every Marketer’s Toolkit

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
Best Practices: Why Search Engine Optimization Belongs in Every Marketer’s Toolkit

Searching online via a browser is the main way potential customers discover a brand’s or organization’s website. Making it easier for them – with paid ads or otherwise – to find your site is one of the most effective ways to draw more traffic and awareness to your site. 

Designing, writing and coding your website with this in mind can not only increase the volume but also the quality of visitors to your site. 

A savvy digital marketer who cares about one of the first touchpoints in the customer journey needs to have a search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) strategy in his toolkit. 

Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing is the branch of digital marketing that relies on both paid advertising and organic techniques that don’t involve payment – the latter falling under the term SEO – to increase the visibility of websites in search engine results pages (SERPs). Globally, Google is the leading search engine by far, accounting for over 91% of searches, followed by Bing and Yahoo!1. Google also owns Ask, the sixth-largest search engine. Baidu and Yandex are the most popular search engines in China and Russia, respectively, making up around a percentage each of searches worldwide.

Besides SEO, SEM encompasses the following: paid inclusion or sponsored listings placed within the results of search engine queries using Google Adwords or Bing Ads, pay-per-click (PPC), article submissions, and search retargeting. With search retargeting, display ads target searches made on other sites by customers who have never visited your site. 

Getting on the first page of SERPs

SERPs include paid ads on top as well as organic results below them in an ordered list. Traffic that comes through SEO are referred to as ‘organic search results’ to differentiate it from traffic that comes from paid search. The higher up on the list your website can get, the more traffic it will receive. 

A Sistrix study that analyzed over 80 million keywords and billions of search results found that the first organic result in Google search has an average click-through rate of 28.5%2. The second and third positions have only a 15% and 11% click-through rate respectively. The tenth position in Google has a measly 2.5% click-through rate. Rarely does anyone even click to the second page. 

What is SEO and how does it work? 

Search engine optimization (SEO) sounds as though it’s mainly about the search engines. Search engines do play a starring role as the medium through which the search is conducted and routed and their algorithms used to direct the customers looking for information. An example is how Google ‘crawls’ through the web to find and analyze new content, pages or websites to index them even before you search one word. Then its famed algorithms – which is tweaked regularly – matches the searches that users put in to match them to the entries in its search index3. 

However, SEO is also about your customers. It is just as pivotal to understand what they are seeking, what the words they use when they seek it and the type of content they consume. It is using that knowledge to differentiate your website from that of your competitors’ so that potential customers are led to yours instead of theirs.

SEO techniques

SEO techniques to optimize content can be divided into three categories: on-page, technical and off-page.

On-page SEO relates to the content on an individual page or website.

  • Identify and optimize keywords and opportunities
    • Research the best terms and phrases (keywords) that might generate traffic to your site as well as their intent. Creating and publishing high-quality content that includes those target keywords in all the right places is the next step. 
    • Copywriting for the web keeping SEO in mind uses writing techniques such as the inverted pyramid of information with the conclusion first, ‘chunking’ text to keep readers interested and uses calls to action and instructions.
  • Metatags are snippets of text which are included in the source code of the webpage that help search engines understand the content. These need to be reviewed and updated over time.

Technical SEO involves the technical elements of a website beyond content. It not only improves the site’s readability for crawlers but also improves the user experience, so it is doubly important.

  • Speed and site performance The speed at which pages load, how pages respond and if they are mobile-friendly or relevant to local or international users are directly connected to user engagement. With voice search exploding, being optimized for voice is becoming more important too.
  • On-site coding implementation This relates to the placement of elements on the page as well as the HTML source code. On-site SEO helps search engines as well as users understand what a page is about and identify it as relevant to the search query or keywords.
  • Ranking report & tracking There are a variety of tools that track metrics such as a rise or drop in the value of keyword rankings and SERP features such as snippets and Knowledge Graphs, 

Off-page SEO is about amplifying the authority and influence that your website has in relation to other sites. 

  • Link building High-quality links that point to your site from relevant and authoritative sites show search engines that your website is a trusted source, that it is established and valuable to many others. 
  • Social optimization also involves using social media outlets and communities to generate awareness for your site and your products and services.

As you can see, there are many moving parts to an SEM/SEO strategy. As an unpaid alternative, SEO may be cost-effective, but it is very tricky to get right. The strategy also needs to be monitored and reviewed constantly. This is why a site redesign is the ideal time to involve an SEO expert to optimize your website for search engines. 

Find out more about BORN’s expertise in digital marketing and behavioral experience.

