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Welcome to the chaotic realm of online shopping, where consumers are bombarded with an overwhelming number of choices and an avalanche of information. In this post, we'll dive into the messy online shopping experience and explore why consumers find themselves lost amidst a sea of options. Truly understanding where your consumer is coming from can drastically change and improve the way you position and sell your products online. From the trust crisis to the constant barrage of advertisements, we'll unravel the complexities and share some insights that shed light on this shopping frenzy. The Paradox of Choice It's a paradoxical reality: while having numerous options seems like a dream come true, it often leads to indecision and confusion. Research studies have shown that when faced with an excessive number of choices, consumers tend to experience decision fatigue, leading to dissatisfaction with their final selection. According to a conducted by psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper, too many choices can leave consumers feeling overwhelmed and less satisfied with their purchase. study To counter fatigue and make decision-making easier,  brands should provide clear and concise product information, including detailed descriptions, specifications, and customer reviews. This information should highlight key features, benefits, and use cases, enabling consumers to quickly assess the suitability of a product for their needs. One example of a brand that excels in providing clear and concise product information is Apple. Apple's website and product pages are known for their meticulous attention to detail and comprehensive information. Here's how they achieve this: Detailed Descriptions: Apple provides thorough descriptions of each product, highlighting its key features, technical specifications, and functionalities. They use concise and easily understandable language to communicate the product's capabilities and benefits. Interactive Visuals: Apple utilizes interactive visuals, including high-quality images, videos, and 360-degree product views, to showcase the product from various angles. This allows consumers to get a closer look at the product and its design, enhancing their understanding and assessment of its suitability. Use Cases and Examples: Apple includes real-world use cases and examples to demonstrate how their products can be integrated into customers' lives. They showcase different scenarios and highlight the benefits and solutions that the products offer, helping consumers envision the product's potential. Customer Reviews and Ratings: Apple incorporates customer reviews and ratings into their website, allowing potential buyers to read feedback from other users. This social proof helps build trust and provides additional insights into the product's performance and user experiences. Simplified Comparison: Apple facilitates product comparison by offering side-by-side comparisons on their website. This feature enables consumers to evaluate different models or configurations based on their specifications, helping them make more informed decisions. By presenting comprehensive product information in a user-friendly manner, Apple empowers consumers to quickly assess the suitability of their products and make confident purchase decisions. This approach contributes to a smoother online shopping experience, reducing the feeling of being overwhelmed by excessive choices. The trust crisis In the digital era, trust has become a valuable commodity. With countless online sellers vying for attention, consumers are rightfully cautious about whom to trust. They are no longer willing to rely solely on traditional advertising. Instead, they turn to fellow consumers for guidance. Online reviews have become the go-to resource for building trust. Sites like , , and offer platforms where shoppers can seek authentic feedback and opinions from real people who have experienced the product or service firsthand. YouTube Reddit Trustpilot But very quickly, shoppers end up with dozens of tabs open all at the same time browsing feedback from anonymous strangers online. And while sites like YouTube, Reddit, and Trustpilot provide valuable platforms for seeking feedback, opinions, and reviews, the abundance of information available can indeed become overwhelming for consumers. The sheer volume of content and varying perspectives can make it challenging to navigate and make confident decisions. With countless reviews, comments, and discussions available, consumers can feel inundated by an overwhelming amount of information. Processing and synthesizing this vast array of opinions can be time-consuming and mentally exhausting. To make things more complicated, different individuals have diverse experiences and preferences, leading to a wide range of opinions on products or services. Shoppers often encounter conflicting viewpoints, making it challenging to determine which sources to trust and which reviews align with their own needs and preferences. These online platforms also often contain subjective reviews influenced by personal biases, emotions, or even sponsored content. Consumers need to filter through biased or exaggerated opinions to find genuine and objective feedback that aligns with their decision-making process. Context is a less talked about but important factor: online reviews may lack the necessary context for consumers to fully assess their relevance to their specific situation. Factors such as the reviewer's background, expectations, or usage scenario may differ from their own, making it difficult to apply the information directly to their purchasing decision. The role of social media In the age of social media, brands are constantly competing for attention in users' feeds. While these platforms allow for targeted advertising, the incessant stream of ads can be overwhelming. Consumers find themselves bombarded with enticing offers and new options, making it increasingly challenging to filter through the noise. According to , the average person is exposed to more than 6,000 to 10,000 ads per day! This saturation of ads can lead to ad fatigue, making it difficult for consumers to find their "aha" moment (more on this below). Ad Lock To combat the constant stream of advertisements, consumers actively take measures to reduce ad exposure. They employ ad blockers, browser extensions or plugins that filter out intrusive ads during their online browsing. Additionally, consumers skip or fast-forward through ad breaks in videos and TV shows, utilizing features that allow them to bypass advertisements. Some choose to pay for ad-free versions of platforms or services, enjoying uninterrupted content for a fee. ‍ Consumers also selectively consume content on platforms that prioritize ad-free experiences, seeking out channels and services that align with their preferences. These actions reflect a growing desire among consumers to regain control over their online experiences and minimize the overwhelming presence of ads. Seeking Validation and the Proverbial “Aha” Moment To make informed decisions, consumers often seek validation from multiple sources. They browse social media pages, read product reviews, and ask for recommendations from friends. The desire for a magical realization, the "aha" moment when they discover a brand that resonates with them, drives them to gather as much information as possible. According to a survey by BrightLocal, 91% of consumers read online reviews regularly or occasionally to help them make purchasing decisions. These diverse sources of information can create both excitement and confusion, contributing to the overall messiness of the online shopping experience. ​​The quest for the elusive "aha" moment - that moment when consumers find a brand that truly resonates with them to the point where they’re ready to add-to-cart and checkout, fuels their desire to gather as much information as possible. Engaging in conversations with other customers becomes a valuable avenue for achieving this magical realization more quickly. By actively seeking out the experiences and opinions of fellow shoppers, consumers can tap into real-world insights that go beyond marketing messages. That’s where a platform that facilitates these conversations like Moast becomes critical to a brand’s online shopping journey. Engaging in these conversations allows consumers to gain a deeper understanding of how a brand's products align with their needs, preferences, and values. It enables them to leverage the collective wisdom of other customers, accelerating the process of finding that "aha" moment and discovering a brand that feels just right. Conclusion Online shopping, while convenient, can be an overwhelming journey. The surplus of options, the trust crisis, and the constant barrage of advertisements all contribute to the messy nature of the experience. As consumers, it's important to be mindful of the challenges and take steps to navigate this jungle effectively. Brands, on the other hand, must strive to build trust, offer personalized experiences, and simplify the decision-making process for their customers. In this digital age, where messiness seems to prevail, let's embrace the adventure of online shopping, armed with the knowledge and tools to make informed choices and find that magical "aha" moment amidst the chaos.

