How to Use 'Voice of Customer' Tools for Your Business

Listen to Your Audience to Meet Consumer Expectations

Do you truly understand your customers? I'm not talking about creating personas, doing keyword research and looking at your demographics (although that's important too)!

I'm referring to listening to what your audience actually wants and needs to improve the customer experience.

First, let's look at what Voice of Customer (VoC) means.

This is a research process that captures what your audience is saying, and how that relates to your brand. Businesses do this by gathering consumer feedback, whether that's a survey, focus group or online reviews.

Voice of Customer tools can help you:

Explore and evaluate new products and services

Improve consumer engagement and retention

Uncover negative brand feedback

So, how can you use Voice of Customer tools to better your business? Here are 4 ways:

1. Surveys

You can send surveys to certain segments or after a person has bought your product or service.

Here's an example of a company who listened and responded to what people wanted: 1-800 Contacts, the world's largest contact lens provider. They used surveys to gather consumer expectations with a company called Qualtrics.

One respondent jokingly asked the company to send him a candy bar and guess what? They did! This led to them implementing a program where they give gifts to people.

As a result, they increased their order rate by 3.8 percent and grew their NPS 13 points in just three months. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a management tool that is used to measure the loyalty of your customers; learn more here.

There are numerous survey tools out there, from Survey Monkey to VWO, so you can find the right format for your needs.

To get the best response rate, be sure to:

Keep it brief. People don't want to answer 50 questions about their experience. Limit your survey to about five questions, and let respondents know that it will only take a few minutes of their time.

Give them something. Offer a discount coupon, change to win a price or a gift to show your appreciation (if possible).

Remind them how important it is. Thank people for taking the time and tell them that you're using their feedback to improve your processes.

Here are some great questions to ask that should elicit some useful responses:

How can we improve your customer experience?

Would you recommend our service or product and why or why not?

What did you like/dislike about your experience?

Would you buy our product or service again?

2. Interviews

Usually done in-person or on the phone, the interview process lets you talk one-on-one or to a group of people about your product or service. This method gained popularity after it was popularized in a book called The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

Discovering consumer expectations this way has a higher cost, but it can provide amazing insight and impress your consumers with a more personal type of interaction.

Not sure? Here's an example from Febreze. Originally, P&G tried to sell their scented sprays by claiming it fixed smells in your home, with dismal results. The problem was that most people don't know or don't think that their homes smell, so why would they need Febreze?

So P&G hired a research company to interview people on how they used the product. They heard that those who sprayed Febreze did it to freshen a room as part of their house-cleaning routine, not to cover up odours.

As a result, the company positioned Febreze as a product to enhance your existing routine. Within two months, sales of the product doubled.

3. Your Website

Most marketers look at their site data to gain insights around things like how many people visited in a given time period, what their most popular landing pages are and which keywords people are using to find them.

However, by taking analytics to the next level and capturing behaviour, you can learn even more about what your audience is doing. From where they're scrolling to on a given page to heat maps that show which content they're interacting with, there are many tools that can show you what your visitors want and need from you.

Hotjar uses heat maps to understand the users of some of the world's biggest brands.

4. Social Media

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram can be valuable places to collect data on your visitors and fans.

By observing what your audience is doing, engaging with people who interact with your brand and starting conversations, you can learn so much about the people who are interested in your brand.

Also, social media now serves as a customer service platform; rather than write a letter or an email to a business, people now turn to social media to give praise or to complain.

As tempting as it may be to delete negative comments or ignore them in the hopes they'll soon be buried, don't! As Bill Gates said: "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."

For many entrepreneurs and business owners, the online marketing scene can very confusing and overwhelming. All that marketing terminology that's constantly being thrown out there on a daily basis is enough to make one pull the covers over their head and hope it all just goes away.

This blog article explores how to create landing pages that will help boost your marketing efforts. Read more.

Consumer expectations are higher than ever, and it's critical to understand the people who are potentially buying what you're selling.

By using the right Voice of Customer tools, you can be sure to give your audience exactly what they want, when and how they want it.

Does your business use VoC tools to help gather vital customer data?

Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.

As a result of working with Susan and her team, clients feel confident and relieved knowing their online marketing is in trustworthy and caring hands so they can focus on building their business with peace of mind at having a perfect support system in place to guide them every step of the way.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10187629

Grow Your Business With The Digital Marketing Strategy

Whether you're re-launching a product, starting a business, or strategizing a new digital marketing plan for next year, understanding the fundamentals of digital marketing is essential to your success.

For marketers at small businesses, solo-marketers or those working for a large corporate team, digital marketing tactics will help your organization get found online by the right people to attract, convert, close and delight with your products and services.

