Regardless of how talented and experienced your team is, there is always room for improvement in optimizing employee performance. Work overload, work-related burnout, team conflicts and toxic environments can heavily influence individual performance. 

• Use the SMART approach for your employees goals. This allows them to set their goals by being Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. 
• Conduct one-on-one meetings to address all professional challenges of your team. Allow your team members to learn new skills that align with their goals and interests. This not only improves the bond between your team and the organization, but gives them a motivational boost. 
• Avoid micromanaging your team, especially your remote workforce. Keep in mind that tracking your team’s performance is important. Use tools that allow your team to track their most productive work hours, so they know when their peak performance is reached.

• The company’s culture and value: Make sure that the mission, vision, and values of your business are aligning with the employees work ethic. 
• Legal Policy Framework: Address internal policies and legal requirements, ensuring that you remain compliant and employees have a clear understanding of workplace norms. 
• Work-life balance strategies: Show employees holiday schedules, leave policies, their work hours, and how your organization supports a work-life balance. 
• Development opportunities: Highlight training, performance reviews, and encourage career progression and growth.

• Encourage meetings with your employees, where they can share insights on new ideas they may have or best practices.
• Promote an open communication culture that creates a safe space for your teammates to share ideas and express their personal opinions with senior managers. This might motivate the team to excel in performance.
• Encourage knowledge-sharing and collaboration practices for your company’s work policies. This promotes a collaborative work culture.
• Encourage teamwork from different departments to share expertise with one another. Cross-functional team environments promote skill and knowledge sharing.

Therefore, it’s important to reward employees and make them feel valued about everything they are doing. In short, it’s important to consider the following:

• Meet together to celebrate individual milestones with each team member.
• Give out shout outs via email for employee efforts.
• Provide bonuses that may include promotions, monetary benefits, or something else your organization can offer.

Moreover, here are a few important tips you can follow:

• Decide performance review frequencies and schedule meetings based on each employees specific agendas
• Collect feedback from seniors in the team regarding employee performance, milestones reached or that need to be achieved, and all weak areas that need improvement.
• Make sure that all team members are present in the meeting for guiding teammates on work-related technicalities, challenges, and more. During performance reviews, you can also encourage team members to learn new skills on work based on the feedback they need.

• Remain flexible and avoid staying defensive. Conduct employee feedback surveys to learn more about what your team needs in case they can’t say it directly.
• Request clarifications. Asking clarifying questions is always important in case you have any doubts and concerns on how you can make something better.
• Pay close attention to actions, and not words. The most concerning part should be the way someone behaves during working hours.
• After you receive feedback, the best thing you can do is to take action instantly.

The post 9 Strategies to Improve Employee Performance appeared first on Shout.com.

Emails have always been an effective channel of communication for brands to connect with their customers.

• Quick data collection. Email surveys offer brands quick access to a diverse range of customer data. The responses come in almost immediately, enabling you to dive into timely analysis and data-driven decisions.
• Convenient to use. Creating email surveys and dispatching them to your recipients is only a matter of a few clicks. It’s also a simple and straightforward process for your subscribers to fill in at their convenience, thus making it a win-win situation.
• Reduced cost. A great advantage of email surveys is that they involve a very small cost. You can find a variety of free and low cost survey solutions in the market to create a dedicated survey based on your unique needs.
• Personalization options. Email surveys come with many personalization options to target recipients with tailored content. From adding their name to leveraging their purchase history, you can craft customized surveys that bring back an increased response rate.

• Make it clear. Your subject line should convey the purpose of your survey email in just a few words. It always works to include the actual words, such as survey or feedback, for readers to know exactly what the required action is.
• Include an incentive. If your survey email comes with an incentive (more on that later), your subject line should highlight it. Knowing there’s something in for them will give them motivation enough to take action.
• Use the first question. Consider adding the first question of your email survey to your subject line. This is a great way to warm your recipients up and directly engage them in a conversation, resulting in increased completion rates.
• Get creative. As with every email, adding some creativity in your subject lines is key for subscribers to open them. Include relevant and fun emojis, throw in some humor when appropriate, or bring out your audience’s pain points.

• 85% of users use smartphones to access email. (Adobe)
• Mobile accounted for 42% of all email opens in 2019. (Litmus)
• The ratio between received and sent emails is 3:1. (Radicati)
• 47% of consumers use a mobile application for checking their email. (Campaign Monitor)

Source: 99Firms

Using mobile-friendly survey designs is essential to improve your response rate. Even better, invest in a survey tool that comes with responsive survey templates that allow you to create and share mobile-optimized surveys.

This way, your email surveys will render well on every device, ensuring that all users share an equal experience when offering their feedback.

Regardless of how well you know your audience, you can never be sure what resonates with them every time.

To take the guesswork out of your email surveys, it’s important to dispatch them to a small group of your subscribers first to detect and fix potential issues.

Also, running A/B tests will help you determine which components bring the best results and incorporate them in your strategy. You can try out variations and experiment with different incentives, number of fields, or question types.