How Science Can Help Overcome the Messy Online Shopping Experience

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Over the course of the past 10 months, COVID-19 has increased suicide rates across the globe, thanks to the necessity to quarantine and self-isolate. Arguably, children continue to suffer the most when it comes to their mental health. What we’ve learned is that over 80% of children with mental health difficulties say that COVID-19 has worsened their mental health, says Jane O’Rourke, a child, adolescent, and family psychotherapist. “Children are feeling increasingly lonely and anxious, with a third unable to access the support they need,” she told . Daily Mail Unfortunately, the data that currently exists is troubling which coincides with a lack of hard research on how the pandemic is affecting children’s mental health. And why? Mostly because the coronavirus has been so fast-moving and these types of studies take time. In a series of three studies conducted by the out of the University of Minnesota, the toll on children’s mental health is directly linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy The collected data on the daily moods from 645 hourly service workers with children 2 to 7 years old in large U.S. cities, from February 20-April 27. The frequency of daily negative moods among both parents and children increased significantly. Of all families, only 14% reported no hardships during the pandemic, while most had at least two. Throughout the lockdowns, the proportion reporting negative mood some of the time rose to 33% of days. first study The looked at 1,011 U.S. parents in early June, revealing that 27% of parents believe their mental health worsened since March, while 14% said their children’s behavior problems increased. second study The involved a self-reported survey involving 543 Chinese-American parents and children, from March 15 to May 31. Nearly half of respondents reported being targeted by COVID-related xenophobia, or prejudice against people from other countries. third study One study out of China, which shares, looked to a sample group of 2,330 schoolchildren for signs of emotional distress. After 34 days of quarantining, 22.6% reported depressive symptoms, while 18.9% were experiencing anxiety. TIME Magazine Here are three companies that have taken the initiative to stand up and speak out on mental health awareness as it involves our youth, which COVID-19 has only accelerated. #1 - Cope Notes Created in early 2018 by suicide/abuse survivor , is a Tampa-based text messaging platform that provides daily mental health support to subscribers in nearly 100 countries around the world. And just in time for the holidays, I just subscribed myself, as I have my own traumatic demons I'm dealing with in therapy. Johnny Crowder Cope Notes The service distributes randomly-timed text messages designed to interrupt negative thought patterns, training the brain to think in healthier patterns over time. Each text contains psychology facts, exercises, advice, or encouragement, and subscribers can reply as often as they’d like, using the thread as a digital journal rather than a real-time conversation. In less than 3 years, Cope Notes has exchanged close to ½ million texts with thousands of users worldwide. Since the onset of COVID-19, Crowder has made strategic improvements to address the new mental health needs brought on by the pandemic, which caught the attention of . ABC Action News “We added texts about social isolation, body image, financial stress, maintaining relationships, rebuilding a sense of purpose,” Crowder said. Their spring initiative, aptly named #copewithCOVID, encouraging people to give free quarantine-length gift subscriptions to friends or family members experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, or loneliness due to the pandemic. Crowder created Cope Notes on the heels of a troubled upbringing. He avoided therapy for years, opting instead to express himself through his metal band, . His eventual diagnosis of OCD, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, among other conditions, served as a wake-up call, as described in his . Prison TEDx Talk “I was hearing voices and seeing things, but I didn’t know what I was going through or where to turn for help,” Crowder revealed to in May of 2019. NBC12 News So what makes Cope Notes worth exploring? Every text is written by peers with firsthand experience overcoming hardship, trauma, or loss before being reviewed by a panel of mental health professionals. “I want this to be that best first step towards a healthier brain, whether it’s for a stressed-out soccer mom or a college student in therapy," Crowder said. Cope Notes offers individual, gift, and family subscriptions, with group options for businesses, schools, and other organizations. Their recent CARES-funded partnerships with local governments have accelerated the tool’s already rapid growth. One key to their success is their competitive pricing, with a full year of Cope Notes costing less than a single therapy session. “Mental health applies to everyone with a brain, not just people like me who are living with a formal diagnosis,” Crowder said. “I’m not just doing this for your neighbor or your cousin… I’m doing this for you, too.” If you or someone you know could benefit from daily support, visit to learn more and subscribe. copenotes.com #2 - InnovateUK and Kai’s Sanctuary ‘Kai's Sanctuary’: a mobile game for children’s mental health | Source: Brightlobe Early into the March lockdown, data revealed that children’s mental health was worsening. At that time, Brightlobe, a London-based child health start-up, was piloting a game-based developmental assessment platform by Innovate UK, due out for release in 2021. However, to address and alleviate then-recent data, it switched to a game-based solution, said Brightlobe CEO and founder Shivani Lamba. Completely funded by governmental innovation agency, Innovate UK, ‘ ’ is a free downloadable mobile game that teaches kids ages 4+ cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Kai’s Sanctuary In the game, players meet Kai, a healer who works in a futuristic sanctuary for sick or injured ‘guardians’--animals that are the protectors of children. By engaging in a gamified CBT, players learn to manage their emotions, from deep breathing exercises to yoga with a ‘guru sloth.’ According to Brightlobe, the game will continue to evolve over time, receiving new content updates, which include a series of AR reality adventures and improvements based on user feedback. Users can download ‘ ’ for the iPad from the iOS App Store. Kai’s Sanctuary #3 -  The Guardian Project Mark Pellegrino (L) and Andrew Rossow  (R)| Source: Horror Fuel Launched in September 2020, is the brainchild of myself and TV actor (13 Reasons Why, Supernatural, Dexter, Lost). The Guardian Project Mark Pellegrino Pellegrino, who is most known for his lead role as ‘ ’ in The CW series “Supernatural” and ‘Deputy Bill Standall’ in the Netflix Original Series ‘ ,’ has been outspoken on social media for many years about holding users accountable for their behavior online, specifically when it comes to spreading false narratives, libel, and defamation. Lucifer 13 Reasons Why As a licensed Ohio attorney and adjunct cyberlaw professor at the , I am also a . Back in July, I reached out to Mark via Cameo to record a PSA for his globally trademarked , to which he agreed. University of Dayton School of Law sexual assault survivor #CYBERBYTE Movement You can watch . Pellegrino’s PSA against bullying here From there, we discovered we had similar upbringings and experiences with bullying, that it made sense to combine forces to create what is now known as The Guardian Project, which made its debut in . US Weekly In an interview with , Mark described The Guardian Project as a multi-tiered attack on the epidemic problems of public bullying and the spreading of libelous narratives on social media. Broadway World Both Mark and I officially launched our on October 27, which ran through the end of November, successfully funding the campaign at $20,000. Both Mark and I are now working on putting a pitch deck together to work with a producer to move this project forward as an eventual docuseries. In addition to exposing online bullying and libel, we want to offer victims social justice and peace of mind. Kickstarter If we can be of assistance to you in helping direct you to the appropriate resources, or be an ear for you to vent to, please reach out to us at andrew@therawnerve.com.