So What Exactly is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for all of your online marketing efforts. Businesses leverage digital channels such as Google search, social media, email, and their websites to connect with their current and prospective customers.

From your website itself to your online branding assets - digital advertising, email marketing, online brochures, and beyond - there's a huge spectrum of tactics and assets that fall under the umbrella of digital marketing.

Here's a quick rundown of some of the most common assets and tactics:

Assets

Blog posts

Social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)

Earned online coverage (PR, social media, and reviews)

Online brochures and lookbooks

Branding assets (logos, fonts, etc.)common assets and tactics:

eBooks and whitepapers

Interactive tools

Being a newbie marketer, it's obviously scary for you to rely on a new technology you're stranger to. But, We are telling here four compelling reasons why you should dispense a part of your marketing budget for digital marketing.

1. It Helps To Pitch Those Who Are Interested

It propagates methods and solutions that help to target your customers on the basis of consumer demographics, behaviors, interactions and several other segmentation. Using paid search, you can create adverts that target those audiences who are affluent enough to buy your product. Though I won't predict 100% percent success rate for paid search or PPC, the result it delivers will be better than the traditional methods you've used so far. If that interests you, choose any of the popular platforms like Facebook ads, Google Ads and Twitter ads to see your business grow.

2. It Helps To Find, Test and Evaluate

It helps you come up with a more effective marketing strategy for your brand. Even after execution of the campaign, you can measure its performance like that traffic it got and conversation happened using analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Facebook insights. From planning to performance reporting, the tools let you measure the results precisely.

3. Create, Change, Create, Change... and so on

Can you change a newspaper or radio advert if you notice ambiguity in the first place or feeling it weak enough to serve the purpose? Absolutely not. With digital marketing, you can do it. You can edit or rewrite a blog/ article or review written to promote a campaign even after getting it published. Similarly, the online ad campaigns made for Facebook and other advertisement platforms can be run, stopped, or modified at any point in time. So, the advantages are visible. Test your campaign and keep experimenting until you end up with the most effective marketing campaign.

4. It's Interactive. Ask Feedback and Improve

Another benefit of having digital marketing methods on board is that you can begin and moderate two-way communication with buyers. Digital marketing enables two way communication with outer world and helps to gain insight how audience is responding to your campaign. For instance, marketers can participate in group discussions running across the social network groups & communities, and can discuss in detail about their products and services on offer.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9966293

Making Profits With Affiliate Marketing

If you want to get into affiliate marketing starting now but are worried if it is still worthwhile, it's okay. It's a question a lot of people ask. Don't worry. Affiliate marketing in 2019 is still profitable.

Affiliate marketing adds a lot of value to the marketplace, online commerce is expanding, and more and more people are using the internet every day. That means you can make money with affiliate marketing.

One reason you might think that you won't is that many people don't do affiliate marketing well. They fail at it. But you can do it better and succeed.

Remember, affiliate marketing will always be profitable.

That's because it adds value.

You can make money by providing value to your audience. You help companies sell more products and services. The consumer gets what they want, the firm gets paid and you make money by connecting the two.

But first people have to trust you. Consumers have to trust that you are giving them valuable advice. By being honest in your reviews, and not just peddling everything online, you can build up that trust. Once that's there, people will click your affiliate links and you'll get commission out of it.

The more trust people have in you, the more money you will make. That is the most important thing about affiliate marketing.

There will always be things to sell as well. Online commerce is growing and by 2040 95% of purchases will be done online. Right now it only accounts for 13.7% of retail purchases. Now is a good time to start to build trust as ecommerce continues to boom.

Online commerce is growing because more and more people are connecting to the internet every year. In 2017, less than half the world was online. There's a lot of room for growth and new audiences. That's even leaving out how many more people are being born as well.

With that in mind, it's time to turn to how to give yourself the best chance of success.

Most people fail at affiliate marketing. It is not easy to build trust with strangers. You have to consistently add value. It's hard work, but it will be worth it.

Most affiliate marketers struggle with getting traffic and converting traffic to sales.

People quit because they don't give enough time for their blog or social media account to grow. Early struggles can be off putting. Persist!

Even then it can be a struggle to turn views into clicks. People won't just instantly click your links when they first see your content. It takes time to build trust with your audience. You have to attract people who are interested in what you are doing and how you are doing it. The right match between content creator and audience will lead to clicks. Again, you have to be persistent.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10186117

Free Methods To Make Money Online

The internet is full of possibilities. To connect with friends, to learn new things and even to earn money. All you need is a laptop or phone, an internet connection and the know-how to start making money.

