Every user requires a single access point instead of multiple interfaces which are well connected, smart and fast. Almost every industry is investing in Internet of Things (IoT) recently.
IoT is one of the transformational trends that will shape the future of businesses in 2017 and beyond. Many firms see big opportunity in IoT uses and enterprises start to believe that IoT holds the promise to enhance customer relationships and drive business growth by improving quality, productivity, and reliability. By having the right IoT model companies will be rewarded with new customers, better insights, and improved customer satisfaction to mention few benefits.

Top 7 IOT Trends

1. Internet of Things Platforms

Apps driven platform is getting replaced by Artificial Intelligence driven platform.

Good platforms provide enormous value by linking IoT to advanced analytics and applications to generate business outcomes. This enables the generated data to be meaningfully used by the users.

An IoT platform is required to collect data, connect devices, handle hundreds of vendors and dozens of wireless standards (like LoRa and SigFox etc.) and must be scalable enough to send messages across the network.

Platforms must be able and efficient enough to add close loop automation, privacy, security, cognitive and insight generation.

IoT can sometimes even act as an agent to transform business.

2. Security

Artificial intelligence is the new trend in tech and marketing. Consumers are loving it. What’s the ultimate goal of any brand or business? Engaging customers.

But what does engagement really mean in 2017? Today is the era of conversational marketing. If you want to win customers, you MUST make a real conversation with them. Even if you count how many messaging apps you have on your mobile phone, the chances are you have more than two or three apps.

Messaging apps have become important in our daily lives. 55% of the population of the planet use a messenger app every single day

And chatbot is the newest trend in messaging. A Chatbot is an interactive and interesting automated phone system which allows you to connect with a brand.

What Exactly Are Chatbots

Here’s Zembula’s quick and easy definition of a chatbot:

“In its most basic form (we’ll use basic as a relative term here), a chatbot is a form of artificial intelligence that combined with rules and algorithms that allows for a text-based chat interface to communicate with others. A chatbot is a tool that lets brands interact over chat with consumers.”

Let me make it more simple for you. Read this statement by Mark Zuckerberg,

“We think you should message a business just the way you would message a friend.”

This statement means more than any other technical definition.

Here’s an example to make it clearer:

If you wanted to order pizza from Domino’s, you’d go to their site, look around until you find your choice pizza, and then you’d order that.

But with the help of a Domino’s chatbot, you’d simply be able to message them on Facebook Messenger. It will understand your requirement by asking you relevant questions and you would simply tell it what you want… Simple.

(Image Credits)

According to David Marcus, Facebook’s VP of Messaging Products

“Bots can provide anything from automated subscription content like weather and traffic updates to customised communications like receipts, shipping notifications, and live automated messages all by interacting directly with the people who want to get them.”

Watch this video  – Facebook showing what a chatbot can do.

Here are some examples of chatbots:

TacoBot is the Taco Bell (Fast food chain) robot. They unveiled it on the popular messaging platform Slack, which allows customers to order food by messaging TacoBot, which asks all the right questions.

H&M, Sephora, and Victoria’s Secret have all recently introduced chatbots which make suggestions to customers and allow them to buy through the messaging platform. Burger King and Pizza Hut allow customers to order food directly through Facebook Messenger by messaging the restaurant chains’ bots.

CELEB STYLE chatbot analyses what your favourite celebrities are wearing and tells consumers where they can purchase each wardrobe item.

With 300 million downloads, the Kik chat app is used by close to 40% US teens. Facebook Messenger is another major player with 1 billion users! Some other popular platforms are: Slack, WhatsApp, ChatFuel, and many others.

Do you wonder what is the potential impact of a chatbot on an ecommerce startup? Take a look at some stats:

Live chat users spend an average of 5%-30% more and The buyer conversion rate is 5 to 10 times higher following a chat session. (Source)

90% of our time on mobile is spent on messaging platforms. People are using messenger apps more than they are using social networks. (Source)

80% of businesses said they already used or planned to use chatbots by 2020.

So, a chatbot is a BIG opportunity for your ecommerce startup to get ahead of your competition. Jes Stiles, CMO Emerging Markets, Ringier AG, perfectly answers why chatbots are important: “A messenger bot can allow you to have personalised 1-1 conversations at scale, opening up a whole new audience who do not wish to connect with the brand over email or download an app. Moreover, when built in a user-friendly manner, chatbots can actually provide a better experience than a human for common use cases with faster response times (no matter what time or day of the week) and greater personalisation of content.”