3 Mental Health Initiatives Addressing Concerns Following COVID-19 Pandemic

Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is the future. Think about it. The global A.I. market size will reach a staggering $390.9 billion by 2025, according to . a report by Grand View Research, Inc Research firm Gartner says the growth of A.I. will generate up to $2.9 trillion of business value. On top of that, it will create a mind-bending six billion hours of worker productivity... and that's in 2021 alone! What’s more? Fifty-four percent of say using AI-powered solutions in their businesses helped increase productivity. business executives interviewed by PWC Artificial intelligence is shaping e-Commerce too. It is adding a personal touch to the way people shop and trade. Look at Alibaba, for instance. The Chinese online retail giant is using customer service Chabot to process 95 percent of customer inquiries. Amazon, on the other hand,  is using A.I. to based on customer searches. Even more intriguing, the recommendation engine powers 35 percent of the retailer’s total sales. customize product recommendations As a player in the e-Commerce space, understanding how to integrate artificial intelligence into your business can help you stay ahead of the curve. Here’s a detailed overview of how A.I. is benefiting e-Commerce and ways to leverage it. 24/7 Customer Service Picture this. It is 2 AM. A customer on the other end of the world wants to know if you ship to Brazil. You don’t want to lose the prospect. You get out of bed to respond. Once you’re back in bed, another call comes in this time from Australia. You can’t keep up! But, that doesn’t have to be the scenario. We’re in 2020! Artificial intelligence, in the form of chatbots, is making it possible for e-Commerce players to respond to customer queries as soon as possible, around the clock. Besides, the latest chatbots can take your customers through the value journey, from engagement to conversion. The best part is that you can customize your chatbots to communicate in your brand’s voice. That way, the robot can connect with your customers better, and by extension, guide them to make a purchase. Intelligent, Customer-centric Searches Hey Siri! Buy this product for me… and in a couple of seconds, Siri creates a list of buying and price options. Boom! Welcome to the world of voice assistant, where shopping for products and services is a voice command away! A.I. and machine learning are streamlining the shopping experience for online buyers. Even more impressive, machine learning can forecast what a customer wants and customize the results. That way, product and price comparison switches from acceptable to outstanding. How seriously should e-Commerce stores consider adopting voice search? Well, the numbers speak for themselves. Voice search will account for , according to Quoracreative. 50 percent of all online searches by 2020 Gartner says 30 percent of all searches will happen on devices without a screen by 2020. Voice shopping will hit a whopping $40 billion by 2022, according to a report by OC&C Strategy Consultants. Pro Tip - Place the search box strategically on your site. The idea is to ensure that customers can locate it quickly. It also helps to integrate the autocomplete function to improve the shopping experience. Targeted Personalization Customer experience is the new frontier for e-Commerce stores. The stats of a showed 86 percent of buyers are willing to spend more if the CX is excellent. PWC survey CX also influences impulse buying. 49 percent of shoppers admitted to making after receiving a personalized experience according to Marketwired. on-the-spot purchases Artificial intelligence can help watch a buyer’s behavior on an online store then use the data to create a personalized CX. Look at eBay, for example. The company uses Shopbot to improve customer engagement and, most importantly, narrow down their product choice using (NLP). Natural Language Process Further, Amazon displays “frequently bought together” and “related items” sections based on a buyer’s browsing history. The idea is to make sure that a shopper can quickly browse products he/she is likely to buy instead of sifting through a collection of items they have no interest in. Sales Prediction Research by SiriusDecisions found that 79 percent of retailers miss their sales forecast by 10 percent. Further, a shocking $1.1 trillion or an equivalent of 7 percent of the U.S. GDP remains tied up in inventory. According to Wasp Barcode, 46 percent of in the United States don’t track inventory or use manual systems. SMBs But now, thanks to artificial intelligence, stores can predict future demand more accurately. Software such as Seller Cloud allows e-Commerce platforms to track inventory, shipment handling, scheduled list, and customer feedback. Why is inventory management essential for online retailers? It helps manage orders without overselling the current stock. Stores can keep their product information up to date. Businesses can forecast customer behavior. Stores can synchronize data across platforms in real-time. It helps improve back-end visibility. Indeed, better control of the supply chain can help boost sales since a store is aware of what to or not to stock at any given time. Sifting Phony Reviews Research by BrightLocal revealed that 82 percent of online shoppers read a fake review every year. The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority estimates bogus feedback possibly influences . £23bn of U.K. customer spending The point is, Negative reviews are a nightmare for every e-Commerce store. Phony feedback magnifies the wrong perception tenfold and taints the overall reputation of a business. Artificial intelligence is helping fight this menace. Amazon is a perfect example of an online retailer using A.I. to weed out fake reviews. The company tracks fabricated feedback by monitoring people’s connections through their social media accounts. Moreover, leading e-Commerce platforms are using artificial intelligence to protect brands that sell products on their websites against counterfeits. While this is slightly different from the A.I. technology Amazon uses to detect fake reviews, it is another way artificial intelligence is helping combat fraud in e-Commerce. The Bottom Line AI is here, and it is changing e-Commerce for the better. Any serious industry player should adopt A.I. if for nothing else, to help improve the buyer’s experience. Online retailers can work with A.I. developers to create systems that enhance customer engagement, provide quicker access to information, and boost conversion. After all, around the globe say artificial intelligence will make their work more comfortable and efficient. 79 percent of executives