There are two distinct ways of making money online. One is with an active business, where you get paid for doing or selling things, the other is passive, where you build a one-off service that generates income without you having to do anything more.

Passive businesses are all the rage now, but both ways have different pros and cons.

A mix of both types will be the best.

First of all, you have to get an audience. People have to see that you're selling something before they can buy it off you.

The easiest way to get an audience is to go where they already are. The quickest way to start earning money online is by selling a service.

UpWork and Fiverr both allow you to sell services, such as creating a logo, and have an audience fr you already.

Starting out on Fiverr is best. But you'll have to get the attention of your audience in a crowded marketplace.

Set up your profile with a professional looking, friendly picture. People buy more when they can see a face attached to a profile.

Make your description focused on what you can do for people and why they should trust you to do it. Add any previous work you've done as part of your portfolio.

Add a video to get even more attention.

Set up can be a long process, but it's worth it in the end. It's all about making a good first impression.

You can do pretty much anything on Fiverr from writing articles, generating backlinks, creating logos or even voice over work. Once you're comfortable on Fiverr, with small contracts, you can get bigger ones on UpWork.

A passive income stream can be set up using social media marketing.

There is a lot of hard work involved at the beginning, but it will be worth it.

Pick a topic your social media account will cover, create beautiful images and content for it with Canva, make sure you're using the right hashtags with Hastagify, post two to three times a day, every day, and interact with your audience.

Once you've got an audience use affiliate links to promote products and earn commission.

Another way to make money is with video marketing. Using your phone or laptop camera you can create content on a particular topic, just like social media marketing. Consistently upload videos to YouTube, around 2 or 3 a week, and keep doing it. Your audience will grow and you can use affiliate links to make money.

I've not included blogging here as it isn't free. But you need a blog as somewhere to keep all your content. Free accounts can be shut down and all your hard work will be gone.

With these strategies you can start making money from the internet right now.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10186123

How To Make Money Online - Starting Today

You will find a lot of people today, who say making money online is terribly hard to do, say so only because they are ignorant.

Lots of people can make the simplest task seem like brain surgery, and that is certainly the case with online marketing as well. We are not so concerned about the various reasons for such a high failure rate, but it is really very similar to offline businesses. There are a lot of things that are important to do and listing all of them may just overwhelm you. Within any new online venture, you can proceed with some caution and make decisions based on the best information you have. What follows next are some important online marketing guidelines for you to consider and then adopt if they make good sense to you.

Make sure you've got a goal and a plan in front of you. Do not think that you can make a living on the internet without having a plan? If you do not have a plan, you will not have any idea of how to go about making an online living. Do your homework and see to it that your agenda is both strong and realistic. Always try to pay attention to improving on all the good aspects of your internet marketing plan.

Your digital marketing plan does not have to be all involved. You need to jot down a few steps of what you want to be done and by when. Your purpose is to have a very firm guideline of what you want to do, with specific milestones in place. Just like any other endeavour in life, an online business is no different in that you need to have faith in your ability to succeed. You will always find those who are cynical about being able to make money, but you must resist that urge. Most people know about believing in one's self, but very few are able to pull it off. Making the initial decision to start your online business is a huge step in the right direction.

Find somebody in the online marketing space that you admire and then spend some serious time observing them or reading about them. It is well known that there are lots of web marketers have generated many millions. You see them on public platforms and hear how they talk, how they execute their ideas, and how they move their work forward. It gives you an inner picture that will help you with your own money-making goals. Some of these people will amazingly be accessible for 

conversation because they want to share, while others will not be, but it is worth a try. You may even get additional inspiration from others when you talk to them in business forums, conferences and other places of mutual online marketing interest.

Every step that you take towards getting your financial freedom on the Internet will ultimately take you towards a more stable future.

Understand that making money online is a process, and you must go step by step to reach your goals and to make it big. Once you make that first sale, then that means you know how to sell something, and then you just keep doing it. You must however begin at the beginning just like we all did, and you will move past that very quickly.

So now you know how to start making money online today, by implementing a mental preparation process and laying out your plan for long-term success. But that first step must start today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10202272

Making Money over the Internet: 5 Cool Tips

The Internet is a fast growing medium, transcending the personal, geographical, political, and cultural barriers. Because of its popularity and diversity, for an ambitious and hard working person, it is the right medium to make unlimited wealth. The only thing is that you should know how to do it. The knack of doing it comes only with practice, but a non-starter doesn't get any practice. In this short exposure I will be scratching some of the ways you can make cool money on the internet, legally!! The way you choose depends upon your skill, aptitude and taste.