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1. Search Engine Market Share Worldwide, Dec 2020, Statcounter Globalstats, https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share

2. Why (almost) everything you knew about Google CTR is no longer valid, Sixtrix, July 14, 2020, https://www.sistrix.com/blog/why-almost-everything-you-knew-about-google-ctr-is-no-longer-valid/

3. How Google Search works, Google, https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/

Bringing the Left Brain and Right Brain Together within Agencies

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
Bringing the Left Brain and Right Brain Together within Agencies

A typical digital agency contains highly diverse personnel, each with a refined set of talents, abilities, communication styles, and ways of thinking. Generally, these roles can be divided into two categories: administrative or executive roles and creative roles. The first category is often thought of as primarily organizational. They are in charge of assembling productive teams, defining the company vision, securing short and long-term funding, and planning and executing long-term goals. Such a set of tasks and responsibilities is generally considered to involve a high degree of logical and analytical thinking. Conversely, the second category of roles in an agency demands a host of creative skills such as aesthetic expression, emotional intelligence, and imagination. These attributes are often found concentrated in the roles of creative directors, copywriters, art directors, designers, web developers, production artists, and storyboard artists. 

How, then, can the differences between these two kinds of agency team members be categorized? One way of conceiving the differences between executives and creatives is through their left- brain versus right-brain dominance. This notion comes from the popular (yet largely debunked) notion that for each individual, one side of the brain is more active. Those with left-brain dominance (or simply “left-brained” individuals) often excel at logical, analytical, and objective problems. On the other hand, right-brained individuals, as the theory contends, succeed in creative tasks that demand spontaneity, visual-thinking, and invention. So-called left brain/right brain theory contends that everyone’s brain dominates in only one of these two regions. But in reality, this theory represents, at best, only half of the truth. Indeed, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Roger W. Sperry, extending from his research into epilepsy, suggested in 1981 that language is controlled primarily by the left side of the brain, while spatial information and visual thinking occur in the right hemisphere.1 Yet, while this separation can to an extent be verified, virtually all neurological activity happens across both sides of the brain. As science writer Carl Zimmer explains, “No matter how lateralized the brain can get, the two sides still work together.”2 

That being said, the separation of agencies into left-brained and right-brained remains a useful strategy to assemble more productive teams. Even though team members consistently use both sides of their brains, the kinds of personalities that gravitate toward such roles are almost guaranteed to contain the kinds of distinctions that pertain to the theory of left brain/right brain dominance. Here we can outline a series of best practices for digital agency team members that pertain to collaboration between business executives/managers and creatives. The first section begins from the perspective of the CFO and provides advice for working with creatives. 

Through a combination of disciplined management and open-ended flexibility, CFOs can get the most out of agency creatives by understanding their right-brain proclivities. The subsequent section (“Tips for Creatives”) proceeds from the vantage point of the agency creative and explains useful methodologies for working effectively with CFOs, management, and executives. By using clear communication, anticipating misunderstandings, and attending to details, creatives can continue to meet and exceed management’s expectations. All in all, each of these perspectives will take into account the practicalities of today’s agency landscape, which prioritizes on-your-feet decision making and flexible workflows. 

Cultivating the Creative

Creative types often thrive in open-ended environments in which structure and rules are undefined or perhaps do not even exist. Designers, for example, often need unstructured time to experiment with new ideas, and try out different approaches to an upcoming project deliverable. Of course, such open-ended activities must also occur within limits: a copywriter can’t spend two months brainstorming ideas for a campaign that is due to the client in two weeks. This is why many managers explicitly build in time for “discovery.” During this dedicated period, creatives can iterate over multiple versions and explore different directions before committing to specific determinations, which may be made later in consultation with the client. This way, creatives are given a kind of “sandbox” in which they can feel free to experiment and put forth their most adventurous and innovative ideas without feeling constrained, at least at this point, by impending deadlines and other restrictions In addition to cultivating flexibility within limits, effective facilitation of the work of right-brained should also include tried-and-trusted project management techniques. 

It may seem obvious to industry insiders, but it’s worth reviewing the power of good project management when it comes to working with graphic designers, copywriters, creative directors, and web developers. Most importantly, each of these team members should be aware of all of the important project dates and goals. So, how can project managers keep creatives up to date on important dates and timelines, especially when these data points often change in the middle of a project? One helpful practice is to keep a calendar, which is accessible to all team members, in a place that is centrally located. For such a location there is often a default reference page, or dashboard, on every major project management software package like WorkBook or Confluence. Another technique, which should accompany centralized date-keeping, and which is no less important, is the practice of reiterating important dates, especially those that have recently been modified, in all internal and external communication. Sending a brief check-in email to your designers? Why not include a table reminding the team of upcoming deliverables and their respective due dates? Thankfully, such information can be conveniently stored on your project management dashboard. So a quick copy and paste is all it takes. 