How E-Commerce is Getting Smarter with Artificial Intelligence

Customers evaluate a restaurant on aspects beyond food. Things like Instagram lifestyle, love for pretty decors, and quality of dining experience are some factors that qualify a fine dine experience and thereby good reviews and ratings. 90% of diners value online reviews as much as the opinions of their friends and family. Now, good reviews not only help in attracting more customers but it adds strategic values to your business too. It helps you build a strong competitive edge, easily introduce new brands and product lines, improve overall credibility and investment opportunities. The foundation of a good brand reputation drills down to the experience of customers shared online in the form of reviews, ratings, social media posts, comments, review blogs, mentions, and more. It is important to keep these sentiments favorable to help boost your restaurant visibility and brand credibility. The real big question is how. It is quite overwhelming to manage restaurant reputation as there are multiple channels to handle and certain complexities involved in analyzing and inferring insights through sentiment analysis. This guide will help you identify different touchpoints and some tips and tricks to improve your online reputation and restaurant review management. Let’s begin! 4 ways to smartly manage restaurant reputation online Examine and analyze online reviews Customers resort to multiple touch points. As for restaurants, there are crowd-sourced review forums like Yelp, Tripadvisor, Urbanspoon, online food order and delivery platforms like  GrubHub, Doordash, and Swiggy and several social channels on which customers drop their reviews, feedback, and experience with your brand. A hike on Yelp can mean a 5% to 9% rise in restaurant revenue. one-star rating Hoarding positive reviews is important for your brand because it gives people who want to try you out - it could be tourists, food bloggers, folks who relocated, and more to get a complete picture of your brand that covers taste, ambiance, price, service, etc. BrightLocal’s local consumer survey shows that of consumers between the age of 18 to 34 trust online reviews, considering them as authentic as personal recommendations. 91% While you are using several tactics to collect customer feedback and it is important that you strike a balance between positive and negative reviews. A few negative reviews make potential customers see you as a credible and trustworthy brand. Hundreds and thousands of such reviews across websites and platforms in different structures and formats, when put together and analyzed will help you gauge important insights. For instance, let’s say close to 60% of the reviews across different channels have pointed out that the hotel staff is not attentive and is unfriendly. This will help you implement a change that can fix this attitude.  So, in addition to encouraging reviews from your customers, it is also important that you constantly monitor and analyze sentiments to make decisions that improve the overall image of your brand with social media and hospitality reputation management. Understanding customer demographics If you’re being constantly criticized for the culture your restaurant spreads, or the theme of your ambiance, the tone you set in your communication, the vibe you bring - it means you need to examine if you are targeting the right set of audience. Themed restaurants resonate only with a highly pinned down set of audiences. Understanding customer demographics - their age, gender, preferred cuisine, if they dine with kids regularly (use tall chairs), spending habits if they are extravagant or otherwise. Understanding the demography of your customer will help you clear the cobwebs and create an atmosphere that resonates with them the best. Customer demography is deeply connected with reputation because if your restaurant is attracting good reviews, you should analyze and categorize reviewers based on demographic aspects to answer key questions - why they like what they like. Reasoning out this will further help you personalize your messages and direct them to drop reviews on the right and relevant sites. Know the millennial Instagram life According to a new study by , 69 percent of millennials take a photo (or a video) of their food before eating. Maru/Matchbox Have you come across Instagram handles of and . These are real good examples of great brand and reputation building. They share photos and videos of people at work and encourage their employees to share photos, stories, and live videos too. By humanizing a brand, you build better engagement, gain authenticity, and can boost your overall revenue. Apart from this, be sure to respond to your customer comments and engagements quickly and re-gram UGC to help build your reputation further. Shakeshack Starbucks Posts with hashtags get 12% more engagement than those without. Identify the hashtags that resonate well with your geography and customer demography and encourage your customers to post photos by including them. It is not quite a task to approach your customers on this front considering the love and excitement that people have for food photos on Instagram. You can also work your way up by introducing your very own brand hashtag. Also, people use Instagram’s explore tool to find a new place to eat, so, following a geolocation hashtag can really be lucrative. As you keep building engagement on Instagram and gain loyal customers and followers, your reputation on Instagram will begin to matter as it would rank on search results and will probably be one of the main criteria for a user to assess your brand. Identify influencers for your brand A website that is wealthy with content resources has the potential to dominate the search results. Building blogs and articles and consistent social media presence will help you overcome the visibility of negative reviews on the Internet through search engine results. Check out this ebook on "Online Reputation Management Bootcamp: The Art and skill of winning reputation wars" to learn more about this in detail. Particularly for the restaurant industry, there are food bloggers for every region that customers usually rely upon. Partnering with such influencers can help you amplify your reach. Just be sure to check their social media presence, Alexa ranking, and daily visits to the website to evaluate their power of influence. Here’s an on how Springbone kitchen, a Manhattan restaurant identified influencers to improve their reach and amplify their revenue. interesting read Wrapping Up The customer is king. The unpopular opinion on this is we treat them so as long as they are being reasonable. Restaurant reputation management is not just confined to handling customer concerns and complaints but also to see if they’re being fair and reasonable. There are “nightmare” customers who tarnish the brand image by spreading unsolicited opinions. A few months back in Asheville, North Carolina slammed the restaurant and called the staff “stupid”. The manager couldn't take abusive comments and responded to the insatiable customer like this: review of a restaurant The whole other side of reputation management is standing up for yourself when customers are condescending and petty. So, how do you manage your reputation consistently? Get to know X-tract.io helps companies around the globe and across industries manage their reputation online. We have over a decade of experience in online reputation management and have been a part of the success stories of many businesses around the globe. Our reputation management solutions have helped many digital marketers who have seen a visible change in the way their brand has improved its reputation management. X-tract.io