1. Create your own website

Website creation is an easy task, provided you know it, there are many providers which provide you with space where you put your site., and once you have a good site and the contents are interesting to others , people will start visiting your site. The internet also contains good advice as to increase traffic in your site. Then you can place ads and links from other sites (affiliate links) and get money. Also if you build a site of interest to your local community, paid ads can be sought from the locality.

2. Write an e-book and sell it

If you have the slightest writing skills, then you can pack your ideas and experiences or even imaginations into an e-book, which can be downloaded by others and sell it. There are many sites offering the service of selling an e-book for you. By writing an e-book (any thing written in text file format can be converted into an e-book), and 50 or 60 pages of your expressions can earn you an audience of thousands and good money.

3. Paid Surveys

Abundant locations are available in the internet which allows you to make money participating in surveys. These sites give you a questionnaire and once you answer a fixed number of questionnaires, you get paid!!

This is trading your time for money, and generally requires not much skill.

4. Share Trading

Internet is a good medium, where you can practice online trading. Many agencies allow you to open an account, buy and sell shares. Only thing is that you should know the techniques of trading, otherwise you will loose money like anything.

5. For the lazy people: receive emails and earn cash

Many sites allow you to earn money by just simply. Reading your email. Only thing is that if you are willing to spend four or five hours a day reading emails, you can earn a lot of money. The amount you earned will depend upon the number of mails you actually opened and read

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/65514

At Last! - 4 Surefire Steps to Get Ready to Pull Cash

Do you want to start your internet business to earn cool cash?

If yes, read this article to learn 4 simple but important steps and start your internet business from today.

Step 1 - What Exactly You Want From Your Internet Business?
Step 2 - You Should Believe Strongly About Your Success.
Step 3 - Create a Plan to Shoot Your Goal.
Step 4 - Take Proper Action.

Let's get down for juicy step by step details...

Step 1 - What Exactly You Want From Your Internet Business?

First of all create a list that you want to get accomplished with your internet business.

It can be anything like money, car, luxurious home etc.

Just write down all the things on one paper and stick them in front of your computer table.

Step 2 - You Should Believe Strongly About Your Success.

If you want to success with your internet business then you have to believe in it from your heart first.

You should create affirmations in your mind about your success in your internet business.

Read the list which you have put in front of your computer table.

This will boost confidence in yourself and you will find your way to succeed.

Step 3 - Create a Plan to Shoot Your Goal.

It is very necessary that you should have goal which you want to achieve with your internet business.

Now create a killer plan to shoot that goal. Plan is nothing but a clear roadmap to reach towards your goal.

Make sure to create plan in a proper way and split them in short term, medium term and long term, if you have big goals.

Step 4 - Take Proper Action.

Without taking action there is no meaning to create a killer plan.

Action is necessary, if you want to fulfill dreams about successful internet business.

Make sure to take action and start your internet business today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1791497

How to Make Passive Income For Stay at Home People

Nowadays making money online is easy although making big cash is hard but it can be achieve with dedication and hard work. Making money online is far better than casual job where there is always threat of boss and a set of works to complete in schedule, pressure from all side all the time. Whereas in online money making scheme you have your own set of free time to work, most of the time at home with families.

First of all what is passive income? Passive income are those income which you get monthly without much hard work from your estate. Here your estate will be your blog. So through your blog, you can generate a monthly income.

Blogging is like a maintaining a dairy where you write daily work. Through blogging you can write your favorite topics or the topics which is very popular or hot at the time of writing. You don't have to be a great writer. Just write enough for the information which every people is searching for. So when people search for the information, they will come to your blog to read the information. They are known as potential visitors. But how would we make passive income from these visitors.

The main game here is to put some CPC advertisement ads like AdSense or Bidvertiser. These ads are so similar to the contents of your blog that the visitors hardly recognize it. They think that it is a part of the blog information. So think if these visitors while reading your blog clicks the ad then you would make money per click. 1 click will fetch you around $0.1 - $5. So think that you get 200 visitors daily and 20 people click 1 ad each. So you get total 20 clicks and suppose single ad clicked gives you $0.2. Then you make 20 x $0.2 = $4 per day. So $120 per month from a single blog.

Now consider increasing your number of blogs like say you have 10 blogs. From each blog you earn $120 per month that is $120 x 10 = $1200 per month from 10 blogs. Now did you see the huge amount of dollars you are getting? This is just the beginning of the game. Try increasing the number of visitors through marketing and number of blogs also. Your revenue per month will increase a lot.