Executing the Design

Switching roles to the perspective of the creative, many of the same principles apply when considering the task of designers and artistic directors collaborating with CFOs and project managers. One way of describing this shift in perspective is to simply invert the advice we covered above. For instance, if managing dates in today’s agile advertising industry is a challenge for those in organizational roles, as a creative it should be considered a primary responsibility to help project managers keep track of timelines.

Imagine two designers. Both are great at their craft, but Designer A spends more time following up with the client following their design meeting. Designer A asks key questions to confirm the direction of the project, along with how the project works with the client’s overall vision. Rather than spending this time following up with the client to clarify the direction, however, Designer B immediately goes to work and spends twice as long as designer A on the initial wireframes. It should go without saying that designer A was, by far, more successful with the client. And, more importantly, designer A saved the agency a significant amount of profit by using fewer work hours while, ultimately, delivering the project ahead of schedule. The moral of the story for creatives? Communicate, communicate, communicate! Ask for clarity when anything seems less than completely transparent. Creatives should anticipate any potential misunderstandings among themselves, the rest of the team, and/or the client. Parts of the project that seem less certain in terms of the timeline should be highlighted. Where are the “known unknowns”? What are the “unknown unknowns”? No designer should be too proud to inquire and inform their team of vital information.

Synchronizing Together

The disparities between right-brained creatives and left-brained, executives, and project managers may at first seem insurmountable. These personality traits relate to cognitive abilities that become encouraged, perhaps at an early stage of life, and then become reinforced through professional specialization. Despite a lack of scientific support for the left brain/right brain theory, there is plenty of social evidence for its continued relevance—especially in today’s advertising industry. One excels in math early on and is then admitted into a fast-track MBA program, only later to become a highly successful CFO. Or, one shows a talent for drawing, is accepted into design school, and then becomes an all-star designer for a top agency. In neither of these cases is anything said about the ability of either personality type to deal effectively with the other. But when considered carefully—whether you are a creative looking to collaborate better with CFOs, or an executive looking to relate more directly to your creative team—there are specific strategies for crossing the seemingly unbridgeable divide between cognitive hemispheres.

Whether right-brained or left-brained, together we can make the digital agency world a better place to work. 

1 https://www.verywell.com/left-brain-vs-right-brain-2795005 

2 https://www.verywell.com/left-brain-vs-right-brain-2795005 

6 Tips for the WFH Warrior

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
6 Tips for the WFH Warrior

We’re nearing one year into the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while in some ways we can begin to look towards an incoming ‘next normal,’ or post-pandemic world, we still must take every precaution we can to stop the spread and reach that finish line. We here at BORN are still committed to protecting our employees by enabling them to work remotely and only return to the office once it’s safe to do so.  

With over a year of remote work, the fatigue of not seeing colleagues and co-workers does take its toll. We’ve connected with BORN Group’s Director of Human Resources, Jamie Weisberg, to review some of the most effective ways to promote mental health and wellbeing while working remotely. Together, we’ve put together six tips to cultivate a better work from home experience.

  1. Remember to recharge.

“One of the best things you can do is step away from the computer and take time for yourself.” 

Working remotely often means working from home, which can create a blurred line between work and home. When coupled with the many lockdown rules and COVID-19 precautions that can create difficulties in finding daily recreation, it’s essential to remember to take time for yourself and recharge when possible. It’s perfectly healthy and expected to schedule breaks throughout the day to eat and check in on yourself. Even if travel is not available to the extent it was prior to the pandemic, it’s still important as well to take advantage of vacation time to reflect, disengage, and come back more revitalized.

  1. Connect face-to-face whenever possible.

“Not being able to see the facial expressions of co-workers can have an effect of isolation. Whenever possible, in team or client meetings, take advantage of the camera to read another’s body language while you communicate.”

The pandemic has had a sweeping effect on society by disconnecting us from one another physically. Those of us who live alone and don’t get the opportunity to see people at the same intervals as prior may especially feel a sense of isolation from work. It’s a great change from the past to be coordinating on projects and working to the degree that we do without the level of communication that body language provides. Thus, it can go a long way to utilize video conferencing wherever possible. Whether it’s a team meeting, client meeting, whenever possible, take advantage of the camera to better communicate, understand another’s tone and intent, and generally ease your conversation.

a collage of photos of a group of people posing for a photo
A snapshot from one of BORN’s virtual Town Halls. Video conferencing can go a long way toward building community!
  1. Dress for success.

“Brightening your appearance even while at home can set you in the mindset of mindful work.”

Another healthy practice that can fall into neglect via remote work is to tend to one’s appearance daily. The rituals of trimming, make-up and skincare, and the regular haircut as well as dressing presentably and geared to work all have noted effects in getting us into a mindset of work and stability. Ruts in life can be magnified by neglecting one’s appearance and it can help make you more inclined to break out of them with the sort of self-care that lets you feel eager to tackle the day and presentable to anyone you might come across. Carve out the time – work will always be there, and taking care of oneself is a key priority.