Your Guide to Successful Online Reputation Management For Restaurants

The SaaS market is expected to . For you as a SaaS business owner in such a competitive ecosystem, putting yourself in front of the right customers and maximizing conversion rates may be extremely challenging. generate $76 billion by the end of 2020 When building a solid CRO strategy, you need to start from your website. Here are a few tried and tested website optimization practices every SaaS business should apply. Build a Unique Value Proposition Online users are overwhelmed with numerous SaaS products. When making a purchase, they want to know what makes your brand different than your competitors. And, this is exactly why you need to add to your website. a unique selling proposition (USP) A unique value proposition, or a unique selling proposition, describes the benefits of your SaaS product. It highlights how your services solve your customers’ problems and how different you are from your competitors. A USP is more than a creative slogan. A USP should instantly inform a new visitor about who you are, what your SaaS product is, and why it beats competitors’ products. This is why it needs to be clear, simple, and easy to remember. For example, look at Freshbooks and their “All-in-one small business invoicing and accounting solution” or Salesforce’s “Connect to your customers in a whole new way with the world’s #1 CRM platform.” Their USPs straightforwardly emphasize what their products are and why customers should choose them. When you visit those SaaS companies’ websites, you will also notice that their unique value propositions are prominent on their homepages. The idea of a USP is to grab users’ attention and build trust with them, so always make it easy-to-find and place it above the fold. Provide Social Proof In psychology, social proof is a theory that an individual conforms to the opinions of the group. In marketing, social proof plays a fundamental role, especially in the . Bombarded with branded content, online consumers turn to the opinions and reviews of customers. competitive SaaS landscape BrightLocal says that trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Given that, it is not surprising at all that social proof marketing will build trust with your prospective customers and encourage them to convert faster. 88% of consumers Now, there are many ways to insert social proof to your SaaS website and here are some of them: Provide real-time website data Many SaaS businesses are using social proof software on their websites to evoke fear of missing out and build trust with website visitors. Namely, that shows website data, you can tell your visitors how many people have created a trial account on your website or how many visitors are seeing your page. This data is shown in a tiny, catchy popup you can customize according to your SaaS website’s specific needs. using a CRO tool Show customer testimonials Your audiences will want to learn more about the people they are already buying from you. And, this is where you should ask your existing customers to write testimonials. When inserting testimonials to your website, you should also include a client’s photo and their role at the company to make them more relatable. You could even consider posting testimonial videos to boost user engagement, humanize your brand, and . convert leads faster Write case studies Case studies are also an immensely powerful social poof technique. Unlike testimonials that provide only snapshots of your customers’ experiences with your SaaS brand, case studies are more informative and detailed. They explain what problems a customer faced, how your SaaS product helped them, and what results they achieved. Always back your case studies up with relevant statistics, facts, and customer testimonials. Write them in a simple language, visualize your data, and add persuasive call-to-action buttons to boost conversions. Alternatively, you could also use the following social proof tactics: User ratings and reviews Influencer endorsements Brand logos of your customers Lists of popular apps that integrate with your SaaS product Media coverage Ratings from other credible sites Trust seals Make your Pricing Landing Pages Value-Oriented Like I have already mentioned above, when searching for SaaS products, customers have a plethora of options. Logically, they will compare your services against your competitors’ ones to make the right decisions. Precisely because of that, your pricing page should go far beyond your pricing plans and lists of product features. is especially significant in highly competitive niches and when your products are at a higher price point. To convince people to choose you over your rivals, you should connect with them on a more personal level and focus on your major values and missions. Optimizing a pricing page Start by inserting an FAQ section to your pricing landing pages. Your prospective customers will probably have numerous questions about your SaaS product. Remember that over chatting with your bots or customer service representatives. Create a detailed FAQ section, where you would answer the most common questions your customers ask. most of them prefer self-service You could also use the abovementioned social proof, especially product reviews and testimonials. If there are any prominent companies or individuals using your services, let your visitors know that. Inform visitors that buying from you is safe by adding trust badges, such as safe checkout seals, accepted payment methods, anti-malware badges, etc. Finally, add clear, unique, and that will tell prospective customers how they can benefit from your product and encourage them to click and convert. persuasive CTA buttons Basecamp is a perfect example of how to create a spotless pricing landing page. The first thing you will see once you land on their pricing page is the number of users that signed up for Basecamp last week. Next, there is a simple list of Basecamp features, as well as a large CTA button that directly tells a customer what it is in for them once they sign up (30-day free trial, no credit card information required, cancel any time). Most importantly, the company compares their product to their major rivals and provides a comprehensive FAQ section. Invest in PPC While organic search engine optimization is the backbone of any SaaS website, remember that it doesn’t deliver overnight results. This is exactly why you should combine it with paid ads. The benefits of PPC are multiple – they boost your online exposure in the overcrowded Google’s SERPs, as well as maximize your traffic and conversions. that 41% of clicks go to the top three places on Google that are reserved for paid ads. Most importantly, 65% of people clicking on ads have high commercial intent. Therefore, it is not surprising that PPC visitors are to buy from you than people coming to your website through organic search channels. Research says 50% more likely When investing in paid ads, always make them high-quality. Create and A/B test multiple ad copies, apply different messaging to see what works for your target audience, and design powerful calls-to-action that will entice users to convert. Keep Testing and Tweaking Everything You Do Remember that this is not an ultimate guide to CRO for SaaS websites. Those are just some of the numerous CRO tactics that may serve as your solid starting point. Most importantly, when optimizing your SaaS site for conversions, keep in mind that there is no set and forget strategy. Your success dwells in continuous website performance assessments. You will need to monitor your website performance 24/7, as well as perform A/B tests continuously to see what works for you the best. I hope this helps!