The Role Of  Chatbots In Ecommerce

Let’s take a look at how chatbots will completely change the way you do business:

Customer Experience And Service

Chatbots are meant to replace traditional chats and other communication media like phone calls and emails. The days are not that far when it completely replaces all human interaction.

Chatbot will take your customer service to another level. A chatbot can give your customers a quick, personalised, and interactive customer experience. They are meant to deliver instant and round-the-clock services and support to customers in need, offering all customers a quick and instant resolution to their queries and complaints.

Improve Your Sales

An ecommerce company which has chatbots indeed offers a prominent feature on their brand.

Chatbots can help you in the generation of potential leads and drive sales. A chatbot quickly responds to the customers who are scrolling through your sales page, can help to capture all potential customers by supplying their useful information to the sales department.

Chatbot can also send notifications and reminders to your prospects.

Make Conversation With Users

You can shop or order something in a conversational style. For example, your order a pair of shoes online by using the shopping website or by downloading the app of an online shopping site.

But with a chatbot, you don’t need to download an app or open a website. Just open Messenger, type XYZ shoes and a bot will take your order. It will ask you some relevant questions and show you shoes according to your preferences.

It will save a lot of time of your users. They serve the purpose in the best possible manner.

Help Customers To Make A Purchasing Decision

Chatbots help customers (who are not tech-friendly) in putting the items in the shopping cart and successfully completing the whole shopping process.

A chatbot stores your order history and suggests similar or complimentary products. If you have a confusion about any product, you can chat with a bot to ask your questions.

Do you want to register a complaint? Or do you need to return a product?

You don’t have to write a long email and no need of a telephonic conversation. A chatbot will take care of it. A chatbot gives a personalised feel to your customers. And makes your users feel like they are talking with a human. It will help you to cut business costs.

About The Author

[The author of this post is Kunjal Panchal, Digital Strategist and a social media geek – passionate about content marketing and strongly believes in the power of storytelling for marketing.]

WHAT THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER NEEDS TO KNOW NOW.

I had the pleasure of attending Social Media Summit 2017 at Croke Park, Dublin on 11th & 12th April 2017. The event took place over two days gathering together professionals in the industry and top speakers from near and far. Mari Smith, often known as ‘The Queen of Facebook’ travelled from the US via Scotland (her homeland) and keynoted on the first day. More about that later. The first day and the early morning of the second day were jammed packed with very interesting speakers and panels. The remainder of the second day was made up of Masterclasses where we got to learn the ‘how-to’. The event trended nationally for almost 3 days on Twitter and even hit the global trends. Well, we’re Social Media Marketers after all. What would you expect!

There was also a very eye-catching and delicious wall of green doughnuts, the opportunity to see the Sam Maguire Cup and the Liam McCarthy Cup and a great industry appropriate photo booth. We had the opportunity to chat, network, tweet and snap to our heart’s content.

My four takeaways from Social Media Summit 2017 are put together with small business in mind – the kinds of small businesses that I encounter every day in my work. Here’s what you should know from what I learned at the Summit. Here are the kinds of things you need to be implementing now to get that edge. Here you will discover where you need to be putting your energies for the rest of 2017.

Social Customer Care

Social Customer Care, sometimes also referred to as Social Customer Service, is how we look after our customers and clients on Social. It can come in almost any form but it must always be dealt with promptly. You may expect a customer enquiry as a tweet, or you may see a Facebook review, or then again you may get a PM on Facebook. Andrea Finnegan of Airbnb spoke at length about the culture of Social Customer Care in the company and gave examples where they not only satisfactorily resolved any issues but also went above and beyond to ensure the customer or host was happy.

Mari Smith says that we are better in Europe than they are in the US at this. While this is positive, I know that I have come across Facebook Messages in accounts that have not been responded to for several months or even a year. The digitally savvy customer will not tolerate this and will quite simply leave and go elsewhere. It makes your business seem sloppy.

I especially liked the talk by Jamie White of Leading Social. Jamie says he loves complaints, something which strikes dread into most small business owners. He says this is your big opportunity to shine and show the world that you really care about your customers.

Take a look at how your customers are being engaged with on Social. Who is in charge of these tasks? Are they equipped to do so? Do they have the ability to think on their feet? Do they have the power to resolve issues? Also, consider if positive reviews and comments are left on Social Media; are they being responded to? There’s nothing worse than these being ignored by your business. These reviewers and commenters are in your corner. Keep them there!