  1. Exercise throughout the day.

“A lot of real world issues have magnified the effect of the pandemic over the past year, and taking the time to remember to breath and walk can serve as an excellent stress reliever throughout the day.”

With the torrent of difficult news this past year, the effects of isolation are often magnified with malaise and frustration at the world’s problems. It’s important to take the time to avoid burnout by putting aside some time throughout the day to breath mindfully, walk mindfully, and let your mind refresh, to help mollify stress and keep health a priority. Burnout as a whole is huge, especially in the tech industry, and it’s essential for senior leaders to give their team the space to get projects done while in the best state of mind.

  1. Take advantage of office resources for wellbeing.

“Employees at BORN had already set the precedent of working remotely prior to the pandemic, but one of the challenges of building a work from home culture was reminding our team to take advantage of whatever resources they needed for wellbeing and health.”

Coming up with strategies for teams to check-in and avoid burnout has played a key role in the path of building a work from home culture here at BORN. Without the ease of interaction from physical connections, there’s an increased need for all teams to be visible with the array of resources we offer to help support our employees throughout this intensive time of their career. Being accessible and accommodating to our team is what gets us moving forward each time, and on the employee side, it can go a long way to take advantage of the office resources in context to mental health and wellbeing. Here at BORN, one program that we instituted to help decompress was a biweekly virtual yoga session. 

  1. Continue to build team culture.

“Encouraging teams to connect in a remote time can build the camaraderie that makes work so fulfilling. It’s vital to take the time to build and be creative as a unit.”

Much of our fulfillment from work comes from the work we can do together as a team. While conventional events like company-wide happy hours have proven difficult to execute on virtually, we’ve seen team leads come up with innovative and disrupting ways to keep the team culture moving forward. Scheduling one on one meetings wherever possible, going for “walk and talks” as an alternative to the happy hour, or relegating a time for social connection within the team all will yield their own returns in fostering a mindful and productive culture.

How Structured Archiving Delivers an Enterprise Advantage

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
How Structured Archiving Delivers an Enterprise Advantage

Imagine a typical business success story: a mid-sized company built from the ground up starts by making an impressive mark on the industry. Over the years, the business improves operations while profits steadily increase. With only a few and relatively minor setbacks, the company flourishes, and business continues to grow. Concurrent with this growth are some important correlated changes. Specifically, in order to account for an expanding roster of clients, more and more database storage is required. And, in an effort to stay current technologically, new enterprise applications are brought on board while others are retired. Finally, discussions of compliance and compatibility with these new information technology components become an important part of infrastructure and development.

Everyone celebrates growth. Businesses need it. And, overall, commerce relies upon it. After all, growth is perhaps the primary goal of any business. What organization wouldn’t welcome an offer of expanded operations, broader market influence, and substantial increases among its market base? With such growth, though, businesses also see a requisite amount of change. Not only the faces of new clients and geographical environments, but shifts in technological platforms and IT infrastructure are expected parts of the success story of every business.

All firms are in the process of constantly acquiring new clients and business partners. And along with this regular accumulation of data, the question arises: where to put it for long-term storage? What happens to important archival documents when a company needs to significantly upgrade their IT infrastructure? One cannot simply discard such data—even from clients the company no longer works with. What happens, for instance, when such information is needed for litigation or an audit?

This is where structured archiving comes in. Structured archiving refers to the ability to store and catalog application data in secondary databases or standalone files for long-term retention, often by using less costly storage [1]. Such enterprise-level archival processes have a number of specific applications and related benefits that this blog post will explore in-depth. Taken together, these applications account for some of the various reasons for the increased import structured archiving has had for businesses across the board via management of data growth, application decommissioning, and compliance with enterprise IT infrastructure and legal.

Data Growth Management

Increases in data are a common part of the development of every business. Sales data, customer records, employee and HR information, client contracts, patents, project data, data from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and analytics are just a few of the many points of information that are crucial to businesses today. As the sheer volume of data increases, some have suggested an updated framework for conceiving of the element that many consider to be the bedrock of modern commerce.

This framework is known, of course, as big data. Big data refers to extremely large sets of data that can be used to provide predictive behavioral analysis and other kinds of analytics and metrics. The regular use of such large volumes of data has become increasingly important to businesses. Big data can improve internal communications, customer relations and experiences while providing better overall market intelligence[2]. And the reliance upon big data will only increase. As Forbes recently noted, “It doesn’t matter what field you operate in or the size of your business; as data collection, analysis, and interpretation become more readily accessible, they will have an impact on every business in several important ways”[3]. Big data will only become a bigger part of businesses everywhere.