SaaS Website Best Practices for Conversion Rate Optimization

Marketers have readily adopted various tech-enabled means and tools to increase brand awareness and find the right target audiences for their clients. But what if I told you that embracing AI-powered tools in Social Media (and implementing them correctly) will enhance every single customer's journey, thereby retaining much more of them, for much longer? Think about your favorite products: Netflix which gives us personalized movie choices, Amazon, etc., all are AI-powered in order to give us a highly personalized user experience. Bonus: AI tools are now relatively cheaper, making it easy for small and medium scale businesses to implement. So, without further delay - read this to learn before you leap and make optimum utilization of AI in social media marketing. Here are the 10 Commandments for AI-assisted social media marketers: 1. Smart Ad-Targeting using Programmatic Advertising Why not let AI predictive analysis determine who to and when to target potential customers for your products rather than following the retroactive approach. This can be done using Programmatic Advertising where real-time data of user’s likes, preferences, location, an active time during the day, intent to buy, etc are analyzed and the most relevant ad is posted to them through a bidding process. This increases the better chances of conversion and engagement. You can now invest more in potentially higher-value customers by adjusting various bidding strategies boosting the efficiency of their campaigns. Example: As per thebestmedia.com , Audi with the launch of luxury SUV, the Q2 created a programmatic ad campaign and this led to an average conversion rate four times higher than those bought using traditional methods. 2. Focus on Personalized Content AI demand has increased due to its ability to publish personalized interest-based ads for each individual customer. Marketers should explore new dimensions of marketing with a data-driven approach. For eg: When we browse Netflix or similar platforms you will notice every time the content displayed is matching your interests and likes. This is because of the AI algorithms which work in the background of this app making it more user-friendly and engaging. Marketers can boost their Revenue and ROI by improving content relevancy. Example: Spotify’s gives you personalized music playlist for every individual by analyzing their taste and favorites and was able to reach 40 million people in its first year and the number has grown many folds now as every week it lists new music as per its user’s likes. 3. Be Available 24/7 365 days Handling inquiries and queries only during business hours is an old-fashioned thing. Missing an opportunity is giving that opportunity to your competitors. Hence it’s vital to attend every inquiry no matter what time it is posted. Dedicated resources can sometimes lead to errors and unavailability. Fortunately, with artificial intelligence chatbot powered by Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing, you can create a 24/7 online presence for initial support and queries no matter the day or time. This will hold your prospect from a competitor and later attend them personally at your office time to share more product details. Example: Mobile Monkey-Facebook Messenger Marketing Solution can take the contact lists and send chat blasts with auto-replies to promote your products. The 2018 State of Chatbot report from Salesforce tells 69% of the customers to prefer instant communication using Chatbots with brands. 4. Automate regular tasks Smart marketers are moving today’s smart AI tools to automate repetitive and tedious daily tasks. Updating the onboard and future customers about offers and deals is an everyday thing now with companies trying to lure their audience to strike a deal. AI tools can be your savior for email marketing. Your team can spend quality time and effort in more productive zones than to spends hours analyzing what to send to whom. Example: Gmail has recently launched a Smart Compose solution that employs AI to learn typing habits of a user and automatically finish their sentences for them. Such tools should definitely be used to save lots of valuable business time. 5. Identify disengaged customers at the right time Don’t waste your time assuming why customers are losing interest in your products, rather use AI to identify such customers and send them offers and discounts to keep them engaged. AI tools can lower your churn rates by understanding ratings and feedback and can identify future action on the product by the customer. This gives room for the brands to handle the situation at an early stage than to wait and lose the customer. Example: American Express uses AI-based Machine Learning technologies to do analytics and predict potential fraud and identify customers at the highest risk and accordingly take proactive action. 6. Optimize and empower your search results No doubt companies are using past data to analyze the user behavior but what they learn from the data is vital. Producing relevant results and recommendations in real-time based on things like user location, search history will result in better customer engagement. Example: Post the introduction of RankBrain, by Google in 2015, many e-commerce websites like Amazon have incorporated AI into their search engines for smart product search. Users can now get similar product suggestions, auto-correct spelling mistakes to help get the right product they are looking for. 7. Embrace Visual Search and Image recognition Visual search is changing the search landscape with platforms like Pinterest, Bing, and Google already using it. It uses smart image recognition and analysis to find results that are visually like the image. Marketers should definitely expand their search options using this for improving merchandising and furnishing personalized shopping experience, especially for the retail and e-commerce customers. Example: Pinterest has ‘Shop the look’ pins for advertisers to list fashion and users can use it to shop specific items from the image. Pinterest Lens has around 600 million searches every month , and this figure is growing exponentially ever since the technology was launched. Google’s Google Lens has a ‘Style Match feature’ which will furnish the search results against the image snapped. 8. Practice Social Listening and monitor conversations around your brand AI can study what customers are talking about their brand on various social platforms, review boards, blogs, etc and know if there are any complaints or issues with regards to their products and handle them before its widespread. Example: Post like “If you love your skin, Pls don’t buy it ever!!!” #FakeFarenessCream #SideEffects. This post is an alert to the brand and reaching the customer instantly, understand and resolving the issue will stop to further escalate the negative impact. AI can also sense purchase interest by a potential buyer by analyzing their interaction over the web. Example: A post saying — “Apple iPhone 7 worth a try?” Or “Clicked my selfie with friend’s Oppo F11, so amazing selfies that I now desire to buy one…”. Such posts are your potential buyers who can be easily converted by a personalized discount offer. 9. Charge the right price at the right time AI powdered Machine Learning can help to determine an accurate price for your products based on demand and competition. Talk about Amazon, Airbnb or Uber, they all have leveraged dynamic pricing and have built multibillion-dollar businesses. Marketers can get dynamic pricing based on factors like how much customer is willing to pay, response to offers and deals, price Vs quality comparison, etc. It can also compare the real-time prices of competitors to analyze if the pricing is too high or too low. Dynamic pricing is worth investing and it can transform companies’ fate like never before. Example: Airbnb has built its high-end dynamic pricing system considering various factors like market demand, location, time to buy, etc. It helps property owners to quote the best price It takes into. 10. Utilize Voice Search to maximize the value of AI Talk about Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri we all know them by all, and their use is rapidly increasing. More and more marketers are considering using voice search campaigns to capture more customers and now emphasizing the importance of semantics. With happening each month, it is surely worth considering for companies and agencies as a new source of revenue. Marketers should carefully assess all the voice search requests for actionable insight. more than one billion voice searches Let’s check out some statistics to understand the power Voice-Based search: - As per Gartner — About 30% of all searches will be done without a screen by 2020. - As per Statista - Up to January 2019, 45% of US millennials say they regularly use voice search for shopping. - As per Search Engine Journal — 76% of people who have smart speakers use voice search for “local” searches once weekly. - As per BrightLocal- 51% of consumers use voice search to find local restaurants. Hence there is no looking back, utilizing AI in this field will only lead to increased profits. These were just 10 pointers but there are many, and every business and marketer should explore more about AI and optimize its implementation in Social Media Marketing. Imagine a world where you no longer have to use any physical device, yet you can see and workaround. Online campaigns will be managed automatically, Emails, Posts will be composed and sent to relevant users. Businesses constantly improve their strategy as per data insight and grow exponentially. With AI, all this is not far to achieve. What is currently available is just a glimpse, but AI has much more than this to offer. So begin utilizing artificial intelligence into your social media marketing strategy today to be ahead in the race and shine in the future. By Bibin Ponnachan , Digital Marketing Strategist, Braincities Lab References: https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2019/08/chatbot-statistics.html https://www.americanexpress.com/us/foreign-exchange/articles/payment-services-fraud-detection-using-AI/ https://newsroom.pinterest.com/en/post/celebrating-one-year-of-pinterest-lens https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-predicts-a-virtual-world-of-exponential-change/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/990350/millennials-use-voice-assisted-shopping-usa/ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/new-study-reveals-what-people-are-buying-through-voice-assistants/287277/ https://www.brightlocal.com/research/voice-search-for-local-business-study/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/10/30/the-amazing-ways-spotify-uses-big-data-ai-and-machine-learning-to-drive-business-success/#730b4ea74bd2