After measuring the results, you can tell what works and where there’s room for improvement. This process, along with customer feedback, will give you all the insights required to optimize your email surveys over time.

The post Email Surveys 101: The Guide to Success appeared first on Shout.com.

Let’s get into what makes for strong branding with a real-life example.

In 2013, Airbnb was struggling to gain traction in the market. They were losing money and struggling to attract customers. However, they decided to revamp their branding strategy, which paid off.

They realized their old logo design was outdated and did not reflect the company’s values. So they hired a design agency and created a new brand logo representing their values and vision.

They also created a new slogan, “Belong Anywhere,” which reflected their commitment to providing unique travel experiences to their customers.

The results were outstanding. In just a few months, Airbnb’s bookings increased by 30%, and they gained millions of new customers.

The power of branding your business cannot be overstated, and the right branding strategy can transform your business.

So, let’s get into some of our top tips for revamping your business branding in 2023:

Creating a strong brand identity is the first step to revamping your digital marketing business branding. A strong brand identity will help your business stand out and make a lasting impression on your customers.

You must define your brand story, values, and mission to create a strong identity. Your brand values should reflect your business’s core beliefs and principles, while your mission statement should reflect your business’s purpose.

Once you have defined your brand values and mission, you must create a brand voice. Your brand voice should reflect the personality of your target audience and should be consistent across all your marketing channels.

Your target audience will be comprised of your ideal customers, these are the people that you’ve created your product/ service for.

To identify your target audience, you’ll need to conduct market research. This will consist of a mix of communicating with prospective customers, building buyer personas, and competitor research.

You should also collect feedback from your existing customer base, most importantly your loyal customers. These can give you essential insight into what your business does well and why they have remained loyal to you.

You can even make this a win-win situation, by asking testimonial questions to collect feedback on your business and generate social proof.

It’s very simple to identify your most loyal customers, simply conduct a Net Promoter Score survey to measure customer loyalty. Those who score you a 9 or 10 on the scale are considered promoters, who are your biggest advocates.

Visuals are a powerful tool for branding. They can help your business create a memorable and lasting impression on your customers.

You need to be consistent across all your marketing channels when using visuals. Your visuals should reflect your brand values and personality and be unique to your business.

Some of the visuals you can use for branding include: 

• your logo
• website design
• social media graphics 
• marketing materials

Ensure your visuals are high-quality, appealing, and consistent across all channels.

Social media is an essential tool for digital marketing branding. It is a cost-effective way to reach a vast audience and build brand awareness. You must create a social media strategy reflecting your brand values and personality.

When using social media, ensure consistency in your messaging and visuals. Use hashtags and keywords to increase your visibility and engage with your audience.

Social media can help you build a loyal fan base, increase brand recognition, and even meet potential customers.

Your business name is an essential aspect of your branding strategy. It ought to be easy to remember, distinct, and memorable all at the same time.

In addition, your business name should reflect your brand values and personality and be relevant to your industry.

• Enigma – unique, memorable, and mysterious, making it perfect for businesses that offer innovative solutions.
• Spectra – reflects the diversity of the modern world, making it ideal for businesses that celebrate being inclusive.
• Ora – short and easy to remember, great for businesses that want to create a strong brand identity.
• Vantage – highlights a sense of ambition, innovation, and a forward-thinking approach.
• Luminous – a sense of creativity and enlightenment, showcases a unique approach to problem-solving.

When choosing a business name, ensure it is not already used and is easy to spell and pronounce. Make sure you can register a domain name using your company’s name. Consider a high-end domain to avoid legal issues.

Finally, you must focus on customer experience to revamp your digital marketing business branding. The customer experience is an essential aspect of branding, and it can make or break your business.

To create a great customer experience, you need to understand your customers’ needs and preferences. Then, you must develop products and services that meet their needs and provide exceptional customer service.

You can also leverage technology to improve customer experience. For example, you can use chatbots and AI-powered customer service tools to provide quick and personalized responses to your customers.

In conclusion, revamping your digital marketing business branding in 2023 is essential to stand out and attract more customers.

By creating a solid brand identity, using visuals to your advantage, leveraging social media, creating a memorable business name, and focusing on customer experience, you can transform your business and achieve long-term success.

Take inspiration from successful brands like Airbnb, and remember that the right branding strategy can change your business’s fortunes.

This article was written by Grant Polachek.

The post Revamp Your Business Branding in 2023 appeared first on Shout.com.

Likert scale questions are some of the most commonly used question types in surveys. From customer satisfaction to employee performance, they can be extremely effective in understanding the attitudes and opinions of respondents.

• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Neutral
• Disagree
• Strongly Disagree

• DON’T: “How satisfied are you with this product?”
• DO: “How satisfied are you with the price of this product?”
• DON’T: “Do you consider X celebrity hot right now?”
• DO: “Do you consider X celebrity popular right now among your colleagues?”
• DON’T: “How often do you use public transportation?”
• DO: “How often did you use public transportation on weekends throughout this year?”