How, then, does one approach archiving such extensive sets of data as a business matures? What happens when a business needs to store different kinds of data, for instance, or structured data versus document-centric records? Thankfully, there are different archival approaches suited for different purposes. The first, and perhaps most relevant archiving method, is known as full schema archiving. Full schema archiving takes the complex relational database format of structured data and transforms it to a structure that fits with the archival system to be used[4]. This means that the data remains “searchable” using existing business queries, which may deliver either structured or unstructured records. An important part of this archival method is the archiving of the actual meaning of the data—just how is the data structured?—not just the data itself.[5]

With table or partial schema archiving, only a specific table or part of the full database is used. Partial schema archiving can be a result of partitioning, which limits the size of what would otherwise be an inflated database with unnecessary or redundant entries. The example Paragon gives: “In supply chain manufacturing you might have an instrument calibration and maintenance system—Maximo, ProCal and other type systems. Perhaps the record is defined in terms of plant floor equipment and work orders that can be extracted from the whole and defined in a partial schema or cut of the database whole[6].” As long as the records and the data models are well-defined, this partial schema method here will suffice.

The last archiving method we’ll look at here is print streaming or report-based archiving. This technique works by archiving only the kinds of reports that are run mostly typically by a business. These can be common reports run by managers or technical queries for audits or litigation purposes.[7] A benefit of this archival approach is its potentially drastic reduction in the resulting storage size. Reducing a large database down, on the one hand, to its essential and/or commonly used elements can dramatically shrink an otherwise unwieldy dataset. On the other hand, though, this archival technique can leave a substantial amount of data out of the mix, as often critical data consists of entries not typically if ever queried in the past. As always, such techniques must be considered alongside a cost savings and benefits analysis to determine which is right for a specific business and a given application.

Application Decommissioning

During the lifespan of nearly every business, there will arise the need to retire certain applications as programs are superseded by comprehensive upgrades and other important changes to the IT environment.This process, known as application decommissioning, is a notable part of the structured archiving process. An example would be when a company adopts a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. Typically, with such an upgrade the older system would be completely replaced. However, there remains a storehouse of important data accumulated through the legacy ERP system.[8] Application decommissioning deals with how this data is preserved. And the process has important consequences on the life and integrity of business data, hence it is crucial for the overall goals of a business.

There are an important set of questions that any business should ask itself when considering the process of decommissioning one or more legacy applications. The first of course is: precisely which applications should be retired and which should remain in operation?[9] The answer to this question involves a number of variables and can often appear as points of controversy for companies that have invested years of time and energy learning an IT platform. At the end of the day, though, a cost-benefit analysis can resolve the set of reservations concerning the prospect of any specific piece of legacy software. Such an analysis will reveal specifically how much will be gained by implementing the new system versus the losses of having to retire the current application or environment.

 Another important consideration regarding application decommissioning is preservation of the actual data accumulated through the usage of the application in question. For many platforms, not all of the data created will need to be stored. For instance, many applications, in addition to actual document data and database entries, will create preference documents along with various technical log files and operating system records. These data, for the most part, do not need to be stored. Most businesses will want to separate out the intentionally created documents—especially those deemed important data sources—from the more trivial data during the process of archiving. This way, once the legacy system is replaced by a newer version, the business will still have access to the legacy system’s most pertinent data.

Structured archiving can offer a measured solution to many of the problems that arise during application decommissioning. Of course, some of the problems may require intuitive responses if a full plan of action has not been drafted in advance. For instance, permissions for the archived data will need to be sorted out, along with the duration of the data storage. Additionally, a business may need to consider the way specific queries appear when accessing data from legacy applications. Thankfully, the majority of these issues can be decided before the application decommissioning process. By carefully considering these and other issues ahead of time, the structured archiving process will be a smooth and productive one with lasting impact.

Compliance with Enterprise IT Infrastructure and Legal

This last section will cover some of the issues that arise pertaining to compatibility with IT infrastructure and structured archiving along with compliance with emerging legal requirements. There are several reasons to be concerned with compliance and compatibility in this context. In fact, IT infrastructure compatibility arises as both a reason to retire legacy applications and emerges as an important consequence once such changes are put into place. In addition to software compatibility issues, similar problems arise from changes, for instance, in legislation that affects the IT industry. In any structured archival process, therefore, these issues will inevitably play a key role in an effective solution.

Take a common example of IT infrastructure compatibility: a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is implemented. As a result of this change, many existing CRM documents will no longer be read by the new system. Therefore, a comprehensive structured archival process must be initiated in order to account for this data. This is, indeed, another way of thinking about decommissioning legacy applications. However, in this instance, we’re considering the consequences of an upgrade as requiring structured archiving due to compatibility problems instead of a broader plan to phase out legacy applications. Either way one views it, the process should include an archival approach that accounts for the best value in terms of the data will need to be chosen.