10 Commandments for AI-Assisted Social Media Marketers

As consumer choice proliferates, people will rely even more on online reviews to inform their decisions. This makes reviews an increasingly powerful tool and valuable source of insight for individuals and businesses alike. The problem is that hundreds of millions of people are feeding their valuable insights currently into proprietary data silos of a few dominant platforms. We all benefit from leveraging the experiences of others for our own decision-making. We feel an intrinsic need to share with others information about things we used and experienced, and to make use of such information ourselves before we invest resources. The world is growing more complex, and so are the choices that we have to make each day. The number of services, products, media outlets, books, travel destinations, websites, apps, is growing, and it takes more effort to navigate the global range of offerings. We increasingly look up information online when we want to buy something or go somewhere, and we actively search for other people's opinions in order to form our own (research studies performed by or have quantified this trend). IMC BrightLocal In addition, the opinions of customers in the form of online reviews have become crucial for businesses. Online word-of-mouth impacts businesses' reputation, their ranking in search results, and ultimately their profitability, as consumers are willing to pay more for products for which reviews are available. Companies such as Google, Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor, or TrustPilot have recognized this trend already years ago, and offered business listing platforms on which users could leave reviews as well as read other people's reviews for free. By now, these services boast hundreds of millions of consumer reviews in their applications. The crowd-sourced data has become a well-guarded asset for these companies, based on which they generate revenues, predominantly from advertising and sharing the personal data of their users. A threat to free competition and possibly to free will As the amount of available review data is growing, and with it the dependence of people and organizations on the insights that can be generated from it, the restricted access to this data not only stifles innovation, but locks us in even further. The opportunities arising to create new products and technologies will only be open to those with access to the data, threatening free market competition, and possibly even free will. Suppose all review data was openly accessible and could be shared freely. Something like a commons, available free of charge and without restrictions to all. Think of Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, or OpenStreetMap. Assume in addition that there was a way to let people write reviews without requiring them to provide any personal data; that people could create an identity within the open reviews ecosystem that control and that cannot be linked to their real-world identity, but that nevertheless allow the system to track reputation. they The potential for innovation would be multiplied by orders of magnitude compared to the current state in which only a small number of engineers at aforementioned companies have access to such data, partitioned across several silos. Imagine how it would be if people could build their reputation in a privacy-preserving manner, not influenced by their gender, their sexual preferences, or the color of their skin, but purely based on their actions within the system, by how useful millions of other users find their content. Imagine if everyone with an interesting idea for a new mapping or navigation service could integrate a reviews layer into their map, so that people looking for “a restaurant nearby” would not all have to use Google for it, but would actually have an alternative. Imagine more people could experiment with AI-driven recommendation services that are privacy-preserving and respectful to the user. This would allow us to use this nascent technology more safely, and more to our genuine benefit than to the benefit of advertisers. From one open dataset containing insights from hundreds of millions of people such systems could compile more accurate recommendations than what is currently possible with the information silos we have. It could also surface interesting new niche products based on genuine popularity among people or the preferences you choose to set, instead of surfacing those items that have the highest advertising budget. Most importantly, you would not have to choose whose service you want to trust based on the size of the network they control, but --- based on innovation and open access to data. you could choose the product that has the highest technological merit Recommendation services are already being marketed by Amazon, Google, Foursquare and others, mostly to the benefits of their advertising partners. These technologies are still in their infancy, but as they become better, people will start relying on them in order to manage complexity in their lives. Driven by pressure to generate profits combined with their reliance on advertising-based business models, we all might end up being at the mercy of closed-source algorithms that might bombard us with things to buy that we don’t need -- . but can’t resist Not having an alternative is, for me at least, a nightmare To be able to use technology in a way that actually helps us and releases creative and innovative energy, I believe that we need to rethink some of the fundamental architectures that internet services are built on today. Most importantly, . we need people to create alternatives have founded to work on new approaches and technologies that we ourselves would like to see in the world. Open reviews are one of them. We PlantingSpace We are proposing an architecture that allows to disentangle the data layer from the layer of value adding services and products. To