• STATEMENT: “I am satisfied with the quality of this product?”
• QUESTION: “How satisfied are you with the quality of this product?”
• STATEMENT: “The organization invests time and money to keep the employees updated with technology.”
• QUESTION: “Are you satisfied with the amount of time and money the organization invests in keeping employees updated with technology?”
• STATEMENT: “I am likely to recommend X brand’s products to my family members.”
• QUESTION: “How likely are you to recommend X brand’s products to your family members?”

• UNIPOLAR: “How appealing does this product look to you?”
• BIPOLAR: “How likely are you to purchase this product?”
• UNIPOLAR: “How much attention do you pay to influencers promoting brands?”
• BIPOLAR: “How satisfied are you with our customer support?”
• UNIPOLAR: “How satisfied are you with your performance during the past year?”
• BIPOLAR: “How likely are you to seek a second job?”

The post How to Write Effective Likert Scale Questions appeared first on Shout.com.

Optimizing your customer surveys means data-driven decision-making. All you need is to know how to make the most of it. Here’s how you can maximize customer experience surveys to get the most value out of every feedback.

What’s the difference between customer experience and customer satisfaction?

Customer experience surveys relate to a specific event or touch point that your customers have recently experienced. For example, the product purchase process. Whereas customer satisfaction measure a customers average happiness with your brand in relation to a recent to a series of similar or identical touch points.

This is to say, customer experience surveys provide insight into how your customers feel at a specific point in time about a specific event. Customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT surveys) allow you to benchmark customer attitudes to those experiences over time.

That is to say that you can’t ask about more than the most recent experience in customer experience surveys. But, we’ll get into this a little more below.

7 Tips for your customer experience survey

We’ve put together some of our tops tips for creating a customer experience survey, increasing your response rates, and improving customer relationships.

1. Ask about the experience

Most businesses focus their survey questions on the product or service. Customers may be happy or even satisfied with the product, but that doesn’t mean they are having a good experience with the brand. Measuring your brand experience is essential in understanding the customers’ pulse.

Adding specific questions about how customers perceive your company through the responses will help you unlock valuable insights that will help you improve the overall quality of customer service. 

Surveys should ask about the customer journey, not just the most recent interactions. Customers will also remember the frustrating error messages, the delays, and the upsells. In addition to these, they will remember how the customer service agents handled their queries.

We’d also recommend ending these surveys with a Net Promoter Score (NPS) question, which will help you identify your most loyal customers. If you’re unsure what an NPS question is, these measure customer loyalty with a single question:

“How likely are you to recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague?”.

2. Have a goal in mind

When putting together a customer feedback or analysis program, it’s crucial to have a specific goal. Do you want to inform your hiring process? Are you trying to improve the product? Are you looking to solve an issue?

Understanding what problem you want to solve with your survey data allows you to target your analytics efforts towards it. You may not be able to set up a data infrastructure immediately, but you can set measurable goals that you can tackle little by little.

Once you have determined what you want to achieve with a customer outreach program, you are all set to set up an actionable plan. Whether you’re looking to develop a better service process or increase revenue, the customer response data you gather will help.

3. Target your survey’s audience

Your response rate will vary from industry to industry and geographic location to location. But knowing the audience, you want to reach out to before you set the survey up is incredibly important.

Setting up a survey isn’t difficult but choosing the right audience can be time-consuming. Targeting your desired recipients correctly can help you increase response rates and optimize your data analysis.

It’s essential to understand the demographics of your customers. For example, a disproportionate number of minorities get surveyed in customer experience surveys, which is especially important for some products.

You can compare the number of complaints and negative feedback to your customer base to identify any demographic discrepancies.

4. Maximize your response rate

Sending out irrelevant emails or making users wait long before seeing the results can discourage the user from completing the survey. While proper customer data management helps, there are many ways to maximize response rates.

Increasing your conversion rate requires balancing minimizing dropouts and providing in-depth information. Your response rate will also depend on the questions you ask.

This is all important, as when it comes to measuring customer satisfaction with experiences, you’ll want as much data as possible.

Using open-ended questions and forcing respondents to express themselves takes a lot of energy and time. Unless your business has an army of marketing experts at your disposal, it’s best to stick to close-ended questions that only ask for numerical answers.

Ask questions that are brief, easy to answer, and easy to understand. Focus on asking yes or no questions or ranking on a scale of 1 to 10. Doing so increases the probability of getting an accurate response, and you won’t have to devote resources to reviewing qualitative opinions.

5. Create personalized responses

Your customers are unique. If you treat them as such, they will likely respond to your customer satisfaction and interaction research. Now, you may not be able to personalize their interactions with your customer service team, but a personalized message can go a long way.

Using marketing automation systems to generate tailored responses to their inquiries is one of the most effective methods for collecting data. Don’t forget to personalize your communication based on the channel through which you receive their requests.

You can take advantage of workflows in your business processes to automate your notifications for follow-ups, promotional offers, or other messages.

6. Rely on multiple channels

Some businesses do everything via email; others don’t. Not everyone is on social media, so having a dedicated customer support portal or phone number will be more efficient for some.