Regulatory compliance is an area that relates closely to the problem of infrastructure compatibility. Indeed, concerns about compliance are only due to increase as more applications are added to an IT infrastructure, but also relate to shifts in legal structures and cultural norms. As Jeroen van Rotterdam writes, “Regulatory compliance requirements are increasing and undergoing rapid change with new legislation,” going on to cite legislation such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), the “right to be forgotten,” and new legislation around privacy issues.[10] Taken together such changes can result in the same kinds of compatibility issues that arise from software and version problems.

We’ve now seen three different but related contexts in which structured archiving plays a crucial role for businesses today. Whether a company is managing significant data growth, decommissioning legacy applications, or working to maintain compliance with IT infrastructure or legal mandates, knowing and understanding effective approaches to structured archiving is invaluable for every business in operation today.

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Footnotes:

[1]https://www.cmswire.com/cms/information-management/these-trends-are-driving-structured-data-archiving-025614.php

[2]https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/09/08/4-ways-big-data-will-change-every-business/#1bbdc7c42729

[3]https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/09/08/4-ways-big-data-will-change-every-business/#1bbdc7c42729

[4] http://www.consultparagon.com/blog/data-archiving-structured

[5] http://www.consultparagon.com/blog/enterprise-archiving-advantages

[6] http://www.consultparagon.com/blog/data-archiving-structured

[7] http://www.consultparagon.com/blog/data-archiving-structured

[8] https://www.consultparagon.com/blog/decommissioning-legacy-applications

[9] https://www.consultparagon.com/blog/decommissioning-legacy-applications

[10]https://blog.dellemc.com/en-us/emc-named-leader-structured-data-archiving-magic-quadrant-application-retirement/

Tapping Into the Developer Ecosystem: The BORN Associate Training Program

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
Tapping Into the Developer Ecosystem: The BORN Associate Training Program

Across the tech industry, employee turnover year over year stands at a stiff 13.2%, a high among verticals that reveals how volatile finding and keeping the right talent can be1. It only gets more difficult when capturing developers in specialized fields like eCommerce given that the space requires individuals well-versed and certified in the wider platform ecosystem. As an agency, we soon realized the challenge in matching our rapid growth with an equally rapid hiring process – there were only so many developers that were certified for the use-cases we needed. 

That’s why we here at BORN Group have developed the Associate Training Program to cultivate talent internally and broaden our hiring capabilities. The program found its beginnings with BORN Group’s Head of Recruitment, Tiffany Ingersoll, who felt the acute pain of trying to cultivate a consistent stream of eCommerce-versed developers. Prior to BORN, she and Chris Connell, BORN’s SFCC Technical Lead, and Davis Devries, BORN Back End Developer, had experience in building Associate programs to hire and train more general developers to fill needed roles.

With the support of BORN Group’s Managing Director, North America, Minna Rhee, we were able to launch the program at the end of Q4 basing the initial launch out of BORN’s headquarters in New York, with a goal of welcoming new hires biannually. Prior to joining the program, our new team members were well versed across JavaScript, React, and other baseline skills, and then engaged in workshops to further their knowledge across the platforms we focus on.

With over sixty applicants, we ultimately hired 8 to participate in the program. Our new team members are a collection of curious and talented individuals, driven for the chance to polish their skill set and learn from BORN. The new program has proven to be an invaluable success that we look forward to replicating across other sectors of our business.

One participant of the Associate Training Program, Adam Weissman, spoke highly on the new opportunity citing, ‘I could not have imagined a more awesome kick-off to 2021 than this; since the moment I first learned about BORN and Tech Mahindra, what they’ve done, what they do, and the trailblazing work they’ll do in the future… I viewed them not only as a company but as something of a destination.’ BORN was a place that Adam felt he could be a brand evangelist from the get-go, and it is thanks to the Associate Training program that we have him with us today. 

With the Associate Training Program accepting its first round of applicants, we’re excited to see how we can better foster talent throughout the greater developer network. Adam’s words as well as the work of the team at large have proven to be a great milestone into fully fleshing out a process for internal hiring and education. We’re looking forward to the next round of our Associate Training program, slated in Q2, to cultivate new Business Analyst talent for the year.

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Footnotes:

1 Employee Attrition Rate, March 25th, 2020  https://devskiller.com/attrition-rate-in-tech/

Personalization: The Key to Creating an Exceptional Customer Experience

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
Personalization: The Key to Creating an Exceptional
Customer Experience

Personalization has come a long way from only addressing the customer by name in a direct marketing email that arrives in your inbox – of all the digital strategies being talked about in the race to better customer experience, and thereby setting your brand apart from the competitors, personalization has now grown to be the most paramount.