At the starting, for few months say 5 - 6 months. You'll have to work hard as nothing comes for free but after this hard work you'll have to spend only few hours daily to maintain all the blogs and the money will still flow in your doorstep while you're away in vacation on the cool beach thus making passive income for you.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1499987

5 Quick Legitimate Ways To Make Money Online

We've always been hearing that hard work is the key to success and money. Want to work less and earn much more? Yes, this is totally possible through passive income. One of the old ways of earning passive income is to own a rental property or invest in shares, stocks and mutual funds. But with the advent of Internet, more and more people are getting used to business online. You can now earn by spending just a little time online.

1. Affiliate Programs

One of the ways of earning a passive income would be an affiliate program. Here you just need to put an affiliate link with your code on few websites or can send an email to all those you know. Website visitors click your link and if they are impressed, they buy it. And your account is automatically credited. There are many Fortune 500 companies that use affiliate programs. Some affiliate programs which provide a good source of income are Clickbank and Commission Junction. So you can just start with a product you are confident about.

2. Selling Software Products

Another option of legitimate ways to make money online would be to create a software product which could be useful to others and sell it online. A product created one time can fetch you an income whenever a customer buys the product. You can also design some games or other entertaining programs that people would feel like buying. Just take care to satisfy the customers by updating the content and providing good services.

3. MLM

Are you someone who can convince and handle all types of people? If yes, MLM (Multi Level Marketing) could be the right choice for you. You need to place a very inspiring advertisement and make others join you. Every person who signs up as your referral will fetch you a commission. The only thing you need to do is to educate the prospects about network marketing and convince them to buy the product or join MLM. And in MLM you get credited not just for your work but also the work done by you referral.

4. PPC

Had you ever thought just a mouse click could be a source of income to you? It really can. One of the good legitimate ways to make money online is by PPC or pay-per-click programs. You are just required to place a link on your site. This will earn you money every time the link to the ad on your site is clicked. Yahoo and Google are such popular PPC sites.

5. Surveys

There are also schemes where you can earn money for giving your opinion i.e. filling out surveys. Each survey takes hardly about 30 to 60 minutes and can help you earn some cool cash.

When you feel you have quite succeeded in earning enough, you will have another option to add to your pool of legitimate ways to make money online. You can just gather all the secrets of your success and then sell them. Many of the beginners start with no knowledge on sources of passive income and would surely prefer to buy such information.

These are just a few of the legitimate ways to make money online. All you need is an idea and a will to implement it. Once you set up your source, your bank balance will keep rising even as you sleep.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1510456

Making Money Online With Google AdSense! A Simple Guide to Follow

To some people writing comes naturally and effortlessly but if you don't belong to this class of people, it doesn't mean that you will not be able to make some cool cash for yourself from Google AdSense, in such case what you will do is get someone to help write the articles that you need to keep your website updated. For anyone to succeed with AdSense, there some basic factors that you must take in to consideration, and they are:
1. QUALITY CONTENT FOR YOUR WEBSITE: Creating a quality content for your website is a must, if you intend to succeed with Google AdSense, there are two options available for you to do this, it's either you write the articles yourself or you pay someone to do it for you, which ever option you decide to take just ensure that you get the quality that will truly make your website stand out from the crowd. After you might have succeeded in creating a quality content for your site, incorporated with the right keywords, you can then move to the next stage.
2. KEYWORD SEARCH FOR SEO: During the process of writing your articles select phrases, keywords and subjects that you feel and believe a lot of people are more likely to click. There are free keyword selector tools and suggestion tools available for free online, avail yourself with these tools, it will be very useful for both experienced and relatively new individual in the AdSense business.
3. WRITING ARTICLES: Write your articles with keywords relevant to the subject or content of your website included in the article, bear in mind that the quality of your articles will determine the type of traffic that your site can generate, and the amount of traffic generated has a direct effect on your Google AdSense earnings.

One other very important aspect is the spot where you position your Google AdSense Ads, it Should not be overlooked, make your Ads conspicuous by placing them where visitors to your site would easily see them and possibly click on the Ads, research in recent times has shown that most web surfers are more likely to look first at the top right or left hand corner of your website, though there is no strong fact to back this research, so like I said visitors to your sites are more likely to look towards that direction when browsing, hence there is a high possibility of Ads positioned in that direction being clicked.

There some very good tools to increase your Click Through Rates (CTR), try and master some of these techniques in order to generate more clicks and double your earnings. You can easily get these tools by searching through Google.

In conclusion, there are also very useful tools that gives webmasters and publishers the opportunity to track or monitor the performance of the Google AdSense program they are running, this allows the person to become aware of his or her performance over a given period of time. Through this means you can make changes to your AdSense Ads and focus more on Ads generating the greater proportion of the income.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3361684