Email remains the most commonly used tool for communication with customers and prospects, but don’t forget that not everyone uses their email inbox. You should consider reaching out through various channels depending on your company, product, and market.

Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are great outlets for soliciting community input. The data collected by these mediums are complementary. Online forms allow you to collect structured data from your website. Emails are great for organizing quick feedback and allowing users to participate when they don’t have the time.

7. Respect your customer’s time

Be as responsive as possible. The faster you respond, the more value you add to the relationship with your prospect. The time it takes to respond to an inquiry depends on the complexity of the question and the number of team members required to review the answer.

A user who sends a simple request should be able to expect a quick reply. One who replies to the complicated one should expect a longer response time. You can also use artificial intelligence to gather and classify large volumes of your customer data.

Incentivizing the completion of your online survey is a great way to boost participant rates. Depending on the business, you can offer an incentive such as a discount, free item, or additional reward.

You can also improve user experience by making it easier for your customers to provide feedback. You can make it easier by automating your processes, reducing your number of clicks, or using short, simple questionnaires.

Wrapping up

Data obtained through a customer experience survey shouldn’t be put to waste. The information you gain through this process is precious.

Optimization is key. You need to understand how your customers want to interact with you, what causes them to delete your emails, and which issues they want to see improved.

Use these steps to set up your optimization plan and get the most out of the insights from your digital marketing campaigns.

The post Make the Most of Your Customer Experience Survey appeared first on Shout.com.

• Benefits of data analytics in business
  • 1. Better decision-making
  • 2. Personalize the customer experience
  • 3. Retention and loyalty
  • 4. Identification of potential risks
  • 5. Increase the efficiency of work
  • 6. Streamline operations
  • 7. Delivering relevant products
  • 8. Accurate measure of campaign ROI
  • 9. Track customer behavioral changes
  • 10. Complex supplier networks
• Wrapping up

The rich data generated by companies contains valuable knowledge, and data analysis is a way to open it up. Data analytics can help an organization customize a specific customer’s market presentation to identify and mitigate business risks. 

The global analytics market will grow from $ 10.5 billion in 2021 to $ 28.1 billion in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.7% on average.

Various factors, such as the increasing use of AI and machine learning and the acquisition and promotion of new products in this market, are expected to stimulate the adoption of specialized software and services.

Let’s look at the benefits of using data analytics for your business.

Benefits of data analytics in business

Big data, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and machine learning (ML) are being introduced. Organizations now have access to specialized tools that can address a wide range of challenges:

1. Better decision-making

One of the key benefits of extensive data analysis is better decision-making in the long term. Instead of relying solely on knowledge, companies are increasingly looking at data before deciding.

Collecting data in real-time and analyzing historical data enables businesses to create predictive models and get ahead of the curve.

When big data is combined with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics, companies are better equipped to capture accurate data.

For example, WooCommerce variable pricing can help brands mention the price for different variables of the same product to make a purchase decision faster.

You use what you have accumulated over the years and use technology to quickly make decisions without example or error.

Another important use is AI classification tools for classification, such as cat identification versus suspect identification and guidance.

2. Personalize the customer experience

Companies collect sales data from various channels, including physical purchases, e-commerce, and social media.

Companies can gain information on customer behavior by creating detailed customer information from these data to provide a unique experience.

Shop at a clothing store that has physical and online services. A company can analyze its sales data and the data from its advertising pages and then create advertising campaigns to promote its electronic sales in product segments that customers have long been interested in.

Organizations can conduct behavioral analysis of customer data to improve customer service. For example, a company can use an information model for e-commerce transactions to determine which products can be recommended at checkout to increase sales.

3. Retention and loyalty

Studies have shown that data-driven marketing (e.g., social media marketing, email marketing, and behavioral analysis) can increase sales and customer loyalty.

Social media, online research, ethical analysis, and market research work together to help brands understand what people want from them.

One of the most effective methods of doing this is to conduct market research surveys to to develop this understanding.

4. Identification of potential risks

Companies today thrive in high-risk environments, but those environments require critical risk processes, and extensive data has contributed to developing new risk management solutions.

Big data can improve the effectiveness of essential simulations to predict future risk and make better planning.

5. Increase the efficiency of work

It can be helpful to analyze a large data sets quickly and present it in a structured way to help achieve your organization’s goals. It promotes a culture of efficiency and teamwork by allowing managers to share detailed information with employees.

Opportunities and improvements within the company are reflected, and actions can increase work efficiency and productivity.

6. Streamline operations

Organizations can use data mining to satisfy their needs. Collection and analysis of supply data can identify the reasons for production delays or question marks and help determine which four problems may arise in the future.

If the forecast shows that a particular vendor will not handle the required volume during the holiday season, the company may supplement or replace that vendor to avoid production delays.

In addition, many companies, especially in the retail sector, are struggling to meet their record standards. Analyzing the data can help determine the best offer for all the company’s products based on factors such as season, holidays, and weather conditions.