It has been shown time and again that personalization drives engagement and builds relationships with the customer, making it one of the most important tools in a marketer’s toolbox. A whopping 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize them by name, remember their preferences, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations1. A customer that is seen and heard and feels special is one that will return.

As opposed to the customization of products or services to suit a particular individual, personalization is the tailoring of an experience based on the customer’s previous buying behavior and preferences. The holy grail is to offer the customer an intelligent and contextual, and therefore superior customer experience, which in effect creates more value for the business.

In the past, marketing communications was mostly one-way. The new approach using data to ground insights begins a conversation with the customer.

The underpinning of personalization is data. Most of this data already exists within an organization in the form of the technology that enables every sale – sales and support information can be folded into customer data platforms (CDPs) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, unstructured data in the form of positive or negative feedback, reviews and social commentary consolidated into reputation management systems – all that data just needs to be harnessed, analyzed and put to work not just as the end of the shopping funnel but throughout the customer journey.

Here are a few paths to personalization of the customer experience:

  • Personalized home page, navigation, and copy: New visitors need to be targeted with tailored messages, pages, and navigation compared to returning visitors or regular customers because they aren’t very familiar with the brand or the website. Personalized pop-ups and greetings are one way to do this. Encouraging social sign-ins are another. By understanding target customers’ pain points, interests, and problems, you can also target relevant copy for different segments, thereby increasing conversion. Knowing device types also means mobile users can be offered a different experience compared to those using a tablet or laptop.
  • Location targeting/geofencing: Visitors from different countries are segmented and these segments to allow for personalized pages and experiences. A US apparel brand could have different sizes, not to mention currencies, compared to the UK site. Geolocation targeting also enables daily or seasonal weather-related personalization. One new development is geofencing which puts a ‘virtual fence’ around a physical location. Geofencing triggers a command to the mobile phone when an individual enters or leaves a geofence. Whole Foods launched geofences around their competitors’ locations. When a customer using the Whole Foods app came into or left the geofence, they would receive ads with store-specific offers2. The campaign is said to have had a post-click conversion rate which is more than 3x the industry average. 
  • Predictive personalization: Amazon, followed by Youtube and Netflix, made the ‘Recommended for you’ feature famous. These days, many brands suggest options while the customer is buying or even at checkout to upsell their products and increase average order value. Uniqlo measures neurotransmitters in their UMood kiosks to gauge customers’ reactions as they are shown different clothing items in kiosks. The AI algorithm then uses that data to recommend products3.
  • Retargeting: Google Ads offers brands the ability to remarket their product to visitors who visit their website in other locations. Since they have already shown interest in the brand, retargeting offers another avenue to complete the sale. Conversely, personalization also means that the transition from clicking from an ad to get to your website is seamless and the text matches to suit.
  • Category specific offers: Just as with initial contact, segmentation offers a chance to target specific offers to specific customers. One effective example is how Sephora used to announce all their products to all their customers, but now they send only relevant information with their behavioral-based email program4.
  • Gamification: Using gamification in your brand marketing strategy helps brands know their customers better through features such as quizzes or creating user profiles and avatars. Awarding points is another method can keep consumers loyal. Makeups and skincare brands such Sephora’s skincare quiz or Roadrunner Sports’ “Which Nike shoe fits your personality” are great examples of gamifying your commerce experience to drive return traffic5.
  • Video tutorials and inspiration: Offering how-to videos and tutorials post-sale turns customers into repeat customers. Technology has made it easy to offer personalization even in video and editing techniques mean that text in a video can be customized for easy consumption. Inspiration areas are used by many brands’ websites to guide customers through their product line.
  • Lead generators: Displaying offers free trials or discounts tactically are a useful feature to generate customer leads and keep them on your page. An exit discount pop-up box is one way to do this.
  • Omnichannel delivery: Features such as ‘Continue watching’ and ‘Watch from the beginning’ made popular by Netflix are also being used by retail brands that have a presence on different channels. Headless CMSes can enable shoppers to switch between devices for a seamless experience while also remembering their preferences. Neiman Marcus, for example, remembers your size when you return6.
  • Chat and customer support: AI and machine learning is being used especially with chatbots which can gather data and segment customers, especially if you don’t have the resources to offer round-the-clock support. Information and predictive analysis can be pulled up for customer-facing employees for an enhanced customer service experience. 

More brands are offering hyper-personalized experiences at every customer touchpoint. With enough data, customers can be shoehorned into each segment of one. However, personalization can make the marketing mix more complex and such complexity is both time and resource intensive. Therefore, A/B testing is a key factor to check efficacy before embarking on individual personalization strategies.  

Furthermore, using customer data for the purposes of curation and interaction is treading a fine line – brands would reap the benefits if they were to make their processes transparent, respect data privacy, and safeguard customers’ data while doing so. In the end, personalization is as much about customer behavior and their needs as it is about their data.