Influencer Marketing

Leveraging influencers online is something which our larger cousins, the corporates, do very well all the time. There was considerable talk from a number of speakers and panelists about Influencer Marketing. Lisa Toner of Hubspot spoke about sourcing your influencers, influencers who resonate with your customers and clients. It’s a bit of a grey area as to whether influencers are paid or not at times. What’s probably true to say is that the influencer is getting value in some other way. Lisa Toner warned that your business or brand must get value from the partnership. Choose your influencer well. Additionally, Lisa says that they don’t pay most of their influencers at Hubspot. Interestingly, Mari Smith declared that she was a brand ambassador for Animoto. Therefore, we as listeners knew that she has a collaboration with that company when she mentions them.

I think Infuencer Marketing is something which small busineses can explore. And you don’t need mega influencers to work with. That may seem disproportionate. But there may be local influencers that would work with your business online that are in tune with your customers. They should be someone who has credibility, a considerable social media following and be familiar with you business. I think also they should believe in your business so that you get the best message out there.

Video

No contest. Video was one of the biggest messages from the Social Media Summit. Both regular video and live video. Almost every speaker mentioned it it some way. Mari Smith says that video on Facebook gets 3 times more engagement, yet less than 1% of posts in the newsfeed are video according to Buffer.

Greg Owens of Twitter Dublin spoke about the need to capture the audience with a great hook at the start of the video. We need to grab people’s attention in the first 3 seconds, else they’re gone to the next shiny object.

Facebook is investing heavily in video to compete in this growing space inhabited by Netflix, YouTube and Amazon Prime. In fact, Facebook is introducing a new video only feed on mobile. It’s also looking to episodic content. It’s safe to say we’re only at the very start of this video revolution. Mari Smith says there is a small window of opportunity now when businesses can leverage the space before the explosion of video content takes place.

Brands that fail to incorporate visuals and videos will be left by the wayside. ~ Forbes Click To Tweet

The big learn for me is square video on social media. Yes, we’ve all seen them in the Facebook and Instagram feeds. But they have a considerable number of positives I hadn’t realised. Square videos get +28% video views than landscape and have a 67% higher completion rate. Because of these results if you’re producing video, consider going square for Facebook and Instagram. You’ll need tools to do this. Some that were suggested are Animoto and Animatron.

Live video is also something to consider for your small business and I really enjoyed Krishna De’s Masterclass on this.

Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads were mentioned by so many of the speakers in so many different ways. Facebook Ads are now a given. We were told by Mari Smith that Facebook will run out of Ad inventory this summer. Facebook Ads are sure to increase in price in the long term however Facebook is continually creating new types of placements. It’s clear that the small business owner must stick with the game in order to be relevant in this continually shifting environment.

The beauty of posting video either organically or as a ad on Facebook is that you can then create custom audiences from your video viewers and retarget those people with ads later. The overall message was to be human, tell stories and evoke an emotion on Facebook Ads in order to be successful. It’s also worth looking at Canvas Ads although they may be a step too far for small businesses in terms of the input required. Mari Smith suggests that the Facebook algorithm can detect the sophistication of the ad, which makes a lot of sense to me.

In any case from what I heard from the speakers and for the other delegates around the room is that Facebook Ads are absolutely necessary in 2017 and beyond.

I thoroughly enjoyed attending Social Media Summit 2017 and am already looking forward to next year!

If you would like to get in touch with me feel free to use the Facebook Messenger button below.

I like to think of inbound marketing as the true charmer of digital marketing. But before you become horrified and start imagining broken promises and angry customers left disillusioned and disappointed, let me explain a little further…Inbound marketing delivers on its promises.

It helps businesses understand what people want, need and crave and helps them get to grips with the tactics that will ultimately keep their customers satisfied. But instead of whispering sweet nothings in their ears – it actually gives customers what they’ve asked for in the form of compelling content, relevant search terms and personalised and meaningful messages.

You see, inbound marketing is the most cost-effective and authentic way to win your customers’ hearts and minds. And that makes it a skill that you simply cannot afford not to master…

HubSpot, the kings of inbound marketing have developed a learning academy for budding inbound marketers to journey through and graduate from. The comprehensive course consists of a series of engaging training videos, in-depth user guides and how-to articles. The learning academy helps you get to grips with inbound marketing basics like blogging, social media, building landing pages and running email marketing campaigns.