7. Delivering relevant products

Products are the blood of every organization and often the most significant investment companies. The role of the product management team is to identify trends that drive strategic innovation, action plans for new functions and services.

Good communication between other groups, where people express their ideas and opinions through research, helps companies stay competitive. Especially when customer needs change or new technologies are developed. It also makes it easier to see what the market needs to deliver a product before ordering.

8. Accurate measure of campaign ROI

Attribution has been a big problem in the market for a long time. Advanced analytics tools help you measure the impact of any advertising, communication, and tactics that increase customer engagement.

This knowledge provides organizations with a foundation for future planning: what methods, events, and content were more (or less) practical? This overview will also help companies better understand budget decisions.

For example, running an event survey before, during, and after an event will give you all the data you need to decide whether it’s worth repeating.

9. Track customer behavioral changes

In today’s world, consumers have a lot to choose from. If organizations do not pay attention to consumer needs and expectations, they will soon find themselves in a downward spiral. Consumers often change their minds as they face new information in this digital age.

Because of the large amount of customer data, it is almost impossible for organizations to understand all changes in customer data without using analytics.

Analytics gives you information about what your market thinks and whether there have been any changes. Therefore, responding to changes in customer behavior can provide an essential opportunity for companies to react more quickly to market changes.

Of course, there are a few methods you can employ to keep your customers happy and loyal to your brand in the meantime.

10. Complex supplier networks

By using big data, companies provide community sales or B2B links with greater accuracy and control. Service providers can avoid the pitfalls they often face by using large amounts of data.

By leveraging big data, consumers achieve the high level of technical intelligence required for their success.

Supply chain administrators now see this as a technological breakthrough, changing the foundation of the retail network to the four highest levels. This communication allows Internet users to apply new knowledge to existing problems or other perspectives.

Wrapping up

By now, the benefits of data analytics for your business should be clear. Successful companies continue to grow with extensive data records. Technology development is available to more organizations than ever before. Once the marketers have access to the data, they can carry out appropriate research to solve many problems.

The post The benefits of data analytics for your business appeared first on Shout.com.

• “Eye view is bought view”
• 4 SEO secrets to improve your strategy
  • 1. Don’t use black hat methods
  • 2. Content creation tips
    • Keyword optimization
    • Title tag and meta description
  • 3. Optimize your image SEO
  • 4. Partner with a good SEO agency
• Wrapping up

The world today is a far cry from the marketing world of just a couple of decades back. Thanks to the steady proliferation of smart devices and 4G technology, now more people have access to the internet.

Because of this, eCommerce is now one of the preferred methods for making purchases. As of 2021, the number of digital buyers is at 2.14 billion, making digital marketing strategies more important than ever before.

In order for customers to find you online, you need to optimize content to drive traffic to your website. This is only possible if you make it to the top ten list of the more popular search engines.

“Eye view is bought view”

This age-old marketing adage applies as much to online marketing as it did to POS (point of sale) products. In a nutshell, if you’re not in the top ten or on the first page of search engines, it’s not likely that prospects will be able to find you.

This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes into the picture. Take a look at these SEO secrets to help you improve rankings and increase organic traffic.

As a side note, it’s also important to consider the visual design of your content pages. You could have written the best article on the web, but if your design is poor then readers are less likely to find you trustworthy.

We’d recommend using a WordPress marketplace theme (if you’re using WordPress) or ensuring your design team sticks to your brand guidelines.

4 SEO secrets to improve your strategy

Here are four SEO secrets we’ve learned that can help you improve your strategy for optimizing pages and other content.

1. Don’t use black hat methods

Black hat marketing methods are those that try to trick or cheat search engines into ranking their content in the top spots. For example, when the net was in its infancy, content creators would stuff their pages full of keywords. To maximize the number of keywords they could get onto a page, they would add keywords in the same color as the page background (hidden content).

The thinking here was that search engines would still recognize the keywords (because of the page code), but visitors wouldn’t be put off by the stuffing.

However, that was then and this is now. Today, search engines are far more intuitive than they used to be. Google’s algorithm can easily detect keyword stuffing and hidden content, and no longer assigns any value to pages that operate in this way. It’s even possible to receive a penalty for these kinds of tactics, which will prevent your page from ranking in the top ten.

Take a look at these other black hat marketing tactics to avoid when creating content.

2. Content creation tips

Content marketing is an essential element of your SEO strategy. By creating pieces of content that are contextually relevant to your website (and your products/ services), you’re more likely to rank well. Beyond this, you also have to ensure that your content (whether it’s web pages or blog posts) is of high quality.

How do you do this? You provide value to your readers. Value can come in many forms, whether it’s advice, news articles, or guides, as long as your readers can take something useful away, you’re doing a good job.

If you’re coming up short on article ideas, the best thing you can do is ask your visitors what they’d like to see. Build a form and embed it on your blog to collect feedback on what they’d find value in.

Keyword optimization

When creating high-quality content, you also have to think about how to get it to rank well. There are a number of factors involved in this, but the first thing you should think about is keyword research. This is the process of finding keywords relevant to the context of your website and creating content aimed at ranking for it.