create the data layer for an ecosystem of open reviews, we launched the initiative. It aims at providing the infrastructure that enables everyone in the world with an internet access to contribute and help create an open dataset for reviews that can be used by individuals, organisations, businesses, researchers, or entrepreneurs. Mangrove The goal of Mangrove is to enable the creation of alternatives to proprietary services Mangrove’s roadmap consists of three main steps: Create an for reviews that can be shaped by the community to ensure easy interoperability. open data format Build an (server, aggregation algorithms, APIs) that can enable an ecosystem of applications to interact with the open dataset (e.g., navigation and mapping services, e-commerce services, local businesses, reputation management services, listing services for companies, books, charging stations, and others) open source infrastructure Make it to a large variety of users (UI, documentation, promotion). accessible and attractive You can check out and give input to step (1) in our on GitLab. repository Currently, we are working on steps (2) and (3), and hope to release a first demo soon, consisting of a web-based UI and an API. With step (3) in mind, we make use of a number of highly valuable open datasets, such as , ‘s Legal Entity Identifier, and Internet Archive‘s , so that people can review places on the map such as restaurants or hotels, companies, books, or websites. Finally, Mangrove has high privacy standards, and uses public key cryptography in order to avoid storing personal data. It will not require a registration process. OpenStreetMap GLEIF Open Library Mangrove is a non-profit initiative and a community project, funded by donations and grants. Its finances will be managed transparently in an Open Collective , with PlantingSpace as its fiscal host. The Mangrove dataset is licensed under the free and open Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. If you like this initiative follow Mangrove on Twitter (@mangroveReviews) or Mastodon (@ mangroveReviews@mas.to ). Please get in touch at hello(at)planting(dot)space if you would like to contribute, share feedback or ideas, or if you consider integrating reviews and recommendations into your products.

Creating an Open Data Ecosystem for Reviews

Companies tend to lose $1.6 trillion in business as the customer switches to another product due to poor customer service. By 2020, the major focus of some of the leading companies will only be to provide a better experience to their clients. In 2010, 24% of the Americans had posted online product reviews so currently, the number will be quite high as compared to this ancient statistic. These reviews pay a pivotal role in other customers in deciding whether a product is worth their time or not and coming across a fake review will definitely cause an undermined user experience. Here are a few ways in which companies can and to eliminate fake reviews from the web altogether. use AI for better customer relationship management Relying on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Database A number of organizations are faced with the challenge of extracting meaningful insights from the customers’ data. Most of the time, these organizations don’t even share data among different departments which causes disparity and lack of efficiency in their workflow. The employees need to collaborate for a powerful customer experience and for this, they need to work in uniformity. This becomes a little bit complicated with a merger or acquisition. Some of the companies throw away the data of the earlier company prior to forming a union and this proves to be a major setback for the dedicated customers of the previous entity. Thus, keeping the CRM database is essential with AI combing through it for a better customer experience. Related: How CRM Can Benefit Your Digital Marketing Strategy APEX — The future of CRM? Tracking Down Fake Reviews In a study conducted by BrightLocal, it was found that 91% of individuals read online reviews prior to making a purchase. 74% of the people said that the positive reviews made them like or trust a business and 60% said that a back from buying a product. Considering these stats, we’ve found that online reviews hold immense importance for the general public so something serious should be done about the fake reviews. negative review holds them Per Kathy Gallo, founder of , With the help of artificial intelligence, it has become possible to figure out the fake reviews from the real ones and delete them. This technology has the ability to differentiate a genuine review from the ones which are a scam. Daily Cupo Directing Consumers towards Relevant Content and Using Smart Filters Mobile traffic now accounts for but the attention span of mobile users is very short. The conversion rate of desktop users is 63% higher as compared to that mobile users thus, they are better consumers and shoppers too. Presenting relevant information or reviews to the mobile can bring a change in their attitude. 76% of store traffic There are very low chances that when a customer is reading reviews, he is going to move to the second page. So, one needs to present the best positive, negative, and neutral reviews on the very first page. AI can again become your rescuer because it will filter the topics according to the interest of the consumer and present the most appropriate results. For example, while presenting mattress reviews they will display content which , locality and buying power. depends on your age Conclusion With big names like to combat fake reviews, it is impertinent that you would also require it to provide a better experience to your users. AI can rely on customer data to present a great experience to the future prospects. It can also help the enormous number of Americans who read online reviews to make better buying decisions. Amazon relying on AI

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