Top Tip: You can earn your Inbound Certification for free – after you’ve studied the resources, take the exam so you can proudly display it on your LinkedIn profile.

Moz’s ‘Learn SEO and Search Marketing’ library contains a wealth of in-depth, how-to articles that every budding inbound marketer should investigate. You’ll learn everything you need to begin your SEO journey, including getting to grips with the basic terms and tactics that form a powerful inbound strategy. You’ll discover how to conduct effective keyword targeting along with the importance of on-page optimization, taking into account everything from meta descriptions and schema structured data to duplicate content and mobile optimized websites.

But the inbound fun doesn’t end there – you’ll also enjoy SEO quizzes, industry surveys, technical guides, educational video bundles and lots more. For additional lessons, Moz Academy is worth a flick through. Word of warning though – there are so many great resources available that you might be browsing for a while so make sure you curl up with a coffee first and pause that Netflix show.

You can sign up to the Moz Community for free. And we’d certainly recommend you do so as there are so plenty of unmissable inbound marketing resources to avail of. For example, you can register for their upcoming webinars (or Mozinars) which are fairly regular and cover a vast array of SEO topics and you can, of course, watch a series of previously recorded webinars also. You will be kept up to date with upcoming events, can avail of unlimited Open Site Explorer Reports and have the opportunity to ask and answer questions in the Q&A forum.

However, the best part is that you get to write and submit your own blog posts for review. The Moz Community only publishes in-depth, quality posts that add true value to the reader so make sure you read their guidelines in full before submitting a draft. Writing about a subject is often the best way to learn. And as an absolute bonus you’ll get your name out to a premium audience. There’s no better way to establish your own credibility in the inbound marketing industry.

Best Community For: Making a well-respected name for yourself in the industry and learning from influential sources.

Inbound.org is an exciting online forum that publishes daily articles, opinions and quotes from inbound professionals at all industry levels, from well-known influencers to complete newbies. Submissions can be voted up or down, allowing visitors to discover the best, newest and most-on-topic inbound articles around.

Discussions on the latest SEO updates can get fairly heated – this is a great hub for viewing both sides of the argument and allowing you to form your own opinions about new industry trends and news. Interaction is also very much encouraged, making this the ideal community to visit to ask questions, pose thoughts and make connections.

Best Blog For: Helping you discover the most popular and influential inbound blog posts of the moment.

Search Engine Land is a rather compelling daily publication that focuses on all aspects of the search marketing industry. You can look forward to breaking news stories and industry trends alongside new feature announcements and algorithm changes at the likes of Google and other search engine giants. This is the first place we recommend turning to for industry news – a must-read for your morning commute.

Best Blog For: Helping you get to grips with industry news, algorithm changes and SEO updates.

Learning how to create valuable content is one of the most important components of inbound marketing. And no-one knows their content marketing quite like the Content Marketing Institute. They provide a wealth of content marketing resources, including industry benchmarks and trends, original whitepapers, podcasts and webinars. Their White Paper and eBook Library is a must-visit – a true treasure trove of content marketing advice from industry experts.

The blog is home to a number of awesome articles written about blogging, content strategy and storytelling best practices that will help you dramatically enhance the power of your inbound marketing mission. Another big bonus is that it keeps you updated with the latest content marketing events that often have a heavy inbound marketing focus.

Best Blog For: Learning how to master content marketing and understanding what it takes to provide true value for customers.

Just like content marketing, social media is an essential component of any effective inbound marketing strategy. It is especially important to learn how to identify and connect with industry influencers with large social media followings who can significantly propel the reach of your content.

You’ll learn how to do this and lots more by reading Social Media Examiner regularly. The blog is packed full of quality articles about all things social media, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and more. It also often includes expert opinions, influencer interviews and best-practice case studies.

Best Blog For: Helping you learn how to use social media to attract customers towards your brand and build valuable communities in the process.

Want to become an Inbound Marketing Specialist? Our Online Professional Diploma in Search Marketing is created, validated and accredited by industry experts and will give you the specialist knowledge needed to thrive in the field.

About Zara Burke

Zara is the Digital Marketing Institute’s Digital Marketing Executive. She writes about all things digital marketing, including search, social media, email, mobile and Analytics. Her core passions are content creation and small business strategy.