When researching keywords, we recommend using an SEO tool like SEM Rush to find keywords with a high volume and low competition rate. You can then use filtering tools to find questions and queries related to the keyword which you can incorporate into your article.

This allows you to compete for SERP features, which are aimed at answering specific user queries and appear at the top of the first page.

Title tag and meta description

Your title tag is the title that appears in search engines for your article. This should be optimized with your keyword to encourage a good ranking, but it should also be enticing to search engine users.

This also holds true for your meta-description, which provides a snapshot of your content to search engines and users.

Make sure that you don’t overuse the keywords and just sprinkle the most commonly used ones liberally over your site’s pages.

Always remember that excessive use of the same keywords can lead to a negative impact on your ratings on the search engines. For more similar tips, you can contact an SEO Consultant to give you all the helpful hints.

3. Optimize your image SEO

Any page that has visual cues such as pictures and videos will likely rank higher in search engines. This is because they usually provide more context and information than text-based content.

To fully optimize these elements you need to include the keywords in the file name, image title, and alt-tag. Doing so will count towards your on-page optimization and also enable you to rank for keywords in image searches.

4. Partner with a good SEO agency

You should also consider collaborating with a reputable search engine optimization agency.

These give you access to SEO specialists who can help you with content creation, link building, and improving your user experience.

Find the right agency such as Toronto SEO company that will help you to get ahead of your competition.

Wrapping up

Getting your SEO right enough to get promising results is not rocket science. As long as you’re keeping your content relevant and up to date, you should start seeing positive results. If you have any SEO secrets, get in touch and we’ll add them to this article!

The post Grab Your Customers’ Attention with 4 SEO Secrets appeared first on Shout.com.

• What is a survey report?
  • Create a survey with Shout
• How to write a survey report
  • 1. Use headings and subheadings to break up the report
  • 2. Begin with an executive summary
  • 3. List your objectives in the background section
  • 4. Compare your survey to others
  • 5. Explain how you conducted the survey
  • 6. Don’t put the questions in the methodology
  • 7. Separate the results and the analysis
  • 8. Identify trends in the results section
  • 9. Include recommendations based on survey results
  • 10. Consider professional writing services

Surveys are how we learn what people think, they’re an essential tool for developing an understanding of public opinion and how to take action based on feedback. However, if you don’t fully understand how to analyze and contextualize your survey report your efforts may have been in vain.

In this article, we’ll show you how to make sense of your data by learning how to write a survey report. Being aware of their structure and recommended content is a sure-fire way for you to make sense of your data and present it in a comprehensible fashion.

What is a survey report?

A survey report is a write-up of the results of a survey. It describes the survey, the results obtained, and the patterns and trends that the data reveals.

Create a survey with Shout

Sign up to our 14-Day Free Trial to start collecting responses and analyzing data in real time.

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How to write a survey report

Here are some tips for the best way to write a survey report. The following guidelines were gladly provided by academic essay experts from SmartWritingService.com; a professional writing service for college and university students.

1. Use headings and subheadings to break up the report

Using headings and subheadings to break up the report will make it easier to follow and also help your audience to find the information they need quickly and efficiently.

While there is no set list of heading standards for a survey report, you will typically want to identify your executive summary, background, methodology, results, and conclusions. Audiences will expect to be able to find these easily.

Then package all these headings together with their page number to create a table of contents. Making it easy for stakeholders to navigate and reference.

2. Begin with an executive summary

Your report should start with an executive summary that summarizes the entire report in 1-2 pages. The executive summary is a brief breakdown of everything you will cover later in the report.

By the time your audience finishes reading the executive summary, they should be able to predict the content of the entire report. Be sure to include a discussion of your methodology, key findings, and conclusions.

Don’t hold important facts back for the full report just because you think it will entice the reader. Be upfront instead.

3. List your objectives in the background section

Be sure to let the reader know why you conducted the survey. Explain what you hoped to find, the hypotheses that you used to answer the question, and how you envision the results being used in the future.

The goal of this section is to explain the purpose, aims, and limitations of your survey.

Why is this important? Well, the context of a student survey, an employee feedback survey and a net promoter score survey are all entirely different. Each type of survey has different goals and purposes. This section prepares your readers for the context of your own research and helps manage their own expectations.

4. Compare your survey to others

Look for other surveys that have touched on similar areas. How are their results similar or different? What accounts for any differences?

What gaps did you find in prior surveys that your own survey fills? Explain to the audience how past work connects to your own work.

5. Explain how you conducted the survey

The methodology section should give a complete overview of how you conducted the survey.

You need to explain in detail how you:

• Developed your questions
• Selected a target audience
• Distributed your survey questions
• Encouraged responses (e.g. offered an incentive)
• Plan to analyze data

The more specific you are about your methodology, the better. Ideally, the reader should be able to recreate your entire method just by reading what you’ve written.

There’s also an opportunity here to discuss any response bias your survey may have been exposed to, what measures you took to avoid it and what bias was unavoidable.