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Footnotes

1. Accenture 2018 Personalization Pulse Check. https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/PDF-83/Accenture-Pulse-Check-Infographic.pdf 

2. Thinknear Location Score Index, Q4 2017. http://info.thinknear.com/rs/835-JWB-681/images/Thinknear_Location_Score_Index_Q4_2017.pdf?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&utm_term=&utm_content=

3. AI In Retail: How Tech Is Changing The Customer Experience, Forbes.com, March 26, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/03/26/ai-in-retail-how-tech-is-changing-the-customer-experience/?sh=47f31dc1958a

4. Accelerating Agility: eCommerce Marketing Lessons from Sephora, Bluecore.com, https://www.bluecore.com/blog/accelerating-agility-ecommerce-marketing-sephora/

5. Roadrunnersports.com, https://www.roadrunnersports.com/blog/quiz-which-nike-shoe-best-fits-your-personality-free-rn-or-free-rn-flyknit/

6.  5 Outstanding Omnichannel Retail Examples In Fashion, Intelistyle.com, https://www.intelistyle.com/omnichannel-retail-best-examples-fashion/

Driving Digital Strategies with SMS Marketing

Posted on by Antony
BORN Views
Driving Digital Strategies with SMS Marketing

SMS Marketing has seen rapid growth in the past few years, and for good reason. With the right implementation, it can prove to be an exceptional marketing tool for an eCommerce business. The numbers behind its success are staggering – when one considers that 98% of all text messages are opened, 90% of text messages are read within the first 3 minutes of being sent1, and that on average, SMS enjoys a 6-8x higher engagement rates than email marketing, it’s clear that SMS marketing is a tool that many eCommerce businesses can derive value from2. That’s why BORN Group and Yotpo have come together to help you navigate this channel which is acclaimed by Yotpo Customer Data to deliver a 25x ROI when successfully utilized.

This new outlet can greatly complement a digital strategy by serving as the most personalized channel for marketing updates and outreach. Given the higher rates of engagement and the fact that consumers spend twice as much time texting than answering emails, it is an excellent touchpoint within a marketing arsenal. Some may consider the practice intrusive, but according to Yotpo customer survey data, over 48% of consumers have already signed up to receive texts from a brand, with 51% reporting that they are interested in being able to have a line of text communication with a brand to check inventory and recommendations. So long as your brand performs outreach with consent by its consumer and allows them to begin the marketing by opting on, concerns of intrusion are wiped away. 

Personalized text message marketing finds such great success for a multitude of reasons. Mobile commerce has played a pivotal role in expanding eCommerce to where we’ve found via Yotpo consumer data that 65% of online shoppers choose to browse or shop online on their mobile devices, as opposed to a laptop or desktop computer. Furthermore, customers spend on average four hours a day on their mobile phones, with an average check-in rate of 150 check-ins a day. These metrics reveal how mobile commerce is essential to many eCommerce offerings, and tapping into SMS marketing is the most direct way to harness outreach to a mobile user. The 39% click through rate, sourced via Yotpo customer results, on all links in SMS messages means as well that there is a high chance the right content over a text message will find success in driving traffic.

Most SMS Marketing works via either setting up a campaign, which can be sent in bulk to consumers to promote special deals or new offerings on the site, or specific response messages for a consumer’s transaction. Yotpo utilizes SMSBump as its SMS marketing & automation app for Shopify sites with a 2x higher ROI on multiple step messages as opposed to one-off campaigns or automated responses. Building around multiple step messages has shown via Yotpo customer results a 4x higher ROI – and by highlighting SMS marketing during cart checkout, we’ve seen 47% of customers opt-in. Those numbers serve in your favor beyond promotion of sales too, as Yotpo customer data reveals how review requests via SMS  convert 66% higher compared to email due to the channel’s high engagement rates. This can transform a site’s user generated content when utilized effectively.

Altogether, SMS can play an exceptional role in driving marketing in ways conventional digital methods cannot. Given the nature of its opt-in first format, it is a key pillar when considering loyalty and customer experience for your consumer. 76% of loyalty program members will opt-in to communicate with their favorite brands via SMS according to Yotpo customer data – many businesses can stand to benefit from its array of its promotion of commerce, communication, and user-generated content.

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Footnotes

1. Marketing With 98 Percent Read-Rate and 10 More Compelling Stats, Adobe, 27 July 2015.  https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2015/07/27/marketing-with-98-percent-read-rate-and-10-more-compelling-stats.html#gs.ntun1x

2. 10 Reasons Why You Need SMS Marketing While Dropshipping, DoDropShipping, 5 November 2020 https://www.dodropshipping.com/dropshipping-reasons-why-you-need-sms-marketing/