6. Don’t put the questions in the methodology

It can be tempting to simply list all of the questions in the methodology section, but that is not where they belong.

Instead, you should place the questions in an appendix as part of a copy of your survey instrument. Typically, this will be Appendix A of your survey report.

7. Separate the results and the analysis

The results of the survey should be reported in their own section. In that section, you will go through the questions, explain the results, and provide an overview of the data you obtained from the survey. It’s a good idea here to include pie charts (and other chart types) so your readers can easily visualize your results.

While it is tempting to also use this section to tell the audience what the results mean, your data analysis should be placed in its own section so you can separate the factual information from the inferences and conclusions drawn.

8. Identify trends in the results section

The results section should indicate trends in the data, showing the reader what the survey question responses indicate.

For example, are there demographic trends in the data aligned to age, gender, race, or political affiliation? Did some questions receive more uniform answers than others? What might this mean?

When analyzing survey results with Shout, you’ll have access to advanced filter and comparison tools to help you identify patterns and trends in your data.

9. Include recommendations based on survey results

Be sure to explain to the reader what the survey results suggest should be the next step, whether that is a policy change, a change in marketing strategy, or a change in outreach efforts, etc.

Think about your audience and what they need to do based on what you’ve learned. What needs to change? Why should it change?

10. Consider professional writing services

Writing a survey results paper can be challenging, and having a professional help college students like you to write academic papers can make a major difference.

You can find survey report samples and writing examples on the internet. But help from paper writing services allows you to devote energy to developing and conducting your survey, knowing that you’ll be able to offload the report write-up to an expert custom writing service.

The post How to Write a Survey Report: 10 Expert Tips appeared first on Shout.com.

• 9 steps for setting up a product marketing strategy
  • 1. Know the market
  • 2. Know your competition
  • 3. Create customer personas
  • 4. Storytelling around the product
  • 5. Define your objectives
  • 6. Social media marketing
  • 7. Content marketing and SEO
  • 8. Email marketing
  • 9. Keep track of success
• Wrapping up

Advertisement spending in the United States crosses the $250 billion mark easily.

Companies spend up to 10% of their total revenue on marketing.

It’s not surprising that marketing seems to be the major concern for most businesses.

Setting up the right product marketing strategy is not only about pouring money. It involves creating an effective strategy with both paid and organic engagement. Marketing in an increasingly competitive market can be challenging.

At the same time, we now have more marketing channels than ever. Let’s find out how to make the most of them and set up a product marketing strategy.

9 steps for setting up a product marketing strategy

We have compiled 9 steps to create a product marketing strategy. These steps deal with the fundamentals of product marketing, irrespective of your sector or niche.

Note that the specifics can vary greatly depending on the nature of the product you are promoting.

Here are 8 steps for setting up a product marketing strategy:

1. Know the market

Before your products launch, the first step to creating a product marketing strategy is to know your target market. The market here refers to the wider consumer base that your product targets. Depending on the nature of the product, the market research would vary.

For instance, the market research for a SaaS tool would be different from that of a general-use gadget. Those who want a better gadget will have different motivations from those who want a better SaaS tool. The same person can be the customer in both cases, but it doesn’t excuse their desire or need for wanting the particular product.

Market research is a long and tedious process. You have to go through data, trends, customer behavior analyses, case studies, and a lot more. The idea is to figure out what the market, as a whole, needs.

All the subsequent steps are predicated on market research. If you have done a good job with market research, the subsequent steps to set up a product marketing strategy would be much easier.

2. Know your competition

The very next step after market research is competitor research and analysis. Unless you have a ground-breaking product, other companies have already done what you are trying to do. There may be differences in the specifics, but it’s impossible to find no predecessor for your product category.

Competitor research involves studying competitor companies to figure out how they became successful. You should also look at companies and ideas that failed to understand why they could not succeed. Studying balance sheets and financial reports of competitor companies is also useful in understanding their business.

While it’s important to study other businesses, it is also important to not replicate them. When you copy-paste another idea, it doesn’t give anything new to the market. At the very least, a new idea should work on and improve an existing idea. This doesn’t happen when with ideas that are rip-offs of other businesses.

Another important category of competitor research is researching the types of products and services they offer. These products are not your direct competitors. Instead, their success boosts your success.

For example, a computer peripheral manufacturer would benefit from studying computer sales, the market for computer users, and other things related to the larger personal computer market.

It would also benefit you to study the product marketing campaigns that your competitors have run in the past. Doing so will give you an idea of what to do yourself, but also present an opportunity to improve on those strategies and develop your own product marketing plan.

3. Create customer personas

Customer personas (aka. buyer personas) are fictitious profiles of your customers which highlight their broad pain points, situation, financial background, social standing, purchasing power, and needs. While customer personas are fictitious, they are based on real-world facts and events.

Creating customer personas requires you to thoroughly study the market and understand consumer behavior. One of the easy ways to do it is through online surveys. Simply choose a survey maker, start writing your questions and share them through all your marketing channels.

A customer persona will help you answer tough questions about your target audience. To begin with, it’ll help you understand the pain points of the customer and what they need.

You would also have an estimate of how much money they are willing to spend on this particular solution. Once you have the answers to these questions, you can position and price the product efficiently and more easily identify your ideal customers.

It’s important to collect a wide range of responses in order to build thorough customer personas. If you’re struggling to do so, take a look at how to find more survey respondents.

4. Storytelling around the product

Even if you have a great product, it would not be successful if not positioned correctly. Positioning a product means relating the product to the customers’ lives. To do this, you must already have market research data and customer personas.

Storytelling is crucial for positioning. While the product itself has its innate value, it is the story around the product that makes it more desirable. It’s the same reason you would choose a Nike cap over a generic cap.

For example, the Nike cap has a story of sportsmanship, fitness, and health built around it.

Creating a story for a product also requires you to highlight the most impressive aspects of the product. It’s important to talk about your product’s USP and explain how it will fit the lifestyle of your target customer. Storytelling does not have any fixed rules – there’s room for innovation and experimentation at all times.

5. Define your objectives

How would you know that your product marketing strategy is successful if you don’t know what you are aiming for? That brings us to the need of having well-defined objectives for your product marketing strategy.

Product marketing objectives typically revolve around hard numbers and figures. But unlike sales numbers, marketing numbers may not always accurately depict the success or failure of a campaign. The number of likes you get on social media may not reflect the number of people who are willing to buy your product.

To arrive at a more accurate conclusion, it’s important to set qualitative as well as quantitative objectives. That tells you not only how many people know about your product, but also what people think about it. Qualitative objectives may include getting positive user reviews, good press coverage, and general goodwill towards your company.

6. Social media marketing

When we talk about marketing in 2022, there’s no way to not talk about social media marketing. Social media marketing is a subset of digital marketing, but it helps with brand awareness like nothing else. The right social media marketing campaign can make your entire product marketing strategy a success.

While there are many benefits of social media marketing, there are some challenges as well. The first challenge is saturation. Social media is replete with advertisements and paid content. With the average person seeing around 10,000 ads a day, it is very difficult to have a meaningful impact with social media marketing alone.

Social media marketing also requires you to be consistent. With social media management tools, being consistent is easier than ever. You also need to strategically use paid social media advertisements to see maximum results. Influencer marketing is yet another strand of social media marketing that can help your product marketing strategy.

7. Content marketing and SEO

Unlike ads, customers have a genuine interest in content, especially when it isn’t promotional. There are many ways of approaching content marketing, and it includes producing content that is purely promotional. But it’s the other side of content marketing that gives you better results.

Content marketing can be educational, entertaining, informational, and even intriguing. The idea is to convert your content into a separate product that customers can access without paying. The goal is to lead them to the product through your content and powerful calls-to-action. When executed correctly, content marketing can be much more productive than paid social media ads.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) also relies on content, but it has several other factors. Nothing gives a product more authenticity and credibility than organic search results. SEO has both technical and creative elements. SEO is indispensable to consistently rank in search results and draw more customers.

8. Email marketing

Email marketing remains one of the best converting strategies for businesses. One of the best things about this strategy is that it allows you to market to new customers who subscribe to your email list and also to re-market to existing customers who you’ve already be in contact with.

For example, with existing customers you can up-sell products related to what they’ve already purchased, or even offer discounts and other product offers to increase retention and build loyalty.

That isn’t to say you can’t use these same strategies with leads, but there needs to be a line of communication between marketing and sales teams where marketing qualified leads are identified. Doing so will save the precious time and resources of employees and ensure you’re only pitching to people who’ve shown genuine interest in your products.

If you’re just starting out, here are some lead magnets to help you build an email list, so you can start marketing your product.

9. Keep track of success

The final step to setting up a product marketing strategy is to keep track of your progress. This draws back to the previous point of setting objectives. Once you have set the objectives, you also need to track whether you are reaching them or not.

Keeping track of success means a lot of different things. You can extract the data from your sales numbers, but you can also use Google Analytics for traffic, conversion rates, engagement, and other metrics. You can choose a simple spreadsheet-based approach or use specialized tools to evaluate different KPIs.

It’s crucial to measure success continually, and not at the end of the campaign. Doing so helps you understand what is working and what isn’t. With social media analytics, it’s easier than ever to keep a continuous tab of your progress.

Measuring success is a continuous process. While a successful product marketing strategy would be self-evident, tracking successes and failures along the way help us reach our goals faster.

Another way of tracking success is reviewing your customer service interactions. Creating a list of the most common questions and bugbears of your customer base will help you spot the weak points in your product or its delivery.

Wrapping up

The right product marketing strategy is the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful business. You can have a great product, but it wouldn’t get anywhere without marketing.

We hope these nine steps will help you set up an effective product marketing strategy.

Of course, there are more ways to market your product and increase your sales. Here are some digital marketing strategies for small businesses to help you achieve your revenue goals.

The post 9 Steps For Setting Up a Product Marketing Strategy appeared first on Shout.com.